Inky T O D - Oh, The Places You'll Go, Or, Waypoints On The Inky Journey

[Noihvo]

[Arkanabar]

Even writing some 10-15 pages daily, KaB has not yet emptied his bottle of Tsuki-Yo. And he's been at it for nearly a year.

[Runnin_Ute]

Even writing some 10-15 pages daily, KaB has not yet emptied his bottle of Tsuki-Yo. And he's been at it for nearly a year.

And doesn't he have it in at least two pens most of the time?

[Flaxmoore]

Even writing some 10-15 pages daily, KaB has not yet emptied his bottle of Tsuki-Yo. And he's been at it for nearly a year.

Which is surprising. Just with a Metro, I was able to nearly kill a bottle of T-y in two months, not writing too much more.

[Arkanabar]

Thinking back, I believe he said that he consistently had a whole bunch of pens inked, including two filled with Tsuki-yo, and that he wrote ~15pp/day, apparently with all pens, not just the two using Tsuki-yo.

[BayesianPrior]

This is a brilliant topic - thank you Arkanabar.

 

As the victim of an obsessive and compulsive personality, I see myself in a the valedictory thread by betweenthelines. I have obsessed over inks to the point of [what anyone else would call] madness. And now, I have slowly begun to recognise that I have reached, if not the end, then a waypoint on my inky journey. I am starting to eliminate inks which I don't use...and this has become a compulsion. I find myself exclusively using inks which I don't like just to use them up! I need to stop this, as I am stripping any pleasure from my use of fountain pens in an effort not to waste the £3.50 I paid for that bottle of Waterman Havana Brown (which I loved when I thought Waterman was the only safe ink - and which I now hate because of the pinky-red undertones in a thin nib).

 

So where am I on my journey? I don't know where I am, but I know where I've been (and what I have left behind).

 

Day 0*.

Parker Quink Washable Blue, Waterman Brown, Waterman Black.

 

Day 1. You mean there's COLORS???!?!?!??

I discovered Diamine. Ochre, Teal, and Tyrian Purple, OH MY!

 

Day 2. My writing shall be preserved for EVAR!!

110ml bottle of ESSRI. Precipitate formed. Ink dumped. Fun while it lasted.

 

Day 3. Oooooh, sheeny!

Enter a 2.5ml sample of Sailor Yama Dori. Soooooo over that now. Although sheen can be used in a tie-break situation.

 

Day 4. I just want it to work!

Diamine Sargasso Sea. Smudging. Feathering.

ESSRI. Staining converters and ink windows.

Pelikan 4001 Blue-Black. Bad batch. Washed out grey.

 

Day 5. My writing shall be preserved for EVAR!! {redux} & Blackest Black EVAR!!

Knocked over a glass of water.

Sailor Kiwa Guro to the rescue.

 

Day 6. Quest for the perfect .

Pelikan M800 Grand Place arrived. Needed the perfect brown to match. Agony.

 

Day 7. Rest. Take Stock. Whittle down the collection.

 

* Biblical 'Days' as understood by those who accept a not-quite-literal interpretation of the Bible.

 

 

# # # #

 

So where am I now?

 

Black:

Sailor Kiwa Guro

Pelikan 4001 Black (actually Cross Black because it's the same ink but 1/2 the price)

 

Red:

Diamine Matador

Diamine Oxblood

 

Blue:

Sailor Jentle Blue

Waterman Florida Blue

 

Blue-Black:

Sailor Jentle Blue-Black

Sailor Sei Boku

 

Brown:

Diamine Macassar

J Herbin Lie de Thé

 

Green:

Sailor Miruai

Diamine Salamander

Edited October 26, 2016 by BayesianPrior

[amberleadavis]

Baysien, that's quite funny. Thank you.

[Noihvo]

This is a brilliant topic - thank you Arkanabar.

 

As the victim of an obsessive and compulsive personality, I see myself in a the valedictory thread by betweenthelines. I have obsessed over inks to the point of [what anyone else would call] madness. And now, I have slowly begun to recognise that I have reached, if not the end, then a waypoint on my inky journey. I am starting to eliminate inks which I don't use...and this has become a compulsion. I find myself exclusively using inks which I don't like just to use them up! I need to stop this, as I am stripping any pleasure from my use of fountain pens in an effort not to waste the £3.50 I paid for that bottle of Waterman Havana Brown (which I loved when I thought Waterman was the only safe ink - and which I now hate because of the pinky-red undertones in a thin nib).

 

[…]

 

 

[amberleadavis]

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[amberleadavis]

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[amberleadavis]

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[Muncle]

Great topic! Now had me thinking about it...

 

• You mean there's COLORS???!?!?!??

