Metaphys VISS 44050 Eraser Review

Metaphys VISS 44050 Eraser Review

I first saw the Metaphys VISS eraser back in 2008 on the ISOT (International Stationery and Office Products Tokyo) Trade Fair website, and it immediately caught my attention.

From what I can make out, Metaphys are a design cooperative that partner with a range of manufacturers and distributors to design products that the partner then sells under the Metaphys brand. A consortium brand as it were. In this case the Viss eraser is in partnership with フエキ Fueki (Fueki Nori Kogyo Ltd) a company whose primary business is apparently industrial glues and adhesives, but who also have some presence in the stationery market, particularly products for the construction industry, e.g. carpenter pencils.

The idea behind the Viss eraser is simple. We all know that the nice sharp corners of a block eraser quickly become rounded and far less useful. The screw thread or spiral design of Viss means there is always a sharp edge available, or at least that’s the theory.

The Viss is somewhat similar in size to your standard block eraser – it is about 58mm long and 15mm diameter. At the time of writing it is available in white, orange and black. Metaphys state it is made from “elastomer resin” so that probably means it is what many others would call a “PVC-free and latex-free” eraser.

In keeping with the premium stationery concept the Viss comes in its own little clear plastic container.

Anyway, earlier this year I finally got around to getting a few of these Viss erasers to try. First off then, the spiral design provides an interesting sensation for your fingers every time you use it. An eraser and a fingertip massager all in one?

The main design concept of the Viss is that the spiral means you will always have a sharp edge available. Well, that’s a bit of a yes and no. If you hold the eraser at a relatively horizontal angle to use the edge as a thin line eraser then you will quickly wear down or blunt the peaks of the spiral. On the other hand, if you hold the eraser at a relatively vertical angle then you can use the outside edge of the spiral as the end point of what you are erasing. By that I mean you can easily erase up to a fairly well defined line from one side. The same as if you only ever held your block eraser perpendicular to the paper and just wore its end down without rounding the corners. It would still be a big fat eraser, but you could easily run the edge up to a controlled point when erasing. I think that’s the advantage of the Viss eraser, its design makes it much easier to do that. Much easier to hold it relatively perpendicular to the paper and erase up to a set point. It’s great for precisely erasing the first or last letter of a word, or even an entire word, but not so good at erasing a letter out of the middle of a word. Don’t get me wrong, you could make a reasonable attempt at erasing a letter from the middle of a word, by orientating the eraser horizontally to use a peak of the spiral but your vision is a bit restricted and the edges will blunt if used thus frequently. Of course you can re-sharpen them to some extent by later using the eraser vertically. All that aside though, long term, the spiral edges are never going to be as precise as a fine core stick eraser like Tombow Mono Zero, but they are sort of halfway between that and a traditional block eraser.

The eraser waste of Viss twists up very easily into strands. Actually it twists up better than most.

When you are doing some heavy erasing though it sometimes feels as if the eraser compound is starting to tear, or maybe even partially melt from the heat of surface friction? The eraser waste can bunch up too much and the surface of the eraser can be left looking a little torn or hairy.

Right then, time to get serious and head on down to the lab and get our highly expereinced staff to put Metaphys Viss to the test against our benchmark eraser, Staedtler Mars Plastic.

OK, first up, 0.5mm HB mechanical pencil lead.

Well, that’s a draw.

Let’s try again, this time really pressing the pencil lead hard into the paper to make it much heavier and darker.

Again, pretty even, but perhaps Mars did a very slightly better job.

Next then let's try some wooden pencils, starting with two coloured pencils.

A clear but narrow victory to Mars. Basically Mars feels ever so slightly more abrasive in use and I imagine this was the secret to its success here.

Now wooden HB grade lead.

Another draw! Well maybe Mars was an absolute fraction better. But only maybe.

Lastly then wooden 5B lead.

Interesting. Mars certainly smears the lead about more. Overall it’s very close yet again, but if forced to choose a winner I think Mars erased better by a very small margin.

Frankly, I am surprised. I used Viss for several weeks and I thought it had only average erasing power, and that Mars would clearly be superior when they went head to head.

Overall then, I am very glad I spent my money to fly a couple of Metaphys Viss erasers across the ocean to my letterbox. Earlier in this review I described the Viss as “sort of halfway between that [Tombow Mono Zero] and a traditional block eraser”. Well being halfway between those two is a pretty good place to be. The Viss eraser looks cool, feels interesting in your hand, erases well, and the spiral design means you always have a reasonably sharp edge available. Get one and check it out for yourself.

2008

Kia Ora (Hi)

2008 is coming to a close, here's a little message from some erasers that recently arrived in my letterbox. Thanks Lexikaliker.

Ake ake kia kaha (Forever and ever be strong) [Just in case 2008 has been a tough year]

He kona ra 2008 (Goodbye 2008)
Hang loose [like the moose?] in 2009
2009 going to be a good year, kei ti pai (OK)
Stress free.

