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I have recently posted a CMYK ink mixing tutorial on YouTube which may be of interest to those of you who are into your inks. With many of us in lockdown, this a great opportunity to pursue fountain pen ink investigation. For best results, use fountain pen inks that are as close to the four primary colours as possible: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. And try to use inks that are pure dyes ie not containing pigment (sludge). This is not brand specific, you can mix and match brands if you wish, just as long as the inks you choose are as near to the primary colours as possible. You can find the tutorial on my YouTube channel. Search under Nick Stewart Ink Art. Have fun and please post your results here. Thanks. Nick

hi guys. just joined the "FPN" after i was looking for this pen my dad had bought back in the 90s. growing up, we used fountain pens at school. i almost always had a parker vector (which i kept on loosing) or a bunch of hero (parker 51 look alike) pens while my sister had an actual parker 51. i was going through our old boxes and came across a pen set that my dad had picked up at an expo back around 1997. it was a "pen quest 2000" all steel body ballpoint, roller ball and fountain pen. i looked it up online and it brought me to the fountain pen network where someone had posted pictures of. the one i have is slightly different but it was nice to hear that someone else also had it. i wonder how much it would be worth today. i got back into fountain pens recently and have just ordered my first "fancy" pen. ive ordered a Montblanc 146. this is after i had been experimenting with some local and chinese pens. i currently wish i had kept the fountain pens from back when i was still in school as i really miss the parker vector and the beautiful marble red piston filling waterman i had back in highschool. i didnt really appreciate them back then and i remember i had dropped my waterman on the floor and bent the gold plated nib plus i never liked how it kept on bleeding through the paper i was using at the time. considering the crappy copy paper i was using back then and the fact that the waterman was an absolute gusher. i really wish i had kept it and would have appreciated it more. ive also been experimenting with mixing inks to get more shades. mixed the apache sunset from noodlers with the run of the mill pelican royal blue 4001.....it gave me a really vibrant olive green somehow. has anyone else experimented with ink mixing? or am i just wasting the expensive inks?! haha im thinking about experimenting with food coloring and see if i can come up with some unique shades (for much cheaper price) good to be on here. hopefully i can get some of you guys to respond on this.

Blackstone CMYK Ink Mixing Sets are now available at Justwrite. Set comprises 1 x 30ml bottle of each - cyan, magenta, yellow and black. $AUD36.00 Blackstone's CMYK inks are made from pure cyan, magenta, yellow and black dyes. These pure dyes create the pure, base CMYK colours that are essential to create the full colour spectrum. They have been specifically developed to be mixed with each other to create the full CMYK colour spectrum. See Nick Stewart's review HERE.

Hi, Recently, I'm playing with ink mixing using Sailor's STORiA inks. I find it really interesting, and I've got several nice results, such as a very bright orange color that almost looks like Fanta (by 1:1 mixing of "fire" red and "spotlight" yellow), a green-blue color that matches my Pilot 91 well (by 2:1 mixing of "ballon" green and "magic" purple), and a grey-ish blue (by 1:1 mixing of "ballon" green and "magic" purple)... But before yesterday, I hadn't tried to add black into the play. As I know brown is generally a dark orange, I am really curious to see if I can get some nice brown out of the STORiA inks. So here is my goal: a color that is similar to montblanc's toffee brown. Toffee brown is one of my favorite ink. It is a dark brown with a reddish tone. And here is what I get: Guess which brown fox is from montblanc, and which is from mixing Sailor inks? Here is the answer! I'm pretty satisfied Both lines are written with Lamy 2000 in fine nib, though the one with Sailor ink suffered from a bent nib a year ago. I fixed the nib, but it now writes a wider line. Here is the recipe. The basic idea is to first mix STORiA "fire" (red) and "lion" (light brown) to get a reddish orange color. Then I can add Sailor's Kiwa-Guro (black) ink to make it a dark brown. I didn't note down the accurate mixing ratio yesterday, and I haven't got time to reproduce it with accurate measuring, so the mixing ratio is just to give you a brief idea. It turns out that toffee brown is a pretty reddish brown, and a lot of red ink is needed. I started with a 2:1 ratio between "fire" (red) and "lion" (light brown). After adding the black ink, I found that I need to have more red ink to mimic the red tone of toffee brown. I eventually reached a 2.5 - 3 : 1 ratio between "fire" and "lion". Also note that "lion" is a light-brown / orange ink, so I think there is already some red in it. My guess is that I can also get "toffee brown" with "spotlight" (pure yellow) instead of "lion". In that case, I will need more "fire" ink. All the three inks used here are pigment-based inks, and as far as I know, mixing STORiA ink is fine. But I haven't waited for weeks to see if anything bad could happen (e.g., sediments / gas / fire / explosion / an event horizon appears). Take your own risk, and I'm not responsible for any damage from mixing these inks. And as we know, pigment-based inks are pretty water-resistant, and foxes love water [citation needed]... The last line is written with montblanc's toffee brown, and the rest are written with Sailor-version "toffee brown". And as foxes are such a weird creature (they always love to jump over dogs!), I smeared the drop of water to the right... Oops!

