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on January 1, 2017

Everyman Grafton pen review

I like pens. Fountain pens and ball point pens and mechanical pencils. That’s why I jumped at the opportunity to back the Everyman Grafton pen on kickstarter.

The good parts

The pen itself was built with the intention to support Pilot G2 and Fisher Space Pen refills in a durable, EDC-worthy package. The weight of the pen is great - around 30 grams (1 oz), depending on the refill being used. It has great balance and is very comfortable to write with. Those are about all of its good qualities.

Everything else

The first pen that arrived would not take Pilot G2 refills. For some weird reason my G2 refills required a crazy amount of force to make the pen ‘click’. It’s worth mentioning that the pen ships with a custom everyman refill, which is a close (but not exact) copy of the pilot G2. Thankfully the makers were kind enough to send a replacement. That worked, but left me doubting the manufacturing and quality control processes.

The pen ships with an extra spring and a small aluminum block, to be used as a filler when using fisher space pen refills. Using that spacer makes the pen rattle, plus you need to switch out the spring as well.

All in all, despite good design and nice looks, the pen was executed poorly. The aluminum used is too soft for an EDC pen: dropping it on its tip will bend it to the point that the refill will not extend. It’s good that if that happens, it’s easy to fix with a screwdriver, again, because the material is ridiculously soft.

The clip of the pen is too stiff and lacks any springyness whatsoever. To be useful it needs to be bent back to form an opening.





In case you were planning to carry your brand new EDC pen in a jeans pocket, well, forget it. Despite being advertised as “buy-for-life” the pen uses a plastic mechanism. To make matters even worse, the cap is attached to the mechanism via a thin plastic screw. This is beyond ridiculous. Dropping the pen or carrying it in your pants pocket will snap the cap off. This happened to both pens I had (remember, I was sent a replacement for a faulty pen).

Conclusions

The everyman grafton pen is about as EDC and “buy-for-life” as a box of matches. It is too fragile and too poorly manufactured to be useful.

If you are looking for a truly EDC pen that can stand up to daily use and carry, consider a Zebra F-701 (especially with the full-metal hack ), or the wonderful Ti Arto or just a plain old Fisher Space Pen. There’s a lot of EDC pens out there, sadly, Everyman Grafton is not one of them.