I will admit this atracted me at first. I tended to use a fair amount of colour in rollerballs and other pens. But I'm finding that colour has less and less importance. I've got my picks (see below) but I find it hard to use the colours on a regular basis.

• Blackest Black EVAR!!

Thought I'd want this! Sometimes its fun to see it happen. But I use Skrip black regularly, and another favourite is Dark MAtter, which has some subtlety to it. That being said, I have a bottle of Old Manhattan Blackest Black that I rotate between the other blacks. I know that no water-based ink is going to compare to a pigment-based black.

• Brightest Colors EVAR!!

Since I don't really draw or doodle, I find this never fell into this. I had a bottle of Dragon's Napalm that I thought I could use for marking, only for it to be passed for something more toned down. When I was editing my work, I got so distracted by the colour that I couldn't really focus on the text.

• My writing shall be preserved for EVAR!!

I use Kung Te Cheng for permanence when needed, or a Noodler's black-based ink (Zhivago, 54th) for special occasion signing, and ESSRI (with an eye on other IG inks). Unless its official, or important record-keeping, I don't care about permanence.

 

For a year, I had to keep an attendance register with blue ink, and blue ink only. The pen was supposed to be ballpoint for permanence. I argued, successfully, to use Upper Ganges Blue when I wrote a note out and then washed it in the sink with soapy water.

• I'm in love with !

Purple.

 

I started with green, but too many greens are not legible for long term use. I have two, Zhivago and GI Green. Looking to get Faber Castell Moss Green.

 

But purple? So many legible, beautiful colours! My stock in that arena keeps growing and growing. I can go from softer, subtle lavender shades, to the violets and the plums. When I gifted a pen, I included a bottle of Purple Wampaum. I could go forever with the purples available.

• Quest for the perfect .

But...but...but what happens when you find it? Then...then you stop trying?

Look at my blues and browns: I found a blue I like best (Visconti) and a brown (MB Toffee Brown, followed by Diamine Ancient Copper). While I have other bottles of these colours, I find it hard to justify buying more bottles when all I want to do is go back to these same bottles again.

• Oooooh, shady!

A plus if an ink has it. I have started writing with broader nibs in hopes to have such things happen. We will see. But most of my writing is quick notes, often with finer nibs that don't show off as much.

• Oooooh, sheeny!

I do not write on quality enough paper for sheen to happen. I have a bottle of the J Herbin 1670 red, and even with a wet flexible nib, dipped and painted on the paper, the sheen was barely visible. As part of my new swab library, I purchased some G. Lalo paper, and I can tell that this is a new property that I will get to explore!

• Oooooh, subtle!

Yep! This right here. I like some of the understated notes of inks. I look at gray inks with a renewed interest. My usual writing inks are all dark, but with different colours (brown, green) in them. I want the reader to need to take a second look to catch all the cool things that fountain pens can do. I also want to be able to admire my shopping list while in the middle of the store.

• I just want it to work!

Eh, I figure it out by trial and error. I don't have anything in my stable labeled "Do Not Use."

[Arkanabar]

The New Waypoints:

What You See Ain't What You Get: When you saw that review of the most amazing ink ever, you went and placed an order immediately! Now it has arrived, and you've inked the ideal pen with it, but it looks so much different from what you've seen!

This is a sad fact of both inks and of computer technology. There are a lot of variables which can throw off the appearance of a color -- your model of monitor and video card, the way they are tuned, the model and settings of the camera or scanner, the software used to process (and sometimes modify) the images, not to mention the way that lighting, paper, and pen (not to mention the writer) can affect the appearance of some inks. As Uncial says,

At best, what we see online is an approximation and we can only but hope that we end up with something interesting and satisfying. I do wish though that I had discovered this fact long, long ago and that I had been more thorough in looking at loads more reviews of the same ink rather than basing it off just one or two. That would have saved me a lot of dollar and a lot of disappointment.

 

His advice of looking at as many samples, swabs, and reviews as possible is prudent. Noodler's #41 Brown and Black Swan in Australian Roses have both been reformulated, with many people disappointed in the color changes that have resulted.

 

Danger, Will Robinson! We live in the Golden Age of Ink. But things change quickly. There's a series of Lamy feeds that were allegedly degraded by contact with certain Noodler's inks. Noodler's Baystate colors tend to react really badly with residue of more conventional inks. For a couple of years, many J. Herbin inks were very prone to Slime/Sludge/Stuff In The Bottle. Some inks dry up to a water-insoluble residue, or are hard to clean out. And Richard Binder has opined that most modern, highly saturated inks are not safe for use in vintage pens, particularly citing Noodler's and Private Reserve.

