EFNIR: Pilot Black

[LizEF]

Extra Fine Nib Ink Review: Pilot Black

This is review #168 in my series.  Here's the YouTube video:

Post-recording notes: Sorry for the strange audio (in the video) - there was a strange high pitched oscillation coming from somewhere, but I couldn't identify the source. Cleaning was quick and easy. The shading in the zoom image was not visible to my eyes. The absence of color is represented quite well in all images... Extra images include a closeup of the water test and three microscope images.

The new "line width" image was taken at 100x and is one of the lines used to test dry time. The scale marked 330µm is divided into 33µm increments (so the line width is roughly 330µm). The grid is 100µm square.

The microscope "smear" images are ink on slides at 100x (lint in the first smear accidentally added...). The smears were hard to focus - it's as if the ink stayed quite thick on the slide - in the second, I added a slip cover in an attempt to flatten it out, but it still seemed to be quite thick, so I picked a "layer" and focused there. I'm sure I'll learn with more experience. Also note that the smears were done pre-calibration, so the 100µm scales are wrong - they probably represent closer to 300µm.

And here is a screen of the final result, for those not interested in the video:

Scan of Completed Review:

Zoomed in photo:

Absorbent Paper Closeup (top is puzzle paper like thick newsprint, bottom is old 20lb copy paper):

Line width measured via microscope at 100x:

Water test results:

Smear 1 at 100x:

Smear 2 at 100x:

Images also available on Instagram: @zilxodarap

Previous Review: 3Oysters I.COLOR.U Doldam.

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Need to catch up on The Adventures of Quin and Makhabesh?  Find the whole story here.

Hope you enjoy.  Comments appreciated!

[arcfide]

If there's one thing that Pilot seems to have a pretty good reputation for, it's having some pretty good dye-based black inks (I'm thinking of their Pilot Precise V* line, Take-sumi, Pilot/Namiki Black, and so forth). Did you notice any of the gloss or sheen that sometimes accompanies Sailor Jentle Black, or is this a flatter matte like Herbin Perle Noir? 

[LizEF]

44 minutes ago, arcfide said:

Did you notice any of the gloss or sheen that sometimes accompanies Sailor Jentle Black, or is this a flatter matte like Herbin Perle Noir? 

No.  It's very matte on both Rhodia and 52gsm TR.  It's not chalky, just matte.  (Later: OK, if I angle it around under the light enough, the start of the writing on TR, where it was wettest, shows a tiny bit of sheen at the edges, but I had to hunt for it.)

 

Platinum Carbon Black, De Atramentis Document Black, and to a lesser degree, Noodler's Heart of Darkness all have some gloss on TR, but not Pilot Black (see addition above).  Even Waterman had a little bit of sheen at the edges.  Spoiler alerts: Lamy Black has quite a bit of sheen, and Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Black has a little sheen around the edges.

 

I haven't used Perle Noir yet, though I now have a sample.

[yazeh]

Great review as usual @LizEF 

Glad how you integrated the veggie burger/ cheese burger in the story...

 

[mizgeorge]

Thank you @LizEF a great review as always.

 

I have a bottle of this somewhere. I barely ever use black ink, but it would be as likely for me to pick this up as any other, especially if I were filling a Japanese pen where I wasn't looking for an especially fine line. My sample does show a bit of sheen, but certainly nothing to write home about. I suspect it will end up in my daughter's stash as she does seem to use quite a lot of black for note-taking. 

 

 

[LizEF]

11 minutes ago, yazeh said:

Great review as usual @LizEF 

Glad how you integrated the veggie burger/ cheese burger in the story...

Thanks!     Once you planted the idea, it had to end up in the story.

[LizEF]

6 minutes ago, mizgeorge said:

Thank you @LizEF a great review as always.

You're welcome, and thank you!

 

10 minutes ago, mizgeorge said:

where I wasn't looking for an especially fine line

This disappointed me immensely.  It's the cheapest black ink I can find (without going to India or some no-name Chinese brand purchased from China).  But it does spread a bit.

 

12 minutes ago, mizgeorge said:

My sample does show a bit of sheen, but certainly nothing to write home about.

It probably needs more than my pen puts down before it's visible.

 

12 minutes ago, mizgeorge said:

I suspect it will end up in my daughter's stash as she does seem to use quite a lot of black for note-taking. 

It's always nice when someone in your life has use for your less-wanted inks.

[Sailor Kenshin]

Thanks for the review!  I wonder if the cartridge black isn't a different formula than my bottle of Pilot/Namiki, 'cause the latter is one honkin' wet ink.  I use it to make reluctant writers give way.

[LizEF]

20 minutes ago, Sailor Kenshin said:

Thanks for the review!

You're very welcome.

 

21 minutes ago, Sailor Kenshin said:

I wonder if the cartridge black isn't a different formula than my bottle of Pilot/Namiki, 'cause the latter is one honkin' wet ink.  I use it to make reluctant writers give way.

I don't know, but An Ink Guy found it average, verging on dry - I'd guess he was using the bottle, but don't know.  But I have the remainder in a Wing Sung 601, and it certainly behaves wetly there...  Can't explain.

