I have searched these threads, checked google, and even asked the owner of the local pen shop about iron gall inks. I need a permanent ink to be used weekly and I really like the Lamy blue-black color. I have read that it is still an iron gall formula and is very durable.

My question is what are the effects of this type of ink on steel nibs. I have a Lamy Studio and a Reform 1745 that I am considering filling with this ink, but am afraid of it destroying the pen or being very needy regarding cleaning. Any comments or help will be appreciated.

Over time, iron gall inks will damage nibs and metal parts in pens. This can be reduced with frequent cleaning but chemistry wins every time.

If you really like the ink, use it in an inexpensive pen, or best of all, with a dip pen (easy to rinse after each use).

True iron gall ink changes color over time. While it is permanent, the color you write with today will not be the color that develops.

If your main objective is a permanent ink, I suggest Noodlers as a safer and easier choice.

Andy

Get a pen with all gold (not plated) ink delivery system

I used a dip nib with iron gall ink and it went from being shiny to a matte finish in the span of just a few minutes.

I used to use Lamy blue-black until I found out about its corrosive properties, so I've since switched to Pelikan blue-black, which I find has a nicer color.

I have a bottle of Pelikan 4001 Blue/black. Is this the same ink that you have? If so, do you find that it gives a better color in a Fine or Medium nib?

Thanks!

Either nib should be good, and the ink will look very good, IF the pen is a "wet" writer. If it is a "dry" writer, the ink can look washed out. As with most ink judgments, it's a matter of taste.

Is it customary for ink manufacturers to state if there is iron gall contained in their inks? If so, would it usually be on the bottle or box? If not... is there any kind of simple test that can be performed to validate if iron gall is present in an ink (aside from letting it convert a shiny steel nib to a matte finish)?

I just bought a bottle of Lamy B-B for use in my wet writing Lamy 200 EF.

I figure Lamy (and Mont Blanc) wouldn't sell this ink if it were that harmful to their pens, and I haven't read of anyone actually having a problem with this ink. All of the negativity seems to be based on assumptions. So I guess I'll have to see for myself.

Good luck on your quest Yoda.

Thanks for the reply. What a quest it has turned out to be.

FWIW, Todd at isellpens.com states that the ink is not iron gall. Please let us know how you like the ink in your 2000 EF.

From what I've read, Lamy and Montblanc in bottles are Iron-Gall, in cartridges are not. I could be wrong. I'm not a chemist and haven't tested them. There is some additional information in this thread: http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/in...c=51432&hl=

Good luck!

I have used Lamy B-B, Montblanc B-B, and Diamine Registrar's ink in my Lamy pens, my Duponts and my Pelicans. I have had zero damage. I have also used the Registrar's in an old Sheaffer School pen with no negative effects (steel nib). The key is that I clean my pens out after using these inks and do not leave one loaded day or weeks on end with the iron gall.

BTW - I have been told that the Lamy B-B cartridges are not iron gall, but the bottle ink has iron gall in the mixture.

Iron gall ink *can* damage pens- but pens with gold nibs are pretty darn safe, at least with the iron gall inks sold by Lamy, MB, Diamine, and R&K. Something you make in your kitchen could be pretty particulate filled, but something like Lamy's Blue-Black ink is even safe enough for their steel nibbed pens- not that I personally would bother to take the risk.

Gold doesn't

An even worse part of the paranoia/assumptions around iron gall inks is the idea that they'll eat up the paper. Really really acidic iron gall inks will- again, homemade ultra concentrate ink with too much sulfuric acid or ferrous sulfate, but the commercial stuff sold by the pen companies are tolerated well by paper and pens. Your paper won't turn to dust in 100 years because of the ink when you're using the new formulations. Hell, the super acidic stuff from the Middle Ages still took 500 years to rot away ink-infused paper. Some people seem to be *really* hung up on this fact, and it drives me batty when I read people say "but I need my words to last for hundreds of thousands of years, not a mere thousand!" A complex of some kind?

You don't want to let the ink dry out in these pens- as the water evaporates, the acidity increases, and anything that does precipitate will get chunkier and more likely to clog. But unless you stop caring about your FPs and stop using them for a couple years there isn't much risk of that happening.

Richard Binder himself recommends an iron gall ink for vintage pens in especial, and one of the more acidic/"dangerous" commercial iron gall inks- Diamine. Lamy/MB is much more gentle compared to it, even. Richard Binder mentioned that vintage pens are better suited than modern pens in general to the iron gall inks, because usually, the only metal that comes in contact in the ink is in the nib; and if you have a gold nib, you are golden as far as even the ugliest iron gall inks are concerned.

Yeah, with Lamy it's only the bottled Blue-Black ink that is iron gall. "Document Ink" they call it. The carts are not.