I actually have three pens where I concern myself about this. They are my Dad's black and lustraloy Parker "51", the burgundy Sheaffer Pen for Men II gifted to me by my late brother-in-law, and a Sheaffer Imperial TipDip gifted to me by my mother-in-law. Also, when I dumped a partial bottle of Waterman Florida Blue (or maybe some Skrip washable blue) into a partial bottle of Levenger Cobalt Blue, and it developed sediment and staining, I dumped that out, cos it was clearly unsafe. My Chesterfield Archival Vault IG ink stained everything I put it into, and developed sediment pretty quickly, ending my experiments with iron gall inks. And my wife let some of her Noodler's Bad Black Moccasin dry out in her Ivory Darkness Nib Creaper, and I am probably going to have to use an ultrasonic cleaner to get all the residue out. As a result, this is an ink I will only use in a pen where I can readily remove the feed for scrubbing with a toothbrush.

Oooooh, dat bottle! You've bought an ink you may not even care about specifically for its bottle. Points of interest include the reservoirs in the Montblanc shoe bottle and the old Skrip sidewell botttles, the tipping facets of the Pelikan 4001 and Waterman bottles, the really cool bead-and-stem reservoir in the P. W. Akkerman bottles, the plastic inserts in several makers' bottles (Levenger and Sailor, I think), the elegant, swooping curves of the Iroshizuku bottles, the perfume-bottle appearance of Pelikan's Edelstein line, or what have you.

The Blending Disease: You've given up on the inkmeisters. They will NEVER scratch the itch you now have, so you're going to do it yourself. Either you're trying various dilutions and combinations of the two inks closest to what you REALLY want, or you've downloaded the charts from the CMYK mixing thread to start, and you now potter about, using high precision pipettes and syringes to fill racks of sample vials with your attempts to get just exactly what it is you're looking for.

I'mma use up this ink if it kills me! You have this ink, and you don't like it, but you can't bring yourself to dump it out. You may be too poor, or too thrifty, or too OCD. There are ways of dealing with this beyond just writing with it. You can offer to share it when you meet with your Pen Posse. You can offer it as samples for exchange. And you can offer it as a PIF (which is how I got my Waterman Florida Blue, Waterman Purple, and Noodler's Red-Black).

This is me and Noodler's Red-Black. It's legible, has a strong waterproof component, and with a bit of dilution (I've added about a half-inch of well water to my bottle), works great and behaves well in my M200. But it's a burgundy, and I want a BROWN, dammit!

This is also why I'm mixing the boring bottle of Waterman Florida Blue (I really LIKE Noodler's Blue and Vmail Midway Blue) that I suspect is either concentrated or adulterated with the Noodler's Widow Maker that serves me no purpose whatsoever to make a functional purple; I've got something rather close to Noodler's Violet, which is good enough for now. And when that WFB is gone, I'm going to mix up an envelope of Blackstone Blue Cashmere and try to find a decent mix for it. Should I ever run out of Widow Maker, there's also a bottle of Rattler Red Eel. And I'll probably try to blend the Ku-Jaku that just doesn't do anything for me with the Borealis Black that feathers too much into blue-black before I go and actually try to choose The Essential Blue-Black.

And this also goes for every bottle of black ink I have right now -- the gold plastic tipping bottle of MontBlanc-Simplo Black with SuperCleaner SC21, the bottle of Quink Permanent Black with Solv-X that my Dad bought in the 80s (which two I've set aside for my Dad's "51" as absolutely safe blacks), the whole bottle of Noodler's Borealis Black that feathers too much, and the bottle of Noodler's Bad Black Moccasin that I dislike and mistrust so much that I now use it exclusively during the penitential seasons of Lent and Advent as a penance for my many sins. Like Noihvo says, the catharsis when you use up something you don't like and can move on to something you do is without equivalent.

 

My ink must match my pen! As Bayesian Prior notes above, this is a subset of Quest for the Perfect , but I have seen several threads by people wondering if this obsession is normal, or shared. There was a point where I wanted to do this -- a green pen for green ink, a brown pen for brown ink, and so on, but I got over it.

Edited December 4, 2016 by Arkanabar

[Noihvo]

 

[Bookman]

"Colors," for me, seem to have been a phase I went through. I've been through these phases—boxer shorts, sideburns, DIY home repair, Starbucks, etc. I was out there, I was in the game taking shots. It didn't last. When my brown inks ran out I didn't replace them. I've had the same bottle of Diamine Orange for five years. Two purples have attached themselves like barnacles to the back of the ink drawer. About a year ago I noticed my inks were starting to look alike, with a few exceptions. These days it's even more true. Most of them seem to be no more than one or two degrees of separation from either Aurora Blue or Visconti Blue.

Edited December 4, 2016 by Bookman

[inkstainedruth]

I like your new waypoints, Arkanabar! Lots of fun.

Okay, lessee:

What You See Ain't What You Get:

1) Iroshihzuku Kosumosu. Never got the pink to orange shading I was seeing, and in incandescent light it looks like overripe watermelon.

