Professional Ink Needs Covered For A Year Or So, 350 Ml Bottle Of Pilot Blue Black.

[Flaxmoore]

I love Pilot BB, but paying $20 for 70ml seemed nuts when I could get 350ml for the same price from Japan. Took two weeks, but now I have an ink bottle the size of a pop bottle, enough for a year or two.

 

Image from Jetpens. Nice heavy glass bottle, all labels in Japanese, though.

Edited May 24, 2015 by Flaxmoore

[SNAK]

Pilot Blue Black is one of my favourite inks too, for its behaviour and colour. I have stocked up on the big bottles too.

 

 

Pilot also still offers the small 30ml bottle (in the photo above) that hasn't changed design for decades, and then the newer 70ml round bottle. As far as availability (in Japan at least), from what I have found:

30ml bottles are available in Black, Blue Black, Blue, and Red

70ml bottles are available in Black, Blue Black and Blue

350ml bottles are available in Black, Blue Black and Red

 

I wish they did the large bottle in Blue too, because I really enjoy it and use it a lot too. However, since I have so many bottles of ink as it is, I won't die if I can't find the bigger bottles for all the 4 colours.

[Flaxmoore]

Let me check rakuten again, I thought they had blue.

[SNAK]

Oh that will be very cool if you could let me know where on Rakuten they have the Blue in large bottle. I am just in the process of doing my Japanese purchases for my biannual bulk parcel forwarding. I have looked at Amazon JP and other places but haven't checked out Rakuten thoroughly it appears.

[bizhe]

Once used the empty bottle will be the ultimate ink trophy.

[SNAK]

I just did some poking around and found out (from the Pilot Japan website) that there are currently no Pilot Blue in 350ml, nor Pilot Red in 70ml size bottles made. So the available sizes and colours are as follows:

 

30ml bottle (Black, Red, Blue, Blue Black)

 

70ml bottle (Black, Blue, Blue Black)

 

350ml bottle (Black, Red, Blue Black)

The three photos above are from Pilot Japan website.

 

Just for fun, I found these photos of vintage Pilot 350ml bottles from Japanese Yahoo auction site:

 

I believe these large 350ml bottles were meant to be used with the 30ml ink bottles to top up the small bottles as you use up the ink. Both 350ml size and 30ml size bottles have been utilitarian and functional, not necessarily pretty. The 70ml ink bottle size is a relatively new addition when the plunger filling pens were introduced by Pilot. When they designed the Iroshizuku bottles it must have been a huge leap in their bottle design concept. I am very glad that they have Iro inks now though, those bottles are lovely to look at.

But I still enjoy my standard Pilot inks for their usefulness as daily ink, and because they are so utilitarian, and functional.

Edited May 25, 2015 by SNAK

[amberleadavis]

Wow, I like the thought of the big bottles, but it would interfere with my ink usage.

[WilsonCQB1911]

You must write a ton if that will only last a year or two. ~30ml a month!!??

 

I actually got one of those bottles as well. Owned it a month and still haven't opened it. I only average about 4ml of ink a month though. Between the 8 bottles of Blue Merle I bought before it went away (my favorite!) and my 100ml bottle of Diamine Registrars I already have too much ink.

Edited May 25, 2015 by WilsonCQB1911

[Flaxmoore]

You must write a ton if that will only last a year or two. ~30ml a month!!??

I actually got one of those bottles as well. Owned it a month and still haven't opened it. I only average about 4ml of ink a month though. Between the 8 bottles of Blue Merle I bought before it went away (my favorite!) and my 100ml bottle of Diamine Registrars I already have too much ink.

I'm a doc. On hospital rounds a milliliter a day isn't too uncommon. Just waiting for my 54thM bottle to go dry so I can decant some off and get this to work.

 

Wish I could find a suitable old label. Needs something vintage.

[Davros]

I have a big personal bottle of Pilot Blue Black. It is awesome. It will probably last a bit longer than a year, since I use many other inks, but it is great stuff.

[Sandy1]

Hi,

 

Many thanks for demonstrating your commitment to a specific ink.

 

I would be interested to learn from your experience how that ink does in the long term, especially any foibles that are only revealed by chance encounters with odd papers, conditions, etc.

 

Please let us know which pen/s you've chosen to pair with this ink as daily writers.

 

Bye,

S1

[Flaxmoore]

Hi,

 

Many thanks for demonstrating your commitment to a specific ink.

 

I would be interested to learn from your experience how that ink does in the long term, especially any foibles that are only revealed by chance encounters with odd papers, conditions, etc.

 

Please let us know which pen/s you've chosen to pair with this ink as daily writers.

 

Bye,

S1

Being a working ink, it'll run in everything I have at points. 3 Pilots, a Kakuno, e95, Metro, a vac700, a couple Jinhaos, a Pelikan m200, a couple Kawecos.

 

At least in carts I've never noted issues with paper, even cheap inkjet bulk paper.

