Inky T O D - Oh, The Places You'll Go, Or, Waypoints On The Inky Journey

[bayindirh]

I've also wanted to post an update about my journey. Currently my usage pattern gravitates toward "well behaving, practical inks". I've left "most X ink evar" phase and I approach much more relaxed to the subject of inks. Similarly I've reduced my number of inked pens to minimum to reduce the mental load of maintaining each pens, but my regular usage is not reduced a bit.

 

Blue/Black: This has became my primary color. Lamy's new Blue/Black taken me hostage recently, and shows no signs of letting go (not that I'm complaining).

Green: Lamy's green is so flat, but it also reminds me a tone of green from 1980s, hence I love it.

Brown: Kaweco's Caramel Brown has a nice shade and a very gentle old look to it, and is very unique in its own league IMHO. It also behaves very well.

 

Currently I don't use blue or black pens, but for black, I'm planning to use my remaining stock of Mont Blanc.

[alanlight]

Here's something else.

Does anybody feel "weird" putting clearly modern-color inks in a vintage pen?

 

What I mean is that I put Waterman's Serenity Blue in my Montblanc 220, mainly because that's the color that I imagine was used when the pen was new a half-century ago.

 

I'm I the only one who thinks this way?

[amberleadavis]

I go through phases - water resistant, fade resistant, then fuss free. Last year I used an ink each day. This year, I don't want to clean pens.

[bayindirh]

Here's something else.

Does anybody feel "weird" putting clearly modern-color inks in a vintage pen?

 

What I mean is that I put Waterman's Serenity Blue in my Montblanc 220, mainly because that's the color that I imagine was used when the pen was new a half-century ago.

 

I'm I the only one who thinks this way?

 

I have a pair of Pelikan 120s. I choose older formulations or safe inks to use with them since I don't want to risk reactions between the pen and the feed/body. On the other hand, I'm not into modern-color inks anyway. If I can't write long or title with that ink, it's out of consideration.

[bayindirh]

I go through phases - water resistant, fade resistant, then fuss free. Last year I used an ink each day. This year, I don't want to clean pens.

 

There's an experimentation and learning phase I think, than you quickly reach maturity, and use the pens and inks for their utility and comfort, rather than their "Ooh, shiny!" factor. I had the same journey. I have many many inks, which I will use eventually, but I lost the interest to collect more bottles until my collection reduces to a "manageable" size.

[amberleadavis]

 

There's an experimentation and learning phase I think, than you quickly reach maturity, and use the pens and inks for their utility and comfort, rather than their "Ooh, shiny!" factor. I had the same journey. I have many many inks, which I will use eventually, but I lost the interest to collect more bottles until my collection reduces to a "manageable" size.

 

 

Oh, no, that's way to mature for me. I'm now inking up with sparkles and whenever I don't like an ink, I just dump it and add another pen without cleaning every time I change inks. I am limiting myself to only 10 pens inked at a time and only flushing pens once a month. I'm still about the shiny.

[HalloweenHJB]

I must confess to having hit a plateau. I have a (faux?) leather case that holds 48 pens —really, 52 if you put two in each fold margin—, and I walk around with that every day. I've become known as "that pen guy" at professional conferences.

 

Each pen has a different ink, and they are ordered in my frighteningly obsessive way starting with yellow to gold to brown to orange to red to pink to purple to blue to teal to green.

 

Thanks to deeply wicked ink enablers (you know who you are! ), I keep finding new and exciting inks to play with. Like others, I'm still all about the color. And then if you add shading and/or sheen, I'm hooked.

 

If I had to reduce my daily pen inventory or be exiled to a desert island, these are the inks I'd take:

• ​Yellow: de Atramentis Apricot (I added pearlescent sparkles to this one, and the effect is wonderful).
• Gold: KWZ El Dorado, Bungubox Ebisu Gold.
• Brown: Krishna Bronze Leaf, Callifolio Inti.
• Orange: Sailor Hachimitsu, J. Herbin Orange Indien, and Krishna IG The Earth
• Red: J. Herbin Rouge Hématite, Sailor Irori.
• Pink: Krishna Brown-Pink, Sailor Sakura-mori.
• Purple: Bungubox L'Amant, de Atramentis Violet (scented).
• Blue: Iroshizuku Kon-peki, Lamy Pacific.
• Teal: J. Herbin Emerald of Chivor.
• Green: J. Herbin Vert Olive.

