I'm thinking my bottle of Aurora Black doesn't look right these days. It's less than 6 months old, but those spots on the bottle have me a bit worried. Should I dump this bottle? Has anyone else had this problem with Aurora ink?

As you can see from the finger print, I poked around on the glass there to see if the spots were solid deposits, bud I couldn't find much out.

wow, you used up a lot of ink, but those spots sure do look a bit funky and clogging to a pen. I'm not sure if it's not normal though.

That sure doesn't look right to me. I've had my Aurora inks for more than 6 months and I haven't seen anything like that in my bottles.

I can never keep Aurora Black for more than 2 months without it becoming empty. This is a case for the X-Files!!!

On a serious note, I wouldn NOT use that ink for anything that relates to a fountain pen!!! Looks like it would clog a pen faster than 2 shakes of a lambs tail!!! I would send a note to Aurora and let them know. OTOH it looks like it could of been cross contaminated.

TNS

Ryan,

How did the inside of the bottle feel? Did the clumps dissolve when you touched them? Have you noticed anything different in the pens you've inked with Aurora Black?

Bravo! What do you write about? I filled my Pelikan M200 with some ink about 2 months ago and I still can't finish it up. I need some ideas on what I can write about.

I brought Aurora Black and South Seas Blue yesterday. Aurora Black is nice!!!! LOVE it.

This reminds me of Robert Persig's book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. There was a section that was discussing being a professor and trying to get a student to write. I may have some of the details wrong, but this should provide the gist of it.

The student was told to write about the street outside. She came back, unable to find anything to write about. She was then told to write about just the one block on the street. She came back, unable to find anything to write about. She was then told to write about one building on the street. Again, she came back, unable to find anything to write about. She was then told to write about the one brick on the upper left corner of that building on the side facing the street. She came back with many pages filled with writing. Blocking out all of the extraneous details allowed her to 'start small' and write about just one small piece. From there, she was able to gradually expand the topic to include more and more of what she saw.

I have found this to be an interesting technique. While an event can be summarized in just a couple of words, it can also be described in terms of seconds and microseconds. This is especially true when it involves people. When something happens, we can go through many emotions, looks, glances, reactions, etc. in just a very short amount of time. That level of detail opens up whole new worlds to write about.

Tim - I love ZMM, and that is a wonderful description of the passage about his rhetoric class. Thanks for reminding me to pick Persig up again sometime; it should be read a few more times at least.

Well, the Aurora has been pitched. I'm a little miffed by having to shell out another $10.50 for a new bottle, but oh well - might give me an excuse to get something else and save on shipping .

Thanks for the advice, everyone!

-Ryan

I write a lot in my Journal and I also have a lot of paperwork at work and I take massive amounts of notes. So I normally keep about 3 to 4 bottles of PR DC Supershow Blue. Noodlers Black (for legal stuff) Aurora Black, A few bottle of Parker Blue/Black, Waterman Violet, and Waterman Red.

Now at home, I have about 80+ bottles of ink, all different brands and colors. I normally like Black, blues and blue black ink.

I go through a bottle of PR DC Supershow blue about every 10 to 15 days. Noodlers black lasts me around 30 day. I normally go for the big bad Johnnies, the 4.5 OZ Noodlers Black as my Inkpot ink. That lasts me around 2 months. So as you can see, I go through ink like it is water but then again, I normally use broad nibs or broad stubs and they drink ink very quickly.

TNS

I just noticed that the topic title was Aurora Black. The ink in your picture has a purple cast to it?

Aurora Black has a bit of that cast to it when it is in the bottle with light shininh through it. Once it is on paper, it is as black as black gets.

TNS