Dry Blue Inks?

[tonybelding]

I've gradually come to conclude that I need more dry inks for my vintage pens, which tend to be wet-and-smooth writers, and also because dry inks have a tendency to play better with cheap paper.

 

It seems like this is easy when selecting black or blue-black ink. There are a lot of dry ones out there. The best I've found for my purpose is Diamine Eclipse.

 

But blue, though… All the vivid and attractive blues that I tested were wet and bleedy. For example, Diamine Asa Blue is a great color but also quite wet. Iroshizuku Kon-Peki was only a little better. Can anybody offer suggestions for me to get samples and test?

[Tom Kellie]

I've gradually come to conclude that I need more dry inks for my vintage pens, which tend to be wet-and-smooth writers, and also because dry inks have a tendency to play better with cheap paper.

 

It seems like this is easy when selecting black or blue-black ink. There are a lot of dry ones out there. The best I've found for my purpose is Diamine Eclipse.

 

But blue, though… All the vivid and attractive blues that I tested were wet and bleedy. For example, Diamine Asa Blue is a great color but also quite wet. Iroshizuku Kon-Peki was only a little better. Can anybody offer suggestions for me to get samples and test?

 

~ tonybelding:

 

This topic interests me.

I'll look forward to the replies as I tend to like blue inks and inks on the dry side.

Thank you for asking this.

Tom K.

[inkstainedruth]

IIRC, both Diamine Kensington Blue and Diamine Presidential Blue were fairly dry. That made for great shading on the poor quality paper in the cheap Piccadilly sketch books I use to test inks, but I didn't like the dryness of either all that much.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[silverlifter]

Pelikan Edelestein Sapphire is a dry blue.

[carlos.q]

Take a look at these:

Pelikan 4001 Blue

Lamy Blue

R&K Salix

[tonybelding]

Take a look at these:

Pelikan 4001 Blue

Lamy Blue

R&K Salix

I've already tested a sample of Salix, and it performed very well. However, it's just barely "blue" at all. And I believe it's iron gall based, which is not ideal to me.

 

I tested a sample of Colorverse Saturn V, which also performed very well but is a really dark blue.

[Tom Kellie]

Pelikan Edelestein Sapphire is a dry blue.

 

~ silverlifter:

 

That's useful to know.

Thank you for mentioning that.

Tom K.

[aurore]

GvFC Cobalt Blue and Midnight Blue (which is technically a Blue-Black, but of a nice colour).
Aurora Blue - neither very dry, nor wet either.
Pelikan 4001 Turquoise.
Diamine Sapphire Blue is dryish (actually reminds Edelstein Saphhire but is cheaper and a lot nicer).

[tonybelding]

GvFC Cobalt Blue and Midnight Blue (which is technically a Blue-Black, but of a nice colour).

Aurora Blue - neither very dry, nor wet either.

That matches my test of Aurora Blue. It leans a little dry, bleeds less than your typical blue ink. I can't say that I'm crazy about the purple-ish color.

 

J. Herbin Bleu Myosotis also fared similarly in my test. Another purple-blue.

 

Waterman Mysterious Blue performed similarly and is actually a color that I like a lot. However, I'm a bit averse to that ink, because I've observed that it can fade with age. It's anti-archival!

 

Pelikan 4001 Turquoise.

Diamine Sapphire Blue is dryish (actually reminds Edelstein Saphhire but is cheaper and a lot nicer).

 

I tested Pelikan 4001 Turquoise, but I found my sample to be quite wet and penetrating.

[Tom Kellie]

GvFC Cobalt Blue and Midnight Blue (which is technically a Blue-Black, but of a nice colour).

Diamine Sapphire Blue is dryish (actually reminds Edelstein Saphhire but is cheaper and a lot nicer).

 

 

~ aurore:

 

Thank you for mentioning those two inks.

They both interest me.

Tom K.

[tonybelding]

I just got some new samples in today's mail, and I ran them through the same test as before.

 

Some have named Pelikan Edelstein Topaz as a dry-ish ink, but I really didn't find that. The sample I got was fairly wet. Monteverde Iced Cookie, Colorverse Rainy Day and Diamine Aurora Borealis performed similarly with quite a bit of bleed-through on the cheap paper.

 

Jacques Herbin Bleu de Minuit proved to be a super-saturated and super-wet ink that cut right through the paper and marked the sheet below.

 

The real surprise was Lamy Amazonite. I've never tried any Lamy ink before, but this is a pretty dry writer with no feathering and minimal bleed-through, and it's an attractive, bright teal-turquoise color.