I was after a sort of a red/black but the pictures of Noodler's looks a little boring and overly heavy in the black aspect when writing, so I decided to make my own. I have managed to create what I was after by mixing the following samples I had lying around (only wee tiny bits that I haven't used but would struggle to get it into a pen but it's amazing what it all adds up to). I have about 15-20ml of ink, so it's not a huge amount, but will likely keep me happy for a while. The inks I mixed are the following: Noodler's Ottoman Rose Seitz Dark Orchid Noodler's X-Feather Noodler's Park Red Noodler's Nikita De Atramentis Red Rose J Herbin Bouquet D'artan Caran D'Ache Shocking Pink Diamine Matador J Herbin Violet Pervenche Diamine Syrah Scribes Brown Waterman Brown Scribes Red x2 unlabelled deep red inks As you can see I used a foolproof scientific method of pouring it into a single jar and swirling it around to see if I died of a noxious gas inhalation. I kept doing this until I either fell unconscious or got a red/black ink. Now my question is this.....have I created something that has the potential to: a. melt a pen, sack and the table top it rests on? b. make me ill from noxious chemical inhalation? c. kill me in my sleep after it gains sentient life and crawls out of the bottle? So far its behaviour is good, no feathering, bleed or significant show through. It has a fast to medium dry time and - to me at least - it looks good. If I get a chance I can post pics later, but first I need to know am I gonna die and is my pen going to fuse to my hand.

