Diamine Onyx

[dcwaites]

 

Diamine Onyx Black – A Review

 

 

 

I got this ink as a free sample along with some other inks I ordered from Diamine, so I thought I would kill two birds with one stone – review the ink, and test a new way of reviewing ink.

 

I have put up scans of the ink written on two types of paper – High Quality and Ordinary Quality. The aim of the HQ is to see the ink in its best light. The aim of the OQ is to see how the ink behaves on lesser quality paper. The reason is that I regularly see reviews of inks on Clairefontane, Rhodia or other high-end papers, with the comment “No feathering or bleeding”. I want to see how the ink shows up on ordinary papers as well.

 

This is the ink on High Quality paper. It looks like a nice, dark ink, with a little bit of shading and a dry time of about 7 seconds. After about a minute there is no smearing.

 

 

On ordinary paper, the ink still looks very nice, showing tiny amounts of feathering, but no bleeding, with a medium wet nib.

 

You can see, if you imagine very hard, tiny little bits of feathering at the bottom of some of the letters.

 

 

You can see here that while the Onyx shows no bleed through, there is a little coming through from the Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Black, and a little bit less from the Heart of Darkness.

 

 

Finally, this is what happens when you pour water on the ink, after it has dried for about half an hour. You can see that it is not a very water resistant ink at all. I don't know if it could be called washable. My definition is that if you get some on a white shirt, none is left after you wash it. I am not going to donate a white shirt for the experimant...

 

 

Note 1 - The FX Colotech Idol looks a little bit blue because of the UV whiteners in the paper. My scanner can't quite remove the blue glow.

 

Note 2 - I have put the PDF and OpenOffice files for the Ink Review forms I designed up on my Shared Google Drive, as well as a couple of others I found on the FPN (one is no longer accessable). My forms are for A5 paper, or two to a sheet of A4.

 

 

[lapis]

Nice review and good thoughts for new contents in a review. Funny, the Onyx -- as well as the other 4 inks -- on the HP paper has more than a tad of blue in it (on my monitor).

 

Mike

[alexander_k]

Thanks for the review. Onyx has been my standard black ink for some time now. It's black enough for my purposes (no blue in it in my experience) and well-behaved in all respects.

[goodpens]

I have had my bottle of onyx for a few years. 4? I used to really like it. But in the past month, in two very different pens, it has seemed very dry. It seems gunked up. I put it in a bold TWSBI Eco last night and the flow was not good at all; I flushed it out about 2 hours later, but it took a surprisingly long time to clean. It also seems greyer and more greenish than I recall itnot as saturated as it once was.

 

Anyone else have similar issues with its properties changing? Maybe there has been slow rvaporation from the plastic bottle. Or maybe I am hallucinating and misremembering. Time to find a new black.

[JulieParadise]

[...] Time to find a new black.

 

J. Herbin Perle noire. Black black, good flow, easy to get, not too expensive, considerably lightfast, surprisingly water resistant after some seconds. That's the standard black I'd recommend. If it needs to be stronger and waterproof: Platinum Carbon Black.

[goodpens]

 

J. Herbin Perle noire. Black black, good flow, easy to get, not too expensive, considerably lightfast, surprisingly water resistant after some seconds. That's the standard black I'd recommend. If it needs to be stronger and waterproof: Platinum Carbon Black.

Thanks JulieParadise. I have never tried perle noire, which surprised me, but definitely will. I have a few waterproof black inks, so I am set on that front, actually.

[SchaumburgSwan]

 

J. Herbin Perle noire. Black black, good flow, easy to get, not too expensive, considerably lightfast, surprisingly water resistant after some seconds. That's the standard black I'd recommend. If it needs to be stronger and waterproof: Platinum Carbon Black.

 

+1

 

J. Herbin Perle noire is my favourite, too.

Pelikan Edelstein Onyx is fine, but not such a "black-black". I love Diamine inks, but Onyx and Prussian Blue are the only ones that were disappointing...

 

Best

Jens