Some Ink Tests

[Penguincollector]

On 1/23/2025 at 10:36 AM, Mechanical said:

 

Thanks, @USG, it really doesn't do so well, does it?  

 

I will say, all these examples with Teranishi Lady Emerald ink are making me a fan. 🙂

 

  It’s a beautiful ink, I highly recommend it! 

[Lithium466]

On 1/27/2025 at 12:36 AM, USG said:

 

Fresh from the bottle only counts with dip pens.  In the real world of office pens, the color of the ink is the color after it settles in.  Sure, after a refill, you might get the lighter, out of the bottle color, until the fresh ink in the feed is used up, or it sits over night,  then it's back to the darker color you've become used to.

 

 

Sailor #743 is a touch too dark?  Horizon Blue and Sargasso Sea are darker.  Diamine Sapphire is a different color.

Talking about smell, check out Noodler's Liberty's Elysium.  I don't know what's going on with that ink.

 

 

After these inks settle in the only way you'll be able to tell them apart is to use Cosmo Snow or Iroful paper and even then it's hard to tell them apart.

 

I never experienced Waterman Blue or Aurora Blue fading.  How did you get them to fade?

 

The other thing is, who constantly cleans out their work pen?  After a number of refills, I found the feeds in work pens developed a reservoir of dye that would tend to keep the ink color dark.  Do you think anyone was busy washing out their Parker 51s back in the day or just refilling and refilling and refilling?

 

I could be wrong but I think Asa-Gao is darker than #743 after a day.

 

I haven't tried the other side of the page.  Why bother if the first side feathers?  Smooth?  I think you could say it was like OPTIK with tooth but definitely not white like OPTIK.

 

I can't tell you how many notebooks I have with only a few pages used.  I'm on page 19 in the 70 page Red 'n Black OPTIK notebook.

 

I only used a few pages in these notebooks because they Feather.

L to R

Sugar Cane, LIFE, Kokuyo, APICA thin, Stalogy, Nemosine... not shown Maruman brown cover, Kokuyo white cover and others.

 

It is true that my only real work pen (a Majohn A1) gets refilled with whatever, and the resulting ink is some kind of dark blue purple stuff  

Other pens, I don't keep them inked long enough as I'm trying hard to only have a few pens inked at a time. The exception would be pen filled with bright red or orange that don't get much use, after a while the ink it too concentrated and not in your face enough so they get cleaned and ink gets wasted. A smart person would add some distilled water or something instead 🤔

 

I am out of 743 (as well as Horizon blue), but I have it darker than the other two in the "historical writing" I was able to find. That will need retesting, especially since I found a note where I had written "very smooth ink" on the side 😱 Also saw some writing with 443 and gosh that was boring.
There is a big difference in some inks when they are used in dry EF nibs, I'm still trying to find good matches...What I get is often a pale boring copy of the writing samples you show.

I need to try that Noodler's L E. I'm somewhat reluctant to buy that brand for no good reason, and I have a local-ish store that sells some, so no excuse there 😕 

 

Waterman blue, shows some fading in some old writing. I don't use it anymore and mostly don't care about it, maybe it's improved (paper is better for sure) but the dye used aren't the most stable...it looks good in your writing samples but carries too much of overuse and meh factor to me! Aurora blue I only had a sample, bought in early 2023, writing on Oxford Optik now shows it much lighter than I remember it. I'm blaming the paper, it's old Oxford Optik. Pretty much same chemistry style as W blue so no interest anymore there.

 

Now Diamine Saphire and Herbin EdS. I found a variety of writing on various paper/ pen combinations, some looked nice. I need to retest PR Lake Placid blue to see if it could be a more saturated EdS. You could be right about Asa-Gao...didn't like my old writing with it.

 

Yu-Sari. Sometimes one side works better than the other. Optik with tooth? Strange!

[inkstainedruth]

My problem with Asa-Gao was that I'd get these big blob drops of ink roll down the nib and go splat onto the page.  

As for Eclat de Saphir?  That is ABSOLUTELY one of my go-to inks for using in Parker 61s with the capillary fill system because it's so well behaved -- doesn't clog up the teflon sponge.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[USG]

9 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

My problem with Asa-Gao was that I'd get these big blob drops of ink roll down the nib and go splat onto the page.

 

I think I might have had that happen to me once but I don't remember the circumstances. 

[USG]

Yu-Sari paper continued:

 

PGC remarked that she used some dual shading inks to test paper so I thought I would try that too.  I only have 2 dual shading inks, Sailor Manyo Nekoyanagi and Sailor Manyo Fuji.

 

The test didn't go well for the Nekoyanagi.  I've had problems writing with with this ink before.  It doesn't get along with some paper and apparently Yu-Sari is one of them.  Fuji was OK.  Neither paper displayed dual shading.

 

 

I started in the top left and it feathered. 

 

I wrote with Fuji to the right.

I repeated the test on the left side under the first one to see if the first results were a fluke.  More feathering.

Because there was no feathering with Fuji, I wondered if maybe there was a problem with the coating on the left side of the paper so I repeated the test right under Fuji.  Still feathering but less.

 

As a control I repeated the test on Cosmo Snow paper which had better color and no feathering.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lithium466]

He's dead, Jim.

 

But your reviewing is making me want to try it more now.

[Lithium466]

13 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

My problem with Asa-Gao was that I'd get these big blob drops of ink roll down the nib and go splat onto the page.  

As for Eclat de Saphir?  That is ABSOLUTELY one of my go-to inks for using in Parker 61s with the capillary fill system because it's so well behaved -- doesn't clog up the teflon sponge.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

I had remembered your comment about EdS in finicky fill system pens, and I used it in a Hero "chinaerometric" with full success (admittedly, that isn't a finicky filling system)  

I don't remember Asa-Gao being wet or drippy, and my historical writing is showing something pretty dry flowing, but that was wi5 Japanese EF, so maybe it's best suited there. Need retry...but when there is Taccia Ao for cheaper and with more sheen, choice is easy!