Some Ink Tests

[USG]

This is Sailor Nekoyanagi, a dry, high viscosity ink in a JInhao X-159 converter

 

 

Below are two examples of Diamine Jack Frost, another high viscosity, 'Dry' ink from an EF Jinhao X-159 that has been gently tuned into a modified Architect. 

 

This is on Tomoe River paper

 

And this is on Cosmo Snow paper

 

This is what Jack Frost looked like in the converter with the nib pointing up.

[USG]

I'm re-posting this from Today's Pens because it contains information that belongs here.

Sailors and Pilots and Jinhao's Oh My....

 

LateToThePartyMe: 

I've discovered in my ink test investigations that it's a lot more complicated than I originally though.  What I'm doing now is getting an 'overview' by using a wide variety of inks in an array of very similar pens, the Jinhao X-159s specifically.  That allows me to see how inks behave in general, wet, dry, free flowing, spreading, penetrating, etc. and what characteristics they have, like shading, sheening, shimmering, and on what papers they exhibit their greatest effect.  To that end I've narrowed it down to Cosmo Snow paper as being the paper that demonstrates the greatest effects for a wide variety of inks.

 

Anyway, some of today's pens:

 

[txomsy]

Now, I am wondering how these inks would look when used with an italic or wide stub. The thin/thick contrast must be pretty interesting.

[USG]

1 hour ago, txomsy said:

Now, I am wondering how these inks would look when used with an italic or wide stub. The thin/thick contrast must be pretty interesting.

 

Hey TXO

You always think of the most interesting things...  I have a 1.5 Reform Calligraphy pen, so I loaded up some of my best "Outline" ink and gave it a shot.  The "Outline" effect seems most pronounced from the M nib Sailor 1911L.  (apologies for the suboptimal quick and dirty cellphone pics)

 

 

[txomsy]

Most interesting indeed. If the italic/stub had produced a similar diffraction pattern, it would have been pretty amazing. OTOH, this makes me think it may have to do with ink pooling, which seems to be the case: an F lays down too little ink, an italic spreads it too much, and your M seems to get the sweet spot for this incredible effect. Still, the effect with the italic is impressive too (though maybe less pronounced).

 

BTW, I also like haloing inks. But these you demonstrate are amazing. Thanks for bringing them up and taking the time to do the tests. I do really appreciate the effort.

 

These go into my 'to explore next' list.

[USG]

 

I got some new paper, View Corona 52gsm.  The reviewer I read said they couldn't tell the difference between View Corona 52gsm and Tomoe River 52gsm. I don't know about that.

I got the 'White' paper, only to find out there's a better grade, 'Bright White', but I didn't see that one when I ordered.  It's very thin and crinkly but it wasn't very good for ink effects.  The only inks that did anything were the Diamie Shaders and Shimmer... Polar Glow, Majestic Blue and Jack Frost (below).  It has a slick surface and there was no feathering, ghosting or bleeding except a Sharpie.  You could probably write on the back but when I turned it over to write, it was so translucent the writing on the page under it was more distracting than the writing on the other side.

 

Cosmo Snow is still the best.

 

This is the translation from the Google App

 

 

[Penguincollector]

I put up a gallery of what my Iroful and Cosmo Air Light tests look like  so far. No magnified photos yet, but the Platinum Pink is showing a distinct gold sheen. No outlines to report, but if someone with better eyesight spots something interesting, I can take additional pictures or do more testing on specific inks. 

[amberleadavis]

OH wow this was incredible!  That Cosmo Snow paper is the bomb ... or is that the Barbie?  Okay, definitely the Barbenheimer. 

[USG]

Repost:

I read that someone bought Edelstein Sapphire and Edelstein Topaz just for the Mix, so I thought I'd try it too.  6 drops of each into an inkwell.   It made a nice "regular blue" ink that was unquestionably dry, but nothing special. 

 

Then I wondered what an Iroshizuku Asa-Gao and Iroshizuku Ima-Iro mixture would look like.  So I sucked up the ink in the inkwell with a Jinhao X-159 converter, stuck it in the pen and put it aside. Then 6 drops of Asa-Gao and 6 drops of Ama-Iro into the inkwell.  Well blow me down, it was almost the exact same color as the Edelstein mix, but it was wet rather than dry, so there was a slight line width difference.  I wrote a few lines with it and the color reminded me of Tsuyu-Kusa so I took out the Tsuyu-Kusa and compared a few lines of it with the Iroshizuku mixture.  Same color.  Leave it to Iroshizuku to have covered all the bases.  They thought of mixing those colors to come up with another shade, something I  think Edelstein must have tried but decided not to market.  Tomorrow I'm going to try Sailor Shikiori Nioi-Sumire and Sailor Manyo Sumire, and I'm expecting to see a very similar shade, and after seeing what Pilot did, my guess is that Sailor did the same.

THIS IS THE BEST I COULD DO WITH MY CELLPHONE

[USG]

Repost:

Continuing with my Ink mixing tests I loaded some of each mixture in Jinhao X-159 and 9019 pens so I would be using the same #8 Medium nibs, but as I've commented before, the new 9019 medium nibs were noticeably wetter than the slightly older dryer  X-159s.

