Inconsistency In Majestic Blue Ink Shade Between Pens

[tbzbbt]

I am using Diamine Majestic blue in cartridge from in a Kaweco Elite M nib and bottled ink in convertor in a Diplomat Aero M nib.

 

The thing is this: the Diplomat is consistently writing several shades darker than the Elite.

 

I've tried letting the ink dry in the Elite feed to concentrate with minimal impact.

 

I did a swab with the ink and the colour seems to be a lighter "diluted" shade of the same rich dark colour.

 

Any suggestions for what this could be? Is it dampness in the feed from when I cleaned (and dried) the Elite?

 

Its frustrating because the ink is not doing "exactly what it says on the tin"...

 

Any help appreciated

tbzbbt

[Chrissy]

Many factors could cause the effect that the ink from a pen with a cartridge and the ink from a pen with a converter does not look exactly the same, and it can happen with any ink rather than one specific ink.

 

When you clean out pens you might be leaving more water in one feed compared with the other, or one might dry out quicker.

 

Caps may fit and seal more tightly on some pen brands than others meaning ink does or does not dry out or concentrate as much with some pens as it does with others. Screw caps that fit tightly are less prone to allowing ink to dry out than others. Piston filling pens tend to take longer to dry out than converter filling or cartridge filling pens

 

Some pens need more cleaning time and effort than others so you can occasionally have traces of a previous ink in the internal feed or the end of the converter.

 

I haven't ever used a Diplomat Aero, nor a Kaweco Elite. However, I have several Kaweco Sport pens fitted with cartridges and converters. Their caps fit so well that they take much longer to dry out than most of my other C/C pens.

 

I can have Majestic Blue, Tchaikovsky, Sargasso Sea or Cornflower in a Bexley ATB or Parker Sonnet with converter and it can darken in a week. In a piston filler it stays lighter for longer.

 

Enjoy both of the different shades that it gives you in your two pens.

[jar]

Sounds absolutely normal.

[Torrilin]

Even before we get to ink darkening from evaporation... two nibs can visually write the same thickness of line with the same ink, but one applies a thicker bead of ink to the page. In general, the more ink, the darker it will appear.

 

Sandy1 often discusses elements of this in her ink reviews. Some inks are very flexible and give a lot of variety when you use different pens and papers. Others are much more consistent. If you want a very consistent look, a consistent ink will help. There’s always going to be some variation tho.

[senzen]

Yup, normal, if a little disconcerting, hence the need to match the pen to the ink. I have a really wet Platinum Cool and used Asa Gao for a while, only until I swapped it to a Pelikan m600 did its full (lighter) colour show through. Tsuyu Kusa was the reverse, it required a wetter Sailor Pro Gear to come into its own. Choose whichever you like most, the other pen will probably make another ink shine.

[dcwaites]

Yep, it happens with every ink and every pair of pens.

I have a pair of Jinhao X-750s, one with Parker Penman Sapphire and the other with Noodler's Liberty's Elysium. They both write absolutely identical lines in width and colour. Yet if I try a different pair of X-750s, the inks will look quite different.

I can write PPS in my Sailor 1911 Classic Large, and it looks absolutely delightful, with shading and sheening, and just the right magic blue colour. Yet, if I put PPS in my Pilot Custom 742, it looks bland and boring.

[TSherbs]

what they all said ^^^

[kpong11]

If you want to compare the ink color from different pen brands, why not use the cartridge in both pens?

[Colors_and_beads]

I've tried the same paper-pen-ink combination with different nibs (Rhodia paper, Lamy safari, Lamy dark lilac), and all nibs showed a different color. The nibs were all clean and dry, and I scribbled a bit to get the ink flowing.

 

It doesn't seem surprising that you have different results with different pens.

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BdaqMoXD-Qr/ for my test

[AidenMark]

I've tried the same paper-pen-ink combination with different nibs (Rhodia paper, Lamy safari, Lamy dark lilac), and all nibs showed a different color. The nibs were all clean and dry, and I scribbled a bit to get the ink flowing.

 

It doesn't seem surprising that you have different results with different pens.

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BdaqMoXD-Qr/ for my test.

 

 

 

 

Wow, that is a dramatic difference - even between same grade nibs in the same pen.

 

I've noticed changes in shade when the ink ages in the pen. I have a pen loaded with Diamine Damson that wrote a pale purple when originally inked. Now after a few weeks it writes a very dark line - near black.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Each company has it's very own standards to what a width is.

Back in the Day.....Parker made fatter nibs than Sheaffer, in either that was what their customers at the fabled Corner Pen Shoppe wanted (though years of market survey), or they had trained their customers to want that.

They did not make the same width as Sheaffer, in had they their customers could have made a tragic mistake....and bought a Sheaffer.

 

Company nib width also depends what ink the company makes or made. Pelikan makes a dry ink so has a wider wetter nib, to bring that to a golden middle. Waterman made a wetter ink, so had a narrower dryer nib....again meeting in the middle.

 

You are not using a Kaweco ink....so the nib and feed are not adjusted for a Diamine ink. (Kaweco inks are 'new' so I don't know if they used their old formula or a new one, and did or did not match the ink to their feed and nibs.) I would have thought they would have taken a day to see which formula worked or not.

 

With in tolerance/slop a skinny M can exactly = a fat F....exactly. When you have two different companies, overlap of tip width would be normal. The fatter writing darker.

 

Just before Sheaffer closed it's US factory, Ron Zorn went to it....and let us into the secret of tolerance.

 

""""Ron Zorn tolerance

Sheaffer used a dial indicator nib gauge for measuring nib sizes. The nib was inserted into the gauge, and the size read off of the dial. A given size being nibs that fell within a given range. What is listed below were the ranges given on a gauge that I saw in the Sheaffer service center prior to being closed in March 2008.

Measurements are in thousandths of an inch.

XXF = 0.010 - 0.013
XF = 0.013 - 0.018
F = 0.018 - 0.025
M = 0.025 - 0.031
Broad* = 0.031 - 0.050
Stub = 0.038 - 0.050

*there was some overlap on the gauge. May be 0.035 - 0.050.""""

 

Just because a nib says M means little, because of tolerance. Two different companies have different standards. So part of one's M tolerance could fall into another's F range.

 

And the 1.0, or what ever the 'new' attempt at a standardization that is offered will also have slop/tolerance......1.1-0.9 would be easily with in tolerance.

 

The only way to have your nibs all the same width as marked, is to pick just one nibmeister only and have him do all your nibs...........a different nibmeister would come up with a slightly different width.

(I don't see any real reason to do that.....but I'm not as OCD now as when I was 'noobie'.

I grew to know even with in the company, there will be half widths....much less across companies. Is it 'skinny'....good, is it 'middling'..good, is it 'broad'...good.

Take your pick hand grenades or horseshoes is as close as you are going to get with nib widths, unless you are rich and AR.

Then it depends on, flex of the nib, what paper, how hard you press when you write....and some say if the day is humid or not.

 

So I would think you have a Skinny M and a Fat M....so the fat M is going to put down more ink than the skinny M. =Darker.