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

[MoriartyR]

All I want is one ink that I really like for each colour that I use. So one black, one blue-black, one blue, one grey, one green, one greyish purple. Then I would know without effort which ink was in which pen and I wouldn’t have to flush my pens every refill.

 

I guess my journey was a quest for the perfect, six times over. Or, rather than a quest for the perfect, I suspect it was a quest for my inks - like an extension of my personality or some such nonsense. Or perhaps I mean a quest for the inks that I find most soothing and harmonious - just as nonsensical. Whatever it was, they are my inks.

 

For what it’s worth, these are:

Black - GvFC Carbon Black

Blue-Black - GvFC Midnight Blue

Blue - Diamine Prussian Blue

Grey - Diamine Graphite

Green - Aurora 100th Anniversary Green (don’t worry about the “anniversary” thing, I bought loads)

Greyish Purple - Caran d’Ache Ultra Violet

 

In reality, even though I have an ink of each colour that I am happy with, I have and I use more inks than that. This is certainly a bad thing, but I can’t help it. I tell myself that, this time, I would like a slightly different shade for a change or for my mood, or I would like a wetter/drier ink for the particular pen. I am sure the nuances in shade are not noticeable to anyone who might read it, but for some reason I still can’t rid myself of this urge. I just try to limit the number of alternative inks that I have.

 

I suppose I should split my pens between ones I use only for my inks and ones I can use with others. That would save effort. At least I stopped buying new inks. I have more than enough choices and they’re all good ones to me.

 

When I was a kid I just had Quink Blue and Quink Black, and writing with a fountain pen gave me a lot of pleasure. I think that was better, on the whole, though it may just be nostalgia for the halcyon days when life was simple, the grass was greener, the sky bluer, and the future stretched forever. I recently bought myself a bottle of Quink Permanent Blue for purely nostalgic reasons and it’s as good as anything else. Not sure it’s the same, though, as it doesn’t smell the way I remember.

 

[twigletzone]

I'm somewhere between "There's COLOURS?" and "I just want it to work". My current frustration is I seem to have a knack for buying pens that write very wet (Waterman Carene, I'm looking at you, and I have a Pelikan M200 on the way), but the ink brand I love most is Diamine, who do splooshy. About to order some Graf von F-C Cobalt Blue to feed to the Carene in the attempt to sort its ideas out...

I'd love to be able to get shading and all that fancy jazz but at the moment I've got no idea how to marry up a pen and ink to get the right amount of ink onto the paper... is there such a thing as a dry-writing B nib?

[Arkanabar]

[inkstainedruth]

6 hours ago, twigletzone said:

I'm somewhere between "There's COLOURS?" and "I just want it to work". My current frustration is I seem to have a knack for buying pens that write very wet (Waterman Carene, I'm looking at you, and I have a Pelikan M200 on the way), but the ink brand I love most is Diamine, who do splooshy. About to order some Graf von F-C Cobalt Blue to feed to the Carene in the attempt to sort its ideas out...

I'd love to be able to get shading and all that fancy jazz but at the moment I've got no idea how to marry up a pen and ink to get the right amount of ink onto the paper... is there such a thing as a dry-writing B nib?

Can't think of one offhand, but then, I don't have a lot of pens that have B nibs.  

But don't lump all Diamine inks in the same boat -- some of them are pretty dry (and I don't just mean Registrar'st Blue-Black).  Off the top of my head, I think of Presidential Blue as being on the pretty dry side.  I'd suggest that you look for reviews that show an ink giving a lot of shading on the page.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[MoriartyR]

2 hours ago, Arkanabar said:

Hey, how nice to get a handwritten reply. Thanks, man.

 

Yeah, you can tell from my choices that I favour slightly chalky, muted colours. I like that they make me feel calm and relaxed, but they are all easy to read and have enough character and distinctiveness to be interesting.

 

 

[vtgt]

I got fed up of seeing that when my pages got spots of water on, the ink dissolved literally like chromotography. So now I'm exploring lighter & water-resistant inks I never would have considered at the start. Originally I was unimpressed with Noodler's inks as the swatches looked typically desaturated. Then I saw a note about the water resistant ones looking  chalky in pens that weren't wet enough and acquired some samples to try. I was impressed with Fox Red which is the most permanent red red I could find. Not red-black or one of those feebly pale permanent reds manufacturers tried to pass off as red. The semi-resistant Concord Grape I wasn't so impressed by as I got flow issues with it though it's quite an attractive colour, and my sample test of Kung Te Cheng made me realise it's not really intended for fountain pens.