 

Of course, this could all change tomorrow. As the seasons change, so do my moods and my color choices...

[Bookman]

I'm going to conflate the two sets of waypoints and then touch on the ones that apply to me:

• My Writing Shall Be Preserved for EVAR. My handwritten journal goes back to May 1995. I didn't begin using fountain pens to write in it until 2009. Everything I wrote before that with a variety of rollerballs and gel pens is perfectly legible. And that's a good thing because I use my journal writings as a historical resource. I frequently go back to refresh my recollection about when something happened, what precisely happened, who was there, etc. This happens at least once a week. I don't worry whether my FP journaling will last as long, and I don't limit myself to permanent inks. But I do hope the writings outlive me.
• I'm in Love with/Quest for the Perfect Color. I knew what the perfect color was when I started buying inks. The issue was finding it in a bottle. It's the same color I'm in love with, and in eight years that hasn't changed: violet-blue. I suspect many inks I've never seen would fit the description. Many inks I have now fit the description, waxing toward or waning away from absolute perfection depending on the nib or the paper, frequently both, and sometimes possibly whether I'm wearing my eyeglasses.
• I Just Want It to Work. I haven't had many ink problems. I've haven't experienced SITB. I have never had a clogged feed. I've never had an ink eat my pen. Two inks were too hard to clean out of my pens. I gave up on one (Diamine Majestic Blue) and didn't replace the other (I've forgotten which one) when it ran out. Most Noodler's inks are more trouble than they're worth to me. I don't buy them anymore. As to behavior on the page, except for my remaining Noodler's inks, I blame the quality of the paper I'm trying to write on whenever I see feathering or bleed-through.
• What You See Ain't What You Get. Once there was an FP bulletin board—let's call it the Fountain Pen Notwork. And the powers that be had a repository of reviews of various inks. These reviews were mostly organized by ink name—make and model, so to speak. But one particular ink had its reviews divided and situated in different places for the simple reason that in this massive repository the same ink was given two different names. In one set of reviews, quite by coincidence I'm sure, the color of this ink as shown in writing samples was pleasing to my eye. Thank Zeus it wasn't teal. Except that it was. The reviews showing the true color were in the set I didn't discover until my ink arrived (Sailor Sei Boku) and all hell broke loose in the Bookman household. After a few back-and-forths with Rachel at Goulet Pens it was clear I had gotten the ink I had ordered. And that caused me to go back to the repository where I accidentally spotted the previously undiscovered reviews. I ended up using the entire bottle as a dip-pen ink.
• Ooooh, dat Bottle. Akkerman. Enough said.
• Using the Whole Bottle. I do it all the time, although I probably use half the ink now compared to the amount I was using for the first five years. I did a lot more writing then. Even now, though, I lab-syringe the last converterful (neologism alert) of three or four different inks a year. Sailor Sei Boku was the most recent. Since 2009 I have completely emptied 7-8 bottles apiece of Waterman Florida Blue/Sérénité Blue, Aurora Blue, Visconti Blue, and Sailor Jentle Blue; 4-6 bottles apiece of Aurora Black, Pelikan 4001 Black, Platinum Blue-Black, and Rohrer & Klingner Salix; and 2-3 bottles apiece of Omas Blue, J. Herbin Perle Noire, Montblanc Royal Blue, and Sheaffer Skrip Red. On the other hand, I'm still using the bottle of Diamine Orange I bought in 2009. After about five years I'm not even halfway through my dinky bottle of Noodler's La Reine Mauve, nor halfway through my normal-sized bottles of Waterman Red and Parker Quink Black.
• My Ink Must Match My Pen. I tried it once. I opened a fresh bottle of old reliable Sheaffer Skrip Red last year, put it in my red Nemosine Singularity, and when I started to write, out came this mercurochrome-orange sewage. That gave me the willies. Never again. Once burned …

Edited October 2, 2017 by Bookman

[Arkanabar]

It turns out that I'm not the first to tell you "What You See Ain't What You Get." Brian Goulet was warning us about that five years ago!

