What Inks Have Saved A Pen For You?

[NumberSix]

A few months back, I bought a new Shaeffer Prelude from Vanness at a bargain price. It's a lovely little pen. Solid weight in the hand, lovely brushed silver with gold trim, and excellent twist converter included.

 

But I hated the Fine nib!

 

It wrote okay; I don't think it's defective. But no ink I used in it would make the nib feel smooth enough that I enjoyed using it. I tried a number of inks from a number of brands. But in the end, I was ready to chalk it up to a failed test pen for me.

 

This morning, I decided to give Noodler's Bernanke Blue a try. I have a sample, and reviews suggest it works best on finer nibs.

 

And it worked! The fine nib on this Prelude tames nearly all the bleeding and feathering. And more importantly, the nib runs wet and smooth. It's like a brand new pen, and I could easily see myself using this ink in this pen as a daily driver.

 

I am curious now: Have you had that experience? In the nick of time, the right ink came along and saved a pen from being sentenced to the closet or worse? Or maybe the ink was the write-off, until you found just the right pen?

 

And PS - can you suggest any other inks that might have a similar effect in this modern Shaeffer Prelude (F)?

 

 

[ScarletWoodland]

KWZ Honey and Diamine Honey Burst both have magic pen whispering powers and you cannot change my mind

 

A lot of KWZ's standard inks will smooth out a rough and stingy nib, I find. There are a couple drier inks in there but most glide wonderfully.

 

Heart Of Darkness will do that too but it's a gusher; I save it for incredibly fine and stingy pens.

Edited June 5, 2020 by ScarletWoodland

[NumberSix]

A lot of KWZ's standard inks will smooth out a rough and stingy nib, I find.

Good to know! I like the colors on their Standard Turquoise and Grapefruit.

 

Sounds like a good excuse to revisit those inks and a few other colors.

[amberleadavis]

I hated the Bookbinder inks until I tried them in a Pineider Flex Stub. What a great combo!

[Paul-in-SF]

I have a Moore 96-B Fingertip pen which was such a gusher I couldn't really use it, and because the nib is what it is I had no idea how to try to tune it to be more dry. I tried a couple of different inks, but when I put in Pelikan 4001 Royal Blue, it wrote like a dream and I haven't looked back.

[NumberSix]

I have a Moore 96-B Fingertip pen which was such a gusher I couldn't really use it, and because the nib is what it is I had no idea how to try to tune it to be more dry. I tried a couple of different inks, but when I put in Pelikan 4001 Royal Blue, it wrote like a dream and I haven't looked back.

 

I use Pelikan Royal Blue in my Parker 51 even though it's probably more dry than I need - I just like how pencil-y it makes the nib feel.

[NumberSix]

I hated the Bookbinder inks until I tried them in a Pineider Flex Stub. What a great combo!

 

I don't even know that ink! That's not Standard Bindery, is it?

[aurore]

Diamine Midnight Blue.

If it doesn't flow well enough, the pen is faulty. Some of my Waterman pens worked poorly even with Waterman Florida Blue, but none with Diamine Midnight.

[Noihvo]

 

[Croma]

Hello:

My all-purpose inks, those that never fail, are the classic and well-tested, parker quink, waterman serenity blue, pelikan 4001 royal blue and montblanc royal blue. If a fountain pen doesn't work with these inks, then it needs to be repaired or removed. The rest of the inks are just fun.

Regards.

[ENewton]

In 2018 I bought a Pelikan 140 at the San Francisco International Pen Show. I bought it with the impression that Pelikan pens are wet and even thought it might be my pen for use with Rohrer & Klingner Scabiosa, but the seller recommended that I not use an iron gall ink and, what is more problematic, that I not use any purple ink.

 

So first I tried Rohrer & Klingner Sepia, but it was too dry. Not only did the nib produce a weak-looking line, but it dragged along the page, making it unpleasant to write for any length of time on any paper other than Tomoe River.

 

Then, considering that all my other inks were purple and figuring that it couldn't hurt to try a purple ink just once, I filled the pen with Waterman Purple. Still too dry.

 

Pelikan 4001 Violet was more satisfying than Waterman Purple, by virtue of being more lubricated, but still did not provide a writing experience that would tempt me to use the pen.

 

I bought a bottle of Sailor Taisanji Yellow, having read that it is a wet ink, and with the Sailor ink the pen wrote relatively smoothly, but alas Taisanji Yellow was not saturated enough to produce a legible line.

 

Finally, it happened that my daughter returned to me a bottle of Pilot Iroshizuku Kujaku that I had given her a few years ago. With Kujaku, the pen writes a legible line and provides a smooth writing experience.

[ScarletWoodland]

I have a pen and ink that saved each other, now I think about it. My fine, Bali Citrus Platinum Plaisir is incredibly dry and stingy, so much so that I thought only Heart Of Darkness would work. Diamine Robert was too much of a sheen monster for me and I could hardly ever see the base colour because it's so wet.

 

I finally had the sense to put them together and it's just the most perfect combination. The barrel of the pen matches the colour of the sheen, the dry nib tames the ink so I can see lots of the lovely, plum base colour and the wet, lubricated ink makes the dry nib run smoothly. My first permanent pen and ink pairing.

Edited June 6, 2020 by ScarletWoodland

[inkstainedruth]

I had a similar experience with my first Pelikan, a 1990s era M400. The thing is supposed to be an F and it writes like a B. I was originally going to put Iroshizuku Yama-guri in it and use the pen for drawing, because its juicy and springy nib. But that ink was way too wet for the pen. So I tried Noodler's Walnut which I had originally put in a Platinum Plaisir, one of the first pens I bought when I fell down the rabbit hole (one of the older ones with the coated nibs to match the barrel color (trust me, you don't want one -- the coating started flaking off after just a couple of years). Turned out that mine sounds about the same as ScarletWoodland's -- dry dry dry. And with a dry ink like Walnut? Awful. But in a super wet pen like that M400? The dry ink tamed the wet nib, and the wet nib coaxed flow out of the ink. You would not have known it was the same ink.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Flaxmoore]

Mine is Diamine Registrar's, and my two Lamys- a Safari and an Al-Star. Both are pretty heavy gushers, to the point where even Pelikan 4001 Blue isn't dry enough. DR is.

[amberleadavis]

book vendors is a company in Australia and it's the series called snake oil and they're all named after snakes and they're guaranteed to cure writers block.

 

I don't even know that ink! That's not Standard Bindery, is it?

[yubaprof]

Hello:

My all-purpose inks, those that never fail, are the classic and well-tested, parker quink, waterman serenity blue, pelikan 4001 royal blue and montblanc royal blue. If a fountain pen doesn't work with these inks, then it needs to be repaired or removed. The rest of the inks are just fun.

Regards.

Except for the Waterman, those are the inks I use plus Sheaffer Blue-Black. They are not exotic or fancy, and many will think they are dull, but they are quite reliable and will not damage a pen. On the other hand, I never allow Noodlers ink to touch one of my pens. I only use blue or black ink (or blue-black) so I don't know about how other Noodlers ink colors perform, but I have found the ones I have tried (blue and black) to be difficult to flush out and much too slow to dry. And if you get some on your clothing, too bad.