Rohrer & Klingner Sepia

[yazeh]

 

I had the opportunity to test this ink blindly on another fountain pen sites.

A no-nonsense ink from R&K, with excellent water resistance.  
It’s not ink which encourages me to rhapsodize, searching for weird inky metaphors or rushing to order a bottle. 
No, none of the above. but I was surprised how it grew on me with its simplicity, it’s water resistance and enjoyable tactile experience, each time the nib glided on the paper. 

Often having finished an ink review, I cannot wait to flush out the old ink, and try a new one. But in this case, I’m stalling enjoying every drop of my sample. I would say, give it try, and you might be surprised. 

Note: Mystery ink #50 alludes to R&K Sepia. 

Check it's lovely chroma:

Writing Samples:

On this cheap paper, no ink can resist ghosting and bleeding. Sepia isn't an exception

Water resistance: Note the first three lines were dry for at least a day. The last lines for an hour.

Comparison I have nothing in this shade

and finally I often enjoy doing little sketches. This is one of my favorite birds, the mighty chickadee

 

• Pens used: Pilot Kakuno (Ef/M/stub) Lamy Safari (Fine/ /Medium /Broad) / Kanwrite Ultraflex / Jinhao 450 fude
• What I liked: I really enjoyed writing with this ink. It’s nice enough ink for sketching and had excellent water resistance and the price is ridiculously cheap.
• What I didn’t liked: Nothing really. 
• Shading: From medium to broad
• Ghosting: Yes, On cheap absorbent paper 
• Bleed through: Yes, with very absorbent papers. 
• Flow Rate: Good
• Lubrication: Good.
• Nib Dry-out: Not noticed. 
• Start-up: No problem. 
• Saturation: Dark.  
• Shading Potential: 
• Sheen: Not really. 
• Spread / Feathering / Woolly Line: Not noticed
• Nib Creep / “Crud”: No 
• Staining (pen): No
• Clogging: No. 
• Cleaning: Easy. 
• Water resistance: Excellent
• Availability: 50 ml bottles

Comments appreciated but not obligatory

 

[LizEF]

Thanks, @yazeh!  Love the owl chickadee and the kitties.   And you're gonna have to share with us what brand of paper towel that is, cuz it seriously does better than coffee filters.  I've thought about buying real chromatography paper to try out, but it's kinda expensive.  Regardless, thanks for your thorough review.  Looking forward to putting this ink in a drier pen to see what I get.

[AmandaW]

My favourite ink. (SketchInk Thea and Lily fight for second place.) Others come along to be enjoyed, but the Sepia is my rock.

[yazeh]

3 hours ago, LizEF said:

Thanks, @yazeh!  Love the owl chickadee and the kitties.   And you're gonna have to share with us what brand of paper towel that is, cuz it seriously does better than coffee filters.  I've thought about buying real chromatography paper to try out, but it's kinda expensive.  Regardless, thanks for your thorough review.  Looking forward to putting this ink in a drier pen to see what I get.

Thanks a lot! I use whatever paper is on sale  It's almost an automatic reflex, when I first fill the ink

 

1 hour ago, AmandaW said:

My favourite ink. (SketchInk Thea and Lily fight for second place.) Others come along to be enjoyed, but the Sepia is my rock.

Glad to know that. I have to test, Thea and Lily soon

[PithyProlix]

6 hours ago, AmandaW said:

My favourite ink. (SketchInk Thea and Lily fight for second place.) Others come along to be enjoyed, but the Sepia is my rock.

 

A worthy favorite. Maybe not my favorite but among them - I can't decide among the few taupes I have and, lucky for me, I don't care to decide! (I recently received Thea and, while I haven't used it a lot yet, so far I like it a lot. Lily will be in my future at some point, I'm sure.) It's a no-brainer as a writing ink: it just looks 'right' while not being a black, blue, or blue-black, plus a soft, vintage-like look, it works great with any pen/paper combination I've tried it with thus far, and it's quite inexpensive. 

 

I was just thinking yesterday that, if I had to pair down to three inks, R&Ks Sepia, Salix, and Scabiosa wouldn't be a bad set (Salix & Scabiosa mixes look great so that's a big plus).

 

Thanks for the great review! And great to learn about its water resistance.

[yazeh]

6 hours ago, PithyProlix said:

 

A worthy favorite. Maybe not my favorite but among them - I can't decide among the few taupes I have and, lucky for me, I don't care to decide! (I recently received Thea and, while I haven't used it a lot yet, so far I like it a lot. Lily will be in my future at some point, I'm sure.) It's a no-brainer as a writing ink: it just looks 'right' while not being a black, blue, or blue-black, plus a soft, vintage-like look, it works great with any pen/paper combination I've tried it with thus far, and it's quite inexpensive. 

I wonder if Thea and Lily are better behaved than their sisters Klara and Marlene. The latter group are quite viscous and are on the naughty ink list. 

