Some Ink Tests

[inkstainedruth]

2 hours ago, AmericanMonk said:

 

Sad news indeed! They've always treated me well and I wouldn't hesitate to buy from them again if they have what I'm looking for in stock. I knew about their unfortunate timing with opening a Chicago location right before covid that didn't last long but I'd hate for them to lose their original store, too! What makes you think that they're closing?

Someone reported it on FPN a week or so ago.  I was pretty surprised by the announcement.  

Besides the apparent issues with the timing of their Chicago show opening, I also read reports that the reason that location was closed was that IIRC the store manager had sticky fingers and was stealing from the till.   But I'm shocked and saddened by the reports of them closing both the original location in Wisconsin, and possibly shutting down their online presence as well.  I met them at a pen show I was at a few years ago and they were really good people.  

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[AmericanMonk]

2 hours ago, USG said:

I squeeze out one drop from one of those wide needles  (maybe #15??) they sell on Amazon, turn the nib over and touch the drop to the underside of the nib between the tipping and the feed.  The water gets pulled in between the nib and the feed by capillary action.  I have all my pens inked so if I want to use one that I haven't written with in a long time, it might need one or two drops of water.  Sometimes, if the pen had a very concentrated ink, I might put a drop or so on the slit area on top of the nib.  If you administer too many drops, it just dilutes the 'feed' ink a little but as soon as the regular ink starts flowing, everything is back to normal.  You can't do any damage.

 

As far as what I use to dilute or in the syringe, I'm old school.  I use NY fluoridated tap water.  Always have.  Never had a problem with it.  I've had the ink in converters completely dry up.  I fill the converter about 1/2 full with water and go on my merry way.  Hasn't ever been a problem.  I suppose the puritans will scoff but people have been mixing ink 'Pills' with water for a hundred years.  I even have some Visconti ink Tablets from a long time ago. The instructions are to mix them with water.

 

Sounds good! I'll give that a try the next time it comes up.

 

And fair enough with the Nitrogen = super-saturated turquoise. When some Skull and Roses touches paper towel I see similar results so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

 

1 hour ago, USG said:

Could you explain this "stickiness" in some detail?

 

It isn't sticky like glue. The flow starts to feel more like writing with a syrup rather than water—thicker with more surface tension. Other than the slight change in feel, the ink seems more likely to sit on top of the page rather than absorb into the fibers. I've never put Ao or similarly saturated inks to any scientific testing to see how much of my subjective perceptions could be described in more objective terms. It could be that all inks will do this and I just haven't caught them at the right moment. But many inks seem to go from "fresh" to "darker" to "dry" whereas Ao went from "fresh" to "sticky". I assume that it is just a side effect to Ao's high saturation levels and I haven't noticed any evidence that it might be dangerous to pens, papers, or people.

[Penguincollector]

@AmericanMonk, the Andersons talk about the Appleton store closing in their last two youtube videos. 
 

  I do the same thing with a syringe or pipette as USG does. A drop or two of water on the back of the nib by the end of the feed, like a jumpstart. When you have 20+ pens inked sometimes, they aren’t all going to flow right away. 
 

  The syrupy feeling sounds similar to what would happen with Parker Sapphire in my Duofold long ago, it would start off ok, but as the cartridge held less ink, the ink would start to thicken and you could feel it affect the flow until it would stop writing. 

[AmericanMonk]

4 hours ago, USG said:

Speaking of everyday paper, do you use OPTIK paper?

 

Not to my knowledge.

 

4 hours ago, USG said:

Although they're inexpensive, they're not cheap in the negative sense of the word...A pen that writes like this spoils you.

 

Agreed! It might be getting close now but I don't think that my collection (of pens, papers, and inks combined) has reached the price of one new Montblanc. I'm sure Montblanc pens are a delight (I have yet to get my paws on one) but if the choice is buying one Montblanc or two hundred x159s I'd take the bulk option... or better yet, just take good care of the few x159s that I already own. I can certainly appreciate an MB's resale value but I'm content to leave them on the shelves for all the collectors, investors, and artists who would appreciate them more than I do.

 

Have you tried any of the metal x159s?

[AmericanMonk]

2 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

Someone reported it on FPN a week or so ago.  I was pretty surprised by the announcement.  

Besides the apparent issues with the timing of their Chicago show opening, I also read reports that the reason that location was closed was that IIRC the store manager had sticky fingers and was stealing from the till.   But I'm shocked and saddened by the reports of them closing both the original location in Wisconsin, and possibly shutting down their online presence as well.  I met them at a pen show I was at a few years ago and they were really good people.

