Inks Suited For Brush Pens?

[Honeybadgers]

I picked up a platinum weasel hair brush pen on Amazon when someone made a mistake and the price switched to $9, down from $59. I adore it, using it for art and bold borders, but my black ink cartridge is running out and I'm wondering what would be fun to fill it with. Obviously no shimmering inks, no iron galls, but what about something like platinum carbon black? I've used that in the past with the felt-tipped platinum brush pen without issue, but would it ruin my brush pen with natural bristles? Should I stick to something like noodlers black?

 

As for colors, what kind of things should I try to use? I remember apache sunset was just a big bucket of disappointment in the felt pen, with a sickly yellow line. Are the natural brush pens going to give me more dramatic shading? I can't really tell with this black ink how wet the brush really is.

 

I've got over 100 bottles of ink, and was thinking about filling it with something like sailor tokiwa-matsu, but on the other hand this is one of the few writing implements I really like black ink in. So that leads back to the idea of using carbon black, which is my favorite black, but I don't want to ruin this pen that I use literally every day (I do have an ultrasonic cleaner, though I'm not sure if this pen can be disassembled beyond removing the cap and barrel.

[dcwaites]

What sort of ink is in the current cartridge? Is it a dye-based black or a carbon black?

If it is a carbon black, then Platinum Carbon Black is safe for pens, and presumably would be safe for your brush.

As for a dye-based black, then any 'normal' dye-based black should do such as Pilot Black or Iroshizuku Take-Sumi (which, in spite of its name, is a dye-based ink), or Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Black.

I would stay away from Noodler's Black in this case, because I don't know how it would interact with the bristles.

[Honeybadgers]

What sort of ink is in the current cartridge? Is it a dye-based black or a carbon black?

If it is a carbon black, then Platinum Carbon Black is safe for pens, and presumably would be safe for your brush.

As for a dye-based black, then any 'normal' dye-based black should do such as Pilot Black or Iroshizuku Take-Sumi (which, in spite of its name, is a dye-based ink), or Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Black.

I would stay away from Noodler's Black in this case, because I don't know how it would interact with the bristles.

 

It's a standard platinum black, not a carbon cartridge.

 

Noodlers black is as safe as any other black. That fear is tremendously overblown. I wouldn't touch baystate blue to it, but black, heart of darkness, etc. are all just fine. they can be a little residue-ey compared to a non-waterproof black, but far less so than carbon black.

[requiescat]

I have been using De Atramentis Document Black in a Kuretake weasel-hair brush pen with no issues so far. I like it because it's waterproof when dry so that I can use watercolors as well.

[Mech-for-i]

Well, if you use the brush as a , well brush, then almost any ink that's not harmful to the hair / fur can and will do but since you are talking about ink in cartridge / converter then there is a need to figure if the ink would flow well into the feed ( can we call that a feed actually ) .. that and said, this pretty much dictate the same precaution with any fountain pen, so any Pigment, Carbon, or ink with any form of solid particles and / or binder are best be avoided.

 

But think ink do not usually do not do well with brush though it had nothing to do with the pen performing, just that the wetness pretty much mean feathering right away. So you are likely looking at saturated dry ink of sorts. There is a good reason why stick ink / Sumi ink are the primary medium brush used for.

[Torrilin]

I haven’t tried Platinum Carbon Black in a Platinum brush pen. My recollection it that it is supposed to work.

 

Any “regular” dye based ink should do fine.

 

If you’ve got a lot of ink to use and enjoy brush pens, Niji and Pentel make water brushes. They use a fountain pen style feed, and they provide really nice flow with ink. Not necessarily super for shading, but if you want a very wet look from an ink they’re great. The Pentel one takes about 15mL of ink to fill the reservoir and is much less prone to dry out than a regular pen. Basically it’s a high capacity custom brush marker when filled with ink.

[WarrenB]

I looked up the pen in question. The CF-5000 (I assume that's what you've got?) has carbon black cartridges specifically designed for it, and is apparently normally sold with the same.

