Any experience - Flow - PR vs Diamine?

[Michael48]

Hi,

 

I love the flow of my PR Midnight Blues (nice & wet) and was wondering about Diamine inks - anyone have any experience, is it comperable? Not as wet? More wet?

 

I know it may depend on the color itself, specifically wondering about Diamine's Umber, Quartz Black and a good dark brown.

 

Also, really looking for a wet & saturated black - I've tried Noodler's and it's not free-flowing enough for me. Heard a lot about Aurora black, any comparisons there, for flow?

 

For use in a Bronze Arco... MANY, many thanks!

 

 

Michael

[KCat]

thus far the Diamine inks I've used (Claret, Emerald, Sepia, Prussian Blue, Umber) have medium to better flow. They are also a little less saturated than most PR inks I really like them and grow more attached to this brand as time goes on. But I'm kinda in a "non-saturated" mode.

 

Umber in a dry writer will be quite light in color. in a wet writer you get lovely shading from light to dark. But the flow is good overall.

 

IMO, go for Aurora - both Aurora inks have excellent flow and the Black is very saturated. Never had a problem with it being stingy at all.

Edited March 16, 2006 by KCat

[AndrewW]

I find that PR inks tend to dry out much quicker in the pen, at which stage the flow seems to become "stickier" and the ink darkens. Trick is, I guess, to fill more frequently with smaller quantities. I've only tried two Diamine inks to date. Emerald seems to flow very well. Crimson was more of a problem - after a while, it seemed to clog. (This may be a "pink" thing, as I had a similar experience with JH Rose Cyclamen cartridges in another pen. I've since had the "crimson" pen loaded with a PR "aubergine" mixture of Midnight Blues, Black Cherry and Plum, with no flow problems to date.)

Edited March 16, 2006 by AndrewW

[Viseguy]

Also, really looking for a wet & saturated black - I've tried Noodler's and it's not free-flowing enough for me. Heard a lot about Aurora black, any comparisons there, for flow?

Swishmix Nile Ebony (also by Noodler's). Free-flowing, and they don't come any blacker than this.

[RichardS]

I find that Diamine Royal Blue flows extremely well, and it's the ink I usually put in my new pens to break them in. (It often stays there, as it's such a nice colour!) Their Prussian Blue flows even more freely, and it's the only ink I can use with an especially temperamental Sheaffer B nib that was driving me crazy with its skipping. Prussian Blue's flow characteristics makes it behave perfectly.

 

Diamine Umber has similar characteristics to Royal Blue, and Monaco Red is a little dryer but I've found this common to most reds; I think has something to do with the pigments involved.

 

In blacks, Aurora seems to be the gold standard for most people. I think it's the best black ever: free-flowing, well lubricated and above all, BLACK!.

[Michael48]

Thanks everyone!

 

I was finally able to make it down to the store this weekend and picked up some Aurora black... nice! Once it got started, great flow...

 

But it was funny, I was looking for a black that was nicely saturated, which this is... but now I miss my color! The PR Midnight Blues is great, but does tend to smear if I get even a little bit of water on it, or even humidity...

 

I also picked up an Herbins, the Tea color, that looked very deep/dark on their in-store sample sheet (they did it themselves on a regular sheet of white paper)... but at home it's really come out more gold than anything else...

 

KCat, I think I saw your review of another Herbins ink and you mentioned that they seem rather light in general... but it was odd, that it's coming out nowhere near the color of their sample. I'm using a Sailor 1911 M, so maybe it's the nib? But the flow on this Herbins is nice, also.

[KCat]

KCat, I think I saw your review of another Herbins ink and you mentioned that they seem rather light in general... but it was odd, that it's coming out nowhere near the color of their sample. I'm using a Sailor 1911 M, so maybe it's the nib? But the flow on this Herbins is nice, also.

I don't have experience with the 1911M nib - yet - so I can't say for sure that's the issue. One way to check is to put some of the Aurora black in the same pen and see how saturated it looks. If the Aurora looks peaked, then the pen is writing dry-ish. Lie de The in my experience is a good medium-to-dark brown depending on the pen (I have very little, if anything, in the way of "dry" writers.) It is one of their "newer" inks (3 years?) that showed up when they decided to get into the more saturated inks. It does have a gold/green tone to it (vs. a reddish brown.)

 

If you run some tests and determine it isn't the pen/nib, then I would wonder if you got a "bad" batch. Or if Herbin has just decided to decrease the dye content?

[Michael48]

Thanks... I'll also try it in the Arco M... that may make a difference, too, but I got them both Mottishaw'ed for more flow... so not sure what's going on.

 

Also, I just read about the PR ink mixing kit... oh - my - god! Forget waiting for a bottled ink to give me what I want - I'll just CREATE it!!!

 

I got this big 'ol grin on my face right now... can't wait to start experimentin'!!!

 

 

Thanks!

[TheNobleSavage]

I started using very saturated inks when I first started doing the fountian pen thing. I then won an Ebay auction for a ton of diamine and Noodlers ink. I have to admit that I was very dissappointed with the Diamine in comparison to PR and Noodlers. I thought and still do think that Diamine ink is watery and not as saturated as the PR and Noodlers. I found Diamine to be a bit disappointing and I really didnt use much of it at all for almost a year.

My vintage pens such as my parkers do not like heavy saturated inks like PR and noodlers and it does not flow well at all. Well Diamine flows very well through all of my vintage pens and thats what I primarily use along with Quink. The more I use Diamine, the more I like it. My favorite Purple or at least one of my favorites has to be Imperial Purple. It doesnt stain Like Waterman Violet or some of the PR Purples and the flow is extremely nice too!!

 

Diamine reminds me of older parker Quink and Sheaffer Skrip, very fluid and flows extremely well in vintage pens. If you are used to highly saturated inks, you might just be disappointed with the ink. But who knows until you at least try it, right?

 

As far as the blackest black that is very saturated and flows well, Aurora Black!!! That is the best black ink I have ever used!!! Very lubricating and a joy to use. I have been using Platinum Carbon Black ink. This is pretty dartn black and it is water resistant but not water proof. Also some cautions with this ink is if you do not clean your pens often and you let your pens sit with ink in it for months, you might have some clogging issues. So I was told that modern pens are ideal to use carbon black but also constant flushing is needed to prevent clogging. It is nothing like using india ink but it can be problematic if you are not careful!!

 

Levenger Raven Black is probobly my second favorite black ink in terms of the shade. It is jet black like aurora and it flows very nice out of my pens and it is quite lubricating while writing. The only issue that I found with Levenger Raven Black is the tendency to feather while using cheaper paper. The same goes for a majority of all Levenger inks. If it didnt feather, then it would be my number one black ink. But it is tied for second with noodlers black.

 

Another few black inks to look at are, Lamy Black (nice black but not on my top 3 black inks) and it flows quite nice and dries rather quickly. Parker Quink black is pretty nice and it seems to flow quite well through any pen.

 

Pilot/Namiki black is a great ink to use when you are trying to flush out your pen from all of the old saturated inks. It smells very horrid and chemical, at first I thought it had phenol but that is not the case. The ink flows extremely well and it seems to break up some ink build up in the pen. A very clean ink IMHO, it is a black but not as dark as you might like it. It is good to have plenty of this ink on hand. It flows very heavy on fine to extra fine nibs.

 

TNS