Which Inks Are You Using Today?

[chromantic]

Inspired by dylim1 ^^, I used Cross Violet tonight at work.

[bayindirh]

Back to basics: Pelikan 4001 Royal Blue. An old bottle from my teenage years and evaporated slightly. A bit more saturated and wetter than your average 4001. Fun.

[DilettanteG]

Pelikan Edelstein Garnet in a Bordeaux MB146 with a medium nib

 

[kulnet]

I'm using Sailor California today

[Helen350]

Private Reserve Tanzanite

[ENewton]

Rohrer & Klingner Solferino and...Shaeffer Skrip Black, of all things.

 

I have never used a black fountain-pen ink but suddenly remembered yesterday that a former housemate left two Shaeffer school pens in a desk drawer. Not liking the idea of having inked pens languish in drawers, I decided to ascertain their condition and rehabilitate them if necessary. As it turns out, despite not having been used for three or four years, the pen containing a full cartridge of Shaeffer ink wrote as if it had last been used just hours before. The ink seems to feather on cheap paper and smear on Tomoe River, but perhaps that behavior is due to disuse.

[dan in montreal]

Hero 284 black, bought in Chinatown years ago for a song. It's very black and I have a feeling it's highly corrosive as it has a strong chemical odor. I only use it in expendable Chinese pens. Seems I don't have very many of those left.

[A Smug Dill]

Hero 232 iron-gall blue-black ink, which just arrived last week after being lost in the postal wilderness for over three months. For now, I'm going to try it in my "irreplaceable" Sailor Profit21 with a 21K gold Naginata Concord nib that I bought several years ago. So far, while I'm impressed with its water resistance, I don't see that much of a colour change within the time-frame for, say, completing an A5 page of writing compared to some other iron-gall inks. It has a noticeable chemical smell when refilling from the bottle, but not when writing; but I have 21K gold on my side, whereas I probably wouldn't trust the average (say) Jinhao nib to successfully resist potential corrosion by this ink over the medium-to-long term.

[I-am-not-really-here]

Caran D'Ache Divine Pink (cartridge) and Sailor Kin Mokusei.

[Helen350]

Dryden Designs Million Dollar Red

deAtramentis Alexander von Humboldt

[GardenWeasel]

Monteverde Olivine and Sailor Jentle Blue.

[inkstainedruth]

1) Robert Oster Carbon Fire, in the Vibrant Pink Lamy al-Star, 1.1 stub nib.

2) KWZI IG Blue #3, in the pink Parker Vector, F nib.

3) diluted De Atramentis Pearlescent Indian Blue (copper), in a black Parker Vector, IF nib (from the four nib unit calligraphy set.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Intensity]

GvFC Deep Sea Green in a Pelikan M101N Brown Tortoiseshell with a heavenly flexy medium-fine cursive italic nib. Beautiful combination.

Sailor Ink Studio #973 in a Sailor Pro Gear Classic with a fine nib

GvFC Olive Green in a Pilot Vanishing Point with a fine nib

Diamine Eau de Nil in a Pilot VP Decimo with an extra fine nib

Diamine Shimmertastic Enchanted Ocean in a Conklin Duragraph Merlot with a custom cursive italic fine nib

Lamy Petrol in Lamy 2000 EF ground to cursive italic

[kulnet]

Today I used Diamine Earl Grey and Robert Oster Ryde Green

[dennis_f]

I ran out of my go-to blue-blacks during the lockdown, so today I started a bottle of Graf von Faber Castell Midnight Blue (bought way back in the fall).

 

So far I'm liking it, but it's permanent and I'm a bit concerned that it might stain, so for now I'm trying it out in a refilled cartridge.

Edited June 23, 2020 by dennis_f

[Intensity]

It's not really "permanent" in the sense that Noodler's Bulletproof or pigment inks, or other "permanent" inks are. Feel free to use that ink without any worry about extra cleaning care. None of the GvFC inks I've tried are truly waterproof: they smear and wash off in copious amounts, leaving some ink behind as is typical for normal dye inks. They flush out easily.

 

As much as I like GvFC inks, I wish they wouldn't use the "indelible" description. It's pretty controversial to use such a term for those inks.

Edited June 23, 2020 by Intensity

[dennis_f]

It's not really "permanent" in the sense that Noodler's Bulletproof or pigment inks, or other "permanent" inks are. Feel free to use that ink without any worry about extra cleaning care. None of the GvFC inks I've tried are truly waterproof: they smear and wash off in copious amounts, leaving some ink behind as is typical for normal dye inks. They flush out easily.

 

As much as I like GvFC inks, I wish they wouldn't use the "indelible" description. It's pretty controversial to use such a term for those inks.

 

 

That's great. Thanks for the heads-up.

 

I thought I might have been being overly cautious, but I'd rather that than a stain.

[bayindirh]

 

As much as I like GvFC inks, I wish they wouldn't use the "indelible" description. It's pretty controversial to use such a term for those inks.

 

I got some GvFC cartridges recently to use when I feel lazy. They say that it's ISO12757-2 certified for document proofness. I don't think I can just write that to a bottle of water, it's a serious claim and they're German. They can't do it without proper testing.

 

Except Royal Blue, which is marketed as washable.

 

Edit: Fixed ISO standards number.

Edited June 23, 2020 by bayindirh

[A Smug Dill]

Just about any ink is "low maintenance" when you have a pen with a cap that seals the nib and feed effectively when u unused. Certain combinations I have never gave me any trouble:

• Pilot 'Hannya Shingyo' (which is nominally a ¥100,000 pen) with Platinum Carbon Black ink
• Pilot Custom Kaede — the only model in the Custom line that I've liked so far, having tried several) — with Diamine Cherry Sunburst ink, which is quite water resistant
• Rotring 400 with Noodler's X-Feather ink
• Platinum #3776 Century with just about any commercially available fountain pen ink
• Pelikan M2xx/M4xx/M6xx
• Aurora Ottantotto/Optima

even if I leave the pens inked, capped and undisturbed for weeks or even months on end. They write immediately when uncapped, with no hard starts, and don't seem to be particularly prone to nib crud forming, feed getting clogged, etc.

it's a serious claim and they're German. They can't do it without proper testing.

*cougVWh*

[bayindirh]

*cougVWh*

 

Honestly, I don't know how they managed to pull it off. I'm pretty used to EU politics for some reasons but, VW case is something beyond.

Edited June 23, 2020 by bayindirh