The Rollerball Market

Are you confused by the different rollerball types? Uni Mitsubishi have put together the following information, designed to give you a better understanding of the Rollerball Market and the product categories available.

Ball Pens

Ball Pens, like rollerballs, write using a ball to feed the ink to the page. Ball pens are designed to hit a lower price point and are therefore made from inexpensive materials, manufactured with much wider quality tolerances than rollerballs. Generally both the rolling ball and outer barrel are manufactured from plastic materials.

Rollerballs

Whilst rollerballs use similar technology to Ball Pens to deliver ink to the page they are manufactured from superior materials and to much higher quality standards. Although not always they generally use a hard wearing metal rollerball and tip.

Ink Type

The traditional type of rollerball feeds ink to the ball from a tampon soaked in ink. This system uses gravity to ensure ink flow and is relatively simple and inexpensive to manufacture. Ink delivery is however reasonably inefficient with a percentage of the ink retained within the tampon.

Liquid Ink (Free Ink) - Many consumers like the writing experience and finished result offered by traditional fountain pen ink, however dislike the mess that comes with the antiquated fountain pen ink delivery system. Liquid Ink rollerballs simply combine fountain pen type ink with the convenience of a rollerball. This ink delivery system is very efficient and allows all of the ink, right down to the last drop, to be used. Most liquid ink rollerballs feature a window in the barrel so the user is able to see exactly how much ink is left.

Gel Ink - As the name suggests the ink used has a gel type consistency. This thicker consistency offers a very smooth writing experience, as it not only lubricates the rolling ball, but it places a lot of ink onto the page. This ticker layer of ink allows the use of very vivid and metallic ink colours which clearly stand out from the page.

Tip Type

There are two main types of rollerball tip used in the manufacture of rollerballs.

Cone Tipped - The rolling ball is held in cone shaped tip, which is accurately matched to the shape of the ball. This tip type offers great protection to the ball and is ideal for high volumes of handwriting, such as essay writing.

Needlepoint Tipped - The tip is shaped so that the rolling ball is held in place by four “Needlepoints” at each corner of the ball. This reduces the friction between the ball and tip and produces very free flowing writing. This tip type is often preferred for detailed writing work.

Line Width

The width of the line drawn by a rollerball is determined by the diameter of the rolling ball. The larger the diameter of the ball the wider the line. Because the rolling ball is a sphere although the diameter of the writing ball may be 0.7mm the line produced will only be 0.5mm as not all of the ball touches the page. There are the following recognised standards:

Fine Line - Rollerballs with a 0.5mm diameter rollerball which produces a 0.2mm writing line. Uni-ball MICRO.

Medium Line - Rollerballs with a 0.7mm diameter rollerball which produces a 0.5mm writing line. Uni-ball FINE.

Broad Line - Rollerballs with a 1.0mm diameter rollerball which produces a 0.8mm writing line. Uni-ball BROAD.