Lamy Blue-black (iron Gall)

[orange lamy]

This review is written on cheap staples looseleaf paper, that was 0.10 dollars per pack during back to school sale.

 

Overall: This ink has a very pleasant blue black color, that lays down more blue and dries up more gray. It has wonderful shading, which looks like it will do well with flex nibs. It is very water-proof from what I see, I was able to wash out the blue but not the gray (property of iron gall formula?). It's not able to write on wet surfaces (duh...). The problem with this ink is the lubricative property, it has practically none. I feel like my nib is made with a fine sandpaper when writing with this ink. Aside from that, it cannot keep up with quick scribbles, it will skip if you swing the pen too fast.

 

For the water test, I ran tap water and placed the corner of the paper there and started lightly tapping and rubbing the paper to see if i can get anything out, and then patted it dry with some towels. everything is intack and doesnt look like it has much color "bleed" from the water.

 

The smear test looks horrendous, but this ink actually dries in about 3-5 seconds with an EF nib, I made the thicker lines very slowly so ink pooled at the bottom, the thin lines are more better representation of real world use.

 

This ink does not bleed or feather, which is wonderful for neat looking notes!

 

Unless you are allergic to the iron gall, i think this ink does well in the blue black realm, but just dont expect Aurora Black ink lubrication.. it just feels scratchy all the time.

 

Please excuse my turd like handwriting for this handwritten review. The bottom of the picture shifted tint to green, this is a common problem with iPhones trying to take photos of white surfaces...

 

 

The color where the smear test was done looks very close to my actual color on my monitor (imac).

Edited November 20, 2010 by orange lamy

[Goodwhiskers]

Good review!

 

Is the Lamy Safari medium nib smooth enough for this ink and wet enough to keep up with fast strokes? Among my Lamy pens, the medium nib was a little wetter than the fine.

[orange lamy]

i dont have a medium nib to try, but overall the problem with this nib is that it doesnt lubricate, so regardless of nib it will feel scratchy, even if i dip it with my dip pens (which writes rich lines).

 

I suppose if the medium nib is wetter, it will help on the flow properties i tested, since using a stub nib generally pull a lot of ink, it might just be the pen trying to keep up in general.

 

Now i just gotta use up this converter of B-B and fill up my safari with other inks to write reviews I have 2 more bottles of new ink just waiting to be used

[Mr.Rene]

nevertheless, italic nibs use to be dry and bit scratchy...don´t blame the ink at all...

Edited November 21, 2010 by Mr.Rene

[orange lamy]

it feeels scratchy on both my italic, EF AND my waterman 52, i think there are many reviews that also agree with my observation, but its a good ink to use, pleasant to the eye and quite functional (waterproof)

[lovemy51]

it feeels scratchy on both my italic, EF AND my waterman 52, i think there are many reviews that also agree with my observation, but its a good ink to use, pleasant to the eye and quite functional (waterproof)

 

i think you just listed all the scratchy nibs... :hmm1:

 

i'll have to ink a pen with lamy BB to try. but, i do think it might be a bit drier than other inks.

 

thnx for the review... it is a nice ink!!

Edited November 22, 2010 by lovemy51

[orange lamy]

The scratch i speak of is relative to aurora black and j herbin 1670. But your milage may vary, let me know if it's better on other nibs. Maybe I'll have to buy another safari for this ink.

 

Ef, 1.5 and 52 glides like butter with the other two ink listed

[bwnewton]

Thanks for the review.

 

I use this ink exclusively in my charcoal Safari F. Yes, it's dry, but it works so well on inexpensive paper and I use it to underline/marginalia in one of my Bibles and some of my books with very absorbent paper and receive no bleed-through or feathering. A great, inexpensive, iron-gall ink. Beautiful vintage-like coloring and fantastic shading, in my opinion. Gotta love the bottle, too!

[orange lamy]

I've notice if you mix this with a very little aurora black, it writes butter smooth, but i dont know the portions...

 

I touched my tip of my lamy into a small blot of Aurora black that my waterman spitted out. it picked it up and somehow mixed, first its butter smooth and just writing in black, then it slowly diluted into a darker version of this BB and was still as lubricative as Aurora black it self but in a NICE dark black. Maybe ill buy a mixing set to see how that works out...

[cmattis]

This is a fantastic ink. Thanks for a great review.

[Safari_Camo]

Thanks for the review...

 

I can see an Apple Keyboard under the test paper

[freewheelingvagabond]

Nice shade, but I don't personally like blue-black inks.

Thanks for the review.

[pelman]

Nice review of the ink. Expecting my first iron gall ink can't wait. Beautiful handwriting.

 

Jayant

[Ipno Tizer]

I bought a bottle of this ink a couple of weeks back.

 

I've found it slightly on the dry side, which has come in handy as it's slowed down my Waterman 512V which was a bit of a fire hose with Waternam Havanna. But I've not noticed problems with scratchiness. But I suspect it may no be the most lubricating ink on the market. I have three at the moment, MB Midnight Blue, Lamy BB and an unbranded registrars ink, which I suspect to be the same fluid as Diamine registrar's. Of these three, The MB is the most lubricating, the Lamy is the least and the registrar's comes in the middle.

 

But as you can see from the caption on my posts, I'm a bit of a sinner for iron gall ink.

 

And this one is no exception.

 

Chris B.

[lapis]

Nice review!

This is for sure my favourite iron gall ink (I think). I find it about as wet (or dry) as Lamy's. Diamine's Registrar's is IMO much drier, even although some of us don't agree on this.

Whether "scatchy" is the right word here or not, this ink still wrote dry in my 146, too.

 

Mike

[contaxrts2]

Thank you for the great review.

I am just now testing a bottle of Lamy Blue-Black in my Pelikan M300 as my everday pen for my notebook and must say a wonderful ink.

No feathering and no bleeding on cheapest paper (even on newspaper), no smearing on utmost glossy paper (covers of magazines), and even a good drying time. It might become my new general use ink.

At the moment the only disadvantage in my eyes is the low intensity of black in dried ink, but I will wait if the oxidation will help within 1-2 days.

Upto now almost perfect and almost overwhelmed from those fabulous qualities of Lamy Blue-Black I am looking very hopeful at my soon to come test of Diamine registrars ink.

Edited January 3, 2011 by contaxrts2

[razr]

Didn't I hear that the Lamy BB is the same as MB BB?

[lapis]

Didn't I hear that the Lamy BB is the same as MB BB?

No, you didn't hear that, you just imagined it.

The two (whether in the bottle or in a cart) are two (2) completely different critters. Read the literature here on the forum, do some experiments yourself (no offence).

 

Mike

[lovemy51]

Didn't I hear that the Lamy BB is the same as MB BB?

No, you didn't hear that, you just imagined it.

The two (whether in the bottle or in a cart) are two (2) completely different critters. Read the literature here on the forum, do some experiments yourself (no offence).

 

Mike

a while back i thought they were the same and it was just a MB marketing thing just to sell it with their name brand.

but i now have both, in the bottle, and i can say they are (to me, anyways) quite different.

[hulya]

Lamy Blue-Black is a great ink, which I discovered only recently. I have used it in my Binderized EF-nibbed Pelikan M250, on Rhodia and Clairefontaine paper. I did not find it scratchy at all. I think that my pens (all Pelikans with F or EF nibs) may be wetter than what most people use here.