Love/hate Diamine Eclipse, What's A Good Replacement?

[FountainPenCowgirl]

Oh, that's an interesting one... it seems a bit redder to me... maybe that's just the Goulet comparison tool

It's been a while since I tested Eclipse, but Ebony Purple is a staple for me. I believe that the bottled version definitely is redder. BUT (and I know it doesn't address the need here, but i find this interesting) the cartridge version probably would be a very close match. It's bluer to me than the bottled ink. Both are fantastic, by the way. I use both of them daily.

Edited June 7, 2014 by FountainPenCowgirl

[FriedIceCream]

I too find Eclipse on the drier side and was overall underwhelmed with it. It was one of the first bottled inks I ever ordered, and I was so jazzed about the color at the time I bought it But here I am 3 years later, the bottle is still about half full and I haven't filled from it since Idk when, the last time I used it at all was in a mix I was playing around with.

 

 

My everyday blue-black and all around favorite ink is Iroshizuku Shin-kai. It doesn't have the purple overtones of the Diamine Midnight, but its a very professional, very well behaved ink.

 

 

Thanks! I too use shin-kai and I have it in my daily carry 3776 right now. I love it. But yeah, not purple.

 

 

I'll third this, I love me some Shin-kai. If not my favorite ink definitely in my top 3. Love the color, a not too heavy on the black blue/black, and what a writer! Definitely not purple though.

 

 

I"d really consider adding a flow enhancer like glycerin before I changed an ink that I LOVE.

 

Where would one pick up some good 'ol glycerine at? What's is usual everyday purpose? I can't say that I've ever come across it in day to day life. And how much wetter of a flow are we talking here? I saw you mentioned a single drop, is that into the bottle? Stuffs that potent huh? This is an intriguing prospect for me, as there are many great shades I've had to leave behind because they just wrote too dry to keep up with some of my vintage flex pens.Oh, yeah that was my other question I wanted to ask, glycerine, safe for vintage pens and latex/silicone sacs?

 

Thanks a ton for the insight, I've really been enjoying stopping by the inks/reviews forums more often lately. Y'all are a fun bunch

[amberleadavis]

Hmm.... my last post would not work.

 

Glycerin is available at drug stores, grocery stores, craft stores ... it's just hiding.

 

First look in the section near candy making stuff --- I just did a google search and it is everywhere. It is also really cheap.

 

In the world beyond ink (if such a thing exists), glycerin is used in CANDY, SOAP, INK (oh that just slipped in), MAKEUP, COUGH SYRUP, LAXATIVES (it just slipped out), MOUTHWASH, TOOTHPASTE and Bio-Diesel production. In all glycerin is dang cool.

 

 

In food and beverages, glycerol serves as a humectant, solvent, and sweetener, and may help preserve foods. It is also used as filler in commercially prepared low-fat foods (e.g., cookies), and as a thickening agent in liqueurs. Glycerol and water are used to preserve certain types of leaves.^[6] As a sugar substitute, it has approximately 27 kilocaloriesper teaspoon (sugar has 20) and is 60% as sweet as sucrose. It does not feed the bacteria that form plaques and cause dental cavities. As afood additive, glycerol is labeled as E number E422. It is added to icing (frosting) to prevent it setting too hard.

[amberleadavis]

As near as I can tell, Glycerin is the key ingredient to potions.

[lapis]

To enhance flow and lubrication you can always simply add a drop or two (no more than 0.1 - 1.0% v/v or wt/wt) of any ordinary dishwater soap/fluid/detergent. That is much easier, faster and cheaper than trying to get a hold of glycerine. ( One drop = very roughly 1/20th of a milliliter, so that one drop per 50-ml bottle of ink = "0.1⁺ %").

 

Mike

Edited June 21, 2014 by lapis

[tonybelding]

Strange... I just got a bottle of Diamine Eclipse a few days ago, and I've found it to be remarkably wet and lubricating.

