Webster's Diamine Blue Black Writing Ink Powder

[dcwaites]

 

I bought a canister of this ink from eBay vendor Dragontoots. When it arrived I didn't want to make up the whole quart of ink, so I simply took a few grains and dissolved them in water.

 

I tried it in a dip pen, and it went down a nice bluish colour. Within seconds it had dried to a solid black. This indicated that it was an Iron-Gall Blue Black ink. I tested this after it had dried. Running hot water didn't budge it, but bleach faded it to beige. I-G ink confirmed.

 

Experiments confirmed that like it modern cousin, Diamine Registrar's Ink, this ink likes a wet nib, if you want to get a deep black on drying. Otherwise, you still get a permanent ink, but it is more of a dark grey, but often with nice shading.

 

I have been running it in a Platinum Preppy for the past week, with both Fine and Medium nibs, adjusted to be wet. It works well with the Fine nib, but the simple, narrow feed slit can't deliver enough ink to get a good black with the Medium nib.

 

I found one of my Jinhao X-450s, cleaned up the nib and feed, and adjusted it so that it wrote a wet line. That pen has a Medium nib, a little wider than the Preppy. The more sophisticated feed can easily deliver enough ink to get a good, solid black line when dried.

 

I have also used a couple of dip pens, a Post Office pen and a Perry Iridinoid 105. The P.O. pen delivers a narrow, crisp wet line that dries to a deep, almost glossy, black. It is a different quality black from Sailor Kiwaguro. The Perry dip pen is a bit more like a fountain pen with its folded tip, and it writes a line that, while black, is less intense.

 

Like all Iron-Gall inks, this one behaves very well on all good and marginal papers. It doesn't do so well on really poor papers as the wet nibs simply flood the paper, resulting in bleeding and feathering anyway.

 

Writing Samples

From Reviews

Five Writing samples of the Webster's Diamine Blue-Black ink

From Reviews

The word Now in high resolution. Samples in the same order as the picture above

 

 

In summary, for an ink that is probably some 70 years old, it's doing pretty well. It behaves very well on good and marginal papers, giving crisp lines with no feathering or bleeding. It works best in quality clerical dip pens, which is not surprising given that it was designed for those pens. However, it also works well in reservoir dip pens and fountain pens that can write a good, wet line.

[Uncle Red]

Thanks for the review. I've been wondering how this worked for you since you posted about it originally.

[Bemo]

That is so cool! Lewis and Clark took powdered ink with them on their explorations for weight savings also.