15 minutes ago, Penguincollector said:

the Andersons talk about the Appleton store closing in their last two youtube videos.

 

You two are killin' me! 😧

 

That's a bummer. Sad news indeed. But I appreciate that you two have brought me up to speed. For better or worse, I'll keep a more diligent eye out for their sales.

 

I was getting concerned with PenChalet reducing their stock of Robert Oster inks and finding more and more of their Monteverde inks requiring a "special order". Their shop is/was my main source of those brands and I thought that maybe they were closing their doors. But I'm noticing new options there, so I'm hoping that the new stock suggests that they're not going anywhere.

[Lithium466]

21 hours ago, USG said:

 

Not to be contradictory but my experience with Waterman Blue has been  positive.  I have it in a few pens I use all the time.   It's hard to beat for a rich dark blue ink that works in every pen I put it in, and shades & sheens (but not too much to be annoying).  It doesn't hard start, dry out or get moldy and dries fast enough not to have a smearing problem.  😀  [Yeah I know YMMV]

 

I still don't see the attraction to Visconti Blue ink.

 

Visconti blue, it is for the potentially bright blue. But I'm afraid nothing beats Baystate Blue so far. I have my eye on some "watercolor inks" at my local art store, one day I'll grab one and try.

For Waterman blue, definitely, it's a good "no hassle blue". I've used it for years, in cartridge form, every summer my pens were let completely dry, back to school season a new cartridge in and it was good to go in no time, I don't remember ever having to clean it!

 

 

19 hours ago, USG said:

 

I don't have it....  🤷‍♂️

 

😇

 

18 hours ago, USG said:

 

No one likes hard starts, right?  But it becomes a fact of life if you have a lot of pens inked the way I do.  I keep a water syringe handy and don't think twice about administering a drop of water to a pen that dried a little.  

 

What I don't like (like you) is when the ink dries on the nib if I stop writing for a minute or so.

 

I'm fine with hard start after not having used the pen for a while, but not with those you get when you stop writing for too long. Some pens do better than others, some inks too. I have to keep a pen with a boring ink for that...or a Pilot Vanishing point or clone.

 

17 hours ago, USG said:

 

I squeeze out one drop from one of those wide needles  (maybe #15??) they sell on Amazon, turn the nib over and touch the drop to the underside of the nib between the tipping and the feed.  The water gets pulled in between the nib and the feed by capillary action.  I have all my pens inked so if I want to use one that I haven't written with in a long time, it might need one or two drops of water.  Sometimes, if the pen had a very concentrated ink, I might put a drop or so on the slit area on top of the nib.  If you administer too many drops, it just dilutes the 'feed' ink a little but as soon as the regular ink starts flowing, everything is back to normal.  You can't do any damage.

 

As far as what I use to dilute or in the syringe, I'm old school.  I use NY fluoridated tap water.  Always have.  Never had a problem with it.  I've had the ink in converters completely dry up.  I fill the converter about 1/2 full with water and go on my merry way.  Hasn't ever been a problem.  I suppose the puritans will scoff but people have been mixing ink 'Pills' with water for a hundred years.  I even have some Visconti ink Tablets from a long time ago. The instructions are to mix them with water.

 

What a nice packaging!

[USG]

21 hours ago, AmericanMonk said:

Diamine's Bloody Brexit and Maureen. Brexit is another one that I could probably give another try now that I have a wider selection of pens and papers, but it was messy. It is dusty, smeary, and forms little nuggets of dried dye bombs around the rim

 

We've covered so much material I feel a need to recap.

Do you find that Brexit and Maureen look black when you write with them?  I have 'Emerson', which is similar and looks black.

 

Love the phrase 😀:  "Little nuggets of dried dye bombs" 👍

 

 

 

[USG]

17 hours ago, AmericanMonk said:

 

It isn't sticky like glue. The flow starts to feel more like writing with a syrup rather than water—thicker with more surface tension. Other than the slight change in feel, the ink seems more likely to sit on top of the page rather than absorb into the fibers. I've never put Ao or similarly saturated inks to any scientific testing to see how much of my subjective perceptions could be described in more objective terms. It could be that all inks will do this and I just haven't caught them at the right moment. But many inks seem to go from "fresh" to "darker" to "dry" whereas Ao went from "fresh" to "sticky". I assume that it is just a side effect to Ao's high saturation levels and I haven't noticed any evidence that it might be dangerous to pens, papers, or people.

