36 "blue" Inks Scanned

[klundtasaur]

Here are the blues/teals/turquoises from my obsessive ink journal.

These are spread out over a much wider time table; I did the blacks all at once on a Saturday afternoon. These have been done over the space of a year, so they're not quite as uniform as the blacks were.

My process is mostly the same, as is the waterproofness test that I do; but sometimes I used a Lamy Fine instead of a Medium, and sometimes I didn't write as many sentences. However, the paper is identical for all of them, so they can still be compared to each other fairly well.

That process is thus (in case you missed it last time):

I can usually do a whole page with about .25ml with this method.

First, I pull a small amount of ink from the vial with a blunt syringe. And then I saturate the feed of my Lamy Vista (a la this Goulet video).

I have some laid-pattern, 90gsm, slightly creme white (92 brightness) paper from work that I use for all my samples. The laid pattern means it has a bit of tooth to it, and it has a fairly good balance of being quick drying but also feather resistant and showing some sheen/shade.

I write out the ink name, the source of the sample, the nib in the Vista (invariably an M), and a few 'quick brown fox's. I write each sentence at a different speed, just to see how the ink keeps up, and to give me an idea of what kind of shading I'm likely to see depending on how I'm writing. When I first started, Ylvis' fox song had just gone viral, and it was playing in the background the first time I journaled. So...some of the pangrams aren't actually pangrams

I write a few words with different styles (shading, feathering, sheen) to further emphasize ink shading and feathering. Then I do a timed smear test, and a few scribbles/semi-random patterns on the page to further check the flow.

I dip a Q-tip into the sample vial, do a swab on each bottom corner (the left corner with the freshly dipped q-tip to show off shading, and the right corner without redipping for more consistent color), a 3-pass test to see how it layers, and then some random lines with the q-tip just to show off the color. I also put a paper hole reinforcer on top of the sample vial, and use the q-tip to swab the reinforcer for quick reference in my vial holders.

Lastly, I use a straight-edge to draw a grid with what's left in the Lamy, which I use to test the waterproof properties of the ink. 4 drops of tap water: top right is immediately wiped off, top left is immediately blotted, bottom right sits for a few seconds (~45s) before I wipe it, and bottom left I let dry overnight on the page. Each drop is supposed to represent how I (or someone else) might react to getting a letter or envelope wet, rather than any kind of "total durability/bulletproofness" test.

Then, I flush the Lamy feed with a full bulb syringe twice, and do the next sample. The whole process takes me about 8-10 minutes per page.

Once the waterproofness test dries overnight, I put it into a 3-ring-binder, organized by color (ROY G BIV, brown, grey, black, then fancy (Blue Ghost, Stormy Gray).

I'm more than a little obsessive about it.

The only exceptions to this whole ritual are the few times I've bought empty inky bottles (mostly Caran d'Ache, as I think they're the nicest ink bottles outside of Akkerman). As there's rarely enough ink to even pull through a syringe, I just swab the inside of the bottle with a q-tip, and do the corner swabs and some "painting" with the q-tip until it dries up.

 

In case they don't embed properly, here's a link to the full album on imgur: http://imgur.com/a/8BPCm

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[visvamitra]

Very useful comparison, thank you. I haven't tried Blue Suede and it looks interesting. Gotta checki this out.

[klundtasaur]

Very useful comparison, thank you. I haven't tried Blue Suede and it looks interesting. Gotta checki this out.

Thanks Vis! As always, your compliments are greatly appreciated.

 

Be sure that you know which Blue Suede you're getting; the newer 66ml bottles are the new formula, whereas their older 50ml bottles are more likely to have the older formula.

 

The older formula Blue Suede is my all-time favorite color; I've stockpiled some 220ml of it, but I'm always on the lookout for more. Let me know if you find it still in stock somewhere!

Edited March 4, 2015 by klundtasaur

[TheRealScubaSteve]

Nicely done. Blues are my weakness.

[Frank C]

Very nice comparison. There are lots of beautiful blue inks.

[klundtasaur]

Nicely done. Blues are my weakness.

Very nice comparison. There are lots of beautiful blue inks.

Thanks guys!

 

Is it just on my browser that those last few images aren't embedding? Anybody know how to fix that?

[Frank C]

The last six are just links. Probably some size restriction.