Some Ink Tests

[USG]

4th Cosmo Snow Notebook, 2nd Tomoe River-S Notebook. 😁

Hahaha... It's a hobby, Right !!!

 

[Penguincollector]

9 minutes ago, USG said:

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?  

  Well, there are many types of pens in my collection that do better with different inks. I may want a certain shade that works in a certain pen,and if I only had one ink in that color, it may not suit the pen. Plus, what my vision lacks in clarity, it makes up for in color differentiation. There’s lots of ink colors that are described as dupes for other inks in the same color family, but to me there’s a clear difference. In your example, the Asa looks more like a deep royal, the Shin-Kai a navy, and the Quink has a teal cast to it.
 

  I also rotate between inks so they don’t sit unused. I have often found that I appreciate some inks more after not using them for a while. I send samples to FPN folks and give some out to pen club members- we also have a program where club members can drop off inks they don’t like and others can adopt them. We call it the “ No Kill Ink Shelter.” 

[USG]

19 hours ago, Penguincollector said:

It’s too bad the P20 is such a dud. 

IMHO, it’s a dud at that price point.   🥸

[USG]

3 hours ago, Penguincollector said:

  Well, there are many types of pens in my collection that do better with different inks. I may want a certain shade that works in a certain pen,and if I only had one ink in that color, it may not suit the pen. Plus, what my vision lacks in clarity, it makes up for in color differentiation. There’s lots of ink colors that are described as dupes for other inks in the same color family, but to me there’s a clear difference. In your example, the Asa looks more like a deep royal, the Shin-Kai a navy, and the Quink has a teal cast to it.
 

  I also rotate between inks so they don’t sit unused. I have often found that I appreciate some inks more after not using them for a while. I send samples to FPN folks and give some out to pen club members- we also have a program where club members can drop off inks they don’t like and others can adopt them. We call it the “ No Kill Ink Shelter.” 

Of course you’re right.  It’s important to be able to find the shade you’re looking for in a formulation that works in a particular pen.

 

The visual differences in those 3 inks that is apparent at high magnification is not so apparent on the page and would be even less so if the samples were all written with the same nib, but I see your point.  Also consider that Cosmo Snow shows every little nuance.   If the samples were written on a lesser paper, Stalogy, for instance, it would be a very different situation, don’t you think?

 

I never thought of rotating through inks I didn’t like.  I just don’t use them, like this Penman Emerald.  I don’t remember ever filling a pen with it.  I probably dipped a nib into it, didn’t like the color and stuck it in the back of a drawer.  I didn’t like the Ruby either and what didn’t evaporate is still left.

 

[Penguincollector]

   I guess I don’t really dislike any ink so much as to not use it. If I bought it, it’s because I thought it was pretty in the first place. Plus now any so-so color is vastly improved with shimmer. 
  I was thinking about how color is affected by paper whilst reading the Stationery Junkie thread. Someone brought up Apica paper and I thought about my likes and dislikes of it. My one dislike is how blah colors look. It’s a great paper otherwise- feels good, doesn’t bleed or feather.

[USG]

5 hours ago, Penguincollector said:

   I guess I don’t really dislike any ink so much as to not use it. If I bought it, it’s because I thought it was pretty in the first place. Plus now any so-so color is vastly improved with shimmer. 
  I was thinking about how color is affected by paper whilst reading the Stationery Junkie thread. Someone brought up Apica paper and I thought about my likes and dislikes of it. My one dislike is how blah colors look. It’s a great paper otherwise- feels good, doesn’t bleed or feather.

 

Haha, yes shimmer is a great  ink pick me up. 👍

 

I don't want to be contradictory but I posted this in the Trios thread a week ago.  It's the main reason I started making my own wire bound notebooks with Cosmo Snow, Iroful and Tomoe River paper.  I liked the format of those 'thin' Apica and Maruman notebooks but I wanted them with paper that didn't feather with the Iroshizuku and Edelstein inks I use.  Kokuyo paper wasn't any better.  Chief offenders were Asa-Gao, Ajisai, Sapphire and now Yama-Budo.

 

 

LIFE paper was decent but it was yellow and distorted colors.  I didn't use it enough to see if it brought out ink nuances.

[Lithium466]

14 hours ago, USG said:

 

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.

I think this is going to be rhetorical... Way too many. I have so many blues that only slightly differ in colour, but they do differ (sometimes a lot) in behaviour and feel in different pens. So to find the best match, of course you have to try them all, right?

