I knew that Noodler's makes a bunch of inks that you feel safe using to address the outside of envelopes. I thought that they were the only ones who did that, but today's mail brought a bottle of Montblanc blue/black, which was advertised as being permanent. I tried it, and indeed it passed the soak test.

That Montblanc ink looked sooooo much like my Lamy blue/black that I wondered: (1) Is it the same stuff? (2) Is the Lamy waterproof too?

So I took the 8 pens I had on hand, with 8 different inks in them, and wrote a sentence with each. Then I soaked the paper in water for 5 minutes. The Noodler's red/black came through pretty good. The Lamy did every bit as well as the Montblanc (ARE both of those German inks made by the same folks?). Blue/black Quink, pre-Slovenian blue/black Skrip, Aurora black, and Duke blue/black all fared poorly. The surprise was Namiki blue: it's a light blue, but it was all there after the soak.

Are there other inks out there that are secretly waterproof?

I haven't tried Lamy Blue-Black or Namiki Blue, and I've never seen any claims for them about waterproofness. Secretly waterproof (or at least quick rainshower proof and one run through a sprinkler proof), indeed! I wanna know more, too!

I'm interested too.

Here are a couple of links from the forum that you might find very helpful:

http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/in...p?showtopic=609

Bryan's tests: wonderful!

http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/in...6&hl=waterproof

http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/in...wtopic=1526&hl=

Hope these help

Wow! Is Noodlers Eternal Brown really eternal?

M. Stuart,

I would double what you said. I have both of them (Lamy and MB Blue Blacks) and I can not distinguish these inks. They behave absolutely the same, inkf flow, color, waterproofness, lubricating and etc. I wrote two lines one with MB and another with Lamy, soaked, both lines looked similar. I guess they are the same inks packaged in different bottles.

For the last two years, I've been using waterproof Platinum Carbon ink to address envelopes and write checks. It goes down black, but by the time it dries, it's more of a charcoal grey -- still black enough for me. I've dedicated a Platinum pen to it exclusively and have had no problems. Some people are skeptical of it and worry about pens clogging up; however, with reasonably good maintenance techniques, I've not had a problem yet. But I will say, that I have been very careful not to let it dry up in the pen. I'm quite pleased with it.

The way I figure it, if it was good enough for the Egyptians, hey, it's good enough for me!

Hope this helps.

Dorothy

Yes, it is very waterproof and indeed "Eternal", at least in the sense that it will last as long as the paper it is used on.

Here some test's I did which included this color.

http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/in...4&hl=water+test

Bryan

Yes, and now Platinum has a Carbon Ink pen model with wider channels, just for Platinum Carbon ink.

Thanks. Now I know.

Lamy Blue-Black has almost half the price of the MB Blue-Black (at least in Germany), while being the same stuff <_< - now you know which to buy.

What I dislike with both:
- they don't tell about the permanency
-they don't tell about them being ferro-gallic ink (for sure), while these acids have to be used carefully in FPs. :ph34r:
- the colour after drying completely on paper is hardly blue any more, it is rather grey with a blue hue. I doubt these inks can be used as blue inks for legal documents, where blue ink may be mandatory.

Hi saintsimon,

It does say permanent on the MB Blue Black box, but it doesn't on the bottle. It only says "for documents" on the Lamy box and nothing on the bottle. I always found that a little irritating, too.

What is a lot worse, and this is at least true for MB Blue Black, is that if you let this ink dry out in a pen, you may ruin the feed for good, meaning, the pen needing a feed replacement. The ink contains particles which can't be removed again, which don't dissolve anymore, when the ink has dried, on virtually any surface!

Fortunately, Noodler's permanent insk only bind to cellulose....

Warm regards, Wim

Wim, I have only a cartridge package of MB B-B, where nothing about permanency appears. I will check the local ink bottle packages.

Obviously, there seem to be different packages for Lamy bottles. I bought today a Lamy B-B 50 ml bottle. It is the most laconic package possible. The colour is not named on the package but only printed as a round dark blue swatch. Only 'Lamy', '50 ml' and 'Made in Germany' are written on the outside - no further info. On the inner lids there are some advice how to use the bottle itself - nothing about the ink. On the bottle only the dark blue cap indicates the contet. So your package is more explicit

And the Lamy B-B is waterproof ...

I just did a little soak test on a few bottles of ink I had handy:



I soaked the inks for an hour, blotted the paper on some paper towel, then dried it in the microwave(a little trick I picked up in my darkroom days), and scanned the paper. I forgot to scan it BEFORE I soaked it .

The Hero ink is called "high carbonic black". It really sticks to the dip pen nib I used, but I have been using it in a Hero 616 at work for about a month with no clogging problems. I still might be leery of putting it in one of my better pens though.

I don't have any of the Lamy ink left, but I looked back over some stuff I wrote when I got my Safari, and it looks like a dead ringer for MB blue-black.

The Noodler's Legal Lapis is my favorite waterproof ink. I keep a Waterman Phileas filled with it for writing checks and general paper work at my desk at home.

Larry

Larry -

Please can you tell me how you dry paper in a microwave? I'm keen to know what setting, how long, all that...

Yeah, me too. Better have a paper scanned than photographed with a P&S

I don't think that the MB BB cartridge ink is permanent, while the bottled Document ink is. I've performed the water test on both and found that the cartridge ink washes away, while the bottled Document ink doesn't. I hope this helps.

Maia and Peachez, I usually start at full power for 30 seconds and adjust as needed. Heavy papers might take a little longer. I saw a show on the photography of Ansel Adams on PBS years ago that showed Mr. Adams making one of his fabulous black and white prints. The prints are hard to judge for contrast range and tonality when they are wet, so he put them in a microwave to dry them quicker. He reasoned that, at his age, he didn't have time to let the print dry naturally. Works like a charm.

Larry

Amazing what you can learn here

Cooking recipes for wet paper

Cheers, for making me smile

Chris

Anyone want to do an experiment with a ballpoint and a Sharpie? That's what I use to address envelopes.

Rollerball ink disintegrate the minute they touch even a drop of rain.

You are absolutely right, I just checked that myself. The MB B-B carts are (Potty Mouth), colourwise and due to the lack of waterproofness. I will dump them <_<

What a confusion - so Wim was right about two B-Bs by MB.

Soon I will check, if the Lamy B-B carts are waterproof.

Thanks Larry

I have some Lamy BB cartridges on the way, I 'll be reporting about permanence as soon as I get them.

Good news from the Lamy front. The Blue-Black ink in Lamy catridges is also waterproof, as the bottled Blue-Black is. The carts ink even stays a little bit bluer after drying.

But in Germany none of the Lamy B-B packages does mention anything about that dokument safe quality