Perfect Pen & Ink Combo

[Mob Mentality]

Do you ever find yourself in awe of a particular pen and ink combination? As if the ink was made for the pen and is the only thing that brings out its full potential. In my experience it's not a very common happen stance. Even rarer still is the perfect pen ink combo that seems to write well on just about any kind of paper.

 

For me I found this combination in a full size black aerometric Parker 51 made in Canada. After doing a full restoration the pen came out looking like new. Moving on to the ink. The ink is Private Reserve DC Super Show Blue. I have tons of ink both new and vintage but I had never tried Private Reserve. Let me tell you the two are perfect for each other. The pen has never written better. The color, shading, and saturation were perfect not to mention the exceptional ink flow.

 

I encourage you to describe your perfect pen ink combo that just seems to blow all your other pens out of the water.

[PAKMAN]

My favorite is a Pelikan M800 fine nib with Diamine Mediterranean Blue on Clairfontain paper!

[Erik Dalton]

My Montblanc 149 loves Visconti Blue. Becomes a totally different pen with that ink. It's the only stuff I put in it now.

Some pens really come to life when mated with the right ink. Pens are all different, like people.

 

If waterman serenity blue were only a little water resistant it would be the perfect ink....and so the search goes on...

[sandy101]

Lamy 2K with Diamine Velvet Blue.

[Namo]

Do you ever find yourself in awe of a particular pen and ink combination? As if the ink was made for the pen and is the only thing that brings out its full potential. In my experience it's not a very common happen stance. Even rarer still is the perfect pen ink combo that seems to write well on just about any kind of paper.

 

For me I found this combination in a full size black aerometric Parker 51 made in Canada. After doing a full restoration the pen came out looking like new. Moving on to the ink. The ink is Private Reserve DC Super Show Blue. I have tons of ink both new and vintage but I had never tried Private Reserve. Let me tell you the two are perfect for each other. The pen has never written better. The color, shading, and saturation were perfect not to mention the exceptional ink flow.

 

I encourage you to describe your perfect pen ink combo that just seems to blow all your other pens out of the water.

I write mainly with two pens, one of them being a Danitrio Densho with a vintage Pelikan nib unit. This is an awesome combination, but the result always was very ink sensitive. The best I was lucky to use was Parked Penman Sapphir. Now I am using PR DC Supershow blue. It works perfectly and I really like the color.

[Pichak]

I love my Delta Dolcevita, M nib with J. Herbin Amber.

[Mob Mentality]

Glad to see some interesting pen ink combos

[Arkanabar]

I've been using Noodler's Red-Black in my Pelikan M200 for almost a decade. The darned bottle is still 80% full. I diluted it to remedy smudging.

 

I have a Noodler's Nikita (the Indian ED predecessor to the Charlie, which in my case came with a bottle of Borealis Black) that actually does quite well with Bad Black Moccasin (an ink I generally distrust, which only goes in pens from which I can pull the feed for scrubbing with a toothbrush) diluted 1:1 with water.

[French]

Three of my favorites are the Danitrio Fellowship Pen, flexy xf nib with Iroshizoku Yama Guri ink and Noodler's clear Konrad, home ground stub with Noodler's Bad Blue Heron, and a Noodler's ebonite Konrad, stock nib, Baystate Concord Grape.

[senzen]

It took me a while to get to grips with the notion that some inks get along better with certain pens; a lovely surprise was a Sonnet with new nib and feed and R&K Verdigris, truly a perfect match even if it seems to evaporate rather more quickly than I'm used to. I also like the combination of black and gold LeMan 100 and M400 with Edelstein Mandarin and Fuyu Gaki, more for aesthetic reasons: stodgy pens, wild inks.

[Bo Bo Olson]

What do you want the nib to do?

What flex, or tip shape should it have?

 

Pure shading...a 'true' regular flex normally does more than the wetter semi-flex. The semi-flex has a bit more line variation. Has a lot more if oblique...in semi&maxi have it in oblique and true regular flex, semi-nail/nail don't.

Regular flex is a nice soft ride...compared to nail/semi-nail. I who use to be a semi-flex snob, have learned to appreciate it.

 

What sort of paper are you going to be working with? Slick like Clairefontaine Triomphe....or the less slick Clairefontaine 90g Veloute...?

 

A hammered? a Laid? a Linen? 100-50% cotton (May feel nice to write on but feathers too much) or 25% rag/cotton 80g Bond. Marbled?

 

How heavy a paper are you looking at? 90-100-110-120/125g....or heavy 150-160-170g?