Noodler's inks are nothing like as compatible as Diamine or as cheap where I am and they're a bit of a minefield, but there's nothing like getting random water on your pages to realise what a precarious state your efforts are so I only acquire inks that aren't water resistant if I just MUST have the colour.

[inkstainedruth]

Yeah, Kung Te Cheng is something of a problem child ink (most recently I've been using a Noodler's Charlie eyedropper, and the next time the ink goes into rotation I'm going to try and see how I does with either a drop of Photo-Flo or a drop of Van Ness's White Lightning additive (and possibly put it in two different Charlie pens and then swap batches with the additive for the next fill of each pen).  But I also would not ever want to be without it, because it's nigh on "everything proof".  Plus, I have yet to find ANY ink that gives me that color -- everything else I've tried is too purple or too dark blue.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Arkanabar]

vtgt:  Noodler's has three inks in their Baystate line, which use ingredients that are highly incompatible with conventional inks, and mixes result in a horrible sludge.  These are the famous BSB, and the far less well known Baystate Concord Grape and Baystate Cape Cod Cranberry.  Pens should be cleaned with a thoroughness that is beyond all reason (okay, maybe I exaggerate, but much more than required by other inks) before switching to any other kind of ink. 

 

While they are largely waterproof when dry, Baystate inks are rather fugitive in light.

[vtgt]

I got on with Baystate Blue okay though poorer flow with Grape and the lack of lightfastness made me lose interest with Cranberry too. It made me look into the more red-leaning Socrates as an alternative to Grape, and the more pink-leaning Rachmaninoff as an alternative to Cranberry. Looking up special bulletproof series inks also got me interested in a light blue like Britannia's Blue Waves, but people complain that the flow is bad which again is something that tends to take the joy out of fountain pen writing. It's weird that Noodler's made Monkey Hanger blue which is quite similar but the polar opposite in terms of flow. I like vibrant light blues like Organics Studio Copper Turquoise, but I avoid inks that dissolve on the touch of water now.

[Inkshades]

I feel like I should write where I’m currently at for posterity since I’ve only been using fountain pens for less than two months and currently only have three colours: LAMY blue, LAMY black, and Waterman Tender Purple. They’re all in 50ml bottles and I’ve promised myself I’ll try to finish at least one of them before I buy more in smaller bottles so I can try more variety without feeling guilty about not finishing them. Reduce and then reuse and all that.

 

I just want more colours, simply writing in purple instead of the “basic” colours cheers me up. So far I find LAMY black unremarkable but perfectly serviceable, the blue far too washed out for my taste and Tender Purple is currently my favourite although I’m frustrated in that for some reason the colour doesn’t seem to stay stable for the whole converter and seems to become lighter the longer I write with it, even with enough ink still left.

 

I’d say future me will probably want to find a perfect blue, get more colours and get some noticeable shading going, that was always my favourite part of writing using a Pilot V-ball or G2 (any dupes for the blue and black in those would be appreciated). I’ve always had a preference for liquid ink and seeing how it flows from the pen as I write and changes colours as it dries is fascinating to me.

[ENewton]

54 minutes ago, Inkshades said:

Tender Purple is currently my favourite although I’m frustrated in that for some reason the colour doesn’t seem to stay stable for the whole converter and seems to become lighter the longer I write with it, even with enough ink still left.

 

 

The phenomenon you are describing doesn't sound like a characteristic of the ink.  I use Waterman Tender Purple quite a bit and have never had it get lighter and lighter over time.  What pen are you using, and do your other inks behave differently in the same pen? 

[Inkshades]

1 minute ago, ENewton said:

<snip>

What pen are you using, and do your other inks behave differently in the same pen? 

I’ve only tried it in two different Parker IMs where I haven’t used other colour of ink yet. Maybe I just didn’t wait enough for the converter to dry and there were some rogue water drops inside? Or the pen and ink combo is somehow really reactive to ambient humidity, since I live near the sea. I’ll experiment some more when I finish my currently inked pens to see if it was a one off issue.

[This name was free.]

