I found an old No. 127 Koh-I-Noor cork handled dip pen with a Hunt 512 Extra-Fine bowl pointed nib, and I've been playing around with it, I've inked it up with Parker Quink, Noodler's Manhattan Black, and Luxury Blue, as well as Waterman Blue-Black
Ink behaves much differently on this pen, first off, this thing sets down the *finest*, *thinnest* line I have yet seen, the term "hair-fine" springs to mind, but has a great amount of flex and can lay down up to a Bold, I love the super-fine line, if there was only an easy way to get that hair-fine line width on a FP....
the nib is exceptionally scratchy though, I can feel every individual paper fiber as i write/draw with it, it's not draggy, it's just exceptionally sensitive, like fishing with a High Modulus Graphite fishing pole, you feel variations in the paper, writing paper is generally smooth, sketch paper gives a lot of feedback, on the other side of the coin, writing with the Lamy 2000 feels like a fiberglass fishing pole, not particularly sensitive, but smooth and soft
the ink behaves differently too....
Parker Black Quink puts down a nice sharp black line with no pressure, and gets richer black as the line widens, it's a nice deep black, just too bad Quink has absolutely no durability and can get washed off the paper in nothing more than humid air, it seems, Quink seems to behave the same whether it's coming out off a Waterman Kultur or off the Dip Pen nib, a nice, stable, basic ink, just wish it was more durable
Waterman Blue-Black comes off the nib a bit thicker than Quink, it doesn't put down as fine of a line as Quink, and appears grayish-blue, as you add pressure, the ink gains subtle blue shading, and takes on an almost pre-washed denim look to it, once again, it shares an absolute lack of durability with Quink, no permanence or water resistance, plus, it loses that interesting purply-blue color it has when flowing out of my Waterman Kultur
Noodler's Old Manhattan Black bulletproof ink really sticks well to the nib, i can get about 6-7 lines of printing on a 5x7 notepad before I have to re-ink, and sketching with OMB, it takes on an almost "India Ink" darkness to it, it puts so much ink down that not all of the pigments can bond with the paper fibers, so it will "run" when exposed to moisture, really all that's happening is the excess unbonded pigment gets washed away, OMB has a nice adhesion to the nib (this is one case where Noodler's "Nib Creep" tendencies are an advantage)
Noodler's Luxury Blue is an odd ink on a dip pen, out of my FP's it's a rather mundane blue, an almost "washed denim" color, unsaturated and, i hate to say it, bland, don't get me wrong, I do like Luxury Blue, I bought it mainly for it's bulletproof properties, not it's color. off the Dip Pen, it's a completely different beast, it comes off the pen as a deep, purply/black/blue wet, and dries to a deep dark almost black blue, it's still blue, but a super dark blue, it's actually a really nice color, nothing bland about it, as with the Old Manhattan, it's probably due to an overabundance of blue dyes, the excess pigments in Luxury Blue off a dip pen will run when exposed to water, but the underlying remainder that has bonded with the paper will remain
the dip pen is a fun way to play with inks, my inks took on some totally unexpected behaviors off this simple little pen, I love the hair-fine line, and the ink behavior differences are unexpected and fun