 

I was looking just in Gmund in those weights...and they had 4-5 different papers...and beige, ivory, white with in those types of paper.

At that price...it took me three years of dithering to pick blank Beige 120 over the same in 170g. At E35-50 sheets no wonder....and 'the gmund original' is E35 for 35 sheets.

There must be 30-40 companies that make papers in that class...even some in the States. There are the hand made one's in Italy.....I might need a bank loan for 10 sheets.

 

I had thought I had the trick real Heavy Paper....150-170g....most are very, very good...but there is no paper that is perfect for all pens or inks. That 120g one beat it's 'twin' 170g one. That I hadn't expected. So much for Plan A.

 

Go to Ebay....plunder the neighborhood old folks.....Best paper...for shading....unfortunately one side only ...antique 16 pound Eaton's Corrasable 25% rag, Typewriter paper.

Typewriting paper is not made for back use. This is a great shading paper....as long as you know it is a champion bleeder.

I have an M&K typewriter paper also....don't have cotton/rag content but as typewriter paper is one sided....in the way typewriter paper is.

They didn't waste coating on typewriting paper's lesser side. The other two M&K papers are ok. Mail from Germany is cheap enough to mail across the pond (good to very good.... not great...as good as Southworth. ).....It's the Government abandoned and screwed over before being set adrift in the ocean with neither a paddle nor sail US Mail that is so super expensive.

 

Southworth is ok. Not perfect in it is a combo paper....laser and ink jet. Any combo like that is a compromise. Ink Jet must be absorbed fast....so pure laser should be better.

 

I've heard one of the three Fugi-Zerox beats any HP. I got to find out which and special order a ream...should last me a life time.

 

I really got to look at that ink that's heavy saturated and shades....I have one or the other. I forgot Noodler's Golden Brown...one of the top 5 slowest inks in the world for drying. One will get done with the second sheet before one can write on the back of the second sheet.

Noodler's Apache Sunset may be heavy saturated.....don't know. Looked it up....medium-heavy saturated most say. So it is possible ...

 

I've heard good things about....Private Reserve DC Super Show Blue...But costs too much to ship Across the Pond..if and when available (though I had thought it a old time seldom available ink) ..., will look for Visconti blue instead. And do have a couple Penmann Sapphire cartridges a fine poster sent me.

 

Still no exact copy of Penmann Sapphire. I went looking the other day...and in the crazy section, and after 20 pages of posts...and international conspiracy....they are still sitting where they were 7 years ago....close but no cigar.

 

I have an slightly dry, semi-flex OB Pelikan '50's 400 that is real nice with the light brown shading of Herbin Lie de Thee`.... Clairefontaine 90g Veloute....(is 1 ink and pen better than Oxford Optic 90g...either are wroth having.) (both spiral notebooks...easy to find in Europe)...the same paper as in Red&Black binders.

A nice 'true' regular flex would do just as well.

 

Yep, one can have slightly dry semi-flex. Besides that one, my Geha 725 was and is slightly dry. I bought Waterman blue for that pen...and it did the trick.

[Djehuty]

I don't have an answer anywhere near as complex as that... I only have two perfect or near-perfect pen-and-ink combos thus far:

 

Pelikan M805 and Visconti Blue. Simple, effective, feels right in the pen.

 

Parker "51" in Cedar Blue, with Organics Studio Blue Merle ink. I absolutely love the color of this pen, and the color of the ink, and the two are so close together the difference hardly matters.

 

I know, both are fairly boring. What can I say? I like blue.

[inkstainedruth]

I don't have an answer anywhere near as complex as that... I only have two perfect or near-perfect pen-and-ink combos thus far:

 

Pelikan M805 and Visconti Blue. Simple, effective, feels right in the pen.

 

Parker "51" in Cedar Blue, with Organics Studio Blue Merle ink. I absolutely love the color of this pen, and the color of the ink, and the two are so close together the difference hardly matters.

 

I know, both are fairly boring. What can I say? I like blue.

 

Which batch of Blue Merle do you have? I had a sample of the original formula, which I loved, but it was more of a grey-blue. Then I saw a more recent batch and it was different -- not the same color at all (a lot grayer, IIRC). I was very disappointed. But I don't think of either version being at all like the color of Cedar Blue....

Perfect pen/ink combos for me?

Noodler's Walnut in my M400 Brown Tortoise, F (but very juicy) nib -- the wetness of the pen is balanced by the dryness of the ink.

