Some Ink Tests

[Penguincollector]

  USG, I just took a look at the Ink Studio page on Macchiato Man’s website, and it seems like the lower the first number is, the lighter the ink. In terms of individual number inks, 280 looks like a lighter brown, maybe if it’s too light look at 373. 573 looks like Monteverde Fireopal to me, maybe a bit lighter, but possibly not. Here’s the webpage I am looking at: 

Sailor Studio Inks Overview

 

[Penguincollector]

  Yesterday I came across this wonderful little Kinbor (penguin, of course) notebook in my stash. I guess it’s labeled weekly, but it’s a graph style paper so I will probably just use it either as a diary or something. The paper is wonderful, the only ghosting I see is on the larger italics, which I don’t normally use in bound books because of their tendency to lay down so much ink.  No feathering, even with the Wearingeul added which can cause even dry inks to feather.  I will add pictures of the cute cover and verso when I get a chance. 
 

[USG]

4 hours ago, Penguincollector said:

  Yesterday I came across this wonderful little Kinbor (penguin, of course) notebook in my stash. I guess it’s labeled weekly, but it’s a graph style paper so I will probably just use it either as a diary or something. The paper is wonderful, the only ghosting I see is on the larger italics, which I don’t normally use in bound books because of their tendency to lay down so much ink.  No feathering, even with the Wearingeul added which can cause even dry inks to feather.  I will add pictures of the cute cover and verso when I get a chance. 
 

That’s great !  Nice going….👍😀

 

[USG]

4 hours ago, Penguincollector said:

  USG, I just took a look at the Ink Studio page on Macchiato Man’s website, and it seems like the lower the first number is, the lighter the ink. In terms of individual number inks, 280 looks like a lighter brown, maybe if it’s too light look at 373. 573 looks like Monteverde Fireopal to me, maybe a bit lighter, but possibly not. Here’s the webpage I am looking at: 

Sailor Studio Inks Overview

 

I thought I read somewhere that he gave up his blog….?

[Penguincollector]

3 hours ago, USG said:

I thought I read somewhere that he gave up his blog….?

  I think he is going to, but the aim is to preserve it, IIRC. Dill wrote a post about it.

[USG]

The Majestic Blue is sheening away....

[USG]

6 Blue Blacks

12 Browns

6 Turquoise

 

[Mechanical]

4 hours ago, USG said:

6 Blue Blacks

12 Browns

6 Turquoise

Today I learned, again, I simply do not have enough ink. 🙂

 

True to form, I like all of these Blue Blacks and I’m pretty sure Souboku needs to be on my Christmas list.  

 

And there’s something about the color of that Diamine Macassar that appeals to me.  And doesn’t it lay down a nice line even in that EF nib? I’m thinking it must have pretty good flow.

[inkstainedruth]

Souboku is a nice ink (if you don't mind pigmented ones).  It's one of the inks that I really like using when doing stuff like signing checks.

As for Diamine Macassar, I was just thinking recently that I haven't used that in a long time....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[USG]

1 hour ago, Mechanical said:

Today I learned, again, I simply do not have enough ink. 🙂

 

True to form, I like all of these Blue Blacks and I’m pretty sure Souboku needs to be on my Christmas list.  

 

And there’s something about the color of that Diamine Macassar that appeals to me.  And doesn’t it lay down a nice line even in that EF nib? I’m thinking it must have pretty good flow.

Hi MCL

 

It’s hard to see on the photo but Platinum BB was a striking blue and Souboku was very nice.  I had the Monteverde brown inks in the P136 EF but they are wet inks that increased the line width to almost a M.  That’s when I switched to Macassar, which is a dry ink, and  got the P136 EF writing like an EF.  Macassar is a very dark brown that reminds me of Penman Mocha.  It can look almost black, but not as black as Sailor Doyou.  I originally wanted Sailor #973 but the color was too similar to Fire Opal and Pelikan Brillant Braun and  it increased  the line width of the P136 EF to almost the same as  Pilot 743<sfm>.  Normally I don’t care about that but I have a P136 F and I wanted this one to write like a true EF.

 

[Mechanical]

22 hours ago, USG said:

That’s when I switched to Macassar, which is a dry ink, and  got the P136 EF writing like an EF.  Macassar is a very dark brown that reminds me of Penman Mocha.  It can look almost black, but not as black as Sailor Doyou.  I originally wanted Sailor #973 but the color was too similar to Fire Opal and Pelikan Brillant Braun and  it increased  the line width of the P136 EF to almost the same as  Pilot 743<sfm>.  Normally I don’t care about that but I have a P136 F and I wanted this one to write like a true EF.

Thanks, @USG.  So that Macassar is on the dry side. I guess that is why I have such a plentitude of pens; I have both wet and dry writers, so I’ll choose accordingly.  

