Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Lamy Logo Mechanical Pencil Review

Lamy Logo 105 Mechanical Pencil Review

It’s been quite a long time since a Lamy mechanical pencil featured on this blog, so it’s time to put things right. Here then we have the Lamy Logo model 105 black mechanical pencil.
lamy logo 105 mechanical pencil

lamy logo pencil
The Logo is part of what Lamy call their Modern Office range, as opposed to their High Quality Writing or Young Writing ranges. Modern Office…well the Logo does have a relatively modern looking style about it. Stainless steel and black plastic body, square end to the body and pocket clip mount. Overall then it’s a fairly plain simple look, but with a stylish silhouette.

Like most Lamy writing instruments the Logo comes in other system options – BP, FP and multi-pen. The 105 option has a stainless steel body with a slightly brushed finish, but is mirror polished on the clip. The plastic accents are black on mine, but there are other colour options. There is also the Model 106 which is brushed stainless steel, and the Model 104 which is a black resin body.

Weighing in at about 13 grams, the 105 is definitely not in the heavyweight class, despite its steel body and reasonably substantial dimensions. The grip zone is formed by a series of rounded rings pressed into the steel which feel quite nice under-finger and work very well at keeping your grip firm. There are also some ridges on the upper part of the plastic tip for those who like to grip their pencil really close to the tip. They also of course continue the ridged aesthetic look.

lamy logo mechanical pencil grip
The Logo mechanical pencil is only available in 0.5mm lead size. The lead sleeve is a 2mm long thin pipe, not long enough for drafting work. It is retractable for pocket safety. Now this is the bit that a small number of you are not going to want to hear. Wobble. Yes, lead wobble. It’s not bad and didn’t really worry me, but there is definitely some wobble between the small black plastic front cone and the black plastic front section. Then there is also some wobble between the lead sleeve and the black plastic front cone that it is inserted into. Some of this is possibly due to lead cushioning, and for general writing it’s of little to no concern, but it’s there and some of you ask about lead wobble. There is a lot of cushioning in the tip, you can feel the lead springing back if you press hard onto the paper. It’s also a fairly noisy pencil. There is rattle of the internals, and the spring motion of the lead cushioning also sometimes produces some springy sounds. I didn’t actually mind the aural experience, but some might.
lamy logo mechanical pencil tip

As you would expect, it is a standard push top ratchet mechanism pencil. Ten clicks will get you about 9mm of lead. The pencil though has two somewhat unusual features for a push top ratchet pencil. Firstly, there is no eraser under the push top button, or anywhere else for that matter. Secondly, you don’t refill the lead magazine by removing the push top button. Instead, you unscrew the plastic front section from the body, pull the innards out, and then you can pull the little cap off the refill magazine and stick a couple of pieces of lead in. Note the lead jam clearing needle on the refill magazine cap. As is so often the case with my Lamy’s, no instructions were included in the box. With a bit of effort you can find instructions on the Lamy website, but it would be better if they were included with your purchase.
lamy logo mechanical pencil mechanism refill

The pocket clip is spring loaded and very functional. It slides onto anything with ease, yet has the strength to keep the pencil clipped on.

lamy logo pocket clip
As is usual for Lamy, their logo and branding is minimal and muted. “Lamy” printed at the top of the body by the pocket clip is the only marking on the pencil. There is no indication of country (incorrect - see reader comments), model name or lead size.
branding on lamy logo

A nice pencil, as always, from Lamy.

• Best Points – Good looks, good pocket clip.
• Not So Good Points – No eraser, noise?
• Price Range – Low/Mid.
• Does this pencil make it into the Top 5? - No.

Dimensions – Length 137mm, diameter 10mm. Balance point about 80mm up from the tip.

This Lamy Logo 105 mechanical pencil was provided to me by Cult Pens. Thanks Cult Pens.

16 comments:

Dittohead said...

That thing is sharp I like it stainless steel is the bomb.

Anonymous said...

I have the brushed stainless steel version. Nice pencil but the clip has so much lateral movement that it is very difficult to keep it parallel to the barrel. Nice one for the collection though.

2 1/2p

Ralrara said...

I like stainless steel body.
I want to have it.

PointFour said...

How important is it, really, to have an on-board eraser? I rarely use mine, yet I'd be unhappy at not having one, especially for a pencil I might carry around as opposed to one that lives on a desk or in a pencil case.