[Steveg58]

I must admit to having a You mean there's COLORS???!?!?!?? moment after a childhood of Parker Quink and Schaeffer Scrip inks.

After a notebook got damp and all the writing went fuzzy I turned to My writing shall be preserved for EVAR!! and to this day there is a good proportion of bulletproof, nanoparticle and Iron Gall inks in my drawer.

I don't have a quest for a special colour and shading and sheening are nice but not drivers for me. And apart from my Diamine Green-Black all of my inks just work.

[Flaxmoore]

I've evolved a little along the way.

 

You mean there's COLORS???!?!?!??- I've settled down, mostly. I've the foundational inks. Solid black, blue, blue-black, green, purple, red. I've Habanero if I want something odd, or EoC if I want sparkle, but those are rare.

 

Blackest Black EVAR!!- this one has mostly been left behind. I hit the top of the mountain in my eyes with Platinum Carbon, and need no further.

 

Brightest Colors EVAR!! I've never been a real fan of retina searing ink. I ran a bottle of BSB, but the closest I have now is Monteverde Horizon Blue- bright, but not searing.

 

My writing shall be preserved for EVAR!! Only one- the Platinum. That's in reserve for when I finally run out of HoD.

 

I'm in love with !- I'm always here. I love blue and blue-black. The smoky blue of DeAtramentis Steel Blue inspires poetry.

 

Quest for the perfect . Still here. Right now it's Monteverde Horizon Blue for work.

 

Shading/Sheen- Never really my thing.

 

Subtlety- I do like Dark Matter's subtle gray.

 

I just want it to WORK! Behold my life. I'm paring out inks that don't work perfectly.

 

Another signpost:

 

I want it to clean! Also I am here. Opposite to preservation, I want one ink that is as transient as tears in rain. Spill on clothes, who cares? Monteverde Horizon Blue.

[dcwaites]

It turns out that I'm not the first to tell you "What You See Ain't What You Get." Brian Goulet was warning us about that five years ago!

 

Why is it that whenever I see Violette Pensée I think "Violent Thoughts"...

[Arkanabar]

Well, I've more or less settled on a contender for The Essential Blue-Black. Inspired by this thread from Charles Skinner, and this thread from Tas, I've decided to mix my own, like I've always threatened to do.

But it's not going to be a very deliberate mix.

I'm going to start with a bottle labeled "PMX", the combined results of all my failures at trying to make something I hoped might be as attractive as Waterman Purple, but more fade resistant, without making it ugly.

(It never worked, though PMX isn't a hideous ink. But my full bottle of Noodler's Purple is as lovely as Waterman Purple, and far less fugitive, so the chances of me actually USING PMX are pretty low.)

This will become the base for The Essential Blue-Black, and it will get the first rinse every time I clean a pen and every time I use a pipette, any ink I flush, and any samples I conclude are too small for further use.

Will I get anything as lovely as Tas's Teeling Mix? Well, I very much doubt it. I doubt his Drawer of Shame had any attempts at recreating black inks. But it ought to be adequate.

 

Hmmm..... maybe if I exclude blacks from this, it'll go better....

[MyLifeInACommonplaceBook]

I love this post, I even laughed a little.

 

Your steps in the inky journey are scarily accurate. I'm a newbie and I'm simultaneously on several steps. The internet is a beautiful resource and I'm endlessly thankful to everyone for their ink reviews because it has made it possible for me to embark on my ink sample journey with so much choice.

 

I actually sat down and viewed hundreds of ink samples over the last few days because I wanted to try inks from all the color families and at least a few of the ink manufacturers.

