Ink You Use For Expensive Pens

[Sky Fountain Pens]

Hi Everyone.

 

I recently got a expensive Parker fountain pen and I wanted to see what ink was safe to use for my pen.

What type of ink do you use for your expensive pens?

[SujiCorp12345]

I don't really reserve any particular ink for an expensive pen. Any ink that is fountain pen ink and that doesn't stain horribly is fine by me.

[Icywolfe]

Pilot Iro. I use it on my vintage and expensive pens. Only because I know that ink very friendly.

[Jerome Tarshis]

I use the same inks regardless of the price of the pen. On the other hand, not every ink will give equally satisfactory results in all my pens, so I do try to match the ink to the individual characteristics of the pen. For example, I like the way Montblanc British Racing Green looks with a generous medium nib or a broad nib, and I'm less happy with the way it looks if the pen has a fine nib. That has nothing to do with the price of the pen, though.

[Biff]

I use only Pelikan 4001 ink in my most valuable pens, either royal blue, black, or blue-black. This ink never fails me. You can't get the blue-black in the States anymore, so this spring I went to Germany and picked up four bottles. Actually I was going there anyway and while there I took the opportunity.

Edited November 7, 2014 by Nicolas_Rieussec

[Arkanabar]

I am perfectly happy to put any of my inks into my fairly expensive Pelikan M200 & M400, but that is in no small part because I can easily screw out the nib units & soak them. I am significantly more cautious with regards to my Parker "51" and my Sheaffer PFM II. Those will not ever get any iron gall, J. Herbin 1670, pigmented, Noodler's, or Private Reserve inks.

[Lou Erickson]

You may safely use any fountain pen ink in your fountain pen.

 

There are some who will tell you only to use inks by pen manufacturers, such as Pilot, Waterman, Pelikan, Parker, Sheaffer, etc. This advice seems outdated to me, as all of those companies have made inks that were hard on pens, and many of the companies that don't make pens make perfectly nice inks.

 

It really varies ink by ink.

 

If you want a suggestion of an easy to live with ink, I think any of the Waterman colors are very well behaved and easy to clean from pens. I find them a bit dull, myself, but they do behave well.

 

The Pelikan 4001 series of inks is also well behaved, and I like them.

 

I have had nothing but good luck with the Pilot inks - either their normal line, or the Iroshizuku deluxe ones.

[Buzz_130]

Just make sure that your ink is for fountain pens, and you will be fine.

 

You'll see several members here have enormous collections of inks to use in every brand and model of pen in the past 100 years. You'll also find warnings of some inks that require more maintenance than others or even have the potential to stain. But, with some help from the people here, you can find some very reliable ink with the characteristics you are looking for.

 

Buzz

[KBeezie]

I use Noodler's (Black Eel, Liberty's Elysium*, Apache Sunset, Blue Steel), Diamine (Syrah*, Grey, Imperial Blue), Iroshizuku (Tsuki-yo, Fuyu-syogun, Syo-ro), as well as R&K (Salix-Iron Gall).

 

The two I marked with * I use a tiny bit more discretion because it's kind of harder or takes longer to clean out of a pen, but otherwise, no problems. Even Salix despite being IG is fountain pen safe, great if you need a dryer flowing ink, not so grey if you let a pen sit for weeks at a time without using (the water evaporates, leaving it thicker and more sedimented over time).

 

The biggest killer is going to be poor pen hygiene. So whenever you hear someone say such and such ink killed their pen, consider the fact that they probably did not flush out the previous ink completely before using the new ink. The mixture may be what killed it, not the ink by itself. (The other killer is using inks not designed for fountain pens, such as novelty inks like old formula replicas, India Ink, ink made for dip/calligraphy pens).

Edited November 7, 2014 by KBeezie

[redisburning]

Waterman's blue is very safe, maybe you might start there.

[rapid_butterfly]

duplicate please ignore and sorry

Edited November 7, 2014 by rapid_butterfly

[rapid_butterfly]

duplicate. argh sorry

Edited November 7, 2014 by rapid_butterfly

[rapid_butterfly]

after trying many, many inks, i always come back to rohrer and klingner. Their stuff always behaves well in my pens, contemporary and vintage.

[Keyless Works]

Unless it's old and rare I will use most inks with my expensive pens if they are not known to be problematic. For old pens I usually with use less saturated blue or black inks like Waterman or Sheaffer but there are always exceptions.

[KBeezie]

Unless it's old and rare I will use most inks with my expensive pens if they are not known to be problematic. For old pens I usually with use less saturated blue or black inks like Waterman or Sheaffer but there are always exceptions.

Using Salix (iron gall) in my 100 year old BCHR lever-filling pen... but it's feed is a straight cut hard rubber feed so no fins or collectors or whatever to jam up or settle into. But I don't feel comfortable using it in my younger Parker 51 vacumatic, due to it's large collector and channels and how long it takes just to flush a vacumatic completely.

 

I'm not too familiar with the history of available inks at any given time frame, but wasn't a lot of older blues and blacks pretty heavily saturated? (if so may explain why older pens tend to feel much wetter than one may expect due to the increased flow with newer inks).

Edited November 7, 2014 by KBeezie

[inkstainedruth]

My most expensive pen is a Pelican M400 Brown Tortoise. It's had (to date) vintage Quink Brown, Iroshihzuku Yama-guri, Noodler's Walnut, and (IIRC) J Herbin Café des Iles. All worked fine, all flushed out fine. I was actually almost more worried about Café des Iles than the Noodler's, because I'd seen some reviews mentioning sediment. In fact, the Walnut turned out to be something of a revelation (I had considered it a really dry ink, because I think I had first tried it in what turned out is a very dry writing pen) -- in a juicy nib like on the 400 (it's *supposed* to be an F but it writes like a M or even a it flowed very nicely.

I have a couple of Parker Vacumatics, both with I think F nibs, and both of them have done very well with De Atramentis inks in them I was a little worried about using one of the scented inks, but both the pen (a Debutante or sub-debutante) and ink (Red Roses) performed like troopers.

I would hesitate somewhat over using a very saturated ink in a very old pen. But I put Noodler's Purple Heart in one of my Parker 51s and the only issue I had was that reds and purples are supposed to be a bit harder to flush out. And I'm not sure I'd put an iron gall ink in something vintage unless I knew that particular pen was a wet writer because IGs tend to be on the dry side, and also take a little extra maintenance when flushing. But then, I'm super OCD when it comes to flushing pens out.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Runnin_Ute]

My Pelikan's all have the following in them currently:

 

Rohrer & Klingner Scabiosa (iron gall) (M205)

Diamine Steel Blue (120 M & K)

Pelikan 4001 Blue Black (M205)

Noodler's Apache Sunset. (M150)

[PAKMAN]

Parker Quink blue, blue-black and black are very safe!

[kirchh]

Hi Everyone.

 

I recently got a expensive Parker fountain pen and I wanted to see what ink was safe to use for my pen.

What type of ink do you use for your expensive pens?

 

What model?

 

--Daniel

[Azura]

My most expensive pen is Chronoswiss Styloscope made by Pelikan, I inked it with Diamine midnight blue.