Ink Explo Day!

[tonybelding]

Woohoo! Today is Ink Explo Day! I didn't plan it this way, it just sorta happened. I got a package from Goulet in the morning mail, followed by a completely unexpected one later (via UPS) from Dromgoole's store in Houston. What is this, my birthday? No… Did Christmas arrive early? I dunno.

 

I thought about writing up a huge sprawling report on all these inks, but then I thought it'll probably take some time to work my way through them, so maybe I should just start a thread and add a new post as I try out each ink or two.

 

The inks I got were:

• Private Reserve Invincible Black (new formula)
  
• De Atramentis Baked Apple
  
• Noodler's Texas Blue Bonnet
  
• Noodler's Texas Pecan
  
• Noodler's Texas Live Oak
  
• Noodler's Texas Black Bat
  
• Noodler's The Alamo's Twilight
  
• Noodler's Tanned Armadillo
  
• Noodler's Comanche Rouge
  
• Mont Blanc Alfred Hitchcock
  
• Mont Blanc Jonathan Swift
  
• Mont Blanc Carlo Collodi
  
• Mont Blanc Mahatma Gandhi
  

That's thirteen inks! I already had three of the Noodler's inks, so that still leaves TEN inks that are new to me. Also, this is the first time I've ever tried a De Atramentis ink, and it's nearly the first time I've had Mont Blanc ink. (Some while back another FPNer sent me a sample vial of MB Midnight Blue, which I liked a lot.)

 

The first two, that I got from Goulet, were the PR Invincible Black and DA Baked Apple, so those were the first ones I tested, and I can give you my impressions…

 

I still have a bottle of the old PR Invincible Black, but I knew it had been reformulated, and I had been curious for a while about whether PR had managed to ruin what has become my favorite black ink, and possibly favorite ink of all time. And the answer is, sadly, yes. They did manage to ruin it. I find the new PRIB is still very black, and very waterproof, and it does still dry very fast, and it's still very lubricated, but… Holy cow, it bleeds and feathers like mad! It even managed to put ugly marks all over the reverse side of the page in my old Habana notebook. Few inks ever manage to cut through that very dense premium paper. Not only that, but it has a lot of trouble starting when I first touch the pen to paper, and after a while it stopped flowing entirely in my Bexley America the Beautiful, which is one of my most dependable pens (and which worked wonderfully with the old PRIB). It seems that PR, I assume in the interest of saving some pennies, have manage to turn PRIB from my favorite ink into one I'm unlikely to ever use. Shame, shame! And now I'll have to undertake yet another search for a new favorite black ink. (I still hold Noodler's Black in high regard, but it can be slow to dry on premium paper, and it doesn't have the smoothness of old PRIB.)

 

I've never tried any De Atramentis ink before. I only knew that scented ink is their thing, which I was naturally skeptical of. I always thought of scent as a bit of a silly gimmick. As it happened, the Goulet website had a special deal on this "damaged" DA Baked Apple, and I had already been on the lookout for a new green ink, so I decided to give it a spin. The damage, in this case, was merely a few small specks of green ink which had gotten on the label. The bottle and the ink were just fine.

 

So, I was surprised. I like this ink. I really, really like this ink. It seems well behaved. A quick soak test showed it has some water resistance -- it should survive minor spills. The color is definitely green (more so than Herbin Verte Empire, for comparison) but not too vivid or harsh. And the scent… It's pleasant. Soothing, even. This just might be the best ink I've seen for creative writing. There's an urban myth, which may-or-may-not be based in science, that green color promotes creativity, and some writers make a point of using green ink for their poetry or prose. Furthermore, scent has a powerful influence on the unconscious mind. I suspect if anyone used this ink regularly, they could train themselves to associate the odor with their creative work, and it could help them slip into "writing mode" more quickly and easily. I may just give that a try.

[CAG_1787]

Sounds like lots of fun!