2) Noodler's 54th Massachusetts. Sample was a dark teal-leaning blue-black. Full bottle? Much lighter a color. I like it, but it was a bit of a shock.

Danger, Will Robinson!:

1) Well, yeah, Bay State Blue. I haven't had the "destroy sacs, feeds and whatever it comes in contact with" issue, because I use a dedicated pen (I'm pretty OCD when it comes to flushing pens, but even I'm not THAT OCD.... And I saw the pictures when someone decided to make the "perfect" blue-black using it and Noodler's Black. But staining? Oh yeah -- even Ink Nix didn't it completely off my hands....

2) Noodler's Whaleman's Sepia. People complain about Kung Te Cheng being so thick it's like paint. But at least it flows. Whaleman's Sepia? Millions of microscopic fingernails clinging to the inside of the ink chamber for dear life, afraid to come out.... It was like the ink had agoraphobia or something.

Oooooh, dat bottle!

1) Yup, pretty much any Akkerman ink is the top of the list (I think I currently have four colors). I have so much ink already, that I will probably never use it all even before the Akkerman bottles, but oh, those bottles . People say that they put other inks in them when they're empty -- but seriously? Unless the only ink you ever use is one color of Akkerman, how would it even be *possible*? And life's too short -- even if the color is Shocking Blue....

2) Iroshihzuku. The bottles *are* really pretty....

The Blending Disease:

Nope, haven't quite gotten there yet. But I keep thinking "If I put a drop of PR Avacado into the dregs of Diamine Kelly Green, can I salvage that and make the ink *legible*?"

I'mma use up this ink if it kills me!:

Well, I'd say Platinum Mix-Free Flame Red, but it would be a lie. I gave the bottle away. And the person I gave it to apparently then gave it away.... So....

1) The aforementioned Diamine Kelly Green....

2) Lamy Blue. Fortunately, it was only the cartridge that came with my Safari, so I could use it up quickly.... Boring, insipid blue.

3) Organics Studio Charles Darwin. Well, I *think* I used it up. Easy to do -- it spread and bled through everything, even in a pen with an EF nib. But it did dry super fast on the page....

My ink must match my pen!

Nope. Mostly, anyway. Okay, the M400 Brown Tortoise just seems to like brown inks although one of these days I'm going to shake things up and try Noodler's Navajo Turquoise in it. Just because. And the Silver Pearl Vac did really well with De Atramentis Tchaikowsky/Silver Grey. And I did put Noodler's Purple Heart in the Plum 51 at one point.....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[chromantic]

Ooh, ooh, me, me.

 

What you see - Yes, this is a problem and the best example of it I've found is the 14 reviews of Tsuki-yo. My most recent experience is Waterman Harmonious Green: ugly color AND a horrible bleeder on copy, it made me reluctant to try the Inspired Blue I'd also ordered. Fortunately Inspired is everything Harmonious wasn't - gorgeous color and as well-behaved as Skrip Turquoise.

ETA: Oops, forgot to say I ordered Harmonious after seeing a photo Vaibhav posted - it looked so pretty in the picture.

 

Danger - I've had fairly good luck but most of my pens are 'modern'. I have seen some bad nib crud where the ink ran dry in the pen, Oxblood and MB Golden Yellow, to name the worst offenders.

 

Bottle - C'mon, Pilot, put it in a Sailor-type bottle and charge $5 less.

 

Blending - Only tried it once. Was disappointed Grapefruit wasn't as dark red-orange as I was expecting so I mixed it with some Diamine Ruby and got a nice red (but not so much red-orange). Then I discovered that Grapefruit darkened to the beautiful red-orange on its own after sitting in the pen a few days.

 

Must use - Nope, life's too short to waste time on bad ink. Beautiful color won't excuse bad behavior.

 

Matching - Sure, if it works out and it's pretty easy to do in a general way but getting an exact match, ah, that can be tricky and is usually down to serendipity.

Edited December 5, 2016 by chromantic

[Muncle]

Danger Will Robinson:

 

I had a case of SITB with a bottle of J Herbin that carries over into a favoured pen, which then had to be completely taken apart, resacced and cleaned. I have been reluctant to buy from them again.

 

I never saw the Lamy/Noodler's problem before...but I have undertaken a large swabbing project, and my Lamy feed is broken right where the job slides on. I am not sure if this ink (especially since all it is is dipping) or stress from the cleaning. I don't have too much of an issue using modern inks in older pens, but then again I like older colours in older pens, so they rarely get paired up.

[Arkanabar]

The J. Herbin SITB issue was quite prevalent around 2012, right after they had to start using larger particles of dye in their manufacturing process. They've since worked out the issues caused thereby. There's a thread or two on that.

[amberleadavis]

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