Waterman Red

[TheNobleSavage]

A very good and solid generic red. Seems very balanced with very little if any orange tint. Too bad the scan shows a hint of orange to it. Good stuff!!

http://img152.exs.cx/img152/5130/watermanred2pp.jpg

[wimg]

Hi NS,

 

Yes, I agree entirely with you. A very good, well flowing, well balanced stock red. You can't go wrong with this bright red ink.

 

Kind regards,

Wim

[AndrewW]

I was surprised by the brightness of this.

 

Waterman Red was one of the first inks I ever bought, as a school-kid back in the late 1970s. I still have the bottle with ink left in it! I was disappointed by it at the time - deep, somewhat "dried blood" colour (closer, I guess, to the Diamine Monaco Red) and smelled of smokey bacon! Maybe I got a bad batch, or perhaps they have changed the formula since then.

[KCat]

Andrew - I think you did get a bad batch. All samples of seen of WM Red are **Bright**. A bit too bright for me.

 

And inks have all different sorts of smells, but smokey bacon is probably a tip-off that there's a problem. WM inks did have a chemical smell that a lot of us liked. Phenol? Whatever it was, it is no longer used in their inks and that started sometime in the mid 90s i think.

[Guest Denis Richard]

You know, where I crawled from, Waterman is something of a cultural pillar. Waterman Blue and Red, are almost the definition of Blue and Red for us. They are used by all school children and teachers. Even generic brands of ink cartridges are exact replicas of Waterman colours. Nothing fancy, just plain, pure, elegant colours.

[wimg]

Hi Denis,

 

  Quote

You know, where I crawled from, Waterman is something of a cultural pillar. Waterman Blue and Red, are almost the definition of Blue and Red for us. They are used by all school children and teachers. Even generic brands of ink cartridges are exact replicas of Waterman colours. Nothing fancy, just plain, pure, elegant colours.

Same here, Denis, same here. Of course, Waterman inks are just plain good, very good. It is the ink of choice when I don't want to use a fancy ink or nib....

 

Kind regards,

Wim

[georgem]

Waterman red is my red ink of choice. In fact, I use all of the Waterman colors and like every one of them.

[Armchop]

:meow:

Hello all,

first posting but I've found this forum very useful. Thanks guys and gals. Just putting my money's worth in.

Edited this post today. Added review to Shaeffer Red and Waterman Violet and Blue-Black.

 

Armchop

Edited April 1, 2006 by Armchop

[hatherton_wood]

If you can find it the Quink Red seems very similar to the Waterman red. Its also a nice bright red colour. I got of bootle of diamine Monaco red and its more orange than I expected. Has anubody else found that or is it just the bottle I have?

 

John

[southpaw]

Good review TNS. Another true red IMHO is Noodlers/Swishers Devil Red with the added bonus of it being waterproof.

[J. John Harvey]

Denis Richard, I pulled out a bottle of Waterman Blue in French class one day and my prof nearly had a conniption! His reaction was, "Whoah! This brings back memories of school!" And he rambled on about 10 minutes about school and ink and whatnot.

 

Is it simply coincidence that the Waterman bottles are hexagonal? Like France, also known as L'Hexagone...? (or something like that)

[drifting]

  southpaw said:

Good review TNS.  Another true red IMHO is Noodlers/Swishers Devil Red with the added bonus of it being waterproof.

Thanks for the review TNS!

 

Southpaw, I'm surprised/disappointed you say the Devil Red is this bright - the few online swatches I've seen looked a bit dusky - I was hoping it was more like a waterproof Tienanmen. Ah well.

 

Ryan.

[Goodwhiskers]

  Armchop said:

:meow:

Hello all,

first posting but I've found this forum very useful. Thanks guys and gals. Just putting my money's worth in.

Over here in the UK we have a very poor choice of inks. Also even half decent fountain pens cost megabucks.

Anyway - as a high school teacher I've been looking for a good red tht is red for years.

Most I tried are transparent with no depth of colour at all.

