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First review in a looooong time, but this ink just blew me away. Out of all the grey inks I've been sampling...only this one garnered a full-bottle purchase. Amazing stuff! (300DPI and 600DPI scans for clarity)

How do you people remove the excess ink in the nib after filling your pen? I usually hold the feed against the mouth of ink bottle and scrape the excess ink using its edge and i repeat this step with the surface of the nib, and then I wipe it with microfiber cloth. Do you think scraping the nib against mouth of ink bottle damages it? or i'd be fine? What also do you do to remove the excess ink. Thank you.

I'm curious to know what the process has been like for people to find their favorite inks. How long did it take? How many similar shades did you try before you found The One (i.e. your favorite blue or black or red, or whatever "shade" you were looking for)? Are there certain tests that you do with an ink to see if it will make it to your favorites? How many different inks do you have that you consider your favorites? Anything else you want to share about finding your favorite inks is welcome!

I use Noodler's Black mainly for illustration. I generally make a pencil outline, then ink it and finally erase the pencil under drawing with a pencil eraser. When I do erase, I find that Noodler's Black also gets 'erased'. As in, it loses a bit of its saturation on the paper. I've used it in different pens on different paper and different erasers but have the same result. I have Bad Black Moccasin and it's completely fine when I erase over it. I was planning to invest in another bottle from Noodler's Black line of inks for drawing. I had my eyes on Heart Of Darkness, X feather Black and American Eel Black. I was wondering if anyone who has used these inks can provide some insight on how they behave when you use a pencil eraser over them? Any insight is much appreciated.

Which are your favorite ink colours ?

BOY, oh boy, this was quite the journey to figure out! I tested so many variants of devices and lost so much ink in the process. But in the end, it was worth it (at least, I think so)! Let me share why I went on this journey. I love all inks, including shimmer inks. However, sometimes I prefer the base ink without the shimmer, but the equivalent non-shimmer version isn't available from the same company. Some inks are limited editions and only come in shimmer form. As we all know, shimmer inks are beautiful but a double-edged sword—they look amazing but are a pain to clean and are usually best suited for specific pens unless you dedicate one pen to shimmer ink. So, I embarked on a journey to remove the shimmer. My first experiment involved using lab-grade filter paper, specifically Ahlstrom Qualitative Filter Paper Fast 11cm. This resulted in a lot of ink loss because the paper needed to absorb the ink to a critical point before it could start dripping when oversaturated. Initially, I thought this worked, but after leaving it for 20 minutes, the sample still had some shimmer in it. As a good scientist, I retried the method twice more before declaring it a failure. I tried using up to 10 layers of paper, but the result was the same—lots of ink loss without fully removing the shimmer. Next, I tried using an ultra-fine sieve to catch the shimmer particles, but that didn't work either. Then, I attempted vacuum filtration, hoping the mica particles would crystallize on top. While some did, others still sneaked through. I even tried densely packing the filter paper into a large syringe to use as a more contained filter, but that didn't work. Frustrated, I was about to use a centrifuge. In theory, this worked, but the mica powder shimmer is easily disturbed. If you try this method, make sure to have the steadiest hands for syringe decanting. I don't have steady hands, so this was a fail for me. Finally, I found a solution by going through my old lab notes. I used syringe filters with a 0.22μm pore size (thankfully, Amazon makes these easy to find). Using a PTFE Syringe Filter, I was able to slowly filter out the shimmer. I rigged the syringe with weights and rubber bands to keep the plunger down so it could filter slowly overnight, even while I was at work. I'm pleased to present a shimmer-free version of J. Herbin Cornaline d'Egypte not in j herbin bottle as my little jerry rigged stand fits over a pelikan much better. I'll share a writing sample once all the ink is shimmer-free, so stay tuned! Thanks for reading, and happy inky thoughts!

