Rohrer & Klingner - Salix

[gmax]

Thanks Sandy - I'll hop across and take a look

[blazv]

Hello,

 

thank you, Sandy1 - your reviews are great. I have been using Salix quite a lot and as it ages on the paper it desaturates (the blue component fades?) and becomes greener and grayish. Has anyone else experienced that or is this just my climate/paper/random solar wind particles?

[Mercian]

This post is just my attempt to restore pictures to another review by Sandy1.

Sandy1’s reviews got me interested in iron-gall inks, and this ink - Rohrer & Klingner ‘Salix’ - was the first i-g ink that I bought.

Anyway, herebelow is her review, with her links to the photos in her photobucket account restored.

 

All credit for this review is owed to Sandy1.

 

Enjoy! 😊

———

 

Kindly adjust the brightness & contrast of your monitor to accurately depict this Gray Scale.

As the patches are neutral gray, the colour on your monitor should also be neutral.

Calibrate Mac LINK

 

Figure 1.

Grey Scale.

Figure 2.

Paper: HPJ1124 Laser Copy.

Swabs: Waterman Florida Blue. R&K Salix.

 

 

Nib-ism: LINK

Shows relative nib width & wetness

 

WRITTEN SAMPLES: Moby Dick

 

Note - Narrow Nibs: 

First two rows are 5mm in height; the last two rows are 8mm in height.

 

Figure 3.

Paper: HPJ1124 Laser Copy.

 

 

Figure 4.

Paper: Clairefontaine Triomphe.

 

 

Figure 5.

Paper: G Lalo, Verge de France, white:

white.

Figure 6.

Grocery List

Paper: Pulp - from a one-a-day cartoon calendar.

 

 

Figure 7.

'Happy'

Paper: Glossy card stock.

 

 

 

OTHER SAMPLES:

 

Figure 8.

Smear / Dry Time. Wet samples.

Paper: HPJ1124 Laser Copy.

 

GENERAL DESCRIPTION:

 

Type:

• Iron-gall fountain pen ink.

 

Daily writer?

• Oh yes baby.
• Will do incredibly well for those who prefer a dark blue or blue-black, and/or must use poor paper.

 

Other:

• Has visual weight commensurate with dark tone.
• This ink is known to be dry to the point of being 'dusty', but it performed with aplomb with all sampled pens and papers.
• This might be a 'Must Have' for anyone who uses MB Midnight Blue (née Blue-Black) and wants to lighten up, cut loose, and have some reckless fun while wearing a belt & braces.

 

USES:

 

Business:

• A good alternative to all dark blues and blue-blacks.
• Can be used without hesitation for internal and external correspondence.
• Posting and anything that requires tiny writing with very narrow nibs.
• Does well on glossy stock, so can be used for marginalia.
• Signatures.
• Not snappy enough and too dark for mark-up, editing, revision, correction, etc.

 

Illustrations / Graphics:

• Absolutely.
• In terms of colour, it will substitute for Dark Blue.
• Lack of feathering and the i-g tight clean lines supports its use for extremely narrow lines/labels in drawings/diagrams.
• Due to the shading, it is not a candidate when even tone is required. e.g. Large areas to be blocked-out, though cross-hatching will compensate.

 

Personal:

• Not quite.
• This is a bit too dark and not all that convivial. However, with suitable pen & paper, the ink generates sensual shading, so it cannot be dismissed outright as a personal ink.
• Also, with the unique look of i-g inks, (impossible to convey in a scan - I tried), it cannot be mistaken for a rollerball, gel, or some implement other than an FP.

 

Students:

• A very suitable ink: easy to read, durable, good for hand-written assignments, does well on poor paper. (Pay more for ink and save on paper; or save on ink and pay more for paper.)

 

 

PHYSICAL PERFORMANCE & CHARACTERISTICS:

 

Flow: 

• Widely considered to be dry / dusty.
• However, no problems were encountered while preparing the Written Samples. And this Review includes pens used in my other Reviews: this is not a set of cherry-picked ultra-wet writers.
• OK with all sampled nibs & feeds.

 

Nib Dry-out:

• Just a tiny bit after about 10 minutes uncapped: the dry-out is the nib tip - not the entire nib.

 

Start-up: 

• Good.

 

Lubrication: 

• Lean, but adequate. (Similar to Herbin.)
• A little more would be welcome on the hard textured G Lalo.
• Typical of an i-g ink.

 

Nib Creep: 

• None.

 

Staining: 

• Not noticed in the short term.

 

Clogging: 

• Unlikely.

 

Bleed Through: 

• Not on any of the papers.