 

The only fountain pen inks I've thus far tried are; Parker's Washable Blue (which I absolutely adore) and Parker's blue/black which I kept on purchasing trying to find the washable blue, which at that time I didn't know was washable blue (eye roll), and the standard black loaded in the Pilot disposable VPen (I'm not a fan).

 

These are the ones on my starter list: (yet to be received, this list might expand soon and rapidly)

 

Black : Kyo No Oto - Nurebairo (One of the most loved blacks it seems)

Blue : Robert Oster - Great Southern Ocean (Can't WAIT for this one. I had an incredibly hard time picking a blue, I adore so many, and I can't wait to try some more of Robert Osters colors.)

Brown : Noodler's - Walnut (Of course I had to try this infamous brown); Graf von Faber-Castell - Cognac Brown (This rich brown jumped out at me) (My list of must try browns are almost as long as my list of must try blues)

Clear : - (Not currently in the market for a UV / Black Light Ink)

Green : De Atramentis - Jane Austen (Not much to say here, stately green I think)

Orange : Pilot Iroshizuku - Fuyu-gaki (Made me think of a tangerine)

Pink : Herbin - Corail des Tropiques (It qualifies as pink and it's gorgeous, can't wait to try it out)

Purple : De Atramentis - Aubergine (Looks like a lovely color, I'm not too excited though, I apparently don't like purple too much)

Red : Diamine - Wild Strawberry (I wanted to try something LOUD); Diamine - Oxblood (Professional looking, yet different)

Silver/Grey : Pilot Iroshizuku - Kiri-same (This was a difficult choice, I have discovered that I love the look of greys)

Turquoise : Kyo No Oto - Hisoku (I am adoring the samples, hope I love it as much in person); Jaques Herbin 1670 - Emerald of Chivor (I couldn't resist this one)

White : - (See note on Clear)

Yellow : - (Couldn't in my right mind bring myself to purchase a yellow ink, I might reconsider in the future)

[by_a_Lady]

I have this weird thing where I'll be extremely indifferent or opposed to all brands I don't have in my collection - until I try a colour. Even weirder, my antipathy usually centers around the name and bottle design. For example, I used to hate the J. Herbin bottles for their weird, squat proportions (irrespectible of their undisputed unfitness to fit a pen), and now that I have one, I actually think it's tiny and cute!

I still won't try plain-named inks, though, like Visconti Blue, Sailor Jentle Black, etc. That's why Diamine Oxblood, KWZ Honey, De Atramentis Aubergine and the J. Herbin inks are all so alluring...

 

 

Dominique

[DrDebG]

It has been a year since I have responded to this thread, and I still find it very entertaining. So here is a summary of my visits to the "waystations" for the last year:

 

> You mean there's COLORS???!?!?!??

 

Yeah – I’ve been here. It isn’t uncommon for me to get bit by the color-bug and order a bunch of samples. Why? Because I like color and I just want something “different”.

 

> Blackest Black EVAR!!

 

No, I haven’t visited this waystation. Most of the time, I breeze right on past it. I am not motivated by black.

 

> Brightest Colors EVAR!!

 

I admit it. Occasionally, I drop by this waystation just to be sure that I am not going color-blind. Honestly, I use a lot of very bright colors for making edits, underlying, etc. I am only on the hunt for really bright color that attracts attention.

 

> My writing shall be preserved for EVAR!!

 

This is another waystation I normally cruise right on by. And in some ways this surprises me. I have been keeping journals since I was in college (many, many years ago – we won’t say how many). I have boxes of journals in my attic – the boxes are sealed plastic. I have never been overly concerned about permanence. I guess if the writing fades, then it fades. But interestingly, I opened a box recently from the early 80’s. I was using fountain pens then, and the writing is still just as crisp as when it was written originally.

 

> I'm in love with !

 

I am in love with all colors, but I seem to have more blues and turquoise inks than any others. So, yes, I guess I do make stops to this waystation.

 

> Quest for the perfect .