I now use Waterman Red. It has a very bold red hue and it gives good colour saturation in several pens/nibs from fine to broad and wet to fairly dry writers.

Highly recommended.

Armchop, which red fountain pen inks have you found disappointing?

How does Waterman Red behave on "bad" paper?

Thanks,

[Chris]

Hi Armchop,

 

Welcome from another relative newcomer here and someone also in the UK.

 

I think you'll quickly find from this site that there are some good sources of different inks to try if your local stationers is a little stilted for choice.

 

I have bought ink from The Writing Desk and they have well over 100 different colours to pick from. If you get started on trying inks... it can be addictive.

 

Waterman red is good and is indeed a true bright red. But, when I filled a pen with a nicely wet, medium nib with it, I find the colour dries to a darker shade, with just a hint of almost black at the edges of the lines. It certainly looks different.

 

Still, it is the red for me and better IMO than Pelikan red.

 

I shouldn't be surprised that this ink looks different depending on the pen I use; a similar phenomenon occurs with many other inks too. Indeed, it is almost the norm, which is why we constantly chop and change to find the right combination of ink colour, pen and paper.

 

But we're not often completely satisfied

 

Chris

[Armchop]

:meow:

Hi Steve and all,

thanks for the welcome.

I've found that the Waterman Red for colour is fairly consistent across all pens and nibs I tried. When I do homework and coursework marking I get all kind of paper from students. I personally buy heavyweight lined exercise paper for my own notes and preparation and ts great. Students provide cheap stationery, thin lined paper and multifunction printer/photocopy paper of different weights. These are all fie so far with Waterman. So far I've found that the nib brand has a greater impact which is why I've got a box full of fountain pens I just get ticked off with.

I've poured away Parker Quink in both blue and red as I did not like the colour saturation.

In the UK for a long time only "posh" department stores sold fountain pens and in regular stores you the only would only get generic brands or Parker. Until recently we had no specialist writing stores that I was aware of. The only other professional red I tried was Mont Blanc Burgundy. I cant remeber why now but I was not really enamoured by it.

PS - Chris

I've found not greatly noticible darkening at all with the Waterman Red, with no black or additional hues in the colour.

 

Armchop

[Armchop]

:bonk:

Whoops,

Sorry all.

Everything I wrote was supposed to be in referral to SHEAFFER red not Waterman.

All comments remain same - just name change! I use do Waterman but blue-black and also Waterman Violet.

Armchop.

[Goodwhiskers]

  Armchop said:

:bonk: 

Whoops,

Sorry all.

Everything I wrote was supposed to be in referral to SHEAFFER red not Waterman.

That's OK . I've had days like that at work.

 

Armchop, we don't have a review of Sheaffer (Slovenian) Red here yet. Would you be willing to repackage your comments from your extensive experience with that ink into a "head post" for a new topic thread about that ink? Thanks for the Waterman Violet review, by the way .

Edited March 29, 2006 by Goodwhiskers

[Chris]

It is odd, I agree, but it happens with a new Cross pen that is a pretty wet writer and not with a Waterman that gives a much finer line and is a little dryer. Still, a best red ink and I only wonder whether it is resistant to light. So many reds fade (whether fabrics, cars or book covers) eventually.

 

Cheers,

Chris

 

oops, I've just seen your correction. As I've never used Sheaffer red, I can't comment on that ink.

Edited March 30, 2006 by Chris

[Armchop]

hi Steve,

I've already done a script for Shaaffer Red. Just need to scan it in.

Keep checking - I'll try to do it by next week.

Armchop

[rogerb]

  hatherton_wood said:

If you can find it the Quink Red seems very similar to the Waterman red. Its also a nice bright red colour. I got of bootle of Diamine Monaco red and its more orange than I expected. Has anubody else found that or is it just the bottle I have?

 

John

 

In my mostly wet pens, Monaco Red is more of a brown, like dried blood..... I tend to use it in brown pens, and in my Bexley 10th Anniversary Lime which has streaks of the same red-brown in the green.

 

I have been looking for a red like this....most are too watery, IMO....so I'll have to get some.