[napalm]

http://www.walgreens.com/store/c/fleet-children%27s-pedia-lax-liquid-glycerin-laxative-suppositories/ID=prod3946476-product

 

Works equally well for constipated pens.

[Jadie]

I was thinking it might make it lighter but, I'm sure with that little it wouldn't change it much.

 

It bothers me nobody else thinks it has a flow problem though. Maybe it just doesn't agree with the pen.

 

*raises hand*

 

It was chalky for me too when I tried it with my fine-nibbed pens! That's why I ended up giving it up...and replacing it with a cousin, Diamine Twilight.

 

Now that's an ink that's got some smooth moves. ^__^

[napalm]

Oh wow, this looks really close. I think this is exactly what I'm looking for. Of course the problem is getting it. For anyone looking, this is what the bottle looks like:

http://www.suramar.org/fpn/ink_of_witch.png

 

The official web page exists only in Japanese. The ink is roughly $21. Needless to say, it's sold out...

 

Diamine Grape with a wet nib.

[pgcauk]

I have this in my "future projects" list. A couple that I made note of alongside are Robert Oster's Charcoal (which is purple!) and Callifolio Cassia. Kobe Suma Purple gets good reviews, although probably a tad more colorful (?), and Kobe #51 also has a lot of fans (although more blue/black?).

Again, this is notes for future research, not experience, but it may goad someone into clarifying?

[DonM]

I hate to state the obvious, but have you tried flushing your pen really well with a pen flush or ammonia solution?

[inkstainedruth]

I have this in my "future projects" list. A couple that I made note of alongside are Robert Oster's Charcoal (which is purple!) and Callifolio Cassia. Kobe Suma Purple gets good reviews, although probably a tad more colorful (?), and Kobe #51 also has a lot of fans (although more blue/black?).

Again, this is notes for future research, not experience, but it may goad someone into clarifying?

 

Another one to take a look at (an ink that wasn't around when this thread started) would be maybe J Herbin Bleu des Profundeurs. It doesn't have the purple undertones, per se, that Eclipse does, but it is very dark (right now I have it in a finicky Snorkel with an EF nib and it behaves very well. When I was doing the review of the ink for myself, I was paying attention to which inks it looked close to, and while the closest match seemed to be Diamine Regency Blue, Eclipse was fairly close as well (R.O. Charcoal was just different enough to be noticeable, because BdP is definitely more blue).

Of course this thread is now reminding me that I haven't used Eclipse for a while.... Or PR Ebony Purple, for that matter....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Dmact]

To find glycerine, you can try walmart near the pharmacy (it's used as a skin moisturizer i believe), hobby lobby/michaels would also carry it either with candy making (in smaller bottles) or with soap making in larger bottles.

 

I find i have better luck using dishsoap. Glycerin seems to THICKEN my inks instead of thinning. So i have an small jar (1oz i think) of distilled water with 3 drops of liquid dish soap. When i get a dry writing ink, i bust out some 2dram jars i have (used to be cosmetic jars for those fancy $200 per drop eye creams) and tranfer some ink into one then add my soap mixture one drop at a time.

 

How do yall get glycerine to act as a surfectant? All i use it for is vape "juice" mixing o.O

[BaronWulfraed]

How do yall get glycerine to act as a surfectant? All i use it for is vape "juice" mixing o.O

 

I'd think it would act more as lubricant... Unless you've been titrating it with nitric acid

 

Trivia: a related compound is usable as an acid/base indicator for the pH range 11.5-13.0... 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (aka TNT)

[Misfit]

I haven't used Eclipse, but from what I've seen of it on here it looks like Bung Box Ink of the Witch. BB is not quite as wet as Iro, but it's fairly close.

+1

 

I got to try a pen my friend had filled with Ink of the Witch. It is very close to Eclipse, not identical but close.

 

Edited to add the author of The Well Appointed Desk blog recommended getting White Lightning from Vanness Pens. It helps the flow of inks. I will buy some eventually.

Edited August 1, 2019 by Misfit

[Eclipse157]

Diamine Eclipse is the perfect ink. All heretics will be purged in fire, their inks and pens taken from them and given out to the true believers.