 

So yeah. For that at least, I'd say you're golden.

[Corona688]

Brushes aren't picky at all. Their tremendous surface area sucks up anything remotely liquid.

 

That you can paint watercolor and oil-paint with the same instrument tells enough, really.

Edited June 7, 2018 by Corona688

[Honeybadgers]

I was only concerned with the feed since I know the feed on the felt tipped one is felt as well, but even that brush pen liked carbon ink.

 

I went with platinum carbon black after all in it, and it's been just fine. I'm amazed how long that cartridge lasted. But the supplied cartridge with the brush was definitely not carbon black (it lacked that sheen)

Edited June 22, 2018 by Honeybadgers

[dipper]

I find the Sailor black ink cartridges made specifically for their brush pen to be excellent.

 

Size-wise they are the same standard Sailor plastic cartridge as all other Sailor ink cartridges, so physically could fit in any Sailor pen.

There is some Japanese script in gold on the body of the cartridges. I do not read Japanese, but it is clearly different from the gold script on Sailor Kiwaguro ink cartridges. I recognise which one is which by the leftmost character. With a bit of imagination the brush ink cartridge character looks like a brush with three splayed-out bristles!

(Product photo in link below shows plain unmarked cartridges though, so the gold labelling may be a recent upgrade.)

 

The brush ink cartridges are more expensive than Kiwaguro or standard Sailor Black. Good value for money though as they seem to last a long time.

 

The ink is the blackest of blacks! It has a slight sheen. Lays down on cheap paper more like spirit marker ink than fountain pen ink, but shows no feathering or bleed-through on 90gsm paper. It just creates perfect crisp-edged solid black marks. It is described as a water based pigment ink. Perhaps it has a heavier concentration of pigment than a fountain pen could handle?

 

The ink is waterproof when dry. And it dries very quickly, depending on paper type.

 

Chromatography shows nothing more than streaks of black. No colour separation seen.

 

I use the cartridges in a Sailor Profit brush pen. My only other brush pens are very old Pentel Pocket Pens with stiff bristly brush heads. The Sailor brush (purchased in 2021) is far superior: softer, wetter, cleaner, with no splayed-out bristles and a perfect fine hair point.

 

This special brush-pen ink does not seem to be available in bottles. (?)

 

https://www.thewritingdesk.co.uk/ink-refills/fountain-pen-ink-cartridges/sailor-brushpen-ink-cartridges.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ENewton]

I use TAG Kyoto Nurebairo in my Kuretake #8 brush pen.  I liked the ink in the cartridges that came with the pen, but it doesn't seem to be available in bottles.

 

 

[Inkoherent]

Pardon my ignorance— why no shimmering inks?  I recently got a brush pen and thought that the Wearingueul “The autumn night after a thousand years” would look beautiful when used with a brush pen.  Does it damage the brush, or not flow well, or is there some other reason?

[mizgeorge]

I use shimmering inks with my basic, cheap brush pens quite happily, with no ill effects. I probably wouldn't use them with my 'best' kuretake pens, but I don't use them in any hard to clean fountain pen either.

[Inkoherent]

12 hours ago, mizgeorge said:

I use shimmering inks with my basic, cheap brush pens quite happily, with no ill effects. I probably wouldn't use them with my 'best' kuretake pens, but I don't use them in any hard to clean fountain pen either.

What is it about shimmering inks that would make you avoid them in a hard to clean FP?

[mizgeorge]

11 hours ago, Inkoherent said:

What is it about shimmering inks that would make you avoid them in a hard to clean FP?

I tend not to use them in anything with a sac, or with too complex a filling mechanism, simply because of the difficulty of removing any last remaining particles of glitter, especially when you can't see where they might be. Anything that has more visible parts is a lot easier to deal with - to the extent that I keep a bunch of cheap piston filler demonstrators for the shimmeriest of inks.