I started my fountain pen journey just this week with the arrival of the Platinum #3776 (medium nib). The first thing I noticed was that the cartridge that came with it made the nib produce ugly light blue (and too broad) lines on whatever paper I tried. Today, my Sailor Sou-boku arrived, I instantly trashed the cartridge and filled the converter: Thin dark lines - perfect!

 

Fascinating for me - but boring for most of you, I guess.

[inkstainedruth]

Nope, not at all boring.  You have to learn what ink colors you like (or not) -- and also what inks do well in which pens.  And posting about it gives other people a heads up as to what might work for them as well.

One of my favorite vintage inks is the old Skrip Peacock (I lucked into a 3/4 full pint bottle a few years ago last an antiques mall a couple of hours north-east of where I live).  It does NOT do well in the Sheaffer Snorkel with the EF nib. AT ALL  -- even though they're from roughly the same era.  That pen, however, really likes modern Skrip Purple.  Whereas the Snorkel with the semi-flex stub palladium silver Triumph nib?  Oh, just an exquisite pairing of pen and ink....  

Go figure.  And of course you have to factor in the third leg -- the paper....

Half the fun is finding pens and inks that do well together (I'm also rather a fan of Souboku, as well -- but was underwhelmed by Kiwa-guro, and suspect I'd dislike Sei-boku simply because it's lighter and more teal).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[This name was free.]

5 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

You have to learn what ink colors you like (or not)

I grew up with Pelikan's royal blue school inks in Pelikan's cheap blue school fountain pens... never again I will like watery blue colors! 😂

 

5 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

And of course you have to factor in the third leg -- the paper....

I found the combination of Sailor's nano-pigment ink with the Platinum pen to write rather well on both cheap laser printer paper and a recycled college block. I hope that the day I buy expensive paper just to have something to write on will never come...

 

It is confusing that Sailor's ink performs better in Platinum's pens than Platinum's own ink though. However, that might as well be related to the nano-pigment stuff.

Edited January 20, 2021 by This name was free.

[inkstainedruth]

13 minutes ago, This name was free. said:

I grew up with Pelikan's royal blue school inks in Pelikan's cheap blue school fountain pens... never again I will like watery blue colors! 😂

 

I hear you there.  I have to remind myself that when I have Ron Zorn repair any of my pens to ask to test them with 4001 Brilliant Black (which is his "wild and crazy" ink  -- he'll tell you that himself) instead of 4001 Royal Blue which is his standard for ALL pens -- and not just for pens he's repairing either.  Ron is in my local pen club and a couple of years ago at a meeting was passing around some pen for people to try.  And without thinking I said "What's the ink?"  And Ron gave me a look, and I was like, "Oh, right -- it's YOU....  Of course I know what the ink in it is... Duh...." 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[This name was free.]

I agree that, when compared to Sleepy ("Royal") Blue, black is wild and crazy ... 😂

[RJS]

The first post is spot on. I tried a bit of everything, before coming to the conclusion that the ink I happened to use almost exclusively for decades- Pilot Blue Black- was still the ink I liked the best by far. I definitely chose an expensive way of finding that out. 😁

 

Now I use a variety of inks at all times, but usually with a favourite to match each pen.

[arcfide]

2 hours ago, This name was free. said:

I started my fountain pen journey just this week with the arrival of the Platinum #3776 (medium nib). The first thing I noticed was that the cartridge that came with it made the nib produce ugly light blue (and too broad) lines on whatever paper I tried. Today, my Sailor Sou-boku arrived, I instantly trashed the cartridge and filled the converter: Thin dark lines - perfect!

 

Fascinating for me - but boring for most of you, I guess.

 

It's funny that you mention the Platinum blue. It's almost certainly Platinum's Blue Black ink, and I'm actually in the opposite boat to you! I'm currently kind of lamenting that I can't find another ink that I like as much as the Platinum Blue Black in terms of color and properties in combination. Actually, I'm annoyed enough about this that I'm going to write my own topic on it! LOL

 

 

[This name was free.]

I can warmly recommend the Sailor blue-black inks. Well, one of them yet.  

 

As it turns out in your new thread, my tongue-in-cheek suggestion was not as good as I hoped.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure that the Platinum cartridge is not black at all - only blue. Maybe they have different blues.

Edited January 21, 2021 by This name was free.