Although stone paper only makes up a very small amount of the overall paper market, its environmentally friendly production process is helping to score it points resulting in steady month-on-month growth in its popularity. In addition to this, the price of high-quality stone paper notebooks has fallen to a level where they have a comparable price tag to traditional paper notebooks.
Due to stone paper constantly increasing its market share, we have noticed more and more people reaching out and asking a number of questions about stone paper. Without a doubt, the most popular question that we have seen asked time and time again is for advice on the best pen for stone paper.
Due to stone paper being notoriously bad for fountain pens, we can definitely see why more and more people are looking for pen recommendations for use with stone paper. Although decent, entry-level ballpoint pens can perform very well when writing on stone paper, we feel that the best pen on the market is actually the Pilot Juice Up.
Not only is the Pilot juice up an excellent general use pen but the fact that there are color bundles of the pen available for cheap, this means that you are able to use them for tasks such as keeping a stone paper bullet journal or anything else that needs different color inks. As you would expect from any Pilot pen, the Juice Up range has an excellent reputation amongst the community that just keeps on getting better and better too.
The Best Pen For Stone Paper
Although our explanation above will be enough for any of our readers who don’t have much time, we also want to do a quick deep-dive on the Pilot Juice Up to explain why we feel that it is the best pen for stone paper on the market right now. This should help any of our readers who have more free time available to read the rest of the article and help to get our point across as to why this is our primary recommendation.
The Nib Of The Pilot Juice Up
Although there are a number of different nib options available with the Pilot Juice Up, we would recommend the Ultra Fine Point 0.4mm for any of our readers who are planning to use the pen with stone paper. Although you will get very similar performance no matter your nib when it comes to the actual ink transfer, finer nibs tend to writer smoother when used on stone paper offering a slightly better writing experience.
This tends to be due to stone paper not absorbing as much ink as traditional paper meaning that you are able to get a similar writing experience from a finer nib that you would get from a medium or broad nib on traditional paper. That said though, if you do prefer a broader nib size for the font then the difference is minimal with stone paper offering some advantages to broader nibs anyway.
For example, one of the main issues with traditional paper and broad or double-broad nib sizes is that they can be prone to bleed and ghosting due to more ink being released from the pens nib. Due to stone paper being mineral based, even thinner sheets of the paper prevent both ghosting and bleeding when using a wet writing, broader nib with ease.
Depending on what you are planning to do with your stone paper, this alone can be a major selling point and the Pilot Juice Up has minimal bleed anyway. Put the two together and your work should be both bleed and ghost free with minimal feathering too making them the perfect combination.
The Pilot Juice Up Barrel
Due to the Pilot Juice Up being an entry-level pen, its barrel is made from plastic and although it is just about as tough and robust as you would expect for its price tag, it is unlikely to take a lot of bumps or knocks without breaking. That said though, at this price point in the market this is definitely to be expected anyway and the low price tag makes it easy to just purchase new pens if the Pilot Juice Up that you are using does end up braking.
Even with the plastic barrel, we are confident that the pen will be able to last you until the ink runs out without issue though and will only have a higher chance of breaking if you are using it in situations where it will be taking more punishment than expected. As the majority of people who are writing on stone paper journals or notebooks will be writing at a desk, the plastic barrel of the pen should not present an issue.
The color and trim combination of the barrel of the Pilot Juice Up will depend on the pen that you get. The standard Pilot Juice Up comes with a barrel that is predominantly black with a grip band above the nib that is the color of the ink of the pen. Although the pen offers a nice and smooth writing experience when used on stone paper, the grip can be handy in some situations and help to improve your writing experience.
If you choose to pick up the color bundles of the Pilot Juice Up then the barrel will correspond to the specific bundle that you get with some having a clear barrel. In the grand scheme of things, the color of the barrel of the pen makes no difference to your writing experience when using the pen on stone paper but we have seen some people ask if their Pilot Juice Up are real or fakes due to their barrels being transparent so just wanted to clear this up.
The Pilot Juice Up Ink Supply
As the Pilot Juice Up is a cheap, entry-level, disposable pen, it is not refillable but the ink supply in each pen is easily enough to last you over a month when using it for stone paper and writing for extended time periods each day. As the majority of our readers will not be using their pens this frequently on their stone paper, we are confident that each pen will last the average user upwards of three months.
Although some gel pens have had issues when being used on stone paper, the gel ink formula of the Pilot Juice Up performs flawlessly and drys fast. This ensures that your work will not smear or smudge and allows anyone who is left handed to use the pens to write or draw on stone paper without having to worry about their hand smearing their work while writing.
Pilot Juice Up Writing Samples
We always like to share independent, third-party reviews and writing samples of any pens that we recommend to our readers. In our opinion, the video below is one of the better reviews of the Pilot Juice Up and offers some great insight into their performance as well as shown a number of writing examples for them too.
Conclusion
That brings our article on what we feel are the best pens for stone paper currently available on the market to a close. In our opinion, the low price tag, great performance, and ease of use of the Pilot Juice Up pushes them to the top of the pile and they should be your primary consideration when looking for a pen for use with stone paper. As we mentioned back at the start of the article though, decent, entry-level ballpoint pens can perform very well too and come in at a very similar price point to the Pilot Juice Up and offer a good writing experience on stone paper too.
