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Black Ink With Red Sheen


pepsiplease69

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Hi FPN friends,

I'm sure this question has probably been asked before so I appologize ahead of time if I'm raising this topic once again.

 

I'm looking for a black ink (pure black), and one that exhibits a red sheen.

 

Now I want to be very particular about what I mean when I say "sheen".

 

I know about the matte characteristics exhibited by Sailor Kiwa Guro, but that's not what I'm after.

 

And neither am I looking for a straight black ink mixed with a red ink to give a reddish hue to an otherwise black color.

 

Thirdly, I also have tried J. Herbin 1670 Stormy Grey, and I would consider it a glittery ink, and not an ink with a sheen. Again not what I'm after.

 

I want the writing to light up when viewed at an angle and light reflects off the surface of the ink. When you look at the ink straight on, it appears to be a straight black.

 

The ink that I have in mind that does this is Diamine Sargasso Sea, or Sailor Jentle Sky High.

 

I would like something like that only in black color.

 

Are there any ink recipes that I can mix on my own to get this effect?

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Thanks.

 

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I actually would love to find the same! There's a black ink with green sheen in Sailor's Kingdom Note line, but that's the only dramatically sheening black ink I know of.

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So I personally don't know of a black with red sheen.

the closest ink I could think of would be private reserve Ebony Blue which is a really really dark green that appears nearly black out of a wet pen. That ink has insane red sheen.

http://i.imgur.com/JkyEiJW.png

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So I personally don't know of a black with red sheen.

the closest ink I could think of would be private reserve Ebony Blue which is a really really dark green that appears nearly black out of a wet pen. That ink has insane red sheen.

 

I wonder if one could mix black with it yet still retain the sheen.

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I tried doing that yesterday and I didn't get quite the results I was wanting.

 

I sarted out with equal parts 50-50 mix of the following two colors

 

Noodler's X-Feather

Private Reserve Ebony Green (this ink is very close in sheen to PR Ebony Blue)

 

I tried that with a dip nib on rhodia paper and initially the 50-50 mix was entirely black with no red sheen.

 

Then I kept adding more ebony green in unit increments and testing along the way.

 

2parts Ebony / 1 part x-Feather

3parts Ebony / 1 part x-Feather

and so forth.

 

I didn't really see the intense sheen in any of my tests, and it went from a dark black to a greenish black color without any significant sheen.

 

So I will continue to test with it to see if there's anything else I can mix here.

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Hmm. I wonder what happens if you mix J. Herbin's Rouge Hematite with a plain black.

Current Wishlist:

Visconti, Visconti, and...more Visconti! (And some ST Duponts too). (Ok fine, getting on the Omas and Montblanc trains now too. Toot toot.) (And maybe on the Montegrappa one too, but only for the Miyas.)

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I wonder if one could mix black with it yet still retain the sheen.

 

The classic way to get a dark black mixing pigments is to mix colors opposite each other on the color wheel. In my experience, greens gives the darkest blacks. The Sailor greens are very sheeny.

 

I would bet Sailor's Tokiwa Matsu (slightly cool green) and Oku-yama to create a very sheeny near-black. Or mix Miruai (cooler green) with a warm brown for a similar effect.

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The classic way to get a dark black mixing pigments is to mix colors opposite each other on the color wheel. In my experience, greens gives the darkest blacks. The Sailor greens are very sheeny.

 

I would bet Sailor's Tokiwa Matsu (slightly cool green) and Oku-yama to create a very sheeny near-black. Or mix Miruai (cooler green) with a warm brown for a similar effect.

Very interesting!

I'm going to give that a try very soon. I have both oku-yama and tokiwa-matsu.

 

I'll mix them in equal parts and report back my findings.

 

Thanks for the suggestion regarding the color wheel. I never though of that. And since I'm mixing both sheeny inks I would guess that it would retain the sheen.

 

I could also try epinard+grenade and see what materializes.

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Very interesting!

I'm going to give that a try very soon. I have both oku-yama and tokiwa-matsu.

 

I'll mix them in equal parts and report back my findings.

 

Thanks for the suggestion regarding the color wheel. I never though of that. And since I'm mixing both sheeny inks I would guess that it would retain the sheen.

 

I could also try epinard+grenade and see what materializes.

 

As far as I know, epinard is the same as tokiwa-matsu and oku-yama is grenade. At least, I believe I remember a thread that showed identical chromatography for these pairs of inks.

 

I'm very interested to see your results.

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And bring it to Pen Posse, so we can see it.

San Francisco Pen Show - August 28-30, 2020 - Redwood City, California

www.SFPenShow.com

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Well, folks, I tried it out and here's what I found. (sorry no photos yet, but soon)

 

I started out with a 50-50 mix of tokiwa-matsu and oku-yama.

 

The color turned out to be a very dark brown color, leaning on black, but not black just yet.

