Sailor Grenade Vs. Oku-Yama Vs. 1670 Vs. Yama Budo (Chromatography)

April 21, 2011

Here is my comparison of the new Sailor Grenade (#253) ink from the 2011 series of six, and questions were asked if it is the same as 2010 Limited Edition 2010 Autumn Oku-Yama (#215). I believe these are the same. Perhaps the Oku-Yama is a tiny tiny tiny bit more color dense. There is slight variation in the two sets of nibs I used, so the writing may look a bit darker with Oku-Yama, but the q-tips are a bit darker with Grenade. I did two swipes on the second line with Oku-Yama.

In both cases, there is that lovely green-metallic sheen which you can especially see with the photos, where I made the wet q-tip heavy lines.

Even the chromatography strips are very similar. The purple center which looks more distinct with #215, seems to be spread over to the left side of #253. The top shows the same shades of the orange brown, finishing with green/yellow/turquoise blue at the margins. Both inks are wonderful.

The 1670 has one of the purist chromatography strips, so that is a single dye. Yama-budo also has mostly a pure dye component, and as such you don't see the lovely secondary sheen effects as with the Sailor. But how could you not LOVE both the J. Herbin 1670 and Iroshizuku Yama-budo for their own beauty and rich colors?

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h75/pike444/Inks/Sailor/Grenade1s.jpg http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h75/pike444/Inks/Sailor/Grenade2s.jpg

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h75/pike444/Inks/Sailor/Grenade3s.jpg

April 21, 2011

Fantastic. Thanks for this, Sam! I've been wondering whether my Grenade was similar to the glowingly-reviewed Oku-yama, and it seems like they're similar enough for me to be pretty satisfied.

They're all pretty beautiful inks, and I'm glad I got both Yama-Budo and Grenade.

April 21, 2011

Clearly it's time to sell the unopened bottle of Grenade and Apricot then, since your two reviews show they are the same as the Autumn inks. BAH! But thank you.

April 21, 2011

Great colour analysis als always, thanks.

Although I hardly use any red ink, I really liked the colour of Grenade immediately. It's pretty, dark and easy on the eyes + the shimmer.

I wonder why the Japanese ommitted the French accents on the new French ink names (Épinard ...)

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BTW, Sam, don't you have a "Grenat" from Callifolio, too? Although Grenat means the gemstone and Grenade the fruit, both are dark reds.

Edited April 21, 2011 by saintsimon

April 21, 2011

Fantastic! Thank you! This means I don't need to hoard the Oku-Yama.

April 23, 2011

Thanks for this series of reviews. I am enjoying them very much!

April 23, 2011

I'm relatively new to fountain pen inks and have been experimenting with them mostly for drawing, finding inks that will play nice with various new and vintage dip pen nibs. The only real difference I could find between Oku-Yama and Grenade is a subtle difference in smoothness. Working with Grenade feels more scratchy, as if the ink is a bit less viscous; and I thought it was easier to put down a lighter, thinner, drier line with Grenade than with Oku-Yama. With Oku-Yama, I didn't get any scratchiness at all. But after only drawing one page with each ink, I'm not sure I want to commit to that assessment up against a more scientific analysis

I'll have to see if there's the same maybe-there/maybe-not difference between Apricot and Kin-Mokusei. And of course I'm a little disappointed that I scrambled around trying to find the LEs, when it turns out I could have saved some effort by just waiting a while. Nice inks, though. Sailor in general works exceptionally well with all my dip pens.