In the end, don't be scared! I'd avoid using an iron-based ink in a steel nibbed pen. Gold plated cheapies- that's fine, but flush them weekly. In your actual gold nibbed pens with no other metal in the ink reservoir, I'd reserve it to a pen you use at least a little every day, and then I'd flush it once a week to once a month. No big worries in a gold nibbed pen other than the pen drying out leaving chunks behind.

I've been waiting for some Lamy BB from pensandleather on ebay for a month- I think they *finally* shipped. :/ I did use Diamine's Registrar's Ink for a while in my Lamy 2000 F, but it suffers from the same problem that the ink does everywhere- it's incredibly dry. I'm going to try some InkSafe in it when it arrives, and hopefully I'll be able to use the Registrar's Ink again... Either that, or Lamy BB will do.

Long Live Iron Gall!

Regards,
Aaron

This is probably one of the best informed & accurate reply on iron gall inks I've read here. The inks that contain iron gall today are as safe as many others in the market. I am as concerned, if not more, using certain state-of-the art inks that the mentioned brands which contain very mild formulated iron gall content. A different story would be making your own pure formulae. I've been using them without problems and plan on doing so. If they were good for Rembrand and El Greco, they are good enough for me.

I think RevAaron gives a pretty much accurate description of the ink. Just my 2 cents. I've used the Diamine Registrar's in both my MB145 (which has a gold/platinium nib) and my Lamy Studio (steel nib), without any problems with either. As RevAaron, the ink can be rather dry. The registrar's ink also lacks the dye present in MB and Lamy inks, so the line starts out as a very faint sky-blue colour, which darkens to a dark blue-black as the ink oxidises.

I've even left the ink in my pens during the exam period (during which I don't play with my pens as much) and there wasn't any blockage or ill effects, to my knowledge. Of course you should avoid this if you can.

There's not much more to add to RevAaron's reply, but I'll just add that the reason I stopped using iron-gall inks is the color, which I find dull. If you're looking for permanence, then there are a number of more colorful options. Conversely, if you're looking for an ink that replicates the color of iron-galls with none of their less attractive properties, then Pelikan BB should do the trick. Best,
David

IMHO, after reading everything I could find on the net about them.......

Never use them if you are not required to do so by law or custom.

Never.

Its like Laudanum, yes it was great for headaches and pains. But that was then, this is now, use the better stuff they have available.

If you need permanent use black ink, if you need archival use Noodlers Black, and if you need for the eons get one of those desktop lasers that cuts stone or thin brass sheets.

Here is an update from Lamy USA/Filofax:


Dear Sir,

Thank you for your query.

The following is all that I can find on ink from Lamy which is on their
FAQ sheet on their official German Website in English version:

Ink Contents:

In the Middle Ages the ferro-gallic ink was the mostly used ink with
quills. The disadvantage of the ferruginous ink was that it aged and
dried up in the bottle very quickly and was therefore not suitable for
fountain pens. After new dyes appeared on the market which were water
soluble and after further developments with synthetically water soluble
dyes, ferro-gallic ink became less and less popular.

The common inks of today for fountain pens are pure colour inks made of
water and dyes.

Mixing of different ink colours:

The mix of different ink colours is not recommended. Due to the
different ph-values the colours might precipitate. Please make sure that
your fountain pen is thoroughly rised with water before filling it with
a new ink colour.

Waterproof:

According to German DIN ISO Standard fountsin pen inks are not
waterproof. Black and blue-black ink is very permanent and can be read
even after decades when stored in a dry and shady place.

I hope that this helps you out.

Just to add another data point, I've used the Diamine Registrar's Ink on and off with no ill effects - but I use it sparingly, and usually in dip pens, and I have never left a pen filled with it for any length of time. I think that a pen that had no metal parts contact the ink other than gold ones would probably be pretty safe, but I haven't personally verified that.

I have noticed that this ink has a significant precipitate after the bottle has sat unmoved for not all that long; there appears to be a significant amount of solid particulates in suspension in the ink. Despite this, I haven't had any flow (or other) problems using the ink, and I rather like it.

The other case I'll mention I can't swear is related to iron gall ink, but a friend gave me a fairly inexpensive pen to see if I could work on it (bent nib), and it had a Mont Blanc cartridge (empty) and dark-ish blue ink residue dried in the pen, so it may have been an iron gall ink. Or maybe not. It might be relevant here though, because once I got it taken apart and the nib itself removed, I noticed that there was significant pitting on the underside of the nib where the feed sits, and along the inside of the slit. The nib is gold plated steel.