 

Show Through:

• Both sides of paper may be used without a problem.

 

Smell: 

• Very faint.
• Reminiscent of green (unroasted) walnut meat.

 

Hand oil sensitivity: 

• Not noticed.

 

Archival: 

• Likely.

 

Water Resistance: (Figure 😎

• Excellent.

 

Smear Results: (Figure 😎

• Dry within 10 seconds.

 

Bulletproof: 

• Not claimed.

 

Clean Up: 

• Quick & thorough with plain water. 🙂
• *One should cleanse pens completely, including the innards of the cap.
• Looks boring in the wash, so bring a crossword, or do some journal jotting.
• As with other inks, I flush and cleanse a pen after use. I-G inks are not of the sort to let dry-out in a neglected pen. However, other practitioners have reported that pens inked with i-g ink start right up after not being used for months on end. Not I; use 'em then clean 'em.

 

Mixing:

• No stated prohibitions / limitations, but from personal experience do not mix with Sailor nano inks: the likelihood of a precipitate / sludge forming is very real.
• I have used this ink to bring the ultra-wet Private Reserve 'Tanzanite' into normal wetness range. I dubbed that mix as 'Tarzanite': the mix is mostly Tanzanite but is strengthened and made less flabby by the Salix. Also a mix of MBMB I dubbed SalixX that makes Salix a bit darker and improves flow.

 

THE LOOK:

 

As mentioned above, i-g inks have a different look to them than purely dye-based inks. The i-g inks seem to reside slightly behind the plane of the writing surface; and Salix, with it's light-dark shading, almost seems to make 'ripples' on the page as it goes above and below the plane of the page. Very unusual. 

 

Saturation:

• Has good density.
• A wet-ish writer may be used to suppress shading, without inducing feathering.
• Saturation LINK

 

Shading: 

• Almost in-your-face, but not distracting.
• Shading LINK
• Shading LINK
• Shading LINK

 

Feathering: 

 

• None noticed
• N.B. As this ink is highly unlikely to feather or bleed through, a wet writer may be used.
• Tight line LINK
• Ink pool LINK

 

Variance depending on pen+nib combos used: 

• Maintains 'The Look' across the sampled pens & papers.
• Even with the narrow nibs, the shading is visible. Carumba!

 

FIDELITY:

 

Is colour name appropriate / accurate? 

• No idea.
• Name is unlikely to be a by-product of Happy Hour libations.

 

PAPERS:

 

Lovely papers: 

• This ink should look good on all white papers.
• Could overcome paper with optical brighteners.

 

Trip-wire papers:

• Can't think of one.

 

Tinted Papers: 

• The shading generated could provide the opportunity to generate a two-colour impression: Salix where saturation is high; and a mix of Salix and the tint of the paper where ink saturation is low. I think the G Lalo Ivory is too yellow/warm for this, but perhaps a buff or pale brown paper for an 'antique' look.

 

Is high-end paper 'worth it'? 

• Very much a Dealer's Choice:
• Salix is going to do what it does pretty much without regard for the paper. However, good paper does allow Salix to do its thing more easily and consistently.
• Also, due to the lean lubrication, a very smooth paper may be preferred by some practitioners.

 

OTHER THAN INK:

 

Presentation : 

• 50 ml. bottle.

 

Country of origin: 

• Germany.

 

Container:

• A very simple cylindrical brown-tinted glass bottle, 40 mm diameter and 78 mm tall.
• The centred round opening is an adequate 22 mm.
• The text on the label is in four European languages.
• The hard white plastic screw cap has adequate grippy nodes, and is easy to grasp. Note: I heard the plastic lid was replaced by a metal cap.
• The cap is not child-proof.
• The cap seal is 'foam' plastic.
• Single tank, no filling aids, no sediment collector. Another Tsk!
• The label obscures the ink level / surface. No fun for snorkel fillers.

 

Box: 

• Pleasantly absent.

 

Eco-Green: 

• Bonus Points for not using a box

 

Availability: 

• Various on-line outlets

 

ETC:

 

Majik:

• The high degree of shading, and tight lines provides the basis for conjuring.

 

Personal Pen & Paper Pick:

• Tough one, so I'll pick two: the C74 + SFM nib on the HPJ1124; and the Notorious Pink Safari + B nib in a body stocking on the Triomphe.
• Runner-up: Skyline + F nib on the Lalo: an unexpected and impressive performance of a narrow nib on a hard textured paper.

 

Yickity Yackity:

• A tour-de-force from an ink that I've used mostly for special purposes, and not so often for general writing.
• Was this an 'ugly ducking' / black swan ink?
• This is definitely moving forward on the ink shelf.
• Ah kushbaby, not your colour, but you can make the stretch ...