 

16 hours ago, Penguincollector said:

 

  The syrupy feeling sounds similar to what would happen with Parker Sapphire in my Duofold long ago, it would start off ok, but as the cartridge held less ink, the ink would start to thicken and you could feel it affect the flow until it would stop writing. 

 

OK that's a good description.  I had that happen with some re-hydrated Waterman Havana brown.  For no specific reason the ink in my Boucheron started to lay down a thicker darker line exactly as you guys described.  When I realized what was going on I figured that the culprit was mold and washed out he pen and filled it with one of the phenol smelling inks (I don't remember which one atm).  Nothing bad ever happened to the pen.  The re-hydrated Havana is still in the bottle and hasn't developed slime or mold.

 

[AmericanMonk]

On 11/22/2024 at 8:48 AM, USG said:

Do you find that Brexit and Maureen look black when you write with them?  I have 'Emerson', which is similar and looks black.

 

I'm afraid I don't have Emerson so I can't do a direct comparison for you.

 

Yes. Brexit needs bright light to tell that it is blue at all. (As always, the pen/paper matters, but overall...) There are moments that you can tell that it is a dark blue—writing appears just as dark (if not darker) than Diamine's Oxford Blue most of the time—but it wouldn't surprise me if most people glance at it and assume that it is black, regardless of sheen.

 

Maureen is a lot like Majestic Blue but without the purple tones, making it ever-so-slightly brighter and lighter. You can tell that it is a blue when fresh. But it looks black where it sheens and has a higher propensity to sheen than Majestic. With a little bit of time and evaporation you'll wind up with 100% sheen coverage. Writing becomes an electric pink metallic sheen when Maureen catches the light and black when it doesn't.

[USG]

On 11/25/2024 at 6:39 PM, AmericanMonk said:

 

I'm afraid I don't have Emerson so I can't do a direct comparison for you.

 

Yes. Brexit needs bright light to tell that it is blue at all. (As always, the pen/paper matters, but overall...) There are moments that you can tell that it is a dark blue—writing appears just as dark (if not darker) than Diamine's Oxford Blue most of the time—but it wouldn't surprise me if most people glance at it and assume that it is black, regardless of sheen.

 

Maureen is a lot like Majestic Blue but without the purple tones, making it ever-so-slightly brighter and lighter. You can tell that it is a blue when fresh. But it looks black where it sheens and has a higher propensity to sheen than Majestic. With a little bit of time and evaporation you'll wind up with 100% sheen coverage. Writing becomes an electric pink metallic sheen when Maureen catches the light and black when it doesn't.

 

Nice descriptions...  all the inks we're talking about really fall into the same category.

I know what you mean about 100% sheen coverage.  I was exploring that for a while but the heavy sheen became over powering.

[USG]

@AmericanMonk  We were talking ab out sticky ink so I was paying attention to see which inks stuck to the opposite page.  What I found was that two J Herbin inks were the culprit.  Those inks also take forever to dry and smear hours later.

 

This example smeared a couple of days after I wrote the page.  What happened was I turned the notebook over to write on the back of the preceding page (which I don't usually do on Tomoe River paper).  Anyway, when I turned the notebook back again I found that both those inks had smeared.

 

 

An example where those inks stuck to the opposite page after drying for hours.  You can clearly see the imprint that was left after I separated the two pages.

 

 

[USG]

The Asvine P20 is a very popular pen so I ordered one to check it out.  I don't like it at all.  First of all it's very hard to clean.  The piston doesn't go all the way up to the section so it won't push out the ink that's in the ink-window area. Sure, you can fill it with water and pump away but there's no way to flush out the nib section because it's not removable.  To flush the feed and clean the barrel you have to dissemble the pen.  The cap comes off in 2 1/4 turns and doesn't post securely.  When you jam it on the back of the pen, which is the only way it posts, you have to be careful because it turns the piston knob, which has it's own set of problems.  When I backed out the piston knob to test it, it unscrewed the piston assembly.  And what's with that cheap Jinhao 100 looking barrel band?  And there's more.  The ink-window seems like an after thought because it's not even with the barrel.  Really, how hard would it have been to make it just a little smaller so it was the same diameter as the barrel?  And to top everything off it has a very skimpy #6 nib.