Dear Ink Brothers, First of all, I really thank all of you for compelling me to write my story and openly declare my nerdy love for FP. I have been a “lurker” so to speak for some time now. Visiting the forums and YouTube for every possible video/review/rants of fellow FP lovers, had become a part of my daily routine. SBREbrown and Matt (Pen habit) are some of the most prominent ones out there and they have their unique style of reviewing each pen. So, don’t be surprised if my thoughts/future reviews are on those lines. I, somehow like the structure and do wish to make it my own. I pay my regards to the senior/prominent members of Indian SubForums and across the media as a whole. Hari sir, Sanyal Soumitra sir, mehandiratta, Subbu sir, BK123 (and others whom I may have missed), I salute your vast knowledge and experience that you bring to the table. Though we’ve never really met in person, your personalities/personas do seem familiar, due to your presence and passion for FP’s. To come to my story, we were allowed to use these pens once we were in 5th Standard. Ball Point pens weren’t allowed. While most students opted for simple and easy to maintain Pilot/Hitec, I wanted to stand out from the crowd. I still remember my trip to the store when shopkeeper showed me so many options. Then something unique caught my eye. The huge glass ink bottle (Chelpark blue black) when compared to those puny often leaky plastic ink bottles got me interested. On further enquiry, the kind shopkeeper showed me one of the cardboard boxes which had an assortment of pens with golden caps and deep dark colored bodies. Enter the fountain pens, the uniqueness of an open gold (colored/imitation) nib along with the aerometric filler had caught my fancy. Overall look and feel of one these (Chinese) pens, had gotten me hooked on to this type of writing instrument. Within a couple of days, I was obsessed. Sure they were messy (partly because I was a kid who loved having ink on my fingers) but they had their own charm. Majority of my free time went in stationery shops and pen stores seeking, admiring and when pocket allowed, purchasing ink pens. I did collect every new model or at least every model that was new to me but being a student meant, there could be only one pen irrespective of the color. The collection grew as I grew up. Some kind relatives got me a few costlier pens as well. A couple of Parkers, a few replicas of the hooded nibs, and an imported dark grey self-filling pen, the model I don’t distinctly remember. Among the known and more affordable range/brands, were Chelpark, Camel, Servex, Montex, Reynolds and Hero (imitation I think) Then came the big moment, my father in spite of not liking the fact that I was spending time on my pens rather than studying, gave me the ultimate pen. A freaking Mont Blanc. It was a wedding gift he got in early eighties came as a set with a roller ball. It was the most treasured pen in my collection. I say was, because all these pens are stored in a box back home (in NCR). Slowly, as the collection grew so did I. Life eventually caught up to me and I went the ball point route. I can almost see you cringing when you read this. Trust me I also feel the same. It was blasphemy to say the least. Fast forward a couple of years and here I am. In a different city far away from home, taking up a new hobby each couple of months. Journaling was the most recent thing I took up. Like all new hobbies, I went into one of the major stationery shops in IT hub of Hyderabad (where I work now) looking for hardbound journals, and then it happened all over again. On one of the shelves, I saw a lonely Camlin Trinity. It almost spoke to me and my childhood love got re-ignited. I bought that along with a few bottles of ink (Bril red, Bril Violet and a parker Quink blue, on a side note, before people enquire, the store only has red and violet bril as new old stock). As soon as I was home, the pen was inked. With the first stroke on the paper, I was in love all over again. Over the next couple of months, I’ve managed to re-build my collection so to say. It’s nothing fancy or not even a fraction of what people own/collect here. Some of them were rather unintended purchases. To list a few on top of my head, I scored:- Inks- Bril (Red, Violet), Parker (Black, Blue), Lamy (Turquoise), Camlin (Royal Blue, Scarlet Red, Black and my custom mixes-a deep oxblood, a purple and almost greying blue black) (Also have a Chelpark blue black and camlin emerald green back home but I am not sure about their condition)Camlins: 3R, 11R, 18R, 21R, 22R, 36R, 47P, Mini, Cute, Trinity, Elegante (Scholar and SD are on route as we speak)Flair: Ink Tanker, Inky Trendz, both converted as eye droppers ( Inky gold, Inky DX, Inky GenX and Inky Executive are on route as well)Parker: Beta, Beta Premium, Metal Vector, Frontier (51 from Ebay but I doubt its authenticity)Jinhao: x450, 599/599A(4 colours ranging from fine to medium nibs)Hero: 221 (the pen that started all this when I was a kid) a few 322 (one in each color, maroon, black and green), 329 and a 616 doctor.Baoer- 507 (eight horses) and a black glossy 801 (love the nib on that one)Other miscellaneous purchases are a few Montex (Handy and study I think), a Reynolds Fludo, a Classmate octane and a few generic printed plastic pens. I know the list doesn’t sound on top of my head but I do love my pens and remember most of them. I also plan to visit Deccan pens over the weekend to get some more inks. On the tangential part of the hobby, I also like mixing inks and tweaking my nibs. I may have destroyed and eventually repaired/restored a few cheap pens in the process. Phew….that was a long one. The future plan of action is to have hand written reviews of most of these when I get time. This is undoubtedly inspired by Sanyal Sir and I give full credit to him for that. I am also planning a trip back home sometime next month to fetch that old box of mine. I am sure Hari sir would be able to help me with identifying the Mont Blanc and that self-filling pen. Hope to be a regular member here. Cheers… --Ink dabber

I recently bought a bottle of MB Royal Blue and while the color is brilliant on good paper (rhodia) on a variety of cheap paper and notebooks that I use the color is a bit light. So I thought about mixing in a darker blue ink to add some contrast. I have Iroshizuku shin-kai and was thinking about mixing 2 parts MBRB: 1 part Iro S-K. Is this safe to do? And has anyone done anything similar to good results?