 

This seems to be located in close proximity to the “I’m in love with ! waystation. So when I want a lovely blue or turquoise, I end up on a quest for the perfect one – well, the perfect one for today.

 

> Oooooh, shady!

 

I have to admit that I stop at this one more frequently than I probably should. I do like inks that shade and seem to give preference to that quality over others. I might sacrifice a little bit of lubrication, for example. to get a lovely bit of shading. Some of my favorites right now are Stipula Calamo Sapphron (or Zaffrano for your Italian aficionados), Montblanc Golden Yellow, Montblanc Unicef Blue, and one of my favorites, Montblanc Swan Illusion.

 

> Oooooh, sheeny!

 

I used to stop at this waystation a lot in the past, but not so much anymore.

 

> Oooooh, subtle!

 

Up until recently, I would have said that I never get off at this waystation. But then I was given a bottle of an ink that I never thought I would like – Montblanc Swan Illusion. I could spend the next 10 minutes telling you about the subtleties of this ink. And now I am looking at other inks differently, looking for that similar sense of subtle allure.

 

> I just want it to work!

 

I spend a lot of time at this waystation. If an ink doesn’t work for me, I flush it out of the pen. I don’t equivocate, I don’t hesitate. It just goes. I might try it in another pen, but if it doesn’t work well in most, then out it goes. If it is a sample, I just toss it. If it is a bottle, I will give it away. I don’t have time to mess with things that don’t work.

 

> Danger, Will Robinson!

 

I’ve never stopped at this waystation . . . I’ve never had to. That is because I don’t use inks that might harm my pens. I don’t use iron galls or many permanent inks. I also don’t use some brands because of their history of causing problems. And I don’t use shimmer/sparkly inks – mainly because they don’t appeal to me – but also because they can cause problems with pens.

 

> Oooooh, dat bottle!

 

Nope – I haven’t stopped here. A bottle is merely the receptacle for the ink. It isn’t a major selling point for me.

 

> The Blending Disease:

 

I have only stopped here once or twice. It has been fun, but I really don’t have time to “play around” with it as I would like. But one recent success was that I added 1/3 Monteverde Napa Burgundy to 2/3 Monteverde Mandarin Orange. I got a very nice red-orange (as expected) with great shading and nice lubrication. Truthfully, I found the individual inks to be boring, so I thought I would try them together. I like to combination much better.

 

> I'mma use up this ink if it kills me!

 

Every now and again, I stop here. But truthfully, I get bored with some inks if I use them too frequently. So when I get to that point, I just put them in the back of the drawer and forget about them for awhile. Then when I “find” them again, I like them and finish the bottle enjoying the ink. But with that said, I hate having tiny amounts of ink in a large bottle taking up a lot of room. So, I generally put smaller amounts of ink in a labelled vial or small bottle. That way I have more room for new bottles of ink! And I either give away the old ink bottles, or toss them.

 

> My ink must match my pen!

 

This isn’t an ink waystation that I stop at very often. I only do this when I am getting ready to do some field work and want the ink to match the pens for ease of use.

 

> What you see ain’t what you get!

 

Yeah, I have been stopped at the waystation a few times, and it isn’t pleasant. Last year, I purchased a bottle of an ink because I really liked what I saw on the ink swab on the retailer’s website. No one had done an Ink Review on FPN, so I thought I would do one on this particular ink. When the ink arrived, I was a bit surprised. It wasn’t the color that I thought it was. It was supposed to be purple and it turned out to be a greyish green color. I swabbed it and wrote with it with several different pens. It was clearly a different color from the website. I contacted the retailer to see if there was a mistake. They said that what I received was not the color that they had. I did an ink review and several people on FPN said that the color I had wasn’t the color they had. It ended up that the bottle I had was an entirely different color – the bottle had been mislabelled by the manufacturer. This was the first time I have purchased a bottle from this ink manufacturer.

 

> And, a new waystation: I've arrived at Brand Central Station!