 

I have to admit that I share your initial skepticism of scented inks; it's interesting that this experience changed your mind so quickly.

[inkstainedruth]

Just for curiosity's sake: did the old formulation of PRIB stain and clog? I got a sample of it over the summer as part of a batch of different black inksfor a specific experiment using Preppy pens using the rollerball heads. If I don't use the one with the PRIB constantly, it clogs and I have to let it lie on its side for about a day (rather than "nib" up, the way I do with the rest of my pens). I was worried about being able to tell the two Preppies apart because they're the same color, but the difference between it and Noodler's Black -- the two samples I've tried so far -- is very obvious as far as what the behavior inside the pens are (how they behave on different papers, compared to a Uniball rollerball pen, as well as to the other samples, remains to be seen).

When I get the rollerball to actually work, PRIB gives a nice black line, but I haven't been all that impressed otherwise. I bought it in July, so I don't know whether it's new or old formula, but I am not sure I'd buy a whole bottle of it.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[tonybelding]

The old formula of PRIB didn't stain or clog. In the Bexley it was highly reliable. It did fail to flow once, but it was after extended cap-off time in painfully dry air, so that wasn't out of line really. The new sample is just awful. It creeps out of the nib slit, turns to a sort of paint-like black goo, and stops flowing after a very short time.

 

Now a couple more impressions on green ink...

 

I had a bottle of Noodler's Texas Live Oak before, and I hadn't been pleased with it, so I checked to see if today's bottle was from a newer batch. The old bottle was marked "1 of 301 issued" 2010, and the new bottle is marked 2011. However, a quick dip didn't reveal any apparent difference in its behavior. It's still a super-wet, super-bleedy ink. It soaks through paper much the way new PRIB does. It does dry extremely fast. If you were looking for a dark green, fully waterproof, fast-drying ink to use only on premium paper, this might be for you. If you want something for more normal usage, look elsewhere. It's a dark green with a slight blue-ish tint, and shows the chalky texture that we often see with bulletproof/eternal formulas.

 

And then I realized I had one more bottle of green, so I opened it next. It's Mont Blanc Jonathan Swift Seaweed Green. Immediately when I wrote my first word with this, it looked and felt great. It doesn't spread like Texas Live Oak, so there was an immediate feeling of precision instead of flabbiness. It's a bit like Noodler's Black in that regard, drawing a slightly finer stroke than most inks. I could actually get used to using a medium nib (instead of fine) with ink like this. The texture on the page is lovely. Also like Noodler's Black (and MB Midnight Blue) it is extremely resistant to bleeding through the page. I could easily write on both sides of cheap filler paper with this.

 

I've been critical of Mont Blanc in the past, they aren't my favorite brand, but I'll give credit where it's due. They definitely know how to make a fine ink.

 

As for the color... erm. It really does look like seaweed. It's a sort of dull brownish-green. I could get used to it, but it does seem unattractive in side-by-side comparison with DA Baked Apple. (Incidentally, MB JSSG leaves a faint stain after soaking with water, but it's less than Baked Apple.) So, I loved the writing characteristics of this ink, but I think I would still choose DA Baked Apple for my creative writing projects, as I mentioned before.

 

By the way, the Mont Blanc bottle and box were quite fancy, as one might expect from this brand. The box has some sort of plastic laminated onto the sides following the little printed strands of seaweed, giving it texture. I've wondered before what the guys at Pelikan were thinking when they spent so much money on hoity-toity bottles and boxes for their Edelstein ink. Now I know, they must have been trying to outdo Mont Blanc. It's just too bad that Pelikan didn't put the same effort into their ink formulation, and they ended up with mediocre ink in luxury boxes. (By the way, when I get to the end of all these inks I'll probably get some photos and scans and post them, but that's always time-consuming. So, it'll just have to wait.)

 

I think I'd better leave it there for tonight. More ink testing tomorrow!

