I love the color of PR Dakota Red. It's a nice 'mature' red ink. But there's one thing that prevents me from being able to use it. When I ink a pen with this ink, the ink loses a lot of water and the nib gets coated in drying clumps of pigment.

Now, yes, I understand that PR and Noodler's inks have a ridiculous amount of pigment in them, but this only happens with a single ink of my collection which consists mainly of PR and Noodler's. Has anyone else noticed this with either this ink or another? Is there a reason this ink would be more prone to drying?

[EDIT] Forgot to mention something important. This has happened in three different pens so far, all from different makers.

Hi, James,

Well, guess it is good that you have the Empire Red to try now. It's been a month since I put Dakota Red into a Lamy Safari with an M nib, reground to italic tip. Haven't seen any of the clumping that you are talking about. The pen performs very well. Is the pen you are using noted for ink drying out in it? Did you flush it before filling with the Dakota Red? Tried another pen with the Dakota Red?

Need more data.

I tend to get it with Levenger Cardinal red (in a Sonnet). I seem to recall comments here that reds tend to have higher saturation to get the color, and that several reds do it.

Yeah, I'm picking that up from the post office today, so at least I'll have a new ink to play with.

I forgot to mention, this is a problem on all my pens, not just one. I should add that into my post...

And JohnS-MI, that may be the reason. I, too, have heard that and forgot about it. Maybe this one ink is just too loaded with pigment?

Interesting situation. I too like Dakota Red and have used it in 4 or 5 pens. I have never experienced the clumping but I have noticed the ink getting considerably darker over the time in the pen.

I have the same problem with PR Burgundy mist. It clumps and clogs the pen. I used it in a free flowing pen. I had to purge it of all remnants of the ink. I sadly have the same problem with all PR "red"s.

I've got the same problem with Diamine Registrar's Ink. I've used it in a Lamy 2000, and to write with it is to slowly watch the flow be choked off over a matter of hours. I'll flush it, and it writes strong, as the pages go by the color gets lighter and lighter as the flow drops.

Brent

people have noted PR Dakota Red having problems (as this thread shows, others have reported no problems at all!). I indeed recall that people have mentioned red crust forming on the bottle threads.

An important piece of info for us is how long it takes (after filling) for clumps to form. I'm talking about filling a CLEAN pen, not a previously-inked pen.

I've used Dakota from a small sample, and haven't had any problems, but found it to be inferior to Diamine-type flow inks. Not bad flow, just one of those "can't look back" things that is part of the Diamine awesome-operability experience.

Hm, I haven't checked to see if the bottle is doing the same thing. I should do that.