Fault of the ink? Maybe, maybe not, I don't have any way to know really, and I don't even know for sure that there was ever any iron gall ink in this pen in the first place (the original owner is not a pen person and had no idea). So, take that for whatever it's worth (maybe nothing :-) ).

chud- the Mont Blanc and Lamy Blue-Black in cartridges is *not* based on iron gall. I'm not sure why this is- my personal guess is that most of Lamy and MB's cartridge fillers are steel nibbed, and as such, more prone to damage over time by iron gall-based inks, even gentle ones like Lamy's. More damage equals more warranty jobs for $20 pens, and I can't imagine Lamy is too keen on wasting their money on that game. MB doesn't make $20 fountain pens (to my knowledge!), but they just buy their ink from Lamy, so it's more a matter of who is whose ink lackey rather than MB making the same choice in that regard.

In other words, you *do* have a way to know! Iron gall didn't kill this pen- letting ink dry over time did. Or gunked it up at least. Iron gall ink, when dried and oxidized, looks almost entirely black. Inks like Lamy BB have a regular blue ink mixed in as well which doesn't darken in the same way as it dries. When you take some ferrous Blue Black and pipette it onto a petri dish and let it completely dry, it looks black rather than blue-black or blue.

The pitting was probably caused by the general acidity of the ink. Most FP inks are acidic, and Parker Quink Black is more acidic than Lamy'/MB Blue-Black, oddly enough. The water evaporates from an acidic solution it becomes more and more acidic. I've seen many vintage pens with various non-ferrous ink carts dried out completely with the plastic on the feed, cap and even the section showing a lot of pitting. Even with Skript I've seen this, which I consider a pretty harmless ink.

Aaron

RevAaron is right on the head once more. iron gall inks are feared because of their acidity properties. Well, you'll be surprised how many others on the market are even more acidic! Many of the well behaved inks that are so often mentioned here are even on the pH 2 range. So not using an iron gall ink because their acidic pH is quite silly if, like in my case, all my pens are continuously loaded with Waterman's Purple, for example. I have run pH paper test on R&K Salix and Scabiosa and they are way milder than my beloved W. Purple. The mentioned above Parker Quink Black -and many other colors- are also very acidic. I never had a problem but for a plated nib, many years back that started pitting almost instantly and that I have the impression would have done so using distilled water. The rest, steel or gold, perform perfectly, some even after 25 years of use (my use, some are vintage and thus, were working with iron gall inks even longer).
On the other hand, I've had to replace a feed after only a couple weeks use of Noodler's. Others here use it without problems.
I would encourage trying them and seeing the results by yourself. If you want to be extra sure about not damaging a thing, use a cheap pen -I use iron gall inks in my best pens without a worry, but I use Noodler's only in my cheapest ones. Is a personal thing, after having to send an almost new Waterman to the tech service, but I hear many use it in all their pens, too and never had a glitch. De gustibus non est disputandum. I just want to remark that today's iron gall inks are pretty safe and that you can be sure they will last centuries.

Is Iron Gall okay in Parker 51s?

I use Lamy Blue-Black regularly in a Lamy Safari, but wash it out between fillings and don't let it sit unused for weeks. I've experienced no visible change so far in it or my other steel or gold-nibbed fountain pens. I have experienced a bit of etching on steel dip pen nibs, but not to the point of harming them (yet).

I would not use iron gall inks in a Parker 51, as the silver breather tube may corrode.

As for iron gall inks corroding paper, I've not seen it myself. My mother gave me a book on plant biology a few weeks ago, dating from 1868; there are several pages of hand written notes in the front and back of the book, all clearly written (in a beautiful Spencerian script) with a dip pen and iron gall ink. The ink hasn't affected the writing surface at all, from what I can tell.

I swear by Montblanc inks, and have used their blue black in several steel nibbed pens with no ill effects. As long as you rinse the pen out after a filling, you'll be fine. A habit I've gotten into with the MB B-B (whether or not it's necessary) is to empty the pen loaded with it at the end of every week, thoroughly flush, let dry, then refill. Iron galls, it would seem, require a bit more attention to use, but not much. The reports of these inks being liquid death are overblown, and have been posted mostly by people parroting what they've heard elsewhere.

If you leave a pen loaded with iron gall for months on end without cleaning it, will something happen? Maybe. If you give your iron gall pen a regular cleaning will something happen? Absolutely not.

All this being said, the Pelikan 4001 blue black is a very acceptable substitute for an iron-gall blue black (although it doesn't have the same water resistance).

Do you mind if I put that first bit in my signature? The Iron Gall Defense Union has been formed!

So far, the Pelikan 4001 Blue-Black is the closest thing I've found to a real Blue-Black. That, and vintage Quink BB Permanent, which behaves and looks almost the same way as the Pelikan BB- but with much better flow and lubrication. Which means it's an awesome ink.

I had problems with flow with Diamine in my Lamy 2k and Conklin Glider such that I stopped using it in them. I will try some InkSafe in it I get some. But, on a whim, I tried it out in a Sheaffer Craftsman Feather Touch #5 and... it works well! This is a super wet pen, and it seems to me that the Registrar's Ink might suit it perfectly.

Regards,
Aaron