[amberleadavis]

Exciting. Can't wait to see your results.

[tonybelding]

So, I've done the green inks. Let's dig into the browns now! Or at least theoretically brown…

 

First up is Noodler's Texas Pecan. This is another ink that I've had for a while, though I haven't used it much. I guess I was hoarding it, since I only had the one little 1-oz bottle. Now I have two!

 

This is another "bulletproof" and fully waterproof ink, and it has a lot of similarity to #41 Brown. Texas Pecan is a bit lighter and more "brown", and therefore better looking (to my eyes) than #41 Brown. It's on the wet side of things, but not crazy wet-and-bleedy like Live Oak or Tanned Armadillo (which I'll get to shortly). I did notice a wee bit of orange stuff settled in the bottom of the bottle, but no big deal.

 

I haven't ever tried a wide selection of brown inks, but of the ones I've used Texas Pecan is my favorite. It's the perfect shade: not too dull, not too vibrant, not too dark, not too light-and-orangey. It seems like one of the better behaved non-black bulletproof inks. This is one I feel like I could use on a regular basis without qualms.

 

The label has a picture of the White House flanked by (and dwarfed by) two enormous pecans. The little speech bubbles say, "Sent from Texas, Mr. President." and "Why send us nuts?!!" I think this is one of those labels that can be interpreted in multiple ways, depending on your political leanings. Great ink, anyhow.

 

The next "brown" ink I had to try was Noodler's Tanned Armadillo. As expected, it has an armadillo on the label, though I'm not sure what the connection is with this color. All the armadillos I've seen are gray. Peering into the glass, I thought a better name for this ink might have been "Brazos River Mud". The label also reads, "Houston To Dallas 2012". This ink came with a hand-written note (in ballpoint, all block letters, tch!) reading as follows:

 

THIS IS OUR NEW EXCLUSIVE INK FROM NOODLERS

FOR THE DALLAS PEN SHOW. THIS IS A ONE TIME

MIX AND CANNOT BE DONE AGAIN.

WARNING DO NOT MIX WITH OTHER INKS

O-kayyy… Actually, the note didn't specify which ink it was referring to, and it may have meant Comanche Rouge, which is also new. However, I'm pretty sure it meant Tanned Armadillo, if only because of the Houston-to-Dallas line on the label.

 

As soon as I inked the Vac 700 and scribbled a word, I knew that this was an ORANGE ink. Burnt orange, maybe. Not tan. I also quickly saw that its behavior is very similar to Texas Live Oak, super-wet-and-bleedy. When writing on cheap filler paper, it speckled the sheet below with orange dots. I just don't have any use for this, sorry.

 

My third "brown" ink is Mont Blanc Carlo Collodi Brown. (To my shame, I had to look up Carlo Collodi and find out he was the creator of Pinocchio.) This comes in a box and bottle very similar to the Jonathan Swift ink. When I inked the Vac 700 and started to write with this, my first impression was that it's almost the same color as Tanned Armadillo. This is not brown. This is burnt orange! Aside from the very similar colors, these inks are polar opposites, like night and day. Just like Jonathan Swift, this ink draws a finer stroke and does not soak through the paper. I can write on both sides of the filler paper, no problem. It looks and feels so much better than Tanned Armadillo, it's no contest. The only catch is that MB CCB is a washable ink. Whereas Tanned Armadillo is waterproof, hitting Carlo Collodi with water makes him vanish in a matter of seconds. Poof! He's gone.

 

Looking at all these orange inks does something to my eyes. I look back over to where I was writing with Texas Pecan, and it seems nearly black. I know that's not right. And now I must brace my eyes for even worse abuse, because I have one more orange ink to test…

[Uncle Red]

Sounds like you're having a good time Tony! You should try some more of the DeAtramentis inks. I got the Tobacco (which like yours was sold cheap because of stains on the bottle) and it's a great brown. I think I have more DeA inks than any other brand now?!