 

Souboku is already on my Christmas list… so I’ll ask for just the 30ml size of the Macassar. 🙂

[USG]

On 12/8/2024 at 3:29 PM, inkstainedruth said:

Souboku is a nice ink (if you don't mind pigmented ones).  It's one of the inks that I really like using when doing stuff like signing checks.

As for Diamine Macassar, I was just thinking recently that I haven't used that in a long time....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

Hi ISR

 

I wanted to ask you about your comment, (if you don't mind pigmented ones). Could you go into some detail about that?

[inkstainedruth]

Some people don't like pigmented inks because they are a little harder to flush out sometimes, compared to "standard" inks.  But some people also don't like iron gall inks because they are fairly acidic, compared to "standard" inks -- and those you want to flush out with solution that has a similar pH (such as mixing a little bit of household vinegar into water) instead of using a little bit of household ammonia into water, the way you'd do for a neutral pH ink or one that has a high pH) -- you don't want nasty chemical reactions.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

ETA:  And by "a little bit" I mean about 1 part of either ammonia or vinegar to about 8-10 parts water.  And I don't know where you live, but I like to used distilled bottled water because the water coming out of my tap has a very high mineral content, and do NOT want my feeds being gunned up by the precipitate minerals.  

I'm apparently lucky in that I can buy distilled water by the gallon (or even in boxes of three 1 gallon jugs) in my local grocery store, and it doesn't really cost more than regular bottled water.

[USG]

8 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

Some people don't like pigmented inks because they are a little harder to flush out sometimes, compared to "standard" inks.  But some people also don't like iron gall inks because they are fairly acidic, compared to "standard" inks -- and those you want to flush out with solution that has a similar pH (such as mixing a little bit of household vinegar into water) instead of using a little bit of household ammonia into water, the way you'd do for a neutral pH ink or one that has a high pH) -- you don't want nasty chemical reactions.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

ETA:  And by "a little bit" I mean about 1 part of either ammonia or vinegar to about 8-10 parts water.  And I don't know where you live, but I like to used distilled bottled water because the water coming out of my tap has a very high mineral content, and do NOT want my feeds being gunned up by the precipitate minerals.  

I'm apparently lucky in that I can buy distilled water by the gallon (or even in boxes of three 1 gallon jugs) in my local grocery store, and it doesn't really cost more than regular bottled water.

 

Thanks.... much appreciated. 👍😀

[USG]

I was thinking that it's very hard to compare inks if they all come from different pens so I used a Kaigelu<m> nib in a dip pen holder for these BB inks

[USG]

I did the same dip pen thing  for these mostly brown inks with this Wing Sung <f> nib that had been removed from a 699,

 

[USG]

The full set of BB inks

 

 

[Penguincollector]

    I apologize for the lack of pictures, it was late when I was working on it, but Kokuyo Campus made my saturated and extra shimmery DeAtramentis Columbia Blue-Bronze-Copper look like Quink Washable Blue, and R&K’s “Blue-Eyed Mary” a sickly pastel green. 
 

  Something else I just thought about was how USG uses a bunch of very similar pens for testing. As my 45 collection is at a good size for trying this out, and many have F nibs, I think I might start trying to standardize 3-4 of them for ink and paper testing. 

[USG]

On 12/15/2024 at 2:20 PM, Penguincollector said:

    I apologize for the lack of pictures, it was late when I was working on it, but Kokuyo Campus made my saturated and extra shimmery DeAtramentis Columbia Blue-Bronze-Copper look like Quink Washable Blue, and R&K’s “Blue-Eyed Mary” a sickly pastel green. 
 

  Something else I just thought about was how USG uses a bunch of very similar pens for testing. As my 45 collection is at a good size for trying this out, and many have F nibs, I think I might start trying to standardize 3-4 of them for ink and paper testing. 

I think your 45 collection would be ideal for ink testing. 😀👍

What I’ve found is that fine and EF nibs don’t show color and shading well as medium and broad nibs and wet nibs don’t show color and shading as well as dry nibs.  I have an illustration of that somewhere and I’ll add it if I can find it.

 

This is Platinum BB from a DRY Keigelu long blade nib.

This is the same Platinum BB ink from a WET medium nib with a similar line width.

 

 

[Penguincollector]

  Well, the good thing about 45s is the ability to change the nibs out easily. I think I have mostly fines, but there’s a few medium nibs in there, and loose ones aren’t hard to get.

  Ideally I’d like a set of dry writing pens for the wet inks and vice versa. I could get a set of Pilot Iro-Ai cursive mediums for dry reasonably priced and Pelikan italic mediums for wet eventually (much less reasonably priced). I don’t particularly like round medium or broad nibs which adds it’s own wrinkle, but italics do show ink properties off well.