Anonymous said...

hi dave i was wondering if you could do a review of the sun star knock free mechanical pencil (that is if you ever come across one)

http://www.jetpens.com/product_info.php/products_id/5693


thanks


Lefty

Kiwi-d said...

Sorry Lefty, no review plans in the forseeable future.

Kiwi-d said...

PointFour - eraser importance = not very, but I do prefer to have one for special occassions :-)

I've been meaning to ask...are you PointFour because you use prefer 0.4mm?

Anonymous said...

There is a "Germany" inside the pocket clip.

Kiwi-d said...

Dear Anonymous - you are correct. That's excellent spotting. On mine it is very faint, very hard to see, but it is there. Thanks for pointing this out.

J said...

I have the brushed steel version of this as well and it is a beautiful object. Yet it's very housebound because it scratches rather easily. I can confirm the slight wobble/rattly noise, and I also find that it unscrews quite easily so you constantly have to tighten it whilst writing/drawing etc.

I see you're based in NZ too, I kept looking at the pictures behind the pencils and thought they looked familiar! It's a strange feeling to know that somewhere in this country there is a dreamland filled with mech. pencils.

snowgoose said...

Hey guys! This is a pretty nice site, with so many neat mechanical pencils. It's interesting to see how many of the mechanical pencils you have reviewed, that I own.

Anyways, I was wondering if you could use your mech. pencil expertise to help me a solve a problem. A few days ago, at school my Lamy Safari's lead sleeve bent. The Safari's lead sleeve will probably be similar to the Al-Star. Right now it is bent so much that lead can not advance. The only damaged part is the leadsleeve. Do you think it would be possible to remove the lead sleeve from the "shell" it is lodged in, and if I did, would I be able to swap the leadsleeve out for one from a different mechanical pencil?

Sorry if this seems like an idiotic question, but thanks again!~

PointFour said...

Dave - eraser importance - that's sort of how I feel :) Looking at the other comments, though, especially on rattles and unscrewing, makes the Lamy Logo seem rather less tempting than it might otherwise be. On the other hand, the plain (not brushed steel) version is relatively cheap in the UK. There are also various Logo multipens, including one with a 0.5mm pencil and a single ballpoint. These can be found from Cult Pens Lamy page, at http://www.cultpens.com/acatalog/Lamy.html

PointFour - no, nothing to do with pencils. Back in the days of DOS BBSs and Fidonet, I was a "point," Fidonet addressing looking something like "2:250/333.4." I happened to be "0.4" with three successive "bosses" (aka BBS sysops) and the name stuck.

My favourite pencil size is 0.5, or at least that's the one I use most. I also had good service from 0.9 and subsequently 0.7 when marking up bulletins at work. I have 0.3 too but haven't found much use for it yet.

Kiwi-d said...

Hi J - good to hear from a fellow inhabitant of Kiwiland.

Snowgoose - I can't really say, but check the sidebar link for The Uncomfortable Chair blog - I imagine your repair could easily end up like one of Isu's projects. Still, its its busted already...what have you got to lose? I assume straightening the sleeve is out of the question?

snowgoose said...

how would i go about straightening it?

Kiwi-d said...

Don't know. Pliers? Depends how badly its bent. If the tube has been creased then I guess it will never straighten so a piece of lead could feed through.

Larsthegreat said...

This is a very nice pencil, with many things to like about it. But somehow, it's not quite there for me.

The stainless body, good springy clip, retractable and sliding lead sleeve, all things in the plus column. The smooth ridges in the metal grip section are nice, though not strictly necessary in my opinion--I don't find plain metal to be overly slippery on a lightweight pencil. I don't even mind the lack of an eraser, since I pretty much always carry a stick eraser anyway. It seems solid, well built ... mostly.

The tip wobble is a minor issue, to me. Dave suggested it might be for cushioning, and he may be right, but it just seems like sloppy fitting to me. An annoyance, but one I could live with. The thing that takes this pencil out of my selection of daily writers is the plastic tip. More specifically, the ridges on the plastic tip. Now, I know I have delicate fingers. I find the "teeth" on the grip of current Rotring pencils to be a little on the rough side, whereas most folks like 'em. I have the same issue with this Lamy Logo; when I'm using a lower grip, the plastic ridges and the plastic-metal join irritate my support finger. It's not bad, but it's enough of a bother that I'd reach past this pencil and grab the Lamy 2000. Lamy does make a Logo with a smooth metal cone instead of the plastic; I suspect I would much prefer that version. If only budget and storage space were unlimited...