I think I'm probably more after the right behaviour depending on the pen, and a bit less after the colour, which can be affected a lot by paper and lightning! One ink at home, under a mix of 2200 and 2700°K led lights, will absolutely not look the same at my office with 1980's industrial fluorescent tubes (some inks will "glow" under fluorescent light!).

And then there's mood...not all days are created equal, so of course all these half empty unused bottles are totally indispensable for when the right day and the right paper/pen combo strikes  Or so I'm trying to convince my family (not very successfully).

 

And then well, thinking logically and reasonably, this isn't a very sustainable situation: I pretty much maxed out my allotted ink storage space like two years ago...so some inks will have to go, old classics like Pelikan 4001, Waterman, some basic Sailor and Pilot... some with too "extreme" properties to be really versatile (extreme sheeners for ex). And all the "almost dupes". Between Asa blue, Shin Kai and PQ BB, which one would you keep if you could only keep one? Today I'll probably pick Shin Kai, but tomorrow I'll use a Parker 45 and I'm pretty sure PQ BB will work better in this one... yup, back to square one.

[Lithium466]

On 11/28/2024 at 6:50 AM, USG said:

 

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

Lavender? Hmmm, not the lavender that grew in the garden when I was a kid. But it does lean a bit more toward that than the others, yes. I would consider it like an elevated school blue, highly saturated. It does tend to fade just a touch when it dries, depending on the paper (not an issue with most modern papers) but still remains very vibrant, yet not overpowering with sheen. It is undeniably there on the page, you can't miss it. Presence and charisma? 

[Lithium466]

On 11/28/2024 at 4:06 AM, USG said:

 

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.

 

 

How rude 😛 I'm told Sailor Kiwaguro sheens silver, and Taccia Kuro sheens something that remains ro be determined. More revisiting is in order.

[Penguincollector]

@USG, that example of Apica and Yama-Budo is ghastly, I will keep that in mind when using that particular notebook.

[Penguincollector]

2 minutes ago, Penguincollector said:

@USG, that example of Apica and Yama-Budo is ghastly, I will keep that in mind when using that particular notebook.

    I also really like your latest notebooks with the blue and green covers. I’m still contemplating buying a machine, but would have to find space for it. 

[USG]

Worthy posts @Penguincollector and @Lithium466 😃

I'll respond to them in a while but, atm,  I'm trying to ignore this annoying  red pen in my cart....   😁

 

 

 

 

 

[Penguincollector]

  Ooh, get it! 😈 

[Lithium466]

+1 definitely get it. Mine (ok, in lame blue and not flashy red) has been inked and used non stop since I got it. Love the nib, and if you get fed up with the red you can put the nib in one of your 1911L.

[USG]

On 11/29/2024 at 4:11 PM, Penguincollector said:

  Ooh, get it! 😈 

 

On 11/30/2024 at 7:16 AM, Lithium466 said:

+1 definitely get it. Mine (ok, in lame blue and not flashy red) has been inked and used non stop since I got it. Love the nib, and if you get fed up with the red you can put the nib in one of your 1911L.

 

Saved by a text:

3 more FPR EF Ultra  Flex nibs were delivered to my Mailbox.

I took out the 2 new Jinhao 9016s and went to work.

 

Flex 1 has Sailor #743

Flex 2 has Sailor States Illinois

Flex 3 : Tried

• Elysium (too light for an EF)
• Shin-Kai (didn't do it for me)
• loaded some #743 (but I'm not going to keep it)

Flex 4 : Tried

• Bilberry
• Fountain Pen Day
• Edel. Sapphire (too light like Elysium)
• I may go back to Bilberry

 

 

 

[USG]

Comparison of new Platinum BB with 25+yr old Platinum BB

Two different nibs were used: 

• A Dry Kaigelu Long Blade nib
• A Wet <m> Pilot Dip Pen nib

The new sample looks pretty much the way I remember Platinum BB looked like. 

 

 

 

[USG]

On 11/29/2024 at 11:44 AM, Penguincollector said:

@USG, that example of Apica and Yama-Budo is ghastly, I will keep that in mind when using that particular notebook.

 

As long as I still had the B5 APICA W notebook out, I though I would try a couple more inks that are fine on Cosmo Snow and Tomoe River-S.