 

I=+o+=I=+-+=I=+o+=I=+-+=I=+O+=I=+-+=I=+o+=I=+-+=I=+o+=I

 

MATERIEL USED:

 

These pen+nib combos:

For Written Samples:

A. Esterbrook J + 9550 steel Posting XF.

B. *Eversharp Skyline + 14K firm F.

C. Pilot Custom 74 + SFM

D.Waterman Carene + 18K M

E. The Notorious Pink Safari + steel B nib + body stocking.

F. Sailor Demonstrator + 14K MS nib.

(The underlined letters A-F are links to pics of the pens.)
 

For lines & labels: 

• Pilot Plumix + steel XF nib; inked with Visconti Bordeaux.

 

On these papers:

• HPJ1124 24 lb. Laser Copy.
• Clairefontaine Triomphe.
• G Lalo 'Verge de France', White
• Pulp - One-a-day cartoon calendar page: Esterbrook J + XF.
• Glossy card stock: Sailor + MS.

 

NOTES: 

To be relevant to the most members, I make an effort to use papers, pens & nibs that are readily available, for which I paid $100 or less, and are 'factory stock' - not customised. 

If I use something outside of my guidelines, it will be ID-ed with an asterix to denote a *Dealer's Choice.

 

Scans were made on an Epson V600 scanner; factory defaults were accepted. 

Figures shown were scanned at 150 dpi & 24 bit colour. 

Images linked were scanned at 300 dpi & 24 bit colour. 

Scans were not adjusted other than cropping and straightening using iPhoto on a MacBook, but most went straight to the file sharing thingy.

 

Scanner Densitometer Readings were generated from the 'N' in 'Ink Review' in Figure 2: Red 33; Green 134; Blue 210; Luminosity 129.

 

 

-30-

————————————————————————————————————————————

The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

 

———

All credit for all of the above is owed to to Sandy1.

 

Slàinte,
M.

[Mercian]

And now, here is my ‘restoration’ of Sandy1’s post in this thread from February 2012, to show her later scans of ‘Salix’.

 

———

Hi,

 

To support ad hoc comparison of inks of similar colour, I have revisited Salix to add more samples. These samples use much the same layout, papers, pens and imaging method as the current reviews. 

 

As always, should one feel that a separate Post or Topic is required to depict a certain aspect of an ink, your PM will be welcomed. While new scans can be accommodated in due course, creation of even more new written material is unlikely.

 

-=-

 

Smear/Dry Times & Wet Tests ☂

 

Written Samples - Moby Dick

Ruling: 8mm.

 

Paper: HPJ1124.

 

Paper: Rhodia.

 

Paper: Staples 20lb.

 

HiRes Scans: 

 

440 on HPJ1124

 

PPP on Rhodia:

 

Comments:

• Results are consistent with prior samples.
• The sample on Staples 20lb. is new. There is no feathering, or bleed- show-through with that paper. 

= = = =

 

NUTS & BOLTS

 

Pens:

• Sheaffer 440 + steel F nib.
• Platinum President Purist + 22K B nib.
• Waterman Carene + 18K factory stock Stub.

Paper:

• HPJ1124 24lb. Laser Copy
• Rhodia
• Staples 20.lb multi-use

 

Imaging:

• Scans were made on an Epson V600 scanner; factory defaults were accepted. 
• Figures shown were scanned at 200 dpi & 24 bit colour.
• HiRes Images linked were scanned at 300 dpi & 24 bit colour. 
• Scans were not adjusted post-production, other than dumb-down by Photobouquet and IP.Board s/w.

 

Edited February 23, 2012 by Sandy1

 

The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

 

——-

The scans in this post seem, to my eye, to better-represent the colour of ‘Salix’.

Of the iron-gall blue-black inks that I have used, ‘Salix’ is the one that remains the most ‘blue’ after it has ‘cured’ - e.g. Pelikan 4001 Blue-black dries to a darker colour than does ‘Salix’.
As such, ‘Salix’ is a really good showcase for the unique shading capabilities of iron-gall inks.

This quality is presumably due to ‘Salix’ having a relatively low amount if iron salts in it. Which property also reduces its lightfastness.

Anyway, I love it!

 

Slàinte,
M.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Thank you yet again for rising the dead.

I have so missed being able to look at her posts when thinking about buying a 'new' ink (there are lots and lots of older inks she reviewed, that I still don't have) ...or pointing out what nib width on different good to better papers  makes such a big difference.