[SNAK]

I agree with Flaxmoore that the Pilot Blue Black ink takes many common office paper without any issues such as feathering or bleed through, even with my often wet and broad nibbed pens. I always have at least one pen inked with Pilot Blue Black.

 

I know how thorough Sandy1 is with her assessments of inks, so to show my thanks to her for her past (and hopefully future) efforts, I tried to do my best to demonstrate how this ink behaves for me in my daily use situation.

 

Currently I have this ink in two of my pens: 2nd generation Doric with wet flexible nib, and Kaweco AL Sport Raw with a B nib. I have written some scribbles on 4 types of paper to show colour, shading, sheen, and feather/bleedthrough. I also did a quick water resistance test to show this ink's performance against some splash of water on the written surface, as well as soaking the paper in water for a short length of time. Overall these little tests proved to me that this ink is a great performer as daily workhorse ink at the office, school or home. I personally highly recommend it, if you can take the distinguishable smell of phenol (old paint tube smell). I love this ink.

 

So off we go with the photos.

 

 

 

 

 

Please excuse the spelling error above, I'm too lazy to redo it!

 

This cheap paper is the kind of paper that even good iron gall ink or Noodler's Black ink will feather and bleed somewhat. This sample is to show the worst case scenario.

 

Water splash on written surface after 10 minutes ink dry time. Water droplet was left on paper for 5 minutes.

 

Water was blotted off with tissue after 5 minutes.

 

Right side of the piece of paper was soaked in water for 15 minutes then gently swished in the water before lifting up. Some blue colour came out of the written surface and the ink became lighter blue after the soak.

 

Paper chromatography. 1 drop of ink on paper towel, then 5 drops of distilled water onto the centre of ink drop on paper. I see lavender at the centre, followed by grey/black, then blue, and finally turquoise colours in rings. Interesting.

 

I can see dark reddish sheen on Tomoe River paper.

Edited May 27, 2015 by SNAK

[SNAK]

I forgot to mention that the flow of this ink is very generous, about the same as Iroshizuku inks I think. It feels wet with great flow, but it's not lubricated in a slick way like some Noodler's Eel series ink can sometimes feel like. This ink is thin and fluid, but nicely saturated. It shades well with the right pen/nib, and it can show some sheen on the right paper like Tomoe River paper, or hight quality non-absorbent paper.

 

Clean up of this ink from pens is very easy. This ink doesn't tend to cling to the corners of converters/cartridges, and just plain water will do the job nicely.

 

This ink does have a peculiar smell, that I know some people are put off by. I personally like it, but I believe it is the smell of the preservative (phenol) in the ink. The smell reminds me of primary school art class.

 

I hope the brief report on this ink is helpful to someone.

[Venator]

That was a very good review SNAK. Going to have to get a bottle for writing on cheap paper. Thanks!

[SNAK]

Thanks Venator, if it persuaded you to try this ink, my job for the day is done!

 

I see you are in Australia. Would you be interested in a few ml's sample of this ink? I can't promise I can send it out this week, but I have a couple of dozens of sample vials somewhere in the house so I can dig them out and post a sample for you to try out if you'd like? Just PM me if you are interested.

[lgsoltek]

I see people mention the ink has a smell. I just smelled my new 30ml bottle and I couldn't smell anything at all...

[Sandy1]

I agree with Flaxmoore that the Pilot Blue Black ink takes many common office paper without any issues such as feathering or bleed through, even with my often wet and broad nibbed pens. I always have at least one pen inked with Pilot Blue Black.

 

I know how thorough Sandy1 is with her assessments of inks, so to show my thanks to her for her past (and hopefully future) efforts, I tried to do my best to demonstrate how this ink behaves for me in my daily use situation.

 

Currently I have this ink in two of my pens: 2nd generation Doric with wet flexible nib, and Kaweco AL Sport Raw with a B nib. I have written some scribbles on 4 types of paper to show colour, shading, sheen, and feather/bleedthrough. I also did a quick water resistance test to show this ink's performance against some splash of water on the written surface, as well as soaking the paper in water for a short length of time. Overall these little tests proved to me that this ink is a great performer as daily workhorse ink at the office, school or home. I personally highly recommend it, if you can take the distinguishable smell of phenol (old paint tube smell). I love this ink.

 

So off we go with the photos.

<snip>

 

Hi,

 

Thanks for the impromptu review.

 

Your samples give a fair depiction of the appearance and performance of the ink. I'm also very glad those properties haven't changed since I posted my wee review.

 

Like its sibling Pilot Blue, PBlBk is rather wow-less, but that just makes it all the more suitable for a daily writer ink that goes about its business with aplomb.

 

I haven't tried blending PBlBk with any of the iroshizuku series inks to spice it up, but ...

 

Bye,

S1

[wastelanded]

Thanks to this great thread, I impulse bought one of these flagons of Pilot BB: I look forward to A/B-ing it with Shin-kai.

[SNAK]

Good on you, wastelanded. I am sure you will enjoy the ink as your daily workhorse.