Black Swan In North African Violets

[Shawn Ghost]

Ok, few things. Sorry for the following, my poor handwriting, photography skills, spelling AND the fact that it's NOT Staples bagasse paper like I wrote down. I have so many darned notebooks that sometimes I just grab and assume This is plain ol' Mead 5 Star, hence the feathering.

 

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7162/6738003635_3beefc53af_z.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7145/6738003337_4e3bfb7459_z.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7166/6737987183_25e3b93564_z.jpg

[jsph]

shawn ghost: that looks neat. thanks for the pictures.

 

i see what you mean about the dark shading not being quite the same / as pronounced as when using heart of darkness. probably a property of bulletproof black vs heart of darkness... but i also wonder if your mix might look a bit different coming out of a flex nib. [i highly recommend noodler's flex / ahab pens, by the way, if you don't have one.]

 

thanks again for doing this experiment. north african violet is going to be my next ink purchase.

 

i'm also thinking of trying this with pilot/namiki blue -- see if it does any shading or if it just turns the whole blue darker with no shading. i wonder.

[Shawn Ghost]

shawn ghost: that looks neat. thanks for the pictures.

 

i see what you mean about the dark shading not being quite the same / as pronounced as when using heart of darkness. probably a property of bulletproof black vs heart of darkness... but i also wonder if your mix might look a bit different coming out of a flex nib. [i highly recommend noodler's flex / ahab pens, by the way, if you don't have one.]

 

thanks again for doing this experiment. north african violet is going to be my next ink purchase.

 

i'm also thinking of trying this with pilot/namiki blue -- see if it does any shading or if it just turns the whole blue darker with no shading. i wonder.

 

Glad it was helpful. I am definitely ordering an Ahab as SOON as the black version is available. I set an alert at Goulet's place(no affiliation) for that black Ahab so as soon as I see it, I'm all over it as well as ordering a couple non-flex nibs for it mentioned in a few posts.

 

I do like the original NAV color but the version with the bpblack WAS my new favorite ink. That is until I opened one of my bottles of MB Alfred Hitchcock just a few minutes ago. As far as affordable inks go, I may be mixing up a bit more of the one that I did. It is almost a passable purple-black that I could even use for school. As soon as I get the Ahab, I'll definitely re post new images of it.

[JimB]

Your test with BPB looks pretty comparable to my mix with HoD, which I bought just for this recipe! So I think I could have saved my money and just used the BPB I already owned, instead. Now I have WAY too much black ink.

 

BTW, I tried a 4:1 mix with PR Spearmint and HoD and get a similar effect of shading. I guess I could call it Black Swan in German Spearmint. (PR is made in Germany, I believe)

[JimB]

UPDATE:

 

WARNING of possible permanent staining. After deciding the clean the Ahab of this ink in preparation of replacing the old O-ring with the new double walled O-ring, I had a bit of a surprise. I emptied the ink into the bathroom sink while running water. The purple clung to areas of the sink. Would not wash out. It took bleach standing for a few minutes to remove it. The Ahab demonstrator was clearly stained purple, the chamber, the push rod, the collector in the section. After a soap and water cleaning and rinsing, I put it in an ultrasonic with J.B. Pen Flush.

 

The pen may be very clean, but it is still VERY purple. While it's okay, this being just a $20 pen that I plan on using for this recipe ink only anyway, I'd be wary of using it in another demonstrator that you might prize. Maybe the very special properties of the "vegi-plastic" of the Noodler's Ahab allows staining where other types of plastic might be unaffected, I don't know, but I did think it might be useful knowledge for anyone using this recipe and maybe plain North African Violet ink.

 

Despite all this, I love the recipe and the resulting color, and will keep making batches as long as I can. Or until I find another, better color! I'm fickle.

[raging.dragon]

UPDATE:

 

WARNING of possible permanent staining. After deciding the clean the Ahab of this ink in preparation of replacing the old O-ring with the new double walled O-ring, I had a bit of a surprise. I emptied the ink into the bathroom sink while running water. The purple clung to areas of the sink. Would not wash out. It took bleach standing for a few minutes to remove it. The Ahab demonstrator was clearly stained purple, the chamber, the push rod, the collector in the section. After a soap and water cleaning and rinsing, I put it in an ultrasonic with J.B. Pen Flush.

 

The pen may be very clean, but it is still VERY purple. While it's okay, this being just a $20 pen that I plan on using for this recipe ink only anyway, I'd be wary of using it in another demonstrator that you might prize. Maybe the very special properties of the "vegi-plastic" of the Noodler's Ahab allows staining where other types of plastic might be unaffected, I don't know, but I did think it might be useful knowledge for anyone using this recipe and maybe plain North African Violet ink.

 

Despite all this, I love the recipe and the resulting color, and will keep making batches as long as I can. Or until I find another, better color! I'm fickle.

 

I recall reading somewhere that NAV is closely related to another purple ink infamous for staining.

[JimB]

Hmmm... Right you are, raging dragon. I managed to find a very similar complaint in an ink review here. Still, it's an ink I can't let go. I'll deal with it.

[raging.dragon]

Hmmm... Right you are, raging dragon. I managed to find a very similar complaint in an ink review here. Still, it's an ink I can't let go. I'll deal with it.

 

NAV is a very nice looking purple, but I have a stock of DC Super Violet which I like just as much. As for staining inks - well that's what metal and black plastic pens are for, right?

Edited January 27, 2012 by raging.dragon

[JimB]

Hmmm... Right you are, raging dragon. I managed to find a very similar complaint in an ink review here. Still, it's an ink I can't let go. I'll deal with it.

 

NAV is a very nice looking purple, but I have a stock of DC Super Violet which I like just as much. As for staining inks - well that's what metal and black plastic pens are for, right?

Yep. And since I loaded my Ahab Demonstrator with BSiNAV, I have a pen that looks like no other Ahab in existence. A combo King Phillip Purple/Demonstrator. The ink still behaves well and doesn't dry out overnight, like some other highly saturated inks.

[Fabienne]

Well, I got a sample of NAViolets and HOD and went to work. How hard can this be? My Lamy Joy was the pen which was empty and seemed the most likely one for this and so I mixed the inks. It was not so easy to get HOD into the syringe, it is pretty opaque and so took time to calm down once sucked up. I waited and mixed. Fine. I shook it up and dunked in the pen and sucked it up. It really gets a lot of bubbles in it (probably a lot of surfactants) but the nib was soaked and so I thought to try it.

 

Dry writer. Very dry and got drier. I had to crank up the converter to wet the feed. Did this twice and I realized it was a dry writer in a Lamy Joy. Oh well. I finally gave up but when I took it out to drain it I realized that the pen body (white) had been very stained. My hands had it all over too! Gad. Out came the White Eraser pad and when I cleaned one thing, another popped up to be cleaned. Kind of a wild nightmare.

 

It seemed as if this combination turned into a living entity which leaped up on you and stained everything. Eeeeek! It is very pretty but what a hard thing to control!

[JimB]

I know the feeling! I love the ink but have only 2 pens I will use it in, a demo Ahab and a charcoal Lamy Safari.

[Nobody]

This is amazing. Can you tell me the red and black ink that you wrote "bsiar" in?

[raging.dragon]

This is amazing. Can you tell me the red and black ink that you wrote "bsiar" in?

 

It's Noodler's Black Swan In Australian Roses (for which BSIAR is an acronym)

[Nobody]

It's Noodler's Black Swan In Australian Roses (for which BSIAR is an acronym)

 

Thanks. I should have put it together with how many times I've read the reviews on it. I've just never seen it display colors like that until this thread. Makes me think the image is showing a lot darker than it appears.

Edited March 4, 2012 by Nobody

[raging.dragon]

It's Noodler's Black Swan In Australian Roses (for which BSIAR is an acronym)

 

Thanks. I should have put it together with how many times I've read the reviews on it. I've just never seen it display colors like that until this thread. Makes me think the image is showing a lot darker than it appears.

 

With BSIAR the black is much more prominent when it's used a flex nib.

[Fabienne]

I am going to try out your HOD experiment with PR DC Supershow Violet and see how it goes. I love the latter but would like to see it shade more. I have a very nice broad nib PURPLE Cross Solo which would be perfect for this. I hope it works. I wonder if adding just a touch of water would help the shading process along (inks which are too highly saturated and dark might not shade as nicely).

[JimB]

I've used HoD with PR Spearmint and got a pretty good shading green ink end product. Takes forever to dry, though. HoD seems to do a Black Swan number on all interesting colors. But I'm still too cautious to mix any with an iron gall. Not that would be a good idea shading wise anyway...

[Fabienne]

I tried HOD with PR DC Supershow Violet and didn't think the results were anywhere near as interesting as with North African Violet. The shading was not as pronounced and I like the darkness of the North African Violets mixture. Darn it, now I have had to buy North African Violet, too (as well as get a real bottle of HOD). Argh! But it is the color I want and it is lovely. Thank you for discovering it.

[JimB]

It's actually similar to R&K Scabiosa when that ink is fresh. Scabiosa gets way darker over time, however, since it's an iron gall ink. I have 2 Ahabs, one filled with BSiNAV and the other with Scabiosa. A line written using each within seconds of each other was amazingly similar to my eyes.

[CaptainGroovy]

I am new to mixing fountain pen inks for custom colors but in a past life am well versed on custom mixtures regardless of end product. One thing I have noticed is that most if not all people who are mixing their own custom ink colors are using liquid measurement be it Milliliters or Drops. From the casual point of view since we are dealing with liquids that would seem the best method of measurement. However in reality it is not, especial if you what to repeat your custom ink color again or if you would like to share that color recipe with someone else. The best method of measurement in my opinion for repeatably is by weight, the good thing is the day's of the triple balance are gone and for about 20 dollars you can buy a small accurate digital scale with a "Tare" function. It is important that the scale have a "Tare" function, as long as you remember to use it will save you lot's of additional subtraction and confusion. (explanation of Tare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tare_weight)

 

If you think about it when using a syringes that come with Platinum Mix-Free kit or Private Reserve, or pen retailers like Goulet's sell when we draw in X Milliliters the fact of the matter is that amount of we actually have in the syringe is X + or - mostly X + and that's fine as long as everybody uses the same make and model syringe additionally a the amount of liquid in a drop can vary from dropper to dropper and user to user but a scale never cares as long as it sitting on a sturdy table or counter and the air is still. I recommend that when using a scale put it in the same place every time and turn off any fans in the room (especial the one in the ceiling) and or cover the scale when weighing something (your ink) with a clear cover or dome.

 

 

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