 

This is a major waystation stop for me. I become very “brand-centric” at times, purchasing only from a certain brand. Sometimes, I may purchase most if not all of the colors (i.e. Pilot Iroshizuku and Callifolio inks). There are some brands where I have always had good luck with regardless of the color (DeAtramentis and Montblanc – excluding permanent/document inks and shimmer inks), and if I could afford it I would have all the colors in their line. And there are some brands that I will not use at all (i.e. Noodler’s and Private Reserve) for many different reasons (back to the “I just want it to work” waystation). I do like to try new brands, but if I get mixed results, then I generally buy very selectively (i.e. Monteverde and Visconti inks). And, let me say, that I am not an “all or nothing” kind of person. Even with the brands like Noodler’s I am frequently trying another sample again . . . a different color or in a different type of pen.

[pgcauk]

Fascinating thread, thank you! I haven't got through the whole thing yet, but I can't restrain myself from jumping in!

 

For me it's color - but color is it's own world, or maybe it's own language? The more you immerse yourself in it the more articulate you become. I have definitely gone through stages and made key discoveries along the way.

 

I have always been interested in the full circle of colors, although some attract me more and others I tend to avoid, but this is all good stuff to explore. Early on I felt that each color had a distinct mood and purpose, so the color should support the intention of the writing. I made a "color cosmology", which was a lot of fun - I recommend you make your own!

 

I tend to keep a full circle inked (but not too many!) I have a base color for each day of the week, which helps me find my way through my notes really easily (I teach different classes each day), but also use multiple inks and nib widths on a page according to purpose; yellow will draw my attention to something, red is for actions that need to be taken, green is more observations, violet more wishes . . . Sounds a bit schizophrenic, and I guess it is, but I really like having multiple voices and it feels like living in three dimensions rather than two (or having a full orchestra to play with rather than just a single tambourine!) Going back to monochrome writing from here would be like going back to black and white television, or silent movies (both of which I enjoy, but I do not choose to live there in perpetuity!).

 

At first I bought inks as if they were paints, but soon figured that while there are some functions where bright colors are valuable; action plans, corrections and mark-ups etc., for sustained writing something more toned down is preferable, so phase 2 I had a full color circle where every color was either grey (greens/blues/violets) or brown (green/yellow/orange/red/purple).

WOW - those two should balance, warm and cool, so pretty interesting that we have a more developed vocabulary for warm than cool colors!

 

Phase 3 is a median, colors that support the writing but are neither screaming nor hiding.

 

I also found through experience that saturation is similar to brightness, I like my writing to be legible, but the high contrast of intense black on bright white can be almost as tiring on the eye as writing in red. Generally I prefer legible but not too saturated, which are often the shading inks?

 

By adjusting the saturation, any hue can be brought into my preferred range for comfortable reading and writing, so for example with yellow I have Helianthus for geometry and mark-up but golds and ambers for legible writing, while with red I use Fernambuk (bright pink!) for geometry and correcting student work, but use brick-reds or Oxblood for strategic planning.

 

So I guess on the Venn diagram I would be some combination of colors with brightness (inverted = subtle?).

 

That was a topic that opened some doors! Thanks again for starting it!

[Arkanabar]

You have the Blending Disease. See the New Waypoints.

[pgcauk]

You have the Blending Disease. See the New Waypoints.

Nope - I have the purchasing disease!

. . . . except cross out the "have" and replace with "had" - I'm over it now!

[pgcauk]

I have a new one (possibly a variation of "What you see ain't what you get"): All the reviews are positive so it must be worth the money? Took a few mistakes to learn that one - ouch! Samples, people!

This one also, thankfully, has its inverse, some of my favorites have scathing reviews on here! (. . . . so maybe I should try that Tundra Green after all . . . . ?)

 

Hurrah for individuality over conformity!

 

Also one quirk that may, or may not, be quite unusual - thinking that you love a particular ink, when in fact you happened to stumble onto a great ink/pen/paper combination. I thought I was in love with De Atramentis' Umber, but in fact that's conditional on it being in my 78G (the red one ) with a BB nib, where it has a charm that just will not transfer to any other pen!

Edited July 14, 2019 by pgcauk