 

 

[USG]

On 11/28/2024 at 9:25 PM, Penguincollector said:

   I guess I don’t really dislike any ink so much as to not use it. If I bought it, it’s because I thought it was pretty in the first place. Plus now any so-so color is vastly improved with shimmer. 
  I was thinking about how color is affected by paper whilst reading the Stationery Junkie thread. Someone brought up Apica paper and I thought about my likes and dislikes of it. My one dislike is how blah colors look. It’s a great paper otherwise- feels good, doesn’t bleed or feather.

 

I don't dislike my inks, I just like some more than others.  I love trying new inks but I end up not using the majority of them very often.  There's about 20 or 30 inks that I seem to gravitate to and out of those maybe a handful are favorites and get put in multiple pens.

 

On 11/29/2024 at 7:14 AM, Lithium466 said:

I think this is going to be rhetorical... Way too many. I have so many blues that only slightly differ in colour, but they do differ (sometimes a lot) in behaviour and feel in different pens. So to find the best match, of course you have to try them all, right?

I think I'm probably more after the right behaviour depending on the pen, and a bit less after the colour, which can be affected a lot by paper and lightning! One ink at home, under a mix of 2200 and 2700°K led lights, will absolutely not look the same at my office with 1980's industrial fluorescent tubes (some inks will "glow" under fluorescent light!).

And then there's mood...not all days are created equal, so of course all these half empty unused bottles are totally indispensable for when the right day and the right paper/pen combo strikes  Or so I'm trying to convince my family (not very successfully).

 

And then well, thinking logically and reasonably, this isn't a very sustainable situation: I pretty much maxed out my allotted ink storage space like two years ago...so some inks will have to go, old classics like Pelikan 4001, Waterman, some basic Sailor and Pilot... some with too "extreme" properties to be really versatile (extreme sheeners for ex). And all the "almost dupes". Between Asa blue, Shin Kai and PQ BB, which one would you keep if you could only keep one? Today I'll probably pick Shin Kai, but tomorrow I'll use a Parker 45 and I'm pretty sure PQ BB will work better in this one... yup, back to square one.

 

That's a great analysis but I'm not like you.  Once I settle in on an a specific ink for a specific pen I'll keep it that way.  I'll go through all my turquoise inks trying to find one for a new pen but dollars to doughnuts, I'll end up picking one of my favorites.  I just did the same thing with blue blacks, looking for a dark blue ink for my Flex pens but it's hard to beat Illinois for a dark deep blue.

Another ink I keep trying to use is the light blue Tsuyu-Kusa but it keeps losing out to Florida Blue.  Elysium is another ink I like but is going to fall by the wayside.  I have it in my 629Au because it shades so well but it's not quite dark enough, so I'm thinking about trying your idea of a drop of Bilberry to spruce it up.

[Penguincollector]

35 minutes ago, USG said:

Once I settle in on an a specific ink for a specific pen I'll keep it that way. 

  This is an interesting school of thought, several members have brought up this concept.  I can see the pros of it, once you find a good match, you know that bar the odd paper fiber stuck in the tines or something you get to know and expect certain behaviors from the pairing. I like to figure out the characteristics that make up a good pairing and then look for inks that have similarities to the good match, so that a pen doesn’t have a single ink, but a cluster. It’s like a pen’s wardrobe. I don’t want to give my pens a uniform. 

[USG]

1 hour ago, Penguincollector said:

  This is an interesting school of thought, several members have brought up this concept.  I can see the pros of it, once you find a good match, you know that bar the odd paper fiber stuck in the tines or something you get to know and expect certain behaviors from the pairing. I like to figure out the characteristics that make up a good pairing and then look for inks that have similarities to the good match, so that a pen doesn’t have a single ink, but a cluster. It’s like a pen’s wardrobe. I don’t want to give my pens a uniform. 

 

Keep in mind that the vast majority of my ink testing pens are Jinhao X159s with a medium nib that's adjusted so they all write pretty much the same.  That enables me to try a great many inks from essentially the same pen without washing and cleaning.  Instead of a wardrobe of inks for a specific pen I have that same wardrobe of inks in a fleet of identical pens, each with a different ink, and available all the time for comparisons.  What I'm trying to find are inks with unusual properties like "outlining".  My MO is to try new inks with 2 dip pens.  One a dry long blade and the other a wet Medium.  When I come across an interesting ink, it's then loaded into one of the X159s for comparisons.