International - Cooperative - Unobtainable - (I C U) Ink Review - Blue Amber

[AAAndrew]

The shading was fairly good at times with the 45's, but great with the Osmiroid. Which leads me to believe that it should shade pretty good with a stub or larger nib.

 

 

 

I also tried it on some really bad recycled paper. I was pleasantly surprised with how well it worked.

 

 

 

I also tried it out on some Southworth 100% cotton business paper. This is difficult paper. With a really wet pen and a wet ink, it can be quite nice, but it requires a lot of lubrication and a lot of ink. On drier nibs, it can be like writing with an empty pen.

 

Blue Amber did quite well on this paper, but I was using wetter pens. It came out a quite dark purple on this paper.

 

[AAAndrew]

The only problem I had with the ink was with my Osmiroid. It's a huge nib, and the next day it did dry out a bit so that I had to squeeze the cheap convertor a little to get it flowing again, then it was fine.

 

 

But the shading was quite nice

 

 

 

 

The dry time was pretty bad on this paper but much better on the HP and quite good on Clairfontaine.

 

 

 

Overall, a fairly well-behaved ink. A nice purple in color with cool color-changing characteristics. It goes down darker bluish purple and dries fairly quickly as darker purple. It behaved itself with this pens. It was fairly water-resistant and a smooth writer in my pens. Takes a bit to dry on the cotton paper, but much better on regular paper.

 

And I found no problems with it being a powdered ink. I have been watching for crystalization or any clogging, and so far, nothing. I left my fine-point 45 for a day without writing and it started right up.

 

It was a nice ink, an interesting color, and I'd call it Ripe Plum.

[wallylynn]

That color change was awesome!

[amberleadavis]

Black Amber is now up for review.

[Sinistral1]

 

[mhguda]

[mrcharlie]

I have received a small sample of Blue Amber, and loaded it in a Fine Sheaffer's and Medium Waterman. They write much fatter lines using this ink than with other inks. Not out of control, but overly-wet to my tastes. Better than overly dry, but still too wet to use on one of the three papers I tried it on so far; one that isn't usually a problem.

 

I like, but don't love, the color. I haven't tried it on most of the papers I frequently use yet; this is just a quick first impression.

[Sinistral1]

[mrcharlie]

I tried to use Blue Amber on a postcard from a book that has worked well with other FP inks.

 

 

Not so much with Blue Amber (that was from an F nib). The ink you can read is O.S. Manganate V from an EF.

 

FWIW, it looked almost ok for the first half second or so ... and then it did that.

Edited July 10, 2014 by mrcharlie

[amberleadavis]

Hmm..... Was it a bubble or something? Or did it continue to misbehave.

 

Oh, and don't throw the Amber out with the Ink.

[Morames]

I tried to use Blue Amber on a postcard from a book that has worked well with other FP inks.

 

 

Not so much with Blue Amber (that was from an F nib). The ink you can read is O.S. Manganate V from an EF.

 

FWIW, it looked almost ok for the first half second or so ... and then it did that.

 

I can totally see this ink spreading on absorbent papers. It goes down quite wet. I didn't really have feathering issues, butI can only imagine paper like moleskin (which I've never used, but heard is very absorbent) would be difficult to pair with this ink. That being said inkjet copy paper is fairly absorbent, and I didn't see the spreading as unmanageable, I just wouldn't be able to write small with it, which is why I love my drier writing TWSBI.

 

Did use the same pen for both of those samples. I would guess you didn't due to the annoyance of cleaning and reinking. What pen did you use? My EF with a Knox nib writes super wet and lays down too much ink no matter what I do. I'm curious to know more.

[Morames]

Bah! Amber I just realized I never put 8% on any of my reviews. I'm sorry. Hopefully that won't fowl things up too much.

[amberleadavis]

It's all good!

[amberleadavis]

Well.... Good news!!!

 

I mixed up Black Balled and Blue Cashmere. OH MY OH MY

[napalm]

So, what is it? "Black Cashmere" or "Blue Balls"?

[mhguda]

Where do we sign up?

[Morames]

I'm in. I'll even make sure to label it right this time :-)

[mrcharlie]

Hmm..... Was it a bubble or something? Or did it continue to misbehave.

 

No; it just soaked into the cardstock ... and then spread into unreadable-ness. It is fine, if a bit wet/wide, on most paper.

 

Did use the same pen for both of those samples. I would guess you didn't due to the annoyance of cleaning and reinking. What pen did you use? My EF with a Knox nib writes super wet and lays down too much ink no matter what I do. I'm curious to know more.

 

The Blue Amber is in a Sheaffer's Cartridge Pen with 304 (Fine) nib; the O.S. Manganate V is from a Jinhao 599 hooded EF nib.

 

I've used other inks and pens on this same book of postcards with no problem.

[amberleadavis]

So, what is it? "Black Cashmere" or "Blue Balls"?

 

 

Actually it's two different inks, I didn't combine them.

 

Here is the black.

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/269915-i-c-u-ink-review-susemai-black-balled/?do=findComment&comment=3047635

 

Here is the blue.

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/269916-i-c-u-ink-review-susemai-blue-cashmere/

[KBeezie]

I had just run out of Salix in my Nemosine Singularity with the Goulet 1.5 Stub nib, and just remembered, Amberlea had sent me a sample of some B.A. 8%. So figured I'd give that a go.

 

Nothing to crazy basic write sample on some Rhodia 80g.

 

http://static.karlblessing.com/reviews/ink/BlueAmber8/write.jpg

 

I noticed it can be a hard starter if I set my pen down for 3 to 5 minutes, but once that flow starts up again it's very nicely flowing. Though it still has a few initial starting issues (compared to a similarly dry Salix ink, which didn't have a start up problem with my stub) but it wasn't unpleasant.

 

It's a bit too purple for my personal taste, but it goes down pretty boldly, very tiny amount of shading (it's already pretty dark on the initial stroke). I've not tried to dilute it. Drying times was rather nice with the stub, under 10 seconds to be dry on Rhodia 80g, which was even faster on typical absorbent paper like mead or typical envelopes.

 

Water resistance was also nice, since I mainly use my 1.5 stub to address envelopes mainly. I did a 5 minute soak with it next to a few other inks with a picture of the run within the first minute. Of all my inks the Black Eel (much like just straight Noodler's Black) doesn't run at all, the color around it is from the other inks.

The Blue Amber is pretty resistant still remaining legible after a soak, not quite as strong as Blue Steel, but close.

 

http://static.karlblessing.com/reviews/ink/BlueAmber8/soak_start.jpg

http://static.karlblessing.com/reviews/ink/BlueAmber8/soak_end.jpg

 

The Inks on the List above are:

- Blue Amber 8%

- Akkerman Shocking Blue

- Noodler's Texas Blue Steel

- Iroshizuku Tsuki-yo

- Waterman Intense Black

- Akkerman Oost-Indigo

- Noodler's Blue-Black

- Iroshizuku Ama-iro

- Noodler's Black Eel

- Noodler's Sequoia Green