Umber - Toucan

[visvamitra]

Toucan fountain pen ink is Australian made fountain pen ink that comes in 14 colours that can be mixed with each other to make your own custom coloured inks. The inks are formulated from water soluble dyes with no harmful additives and pH is supposed to be neutral (7). At the moment the inks are offered in glass 30 ml bottles.

These bottles are really nice and fun. They look quite small, I would say it's the smallest 30 ml bottle I've used. I don't think they're particularly practical, especially for those who use mainly big-nibbed piston-fillers. With C/C pens you can always use syringe and fill cartridge/converter with it. With piston - fillers it's more complicated and some nibs will be just too big for this jar.

These inks are made by Tintex. The full line consists of fifteen colors (that, interestingly are described as Technical drawing Inks on Tintex website and marked as such on labels):

1. Aqua
2. Black
3. Blue
4. Bright Green
5. Crimson
6. Gold
7. Magenta
8. Orange
9. Primrose
10. Royal Blue
11. Scarlet
12. Sienna
13. Turquoise
14. Umber
15. Violet

Umber is my favourite one because it's quite complex. The color is nice to my eyes. As for the writing, experience may vary depending on your pen and paper preferences. It's true for all inks but in some cases differences in behaviour are negligible, in some cases quite big. In dry pens Umber leaves perfectly legible line but feels dry, especially on cheap copy paper. You don't get much lubrication so using it in dry pens may not be most pleasant experience in your life. In wet pens, on the hand (take a look at Rhodia and Tomoe River scans) the ink flows very well and leaves much darker, richer line.

I think this ink, especially given the low price, can be nice addition to browns choice. If however you're not that interested in trying new colors and look mainly for great writing performance, I wouldn't say this one should be your first choice. It's good ink, but may feel too dry in some pens.

Ink splash

Drops of ink on kitchen towel

Waterproofness

Software ID

Color range

Tomoe River, Wahl-Eversharp Doric

Leuchtturm1917, Kaweco AL Sport, broad nib

Rhodia, Wahl-Eversharp Doric

[EklecticMonkey]

Thanks for this! Do you have more of the Toucan inks? I've been curious about them a little while now but there's practically no reviews I could find!

[migo984]

Have a few of these inks. Haven't found a good one yet.

[visvamitra]

I enjoy three inks I have/had: orange, Sienna and Umber. Umber has nicest color but is worst in flow compartment (in dry pens).

[Jamerelbe]

I think all the Toucan inks are a little prone to be 'dry' writers (not lubricated?), so they work best in wet pens - they're also a little lacking in saturation, but for that reason they shade really nicely. For mine, orange is the most appealing colour; Sienna the most complex; umber's not quite my shade of brown, but I never had flow issues with it.

[vojtahlad]

Toucan inks are little lacking in saturation? This is far from my experience. I own three of them and the sturation is great for all of them. Here is a little comparison:

 

[visvamitra]

@vojtahlad - can you shatrte what pens have you used to write this text? I agree that in right pen the saturation level will be satisfying but in drier pens Toucan inks saturation is rather average.

[EklecticMonkey]

Thanks for sharing, vojtahlad!

[vojtahlad]

Oops, I did this two months ago so I do not remember which pens I used. I think it was a dipped Serwex 101 and Hero 5028.

 

I am using Bright Blue in my Pelikan M200 with great pleasure (but this is a wet pen). In general, my feeling is that saturation of these three Toucan inks is above average.

 

There are few more detailed shots from my test:

 

[visvamitra]

@vojtahlad - thabk you for an update. From my experience almost every single ink will look saturated when used in dipped fountain pen The situation may look different when it needs to flow through filling system, feed to the nib

[Jamerelbe]

Oops, I did this two months ago so I do not remember which pens I used. I think it was a dipped Serwex 101 and Hero 5028.

 

I am using Bright Blue in my Pelikan M200 with great pleasure (but this is a wet pen). In general, my feeling is that saturation of these three Toucan inks is above average.

 

There are few more detailed shots from my test:

 

 

A couple of points of clarification:

 

(1) It's not necessarily a complaint (in my books) to say that an ink is more or less saturated - it's simply a quality of the ink. Less saturation allows for more shading - which is one of the things I really like about these inks.

 

(2) Some of the Toucan inks are more saturated than others. Sienna is probably one of the most saturated; Umber and Orange also lay down a highly visible line. Toucan Black is more a dark gray, but its lack of water permanence made it a great option for my son's fountain pen, when he first started getting into the hobby (he always asks for Bulletproof inks now!). Primrose is pretty hard to read, and gold is not a whole lot better, and I find magenta and violet to be pretty washed-out. The "Bright" inks (blue and green) are attractive, fresh, vibrant colours, but benefit from a wetter / wider pen - and so it goes on...

 

I've found most of these inks to look pretty good in my Noodler's pens, and to exhibit wonderful shading properties when flexing. I also appreciate the fact that they can be mixed and combined so easily - I found Primrose with a dash of Bright Green (for example) made a great highlighting ink in a Platinum Preppy, and I formulated a 'peach' colour for one of my daughters by mixing Orange with Magenta.

[vojtahlad]

 

(1) It's not necessarily a complaint (in my books) to say that an ink is more or less saturated - it's simply a quality of the ink.

 

Sure. I was just surprised because my first impression was something like "Wow! What a bright color and saturation!"

 

My experience with Toucan inks is definitely limited - I own only three of them (purchase of some more is planned) and I avoid dry pens in general.