 

When are you going to try the Ghandi.

[inkstainedruth]

Pix! We want pix! Especially for the exclusives....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[tonybelding]

As it happens, Gandhi was up next...

 

Mont Blanc Mahatma Gandhi ink. This is an orange ink. This is blaze orange, like a hunter's vest. It puts orange in perspective -- now I'm not sure if I should call Tanned Armadillo or Carlo Collodi orange after all. Put them side-by-side and I can sort of see the (orange-ish) tan in Tanned Armadillo and the (orange-ish) brown in Carlo Collodi Brown. Mahatma Gandhi is just orange-ish orange. It's pretty light, although it does darken somewhat after it's dried for a few minutes. It's not light enough to be hard to read, it's not a highlighter ink.

 

Incidentally, the Gandhi ink was the only ink I got yesterday that came in a 60 ml bottle, that classic, long, MB bottle with the filling niche. The example I got was sort of beat-on, which I guess is why it was sent to me (although I didn't see any problems with the others), but once again the bottle and the ink inside seem to be in good shape.

 

So... Once again I'm impressed with the writing characteristics of MB ink. They seem to be very uniform, all delivering the same excellent experience and behavior on paper. (That's as compared with Noodler's which is all over the map; you never know what you're gonna get.) I don't know how I'm ever going to use 60 ml of this stuff -- it's not a color that I naturally tend to reach for often. Anybody who needs to mark up documents in an attention-getting way could really find this useful, I imagine. (I did find it to be another washable ink, as I suspected. The lightly colored MB inks seem to be washable, and the darker ones usually seem to have a permanent element.)

 

Then I started digging into the red inks. This was a relief after Ghandi.

 

Noodler's The Alamo's Twilight is an ink that's been around for a few years, but I had never tried before. It's a nice, general-purpose red, although not pure red, it has a slight tilt towards purple. It's pretty well behaved, as most of the conventional Noodler's tend to be. It's not waterproof, but I did find it somewhat water-resistant. The label has a great, lurid scene of battle with dawn breaking overhead, sprawling around three sides of the bottle.

 

Noodler's Comanche Rouge is another eye-searing ink. This one is a bright pink-ish or magenta-ish red that reminds me of Private Reserve Candy Apple Red -- a notorious problem ink that caused more havoc in its short lifespan (before it was pulled from the market) than Baystate Blue could ever dream of. Actually, if Comanche Rouge was sold as "Baystate Red", I think most people would find it perfectly fitting. This is another of those inks that leaves after-images floating in my eyes when I look away from the page. I also found it to be highly water resistant. The bad news is that it's another of those super-wet-and-bleedy inks that cuts right through filler paper. It does have an awesome label, though. It's got some Comanches on horseback chasing down some buffalo, and an inscription: "The Red River War, In Memoriam". Definitely one of the great ink labels.

 

Next I opened Mont Blanc Alfred Hitchcock Red. Wow! I think this was love at first sight. I usually favor dark-colored inks, and this is a dark blood red. Of the MB inks that I was sent, this one has the most immediately appealing color to me. This also came in a different bottle, a square 30 ml bottle with no label. You have to rely on the box to figure out what kind of ink it is. It does seem to have some modest water resistance as well (much like The Alamo's Twilight). I could tell you how this ink writes, but it's getting to be like a broken record. It writes like all the other MB inks. It doesn't bleed or feather, it feels good going on the page, it dries fast enough, it's all good.

 

INCIDENTALLY, my TWSBI Vac 700 has performed like a champ. The plunger filler makes it quick and easy to flush out. The plunger did get sticky and rough for a while, but I added a very tiny smear of silicone grease to the plunger rod and fixed it right up.

 

Just a couple more inks to go now...

[tonybelding]

Pix! We want pix! Especially for the exclusives....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

Pictures are coming, but it may have to wait for tomorrow before I can get my camera charged up and get some decent lighting conditions.