De Atramentis Tchaikowsky (Silver Grey) in the Parker Vacumatic Silver Pearl Major, F nib. I don't normally match ink colors to pen colors but this (and brown inks in the Brown Tortoise) but this was just begging to happen.

De Atramentis Red Roses in the Vacumatic Azure Blue Pearl Sub-Debutante, F nib. A beautiful magenta pink in broader nibs becomes more of a red violet here, but is very well behaved.

J Herbin Eclat de Saphir in the black Parker 61, M (I think) nib. The ink is wet enough and unsaturated enough to not cause problems in the capillary filler, and is a beautiful blue. I ran this for several months, just refilling as needed. Then for another few weeks diluted.

Waterman's Mysterious Blue in the Vacumatic Junior Red Shadow Wave. What can I say? Boring? But not, because the ink is so paper dependent -- anywhere from blue-black to teal blue to outright green. No water resistance at all, but I've run that combo since August of 2015, when I got the pen, and the ink is perfectly well-behaved otherwise, and I've had no issues.

Vintage Skrip Peacock Blue in a black Eversharp Symphony, F nib. I filled the pen by mistake (meaning to grab the just-restored Sheaffer Balance Oversize, and then forgot to bring it to last month's Steel City Nibs meeting. And I also didn't know whether the Eversharp was even in working condition.... Turns out it was. And that the nib is giving the ink even more shading than I remembered (although it might be that it's from a different bottle from the pint bottle I got a couple of summers ago). At any rate, it's making me very happy....

Skrip Purple in a blue (Aqua?) Sheaffer Snorkel Statesman, EF nib. The first ink that really worked well in that nib.

Quink Black in a Parker 45 with a 14K M nib. That nib has a pretty small sweet spot. But when you hit it? Oh MY! Like ice dancing on the page. I've tried several other inks in that pen and they just didn't quite match the experience. Even wet inks like some of the Iroshihzuku inks didn't give me the same reaction.

I probably have some other combos that work. I have a couple of composition books with 2 pages dedicated to each pen, noting which inks work in them (and which *don't* -- surprisingly, the Skrip Peacock did NOT work well in that EF nibbed Snorkel... ).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[pajaro]

Montblanc 144R in burgundy with Noodler's Nightshade. Sheaffer burgundy Touchdown Imperial with inlaid fine nib and Montblanc burgundy ink, topped with the 1996 Holly cap.

[max dog]

I like Waterman inspired blue in my waterman 52. Shades from a rich turquoise to a deep blue black. Nice ink for flex pens.

[AL01]

A sheaffer pen with skrip, a pilot pen with pilot ink (just kidding), an Esterbrook with Esterbrook cart- more like Lamy Blue-Black.

[Bookman]

I'm happily and continually amazed by how good Waterman Bleu Sérénité looks coming out of my Edison Collier, regardless of nib size (I use EF, F, and the 1.1 stub). Except for a day or two here and there with some change-of-pace ink, these two have been paired continuously for more than a year, usually in eyedropper mode.

Edited December 21, 2016 by Bookman

[Manalto]

For feel, nothing beats my 1940s Parker 51 Vacumatic fine (really!) with Aurora black. (butter/hot pan)

For looks, 1930s Parker Duofold medium with Waterman 'Inspired'. (I don't have a pen with a flex nib, so shading is subtle, but nevertheless beautiful.)

[paulmi603]

My favorite combo is Pilot Custom 74 (solid blue body with gold trim) loaded with noodlers blue ink on Clairefontaine paper.

[Bo Bo Olson]

For feel, nothing beats my 1940s Parker 51 Vacumatic fine (really!) with Aurora black. (butter/hot pan)

For looks, 1930s Parker Duofold medium with Waterman 'Inspired'. (I don't have a pen with a flex nib, so shading is subtle, but nevertheless beautiful.)

 

I have found that too flexible....too wet nibs don't shade as well as the old 'true' regular flex. Nibs like semi-flex are often too wet to shade well unless matched well with paper and ink.

Shading can also be the ink sitting on top of the paper as it partially dries, giving two tones with in a word.

It need not just be wider strokes of a nib, that is caused by tine spread....which is IMO more line variation than pure shading.

 

Superflex because of more tine spread is not always as wet as semi-flex. Again like always, paper, nib and ink must be matched. With a dry ink like ESSR, a nice paper, I can when I draw a fancy capitol L, with that full English mustache a wider flexed superflex nib can give you; have an outside darker lines and a lighter shade inside letter....and where the L loops across the wider developing down stroke, I get a very nice little outlined trapezoid.

 

There is more than one way to shade.