 

Then I kept adding dropper-fulls of tokiwa-matsu to the mix, supposedly going from 1:1 to 2:1 to 3:1 ratio.

 

I achieved a neutral black around 3:1. It's a black that's diluted, shows a lot of shading, so I have to use a very wet nib to unload heaps of ink onto the paper to get a pure black and not any of the gray shading.

 

Now, for the sheen.

 

I am seeing a very subtle gold color sheen in the mixture. I like it a lot, but it's very subtle. Under intense direct light from the flash of my iPhone, or in direct sunlight you can clearly see the sheen, but under normal room lighting its a subtle sheen.

 

I wrote a couple of mini-dashes to deposit pools of ink on the page with my Monteverde 1.1 nib. Next to it I did the same with a non-sheening ink that I had on hand at the time, Namiki black. And I could clearly see the sheen side-by-side.

 

But on its own, in the normal room lighting its not very noticeable. You'd have to be looking for it to find it.

 

This whole ink mixing has given me another idea.

 

How about I take another opposing pair of colors different from these.

 

Sailor Sky High has very intense sheen, if I mix that with Sailor Jentle Apricot, for a Blue and Orange pair. I might try that next.

 

Photos will be coming soon.

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Well, folks, I tried it out and here's what I found. (sorry no photos yet, but soon)

 

I started out with a 50-50 mix of tokiwa-matsu and oku-yama.

 

The color turned out to be a very dark brown color, leaning on black, but not black just yet.

 

Then I kept adding dropper-fulls of tokiwa-matsu to the mix, supposedly going from 1:1 to 2:1 to 3:1 ratio.

 

I achieved a neutral black around 3:1. It's a black that's diluted, shows a lot of shading, so I have to use a very wet nib to unload heaps of ink onto the paper to get a pure black and not any of the gray shading.

 

Now, for the sheen.

 

I am seeing a very subtle gold color sheen in the mixture. I like it a lot, but it's very subtle. Under intense direct light from the flash of my iPhone, or in direct sunlight you can clearly see the sheen, but under normal room lighting its a subtle sheen.

 

I wrote a couple of mini-dashes to deposit pools of ink on the page with my Monteverde 1.1 nib. Next to it I did the same with a non-sheening ink that I had on hand at the time, Namiki black. And I could clearly see the sheen side-by-side.

 

But on its own, in the normal room lighting its not very noticeable. You'd have to be looking for it to find it.

 

This whole ink mixing has given me another idea.

 

How about I take another opposing pair of colors different from these.

 

Sailor Sky High has very intense sheen, if I mix that with Sailor Jentle Apricot, for a Blue and Orange pair. I might try that next.

 

Photos will be coming soon.

 

Thanks for the update. I can't wait to see the photos.

 

What paper are you using? That sheening ability of an ink is dependent in part on the paper you use. I have found that Tomoe River is the top performer, while Original Crown Mill Laid paper comes a close second. Among "normal" mid-range papers, Clairfontaine Triomphe sheens well and doesn't cost a fortune. It does not sheen nearly as heavily as the other two I mentioned, though.

 

I'm interested to see your blue/orange mix as well, but don't be disappointed if it does not yield a true black. Generally, I've found the darkest blacks come from the greens.

 

And finally, you may be aware that mixing inks can result in precipitation. I would not recommend leaving these mixes in your pen until you've had a chance to observe how the mix reacts chemically outside the pen. Others may chime in to say if they have experience mixing Sailor inks.

 

Keep us updated! I'm interested to see your Miruai mixes, too.

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I had some Levenger Raven Black and spilled some on some Made in Brazil comp book - turning it over to the back side showed a lot of red. I think I might have taken a photo of it. I will see if I can find it.

Brad

"Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind" - Rudyard Kipling
"None of us can have as many virtues as the fountain-pen, or half its cussedness; but we can try." - Mark Twain

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I had some Levenger Raven Black and spilled some on some Made in Brazil comp book - turning it over to the back side showed a lot of red. I think I might have taken a photo of it. I will see if I can find it.

 

Oh, that's rather promising. I also happen to *own* some Raven Black, but have never tried it on Tomoe River. Hmm...

 

Here are some images...

 

I certainly think that is very nice, but I must admit that only red sheen would make my heart truly sing. :)

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Black ink with red sheen. Reminds me of the dress that the android R. Dorothy Wayneright wears in the anime "The Big-O." No, it's not what it's title sounds like... Perhaps my favorite anime series.

Imagination and memory are but one thing which for diverse reasons hath diverse names. -- T. Hobbes - Leviathan

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  • 3 months later...

Just found another ink from Australia called "Blackstone" Black Stump ink, there's a thread in the forums discussing that:

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/291725-blackstone-ink-breaking-news/

 

They're saying it a black in with a definite red sheen.

 

I'm definitely thinking about giving it a shot.

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