 

To recap, the ink mixtures were 12 drops of each ink for Edelstein and Sailor, 6 each for Iroshizuku.

- Edelstein:         Sapphire & Topaz   <--- Dry Mix

- Iroshizuku:       Asa-Gao & Ama-Iro   <--- Wet Mix

- Sailor:               Shikori Nioi-Sumire & Manyo Sumire   <--- Very Wet (but my 3 9019s have wet nibs so I can't be sure how much wetter it was than the Iroshizuku mix)

 

Pens used were:

 

To further examine the difference in wetness, I took a look at the ink in the converters.  True to form, the very wet Sailor Mixture coated the converter and flowed horizontally, while the dry viscous Edelstein Mixture clumped in the end. The Iroshizuku Mixture, although no where near as wet as the Sailor Mixture, showed some wetting action on the sides of the converter and the beginning of it starting to flow.

 

[Penguincollector]

The Edelstein mix sounds like it would be a good one to try in your M1000.

[USG]

7 hours ago, Penguincollector said:

The Edelstein mix sounds like it would be a good one to try in your M1000.

 

Good call, PGC,I was thinking the same thing 👍 It's been a struggle with that pen.

 

 

[TSherbs]

Awesome tinkering. I like the Iroshizuku result the most. Thanx for sharing. 

[USG]

2 hours ago, TSherbs said:

Awesome tinkering. I like the Iroshizuku result the most. Thanx for sharing. 

 

In each case I mixed a dark blue with a turquoise.  It wasn't surprising that all the mixtures were similar in color, but surprisingly to CluelessMe, it looks like Iroshizuku already mixed those colors and sells it as Tsuyu-Kusa.  I could be wrong but Edelstein doesn't seem to have that shade and Sailor no doubt has it somewhere in the myriad of inks they sell.

 

Do you find that 90% of your inks sit around, unused, after the novelty wears off? 

 

 

[TSherbs]

37 minutes ago, USG said:

 

Do you find that 90% of your inks sit around, unused, after the novelty wears off? 

 

 

Not for me, no. I don't buy that much, and I like to rotate through colors that I have not used in a while. But "unused" for 6 months or so, before opening them again? yes, often. 

[inkstainedruth]

On 9/23/2023 at 11:13 AM, USG said:

It wasn't surprising that all the mixtures were similar in color, but surprisingly to CluelessMe, it looks like Iroshizuku already mixed those colors and sells it as Tsuyu-Kusa. 

Well, they USED to sell Tsuyu-kusa, anyway....  that was one of the colors Pilot discontinued in favor of those three inks that are so pale as to appear illegible on the page....   

I made sure to get a backup bottle of that before it went away.  I never understood why it didn't ever get the same love that people gave Asa-Gao (which I found really drippy) or Kon-peki (which I do like a lot as well) -- for me Tsuyu-kusa is just a quiet, restful blue.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[USG]

Another Re-Post

This ink is showing some of the "Outlining" I was looking for.

 

So I cleaned out the Paragon as well as I could. Soaked it for a number of says in Rapido-Eze.  It looked pretty clean to me.

 

 

I loaded some Vintage Omas Sepia in it.  The color was a little yellower than Pelikan 4001 brown.  After a few days the color darkened to a  brown.  Well we all know what that means.  There was residual blue still in there some where.  I wrote it out and refilled it again.  It kept the color for a day or so and then started to darken.  I got distracted for a while with some other pens and inks but I came back to it today.

 

By eye, the Sepia has become the dark color of Penman Mocha and it has developed a bright green sheen which is hard to capture with my cellphone camera.

 

INK: VINTAGE OMAS SEPIA    ~   PAPER: TOMOE RIVER 52gsm NOTEBOOK    ~   PEN:  OMAS PARAGON ]

 

[txomsy]

Simply amazing! er... Z?

[Penguincollector]

12 hours ago, USG said:

Another Re-Post

This ink is showing some of the "Outlining" I was looking for.

 

So I cleaned out the Paragon as well as I could. Soaked it for a number of says in Rapido-Eze.  It looked pretty clean to me.

 

 

I loaded some Vintage Omas Sepia in it.  The color was a little yellower than Pelikan 4001 brown.  After a few days the color darkened to a  brown.  Well we all know what that means.  There was residual blue still in there some where.  I wrote it out and refilled it again.  It kept the color for a day or so and then started to darken.  I got distracted for a while with some other pens and inks but I came back to it today.

 

By eye, the Sepia has become the dark color of Penman Mocha and it has developed a bright green sheen which is hard to capture with my cellphone camera.

 

INK: VINTAGE OMAS SEPIA    ~   PAPER: TOMOE RIVER 52gsm NOTEBOOK    ~   PEN:  OMAS PARAGON ]

 

  If you hadn’t mentioned that it was a brown, I would have thought it was a green ink. Pretty happenstance.

[USG]

1 hour ago, Penguincollector said:

  If you hadn’t mentioned that it was a brown, I would have thought it was a green ink. Pretty happenstance.

 

You might be right about a green ink.  What started out as a Sepia color, first morphed into a brown and now I think it is turning into a dark green ink.