 

So here is the P20 on top and a Majohn M800 under it.  To fill the Majohn with ink from a 1/2 filled sample vial all you have to do is syringe the ink into the converter.  To fill the P20 you have to unscrew the nib.  The Majohn is a breeze to clean.  To clean the P20 you have to unscrew the nib (which has no holes for a wrench) and unscrew the piston, and be careful, that little gold ring between the piston knob and the barrel is not glued in place so when you put everything back together you have to make sure, a) you don't lose it and, b) you have the proper orientation.  For the same money you can get 4 Jinhao X159s with bouncy #8 interchangeable nibs, MB ergonomics and a cap that posts.  If you must have the Galaxy acrylic, get the Majohn.

This is my opinion, YMMV 😀

 

[Lithium466]

Thank you @USG for this information/warning...on both the pen and the inks

As a change, I have been enjoying Diamine Thunderbolt: it doesn't sheen (or barely)! And dries in a matte(ish), yet not too boring way. I thought that was only for black inks, but found it very interesting for a change with a dark blue ink. And now I'm back to testing black inks...do you have an opinion on PR blacks (I know, black inks can be considered boring)? I have Aurora black in a Lamy CP1 at the moment, with a Z58 EF nib, and am reminded on how a great business combo that is...dark and glidy/almost luscious on most papers, and absolutely no hard start, even with the 35% humidity I have in my office.

[USG]

18 hours ago, Lithium466 said:

Thank you @USG for this information/warning...on both the pen and the inks

As a change, I have been enjoying Diamine Thunderbolt: it doesn't sheen (or barely)! And dries in a matte(ish), yet not too boring way. I thought that was only for black inks, but found it very interesting for a change with a dark blue ink. And now I'm back to testing black inks...do you have an opinion on PR blacks (I know, black inks can be considered boring)? I have Aurora black in a Lamy CP1 at the moment, with a Z58 EF nib, and am reminded on how a great business combo that is...dark and glidy/almost luscious on most papers, and absolutely no hard start, even with the 35% humidity I have in my office.

 

I didn't remember having any black ink in a pen, but come to think of it, I have what's left of vintage Namiki Black or vintage Aurora black in 2 pens.  A Lamy CP1<F> and a Pilot Elite<F> that are tucked away in an almost forgotten pen case.  I checked the pens and the ink has dried up in the Pilot and is sludge in the CP1.  I filled the Pilot cartridge with water and put a couple of drops on the nib and did the same with the converter on the CP1.  Then put them back in the case and put it away for another day.

 

 

[USG]

On 11/12/2024 at 11:48 AM, Penguincollector said:

 @USG, you should try Colorverse’s Fountain Pen Day ink for this year, it’s a really vibrant blue. I can send you a sample if you’d like, but if you prefer to buy a bottle, it’s still for sale at Vanness. 

 

Ah ha.. Here it is.  I couldn't remember where you recommended Fountain Pen Day ink.

Very cool suggestion.

From a Dry dip pen nib:

But from a Wet dip pen nib:

 

IT'S A OUTLINE INK... GOOD CALL!!!!

 

[Penguincollector]

  Oh, that’s beautiful, @USG! I love the outline inks! It’s a great color. It’s on deck once I get the blue inked pens down in number. 
 

  It’s too bad the P20 is such a dud. 

[Penguincollector]

20 hours ago, Lithium466 said:

I have been enjoying Diamine Thunderbolt

  I have been looking at the swatch card for this ink and the Alexandrite as they dry on my desk. Both are beautiful. 

[USG]

17 minutes ago, Penguincollector said:

  I have been looking at the swatch card for this ink and the Alexandrite as they dry on my desk. Both are beautiful. 

 

Thunderbolt looks very similar to some other inks except that, to my eye, it leans lavender.  Might make a nice dilution.

[Penguincollector]

  It’s definitely a blurply color, @USG, on the indigo spectrum. It’s brighter, a bit more saturated than it looks in MoI’s picture. 

[USG]

4 hours ago, Penguincollector said:

  It’s definitely a blurply color, @USG, on the indigo spectrum. It’s brighter, a bit more saturated than it looks in MoI’s picture. 

 

PGC and LTM, How many inks do we have that look almost the same?  Put another way, how many half full bottles of similar colored inks do we have laying around unused?   I just bought a bottle of Elysium only to discover that it's almost the same as Florida Blue.  You can see the difference under magnification but on the page, not so much.

 

 

How about Asa Blue and Vintage Parker Quink?

 

 

Let's add a 3rd ink to the mix.... I have "bottles" of all three which are going to end up mostly unused because they're too similar.  I think I'm going to have to be more careful.