[Essensia]

You had me at "Tanned Armadillo." Thanks so much for sharing your impressions of all these inks, Tony. Quite a bonanza.

 

i agree 100% regarding MB and DeA inks. The MB pens I've tried have not been my cup of tea, but the inks are hard to beat in terms of behavior and reliability. If I were forced to choose only one brand of ink (and thank goodness I don't have to), it would be MB.

 

I also avoided DeA, thinking it must be subpar ink because of the gimmicks with the scents and re-labeling the same inks with the names of famous people. But quite the contrary. These are solid, reliable, well-behaved and consistent performers. The scents are light and never cloying, a fun addition to the whole experience.

 

I look forward to writing samples of your inksplosion.

[tonybelding]

Next up… Noodler's Texas Black Bat.

 

I think I read somewhere that this is actually the same thing as Noodler's X-feather, only relabeled for Dromgoole's. According to the label, "We eat Texas sized mosquitoes!!" and "Texas has the most bats -- and bats don't feather!" I've never had any X-feather before, so this was new to me anyhow.

 

Black Bat is definitely one of those blackety-black inks that looks like a bottomless pit on the page from which light cannot escape. As I understand, the theory behind this ink is that it's just like Noodler's Black, except even more resistant to bleeding and feathering even on the crummiest cheap paper. The price you pay is even longer drying times than Noodler's Black, which itself is not a particularly fast drying ink.

 

It just happens that I have some amazingly crummy cheap paper… right… here! It's a Top Flight notebook that I got from the local Alco store. According to the label it has "Heavyweight Paper -- 20 LB -- Superior Writing Surface". To be fair, the sheets are thicker than the other notebooks I saw on the shelf, and the pages are nicely white and the surface is smooth. It's probably nice to write on with a ballpoint or a gel pen, but… for fountain pens it's awful, simply awful. Every ink I tried spreads and bleeds through this paper. I tried Black Bat and… it spread and bled through the paper. (It did dry almost instantly, though!)

 

On the cheap filler paper, Black Bat performed well… but then so does regular Noodler's Black on that paper. So, that didn't reveal much new information. Time to shrug and move on to the next ink…

 

The final ink that I got was Texas Blue Bonnet. I don't want to write too much about this ink because I've posted about it many times in the past, including a full review. However, in a nutshell… TBB is my most conflicted ink of all time, as I keep wandering back and forth between adoring it and swearing I'll never use it again. It falls somewhere in the middle ground between blue and blue-black inks, with a subtle hint of green (or teal). It's a restrained and dignified color that should be acceptable just about anywhere. On medium-to-high quality paper it has beautiful shading. I love the look and the way it writes. However, it's a high-maintenance ink that leaves a blue film on nibs and feeds. I only use TBB in pens that allow me to easily strip down and sonic-clean the parts -- with a bit of ammonia to cut through the accumulated blue gunk.

 

That takes us through the entire list of new inks, but I thought just as a bonus I should drag out my sample vial of Mont Blanc Midnight Blue and take another look at it, especially in comparison with Texas Blue Bonnet.

 

I understand that Midnight Blue is supposed to be MB's officially permanent ink, and they warn it may require more frequent pen cleaning than their other inks. (I can't believe it's anywhere near as nasty as TBB, though!) It performs much like the other MB inks that I've described. Its water resistance varies a lot depending on the paper. On porous paper it's almost waterproof. On dense paper like a Rhodia pad much of the ink will wash out, but it does still leave a pretty well defined stain. The biggest shortcoming I see is that there isn't much "blue" in Midnight Blue. It's more of a slate gray, to my eyes. Although I understand that vibrant colors may not be appropriate in some settings, this is too gray for me, and it really fares poorly in comparison with Texas Blue Bonnet.