Hi There, This is my first post and I made the account to ask this question. This is my homemade ink which I call "Iron Tea: An Englishman's Home", born of experimenting at making a waterproof and lightfast ink using only things that might be found in any English home: I am very please with the colour. It goes on very light and binds to the paper in a much darker shade of brown. There is a lot of variation in the shading and feels very 'homely'. But I have discovered a problem with it. It won't dry. At least, not after 36 hours... which I can only think is a chemical problem as I would expect even the wettest of inks poured onto the page direct from the bottle to dry before then. Specifically, the ink won't dry on anything except cheap newspaper like materials. The images here are from a Clairefontaine notebook. To say it won't dry may not be accurate however, rather, it feels 'tacky' or 'sticky', much like you might expect a thin layer of tree sap to feel like. It is smudgeable, which I discovered by accident like so: My question is, what could be causing this. I can safely eliminate contaminated tools/materials as I have tried on a few and hold myself in the proudest rank of 'clean freaks'. So it may be that something I have put in it is causing it to take forever to dry. The ingredients are as follows: - 10ml apple cidar vinegar steeped nails for few days - 10ml balsamic wine vinegar - 200ml tea (made from boiling down 500ml of tap water with 5 ordinary black tea bags) - 10ml port (for preservation and fun of course (red wine would work just as well I suppose)) - 10ml "100% pure honey" None of these ingredients were measured beyond lazy precision and may be off by a bit. Filtered through a coffee filter before writing. If I had been forward thinking I would have made more iron sulphate solution so that I could just make more and experiment with taking things in and out to see if there are any changes, but since I didn't I figured I'd ask here. I will have to wait a few days before trying again. I have read historical examples which include honey and wine, so my insinct that they are the problem doesn't sit right. Perhaps the apple cidar vinegar? but I can't see why. Is there some chemical in any of the above which which would cause this? Is it just 'honey' doesn't dry ever and will sit on the Clairefontaine paper forever until moved, whereas it would have been absorbed by more historical writing surfaces? I know tea on it's own will dry very fast as I have used that before. Should I have got rain or distilled water, is there some chemical in tap water (chlorine) which causes it to stick and stay wet forever? Is there something natural I can add to it to assist the drying? Should I dilute it? Is there some overlooked process which obviously prevents this exact problem which I haven't seen before? I have done some research and cannot find anything really. Most search engine results are a maze of 'why is the ink drying in my fountain pen' or 'how to make my fountain pen dryer'. *sigh*. Any experience people have making their own inks with any of the above ingredients is much appreciated. (on the plus side, on the cheap stuff it is waterproof and doesn't move a jot even when run under the tap so something must be right there at least). A few closing notes: - Fear not the nature of the ink. I know it is more acidic than a Soviet rainstorm in 1986 and will bore holes in the Nostromo faster than you can say "Jonesy". Don't worry about it - I have been using iron gall inks almost exclusively for over a decade and am well aware of how overblown their danger is on the internet. - Shouldn't I have used pure green Fe (II) sulphate? No because that was not the point of the experiment. - Shouldn't I have used gum arabic instead of honey? No because that was not the point of the experiment. - Won't honey cause it to rot and attract mould etc? Maybe but I don't mind as it is literally cheaper than chips these days and I don't mind if my entire batch of ink or what I write with it catches fire. - What about iron galls, they have much better tannin content and less bad things in it than tea, shouldn't you have used them instead of tea, No because that was not the point of the experiment. This was made for fun and is going to be imperfect - don't worry about it . Help, ideas and inspirations all appreciated! Thank you all!

I just found this mini-documentary on YouTube and found it fascinating so I thought I'd share it.

This ink caught my eye. The link only took me to the opening page on Pinterest, not the person who posted it. I would so like to know the name & manufacturer of this ink. Is it familiar to anyone? Many thanks in advance!

Van Dieman's is doing a big sale up to 35% off. Their newly released (early Dec 2023) ink fusion kits are 30% off. I love Van Dieman's inks, and having lots of sales through the year is one of the reasons I purchase from them directly very often. However, this shocked me to no end. I purchased one of the kit at JPY9000 plus shipping JPY3000 at the first few days it was first released, now within a month, look at the price drop ! In theory, no customers hate sales, but it kind of told me that I shouldn't order right away and instead, wait for a few months and it would be a lot more cheaper. (also, as a customer now I could assume their product value can be lowered 1/3 within a short period of time) I know this sounds more like a rant than sharing a good deal , but I do want to hear others ' take.

This might be a stupid question, but... So basically I just found a paper towel COMPLETELY saturated with ink. I think I someday used it to clean an entire ink bottle spill. So, just curious, can I make some ink back again from that paper by 'extracting' the ink? I tried adding some water and hand-rub alcohol. But the ink is very light, and the tissue has still not even lost 1% of its saturatedness.

Hi everyone. My boss just told me heartbreaking news today that I am not allowed to write with fountain pens or gel pens on company documents anymore! I asked him for reasons and he said that my fountain pena /gel pens cause damage to the document in this rainy season when air humidity is high. (did they soak my paper in water ?). Anyway, my company is not entirely paperless and I enjoyed using my fountain pens at work. I felt like a samurai choosing a sword when I leave my home in the morning. Do you have any waterproof ink, not too expensive, and work on cheap paper (I forgot to tell you my company uses cheap paper on half of the documents) so that I will not be fired if I insist to use a fountain pen? I appreciate all your thoughts thank you. (I know I can just Google it but I want to hear from real-world experiences too) PS. I currently use waterman mysterious blue, pelikan blue 4001, pelikan black 4001, diamine royal blue, all of these is not water resistant I assumed.

Hi all, Firstly, if this is in the wrong thread I apologise and will move it to the correct one if told to where. Right I am about to be the posesser of a Winston classic. Lucky me. So my question is to all Conway Stewart owners, what ink do you use and why? Thanks in advance. Kev

A long shot, I know, but I wonder if anyone has figured out where to find more of the blotter paper that comes with the dispenser on the bottom of Lamy ink bottles? I can't find it from Lamy, but I can think of several reasons for them not to provide refills.

brown ink sketch design 7.mov Time lapse of my updated sketch of fountain pen and ink display / organizer per you guys’ feedback. There’s also an alternative inspired by one of your comