Most Disappointing Ink Buy

[Chris]

Waterman Florida Blue - watery pale stuff

Pelikan Blue-Black - watery grey stuff

Waterman Blue-Black - like Pelikan but even more watery

Montblanc Racing Green - like pondwater

Quink - any colour - loved the smell of the old Quink but it misbehaved throughout my school life - skipped like a frog on a hotplate

Pelikan Red - watery orange

Aurora Blue - too red/purple

Diamine WES Imperial Blue - too red/purple

 

[dduran]

So far I'm unimpressed with Rouge Hematite. It's certainly a nice, bright red, and I needed that to mark up papers, but I see none of the celebrated shading.

 

Since no one addressed this-- I believe J. Herbin reformulated this ink to prevent feed clogging. Bad move IMO, because we're left with just a plain ol' red ink and a lot of people are expecting gold/green sheen. Double whammy..

Edited November 25, 2013 by dduran

[Quetzal]

Although I liked the colors of Noodlers Brown and BlueBlack inks, I threw all of it away after I found fine particulate deposits at the bottom of the bottles. I contacted Noodlers but they just discounted my concerns.

[Scrawler]

So far I'm unimpressed with Rouge Hematite. It's certainly a nice, bright red, and I needed that to mark up papers, but I see none of the celebrated shading.

I would not use RH for mark up. It is not the in your face red of say Nikita, which really stands out against anything. RH dries gummy if left in a fountain pen too long. I have found it more suitable for pretty work with flexible nibs. If you are not seeing shading then you must be using a nib too fine to see variations.

[Scrawler]

Although I liked the colors of Noodlers Brown and BlueBlack inks, I threw all of it away after I found fine particulate deposits at the bottom of the bottles. I contacted Noodlers but they just discounted my concerns.

What a dreadful waste of ink. You could have PiFed them.

[rochester21]

Diamine. The color is ok, but it seems few people notice that ink has more properties aside from the color

Edited November 25, 2013 by rochester21

[Sailor Kenshin]

What a dreadful waste of ink. You could have PiFed them.

Yeah...it was probably just sediment. Lots of inks throw some sediment.

[kiwiigirl]

Color wise i'd say Diamine Golden Brown, it offers a lot of shading but the color looks like it goes from diarrhea to vomit. Others seem to see a nice sepia color but I unfortunately was not one of them. Luckily I was able to trade it with someone on reddit for Diamine Red Dragon which I'm loving... hopefully they like the Golden Brown. I guess Private Reserve Shell Pink bothers me a little too, but I only have a sample which i'm grateful for. I was hoping it would be a nice soft pink, but when I see it all I can think of is all the crab and lobster that I can't eat since my family is allergic.

 

For just overall problems and sadness i'd say Private Reserve Tanzanite. It probably is my favorite all time color but I found gross sludgies in it and I believe it ruined my first pen since ink must have gotten stuck between the pen and the converter and after some neglect from moving cross-country the converter snapped in half and part is stuck in the pen

 

For bleed-through that would have to be Noodler's Zhivago. It isn't completely it's fault since I was using super thin paper but I had a bad experience with using i on a math test when I wrote the wrong formula and I had to completely scratch off all my work. I turned to the back to finish the test but the color was on the other side too! Some how I managed to find a tiny space to finish my work but I feel pretty bad for my professor!

[Scrawler]

Yeah...it was probably just sediment. Lots of inks throw some sediment.

Undoubtedly it was. I deal with it by turning the bottle over a few times. If it produces a lot of sediment I take it as a sign to dilute it a little.

[mhosea]

Undoubtedly it was. I deal with it by turning the bottle over a few times. If it produces a lot of sediment I take it as a sign to dilute it a little.

 

Does that really help? I added some water to my BBH and BBK bottles at some point, definitely producing a lower concentration of dye than before, and it didn't seem to me that it altered the behavior very much. I asked Nathan about it, and he explained that it was normal and that they should just be shaken occasionally. Where we have problems, I think, is people assuming that it is going to clog their pens. I don't think it ever will, personally. If flow stops, for me it always seems to be because of nib dryout (from being uncapped too long without writing or because of a poorly sealing cap) or ink getting hung up in the converter or something. I've yet to see any bulletproof ink clog a pen in a way that doesn't clear immediately with water. I moved last month and had a Jinhao filled with Heart of Darkness that I didn't touch for a couple of months at least. Its cap doesn't seal all that well. When I uncapped it, it wouldn't write, but I just forced a little ink through by twisting the converter, and it wrote normally. That's with the concentrated ink in the feed and no additional water. When I let the ink completely dry out in a pen as part of an experiment, it still produced no clog. People can worry about what they want, but me, I don't worry about clogs with Noodler's Inks.

[lahlahlaw]

Sailor Jentle Blue, only as far as the color is concerned though, it has a dark purplish hue.

[pajaro]

The only disappointing ink to me was Pelikan blue-black, bought in about 1983. It seemed so light and washed out that I never again bought Pelikan ink. I don't like writing ink colors that are not quite dark, so that I can read them. I'm not trying to paint pictures with my pens, but trying to write something to read back. So, all the lighter colors I avoid, and I found the Pelikan blue-black ink useless, it was so pale.

[Tas]

pajaro, I'm with you on Pelikan Blue Black. I bought a bottle on the strength of reviews and images online only to find that whatever pen I plonk it in fails to produce anything on paper like I saw prior to purchase. I now mix it up with all kinds of stuff to help it out.

 

Oh and Parker Blue Black, which goes down beautifully but turns into some kind of greeny mush after a few hours.

 

http://www.taskyprianou.com/me_tear.jpg

[pajaro]

The only thing that occurs to me about the Pelikan blue-black is that maybe the iron gall would cause it to eventually darken. I think someone did make that comment. I have no idea, and I think I discarded the ink after several tries with it. There are other blue-blacks that are nice and dark.

[TSherbs]

PR Fiesta Red. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Now dull.

[TLab3000]

Quite some of my favourite inks have been mentioned so far...

The worst one for me: Sheaffer Skrip Purple.The colour... I can't tell what's wrong with it. But I find it horrible.

Alternatives: J. Herbin Poussière de Lune, Kaweco Aubergine, Noodler's Purple Martin (not a big fan, though), Rohrer & Klingner Cassia or Scabosia.

[dcwaites]

I have noticed that the 'safer' inks do tend to be a bit light on in intensity and vibrancy. But that is a consequence of it being a safe ink. To get intense colour, the ink needs to be highly saturated, making it a high-maintenance ink.

 

I have recently found that the only ink that behaves well on the dreadful notebooks/diaries supplied at work are the Waterman inks. Yes, the colours aren't eye-searingly brilliant, but I do get to use my FPs at work.

 

The only ink I have poured down the drain was a couple of old bottles of Mont Blanc Blue-Black. The iron had all precipitated out, and had turned into a grey, muddy mess. It wasn't a problem because I had only bought them for the bottles, and had paid a bottle-only price. And I now have two nice shoe bottles with other inks in them.

 

Diamine Registrar's Ink was a mild disappointment, the colour wasn't as intense as I thought it might be, and it started to precipitate out as well. I gave it to a real registrar, complete with dip pen, for him to use in his work.

 

I bought a number of Diamine 30 ml bottles, and while I don't like some of the colours, that isn't a fault with the ink, it's just my colour sense (for further information, discuss my colour sense with my beloved...). However, whilst I found that neither Havasu Turquoise nor Majestic Blue appealed to me, a 5:1 blend was very nice. Obviously it appealed to others, because Diamine then released ASA Blue, which is almost identical. (And no, I am not claiming responsibility, just that it is a coincidence.)

 

The only ink that was a real disappointment in that it is unusable, is the afore-mentioned Everflo True Blue. The colour is muddy, and it bleeds and feathers like you wouldn't believe. I don't have a single ink that bleeds worse, including PR DC Supershow Blue, PR Tanzanite or Noodler's Kung Te-Cheng. I really don't know what to do, as I paid quite a lot for it, and I am reluctant to toss it. I keep on trying to find some combination of pen and ink that will make it work.

 

 

PS,

it seems that my spell-checker isn't a fan of Diamine, it offered me Dramamine as it's first choice...

[fpenluver]

For me it would be private reserve invincible black.

Like the colour.

Like the permanency.

But......

Can't find a pen to use it without trouble.

[Quetzal]

Regarding my issue with deposits in two of Noodlers inks:

 

I don't know what "PiFed" means.

 

After I had let the ink settle for a while, I gently poured the upper couple of ounces into another bottle, leaving the sludge in the original bottle. I did this three times. Nevertheless, the triple-purified ink still generated sludge.

 

By the way, I discovered the problem because I always transfer my ink to Nalgene 2 oz. or 1 oz. bottles. The deposits not only settled in the bottom of the bottle, but left a film on the Nalgene that did not rinse off. I had to rub it off. I took all of this as a bad sign. I would rather throw away a ten dollar bottle of ink than risk clogging an expensive pen.

Edited November 30, 2013 by Quetzal

[mhosea]

Nevertheless, the triple-purified ink still generated sludge.

 

 

Supposedly, the "sludge" is just super-concentrated normal ink due to the nature of the dyes. Left undisturbed, the bottom of the bottle becomes more concentrated and the top less concentrated. As I have said before, I'm not entirely convinced this is the whole explanation, but at least it would explain why you can't get away from the issue by decanting. I don't think this is a problem inside the pen because the pen gets moved around and inverted, especially a pocket pen.

 

The leaving a film issue is a different matter. I think some bulletproof inks do this and some don't. I don't like it, either, so I've moved away from the ones that do. However, I can't base that on a practical reason because after a lot of use when I popped out the nib and feed on my pens, it would still just be one layer on the nib (never saw anything on the feed, but maybe it was just harder to see). Consequently, I don't think the layer ever grows more layers.