 

Jokes aside, I totally fell in love with it because of both its colour and its wet, buttery smoothness... no idea why you are finding it on the dry side.

 

As far as substitutes of the one true ink go:

 

• Rohrer & Klingner Leipziger Schwarz, it's not as purple, more blue
• KWZ Warsaw Dreaming, also less purple and more blue

 

but Eclipse is pretty unique, I haven't seen anything like it.

[NeverTapOut]

Oh wow, this looks really close. I think this is exactly what I'm looking for. Of course the problem is getting it. For anyone looking, this is what the bottle looks like:

http://www.suramar.org/fpn/ink_of_witch.png

 

The official web page exists only in Japanese. The ink is roughly $21. Needless to say, it's sold out...

 

Terminal,

Have you looked at Kobe #32 Tamon Purple Gray. Out of a Fine or Extra Fine nib it looks black/purple as well...at least to me.

Regards,

David

[tonybelding]

I have revisited Diamine Eclipse and got a new bottle, and I have some things to add.

 

I wrote before that I found it wet and lubricating. Uhh… Now I'm not sure. The fresh bottle that I just got isn't like that. I already gave away what was left of the previous bottle, so I can't compare them side-by-side. I'm not sure if it has changed, or if I just never did properly analyze what I had before. I never used it really heavily.

 

This fresh bottle of Eclipse is on the dry side, and in particular it's really excellent at not bleeding through cheap paper. I did some testing on a Dollar General writing tablet, and Eclipse outperformed almost every other ink in terms of not bleeding through. (The only ones that matched it were pigment-based.) It even outperformed a couple of iron gall based inks, such as Montblanc Midnight Blue and R&K Salix. But Eclipse isn't IG; it's a non-permanent ink that should be quite low-maintenance.

 

When it comes to the subject of "love/hate Diamine Eclipse", I'm coming down on the love side. I've been looking for something just like this. I can put it in my vintage pens, I can put it into pens with rubber sacs, leave them inked without worry, and still be able to write on both sides of copy paper, write on both sides of my journal pages, etc. My vintage Sheaffers tend to be wet and super-smooth, which means they love a dry ink like this.

[Intensity]

Be careful adding surfactants: Pilot Iroshizuku inks may flow well but unfortunately also can feather even on good paper that doesnt feather with most of my other inks. Its especially prominent when an Iroshizuku ink sits in a pen for a while and concentrates. I can get bad feathering with, say, Iroshizuku Tsuki-Yo, that way on good Fabriano Bioprima, Kokuyo, or Nakabayashi Logical (non-air). Same with Kiri-Same, Fuyu-Syogun, etc. I now wonder if these inks are more alkaline due to the extra surfactants they contain for their liberal flow.

Edited January 20, 2020 by Intensity

[pgcauk]

I am very fond of Ink Studio #650, which has a dedicated pen and a backup bottle in my house. I don't have experience with Eclipse but Mountain Of Ink shows #650 as the closest match.

 

Hmmm... continuing; Grey-Violets towards Purple-Blacks are one of my favorite playgrounds. Kobe Inks #s 9 and 10 are both magnificent, but much more red than the #650 (#10 is like a much darker Vivaldi?). Taccia Ukiyo-e Aomurasaki is a curious blue-black edging violet - surprisingly close to Oster's Summer Storm, but strongly saturated.

 

Purple is interesting to me as, along with Green, it is one of the bridges between warm and cool colors. It is easy to find Grey-Purples, but Brown-Purples less so - Noodler's Nightshade is the only one I have met that doesn't fall fully into the Brown camp, but my bottle is smelly and unpleasant! If you can cope with a slow drying pigment ink, Kakimori Mukuri is a lovely Brown Purple, but I would keep it for dip-pens and give it a day to dry! Kobe #3 Kyukyoryuchi (what a great word!), is a flawlessly behaved very dark purplish brown.

 

Only the first paragraph was on topic, but I'm always happy to go further!