[InesF]

17 hours ago, LizEF said:

Smear 1 at 100x:

Thank you @LizEF for the ink introduction, for the veggies and for the increasing effort you put into your reviews!

The dots in the smears look like micelles formed from the detergence surrounding the hydrophobic black dye or pigment.

Also interesting: the micro-droplets closely outside the ink line.

All matter, but especially liquids seem to behave strange the smaller the scale is. Physics is full of wonders ... 👩‍🎓, scientifically spoken. 😄

[LizEF]

7 hours ago, InesF said:

Thank you @LizEF for the ink introduction, for the veggies and for the increasing effort you put into your reviews!

You're most welcome.

 

7 hours ago, InesF said:

The dots in the smears look like micelles formed from the detergence surrounding the hydrophobic black dye or pigment.

Also interesting: the micro-droplets closely outside the ink line.

All matter, but especially liquids seem to behave strange the smaller the scale is. Physics is full of wonders ... 👩‍🎓, scientifically spoken. 😄

Thank you for interpreting what we're seeing!  I didn't notice the micro-droplets until now - my brain grouped them in with the dry time smear / smudge.  Very interesting!  The slide for Friday's post is also interesting.  I'll be interested in whether my assumption about it matches your analysis.

[arcfide]

21 hours ago, LizEF said:

You're very welcome.

 

I don't know, but An Ink Guy found it average, verging on dry - I'd guess he was using the bottle, but don't know.  But I have the remainder in a Wing Sung 601, and it certainly behaves wetly there...  Can't explain.

 

My working theory is that An Ink Guy's viscosity results generally fall into three categories: watery low-viscosity inks (wet by An Ink Guy's measurement) like Parker Black, which will feel "dry" on the nib and tend to write drier in wet, wide nibs; thicker high-viscosity inks (dry by An Ink Guy's measurement) that will tend to have a more lubricated feeling and create a wetter feel for many people; and very "surfactant heavy" style inks (wet by An Ink Guy's measurement) like Sailor Black that will also tend to feel wet on the page for a lot of people.

[LizEF]

1 hour ago, arcfide said:

My working theory is that An Ink Guy's viscosity results generally fall into three categories: watery low-viscosity inks (wet by An Ink Guy's measurement) like Parker Black, which will feel "dry" on the nib and tend to write drier in wet, wide nibs; thicker high-viscosity inks (dry by An Ink Guy's measurement) that will tend to have a more lubricated feeling and create a wetter feel for many people; and very "surfactant heavy" style inks (wet by An Ink Guy's measurement) like Sailor Black that will also tend to feel wet on the page for a lot of people.

Hmm.  It would be nice if we had surface tension, pH, and conductivity in all of his videos, but we'll just have to make due with what we've got.   I've realized that both the pens my aunt uses are quite wet, and so they could easily be tricking me in regards to ink flow - a lot of ink seems to come out and I mistake it for the ink being wet when it's really the pen being wet...  I had high hopes for Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Black, but (spoiler alert), it's lines are wider than Lamy's (the finest lines of the black inks reviewed so far, though not the driest black ink I've tried, per An Ink Guy - I know fine lines don't directly correlate to his measurements, but it seems better to work through the drier ones first).

 

Anywho, I should have slogged through An Ink Guy's reviews before I started testing black ink.  He's got Herbin Perle Noire and Sailor Kiwa-guro as the two driest (of all the black inks I have).  So as soon as I finish playing with Kaweco Pearl Black in my Aunt's Cross pen, I'll try Herbin Perle Noire (more affordable than the Sailor) and see how that behaves.  (I am really tired of black inks!  So I've decided to quit reviewing them and just put them in my aunt's Cross pen and see how they write. Hopefully it will end soon.)

[LizEF]

On 3/9/2022 at 1:54 PM, LizEF said:

Herbin Perle Noire

Despite being quite dry, it spreads quite a bit.  No idea how any of this works.  Too many variables.

 

Anywho, for anyone who cares, I decided to start with a bottle of Lamy Black.  It wrote a considerably finer line than the other blacks, even drier blacks.  And it's affordable.  We'll see how it goes.  I've slogged through the rest of An Ink Guy's black ink reviews and made a list of those that might be OK, but I really don't think the viscosity test correlates (at all? much?) to an ink maintaining a fine line.

[arcfide]

3 hours ago, LizEF said:

I really don't think the viscosity test correlates (at all? much?) to an ink maintaining a fine line.

 

Not to mention that I've seen so much variation in terms of paper and nib that even if it *did* correlate, things wouldn't be so clear cut or easy to extrapolate. 

[LizEF]

51 minutes ago, arcfide said:

Not to mention that I've seen so much variation in terms of paper and nib that even if it *did* correlate, things wouldn't be so clear cut or easy to extrapolate. 

Yes.  I have a sheet of the paper my aunt will be using, so I can test the paper.  But even using the controlled testing of my reviews, inks I thought would have a finer line (e.g. because they're so dry) don't, at least, not always...  I decided Lamy Black was good enough for now, and I needed a break from all that tedious black ink!