u/safeword_is_bananas

Ever on the lookout for a new wallet, I figured I'd give the Lochby Mini Pocket Journal a go. Seemed like the size is right and I already own a crapton of their other stuff so I knew what to expect. And I'm kind of a slut for waxed canvas.
But I couldn't find any direct comparisons between their Tomoe River a7 notebooks and their new "High Smooth" a7 notebooks. So here we are. Only tested what I already had inked up.

The Tomoe River paper is just what you would expect. Very Tomoey and very Rivery. Sheen, shading and shimmer are as you'd expect them to be. I was able to get Pilot Iroshizuku Fuyu-Syogun to feather a little bit with a stubby. Not entirely unexpected.

The High Smooth was pleasant to write on. Took me a minute to get one of my smoother nibs to start. This paper performs well with almost all of my fountain pens, except that one. And if I recall correctly they don't advertise it as fountain pen paper. And I mean.. it's pleasant to write on, but does not show sheen at all. Still shows some shading, and shimmer is not an issue. There is a little bit of feathering, but not horrible. Several of the inks that did not feather on TRP did on this one.

No bleed (and barely faint ghost) on the TRP, moderate bleed and ghost on the High Smooth.

Image 1: Lochby Mini Pocket Journal with a Kaweco Lunar Sport (Dark Green <M>) crammed into it.
Image 2: High Smooth
Image 3: Tomoe River
Image 4: Tomoe River (left); High Smooth (right)

In summary, the TRP books are thinner, and better suited to fountain pen ink. Hope this helps someone. I'll shove the High Smooth books into camera bags and gig bags, places I won't leave a fountain pen. It'll work just fine with a ballpoint or pencil.

Well, you all keep raving about them, and the swatches I've seen online looked fun, so I ordered some Birmingham Pen Co. ink, and it arrived in record time.
So far, I have inked (and included closeups of):

Sugar Kelp (Lamy Safari <M>)
Boiler Steam (Majohn A1 <M>)
Megalodon (Pilot VP <M>)
Glasswing Butterfly Twinkle (Asvine P36 <M>)

And honestly I am surprised at how much I love Sugar Kelp. I was expecting yellow with some brown shading. It's so much more than that. Even on cheap absorbent notebook paper. It just looks great. New favorite yellow.

I also noticed a couple things. The box tops take ink well. They sheen (somewhat). They shimmer. They shade. And it's useful when you try to store inks in their boxes most of the time.

And, that last image.. That's a pint of water in a mason jar, and one swirl of a Hocoro dipper <M> to clean off the Sugar Kelp. There is a WHOLE lot of dye in that ink, and this is what it looks like under UV light. Just thought it was interesting.

Her handwriting, on the other hand, could easily be a computer font. I’m kinda jealous, though I’d never tell her that. 😅

Has anyone gotten the Stouchi ring pageturner to work with KoReader on a Kobo Clara Color? It works fine with the stock reader but I'd much rather use KoReader, and it doesn't "just work" out of the box. Is it worth the hassle? I'm comfortable editing system files as needed. Just wanted to know if the juice is worth the squeeze. i.e. does it actually stay connected, will I need to re-pair it every time? (Current book title seemed fitting to this venture.)