6 hours ago, PithyProlix said:

 

I was just thinking yesterday that, if I had to pair down to three inks, R&Ks Sepia, Salix, and Scabiosa wouldn't be a bad set (Salix & Scabiosa mixes look great so that's a big plus).

Just for you to know that Scabiosa or (Scabies, according to spellcheck) while a delightful ink, isn't light fast.  

6 hours ago, PithyProlix said:

 

Thanks for the great review! And great to learn about its water resistance.

Yep. I was surprised too!

[InesF]

Thank you @yazeh for the review!

R&K Sepia may be the same die base as Sketchink Lilly, at least from my bottles.

My R&K Sepia is a more cool toned brown, almost greenish brown and, therefore, very close to Lilly. Is there a bit of green coming out with the wash? I guess, Sepia does vary a bit depending on the paper it is written and with pen wetness.

I'm also surprised about water resistance - I never thought about (because of existence of Lilly).

 

And, no doubt, a can almost hear your chickadee singing ... 🎼🎵  

[yazeh]

4 hours ago, InesF said:

Thank you @yazeh for the review!

You're too kind 🙏

4 hours ago, InesF said:

R&K Sepia may be the same die base as Sketchink Lilly, at least from my bottles.

That's interesting! 

4 hours ago, InesF said:

My R&K Sepia is a more cool toned brown, almost greenish brown and, therefore, very close to Lilly. Is there a bit of green coming out with the wash? I guess, Sepia does vary a bit depending on the paper it is written and with pen wetness.

There are lots of colours going in the chroma, Brown/Olive green, Pink and turquoise. Unfortunately I misplaced the chroma and I'M out of ink so, I can't be sure of either very dark olive or dark brown/black. 

4 hours ago, InesF said:

I'm also surprised about water resistance - I never thought about (because of existence of Lilly).

It's quite incredible. With absorbent paper, it's waterproof. I was doing a sketch on Fabriano and when I tired to do a wash, it was impossible to budge the ink. So, I had to wet the sketch and then draw and let the ink spread on the wet paper (the wolf cub) . I'm sure the result would have been very different on Watercolour paper. 

 

4 hours ago, InesF said:

 

And, no doubt, a can almost hear your chickadee singing ... 🎼🎵  

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

Thank you for showing me BB or OBB will add a tad of brown to it.

 

Any one try this ink in a wide semi-flex? Which will be a wet nib.

 

 

[yazeh]

7 minutes ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

Thank you for showing me BB or OBB will add a tad of brown to it.

 

Any one try this ink in a wide semi-flex? Which will be a wet nib.

 

 

Check this review:

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

Thank you, I'll go Osmia semi-flex in OBB..................but not now....a while back I ended up getting  9-10 inks with in weeks of each other....and had some 20 pen inked....some 3 from my one time normal of 17.

 

A while back i decided to get down to 7 pens so I could use more ink.

 

I'm now down to twelve pens inked...Just looked, two are within words of being empty....so the future creeps up on me faster than expected.

 

It is good that with a piston pen, I can load less than max....I guess one can do that too with a converter; but I have so few CC pens I hardly ever think of them, or in this case their use methods.

 

Well as soon as I get done with these, I'll have ten pens to clean....and just a month ago, I finally had cleaned all my dirty pens.....it was more than the ten I have to clean now.

 

One comes here to Ink Reviews or Inky Thoughts.....and one flips through one's dirty pen's little white index cards in the plastic case,  showing which ink had been in it................beats cleaning them.

 

What's really bad, and the little gray index card box is with in reach....when one finds....one was too lazy to write down what ink was in the pen.

[yazeh]

@Bo Bo OlsonI find piston fillers a pain to clean, especially as I use mostly IG or permanent inks

[Bo Bo Olson]

I have only a very few permanent inks (in we make bank wire transfers for the same cost as your checks in the EU,) and the few IG's, 4001 BB and R&K clean out ok for me.

 

I have a number of Pelikans, so snipped off the tip of one of my two rubber syringes so it fit over the nib unit. The other rubber syringe, I left unaltered (that one I use for cleaning CC pens also). That is for cleaning the body.........works fast.

 

Of my regular piston pens, MB cleans fastest, and Geha with it's reserve tank is the slowest by far. The Geha can be unscrewed also, but that reserve tank is still a pain.

 

Once us piston folks ran around with our noses up in the air.........from supposed volume advantage over cartridges...

 

Then some mean ol'poster told us, Sheaffer had a 160ml cartridge as much as a 149 holds. Two short Pelikans hold 74 each or 148, and other cartridges close to that if long.

 

New Pelikans pens only hold 1.25ml for the 200/400. 1.35ml 600/800...some where about 1.45 for the 1000...didn't have one then so didn't remember....but it's not any bigger than the 146.

 

Of course we Piston snobs have more volume than converters and we don't get any vapor lock.

 

However Back in the Day..... the '50-55 400/'65-400nn had 1.95/2.00 ml volume.

How come the newer '82-now 400 lost 0.65ml, is well beyond me.