Ka kite ano! (See you again)

More Erasers

Must not collect erasers, must not collect erasers, must not collect erasers, must not collect erasers, …it’s a constant struggle.

I’m kind of surprised at how much design and marketing effort seems to go into erasers these days.

Here’s three. Faber-Castell 82-182410 Sleeve eraser. I like the idea of the swivelling sleeve and fine edge, but I guess even with care the edge wouldn’t last all that long. The eraser case is about 70mm long x 33mm wide (2 ¾ x 1 ¼ in).

Maped Zenova eraser. One half of the circular case slides around into the other to expose the eraser. The edge is reasonably fine, and the whole eraser also turns around the centre axle. The case is about 50mm (2 in) diameter. Edge comparison of F-C and Maped. Stabilo Exam Grade 1191 eraser. I quite like black erasers. This one is quite small, 22 x 10mm x 40mm long. The whole “exam grade” concept seems popular with Asian stationery products. Probably reflects how much more seriously most Asian countries seem to take their schooling compared to many Western countries. The artwork on the sleeve and the wording show Stabilo specifically market this eraser for use with those machine read multi-choice exam bubble sheets. Lastly, a fourth. An oldie. Eberhard Faber (USA) Comet 1087. Thin eraser wheel and synthetic (nylon?) brush. Of course the eraser is good and hard these days, but I’m not sure what it was originally intended for. Could have been for ink and/or draughting film. (Thanks Germ)

Faber-Castell Grip Erasers

Well there I was in a great big “Stationery City” sort of place, and these Faber-Castell Grip erasers were on sale for some ridiculously cheap price. It was an offer to good to turn down.

So, I handed over a few coins and got myself:
Triangle Shape (Art no. 18 90 24) (green)
Oval Shape (Art no. 18 90 20) (yellow)
2001 Pencil shape (Art no. 18 71 01) (red)
2001 Eraser Caps (pack of 2) (Art no. 18 70 01) (grey & blue)
The 2001 Pencil eraser and 2001 Eraser Caps have “Made in Malaysia” on their clear plastic wrapper, but the other two are silent about their country of origin. With the exception of the 2001 Pencil shape eraser, they all are silent about their material of manufacture – no claims of “Child-Safe PVC Free”, “Non-PVC Formulation”, “Dustless”, “Vinyl” and so on. The 2001 Pencil shape eraser has “PVC Free Eraser” moulded into it, if you go looking, but its pretty inconspicuous really. All of them do however have “Faber-Castell” moulded into them. So, Faber-Castell are proud of them, but they don’t want to make much noise about their material? I must say that I’m pretty unimpressed by declarations of “PVC Free”. Thanks for telling us what it isn’t, how about telling us what it is?

What really attracted me to these erasers was the shapes were obviously designed for precise erasing. The Pencil has a point, the Caps have chisel edges, the Oval and Triangle have fine thin edges and curves, obviously all designed to erase small precise areas.

The first thing I noticed when I picked these erasers up was how hard they are. Your fingernail doesn’t make much of an impression in them. Very little give in the compound compared to the other erasers (Staedtler, Faber-Castell, Owl, Uni, etc) that I’ve got lying around. This made me rather suspicious of how they would handle darker softer lead grades like 2B or 4B, and I wondered if they might be a bit harsh on the paper.

Time to put them to the test and answer these questions. Firstly they are all very nice to hold. Very conveniently shaped to fit in your hand. I deliberately used them on an appropriate angle, to try and maintain their edge or point, and it seems you can do this reasonably successfully. Despite their hardness they don’t seem overly harsh on the paper, but I’d still be cautious with something delicate.

These grip erasers are very messy compared to my usual Staedtler Mars Plastic eraser. They produce a lot of very fine, short waste, which doesn’t easily twist up into a few long strands, so you need to clean up quite a bit after using the eraser. On the plus side though, they are pretty good at getting graphite off paper. Much better than I expected, so in hindsight I shouldn’t have doubted the reputation of Faber-Castell. I did a little bit of comparison testing against my Mars Plastic. (NO, NO, NO! Banish those thoughts of holding an “Eraser Cup” competition!)

Starting off, a selection of writings in different grades of pencil lead.

Now for a bit of erasing - note all the fine short waste produced.

After a bit of a clean up you can see the HB lead was erased quite successfully, with performance decreasing as the lead got softer and darker.

Finally Staedtler Mars Plastic was used to erase the middle section (shown un-erased in the photo above). You can hopefully see that with HB and 2B they are pretty equal, but the Mars Plastic removed a bit more of the darker lead grades.

Initially the Mars smears the darker lead grades all around the place, but then removes them. On the other hand the Grip eraser doesn’t smear them, as it just wears away quickly.

Overall then, I am very impressed these Faber-Castell Grip erasers, they are well worth checking out to see if they might suit your specific requirements.