I don't know whether I received a bad bottle of Omas Blue last year. All I know is that I've owned two bottles of Omas Blue, and the second one was the worst gusher imaginable. It's misleading to call the two inks by the same name. Diluting it with Waterman Florida Blue fixed it. (WFB never looked better. But I digress.) I tried a 2:1 mix, Omas over WFB, but that was pushing it. The flow was still too heavy: too much partial bleed-through with too many pens on too many papers. At 1:1, every pen/nib I owned could handle it. If this seems strange, lucky you. It means you didn't buy this stuff, whatever it was. In any case, read on. (If the image colors on your monitor differ from my descriptions, heed my descriptions. Carry on.)

Must admit, rarely do I ever attempt to mix inks. Very new to even mixing two different shade of red ink, let alone different brands. Usually, I find someone to PIF inks, which find I do not like after filling my fountain pen to sample. However, had a 10ml bottle of J. Herbin Rouge Opera. Thinking the size bottle cute and perfect for carrying a nice amount of ink on the go, decided to blend remnants of the remaining ink with others similar, but stronger colors of red which seemed nearly low. Rouge Opera, reminded me too much of Rouge Caroubier, recent PIF shared with three FPN recipients. Well, I also had a little bit left of Noodler's Cape Cod Cranberry, so thought "what's the harm?" After putting a couple of drops of it in other various shades of red; thinking, it would only enhance or do nothing special to sample colors of inks, mixed a couple drops of Rouge Opera with Noodler's Cape Cod Cranberry. Well, in what seemed like seconds, as I picked up the vial again to see what color the mixed combination in sample tube would resemble, noticed first it was very dense. I could not see what color the mixture in the tube looked like at all. Opening cap, looking inside tube, on the cap itself, it looked like a science experiment gone awry. First, after deciding to pour the ink down the bathroom drain, it came out seeming to appear as if foaming, not resemble either inks in consistency or color; let alone, the ink was not remotely appealing. I was planning on using the sample vial again. Well, never could I have imagined the results of this new version of ink innocently created. The ink stained my sink bowl. The ink left a brownish stain on the sink bowl which appeared to be permanent, would not clean off. Needless to say, after pouring bleach into sink bowl, decided to discard sample ink vial all together. Another learning experience. Are there absolutely any other combinations of inks, or brands which you definitely should not even consider mixing together?

Hi Everyone, Here is the mix i use every day as an alternative to black... Green is my favorite color and every black ink i have is not black... ITS DARK GREY So, if i don't have yet a REAL BLACK, i prefer to use a DARK GREEN. In the test i use the Sheaffer Stylist M Nib. Cheers

Hey guys. I'm almost through my sample of 1670 Stormy Gray, and am absolutely in love with both the base color and the glitter factor. It lead me to wondering.... are there any fine enough glitters that we could add it to bottled ink and get that kind of sheen/shine effect, without destroying pens? Imagine a lovely blue with a silver glitter, or a yellow with green... Has anyone tried? I know there's been some discussion for dip pens, but clearly J Herbin found a way to make glitter FP-friendly.....

Im thinking about purchasing some wancher inks as they look pretty interesting. I love mixing inks for when i paint and i want to know if they are fountain pen friendly, and/or good for mixing with other inks.

Dear FPN Friends, I today received the Following De Atramentis document inks. Red, Yellow Cyan Magenta, Black I already own Green brown, blue and dark blue and the thinning agent for Document inks.... Wiht these CMYK colours I should be able to mix any colour and wiht the mix any shade of those colours.... Unfortunately I am sort of a sillt t..t I do not understand anythink about mixing wiht CMYK.... Looked it up inthe internet but that did not help me... Can anyone of you give advise here.... Like a colourchart and how to mix these colurs to create secondary tertiary and quartery colour... Like Brown, Green Orange.... But also like the variations like Purple>>> Violet Brown>>> Sepia Saddle Brown etc etc... How can a thinning agent help here.... Please help out a nitwit regards Peter