 

Also... I should mention that one of the O-ring packing seals in the TWSBI Vac 700 popped out, and I had a devil of a time getting it crammed back into position where it belongs. It's probably damaged, but I think it still seals. What's impressive is that the remaining O-rings had enough redundancy to keep the pen working, filling and not leaking. Lesson learned: keep the plunger rod lubricated!

 

Scans and photos to follow!

[tonybelding]

Scans! This is with the filler paper, not the really good stuff. I think it's more informative that way.

 

http://zobeid.zapto.org/image/pens/explo/filler_front.jpg

 

Here's a closeup view so you can get a better idea of texture: Explo Scan Closeup

 

And the reverse of the page...

 

http://zobeid.zapto.org/image/pens/explo/filler_back.jpg

 

 

INCIDENTALLY, I've pondered what's the best way to test for water resistance, and it seems a lot of people have widely varying ideas about this. Some of them want ink that will survive a brief spill, others want something that can go through the washing machine or come out of a flooded basement intact. When I posted my report finding that Liberty's Elysium wasn't waterproof, some people jumped on me because I soaked it for half an hour (roughly). They thought that was an extreme and unfair test. What they didn't realize is that I was trying my best to make LE look good! I figured the longer it soaked, the more Noodler's Blue would wash out and the better LE would look by comparison. Noodler's Blue turned out to be pretty stubborn stuff, though.

 

So... I've decided to go with a two-part test. First, spray the right half with water...

 

http://zobeid.zapto.org/image/pens/explo/filler_spray.jpg

 

Now it really does look like there was an explosion!

 

Next I soaked the entire sheet underwater for five minutes...

 

http://zobeid.zapto.org/image/pens/explo/filler_soaked.jpg

[CAG_1787]

Bye, bye Montblanc

 

Thanks for the pics!

[tonybelding]

And here are the photos...

 

http://zobeid.zapto.org/image/pens/explo/all_bottles.jpg

 

http://zobeid.zapto.org/image/pens/explo/exclusives.jpg

 

http://zobeid.zapto.org/image/pens/explo/tanned_armadillo.jpg

 

http://zobeid.zapto.org/image/pens/explo/comanche_rouge.jpg

 

http://zobeid.zapto.org/image/pens/explo/the_alamos_twilight.jpg

 

http://zobeid.zapto.org/image/pens/explo/jonathan_swift.jpg

 

http://zobeid.zapto.org/image/pens/explo/carlo_collodi.jpg

 

http://zobeid.zapto.org/image/pens/explo/mahatma_gandhi.jpg

 

http://zobeid.zapto.org/image/pens/explo/alfred_hitchcock.jpg

[Pelikan_FP]

Wow, what a bonanza of inks! This would have made my day trying all these inks. The packaging on the MB Alfred Hitchcock is nice! Thank you for doing this and the pictures are amazing.

[Essensia]

Great photos and writing samples! And the 2-step water test is very helpful.

 

I'm still tickled by the whole armadillo concept, regardless of the color or behavior of the ink. The Noodler's exclusives from Dromgoole's have some of my favorite label art.

 

Very surprised to see that Jonathan Swift survived a bit of a soak.

[ninobrn99]

Very nice review of the inks! I love the Hitchcock ink. It's a brilliant color. Great presentation and the pics came out great!!

 

Nino

[Uncle Red]

Thanks for the review and water test. I refused to fall in love with a limited edition ink but the Gandhi is weakening my resolve. I see what you mean about the Gandhi beside the Armadillo and Comanche.

[Octo]

 

 

The next "brown" ink I had to try was Noodler's Tanned Armadillo. As expected, it has an armadillo on the label, though I'm not sure what the connection is with this color. All the armadillos I've seen are gray. ... Burnt orange, maybe. Not tan.

 

Tanned Armadillo is waterproof.

 

 

Don't all tanned hides become orangish?

 

How does Comanche Rouge compare to Dragon's Napalm? They look similar on scans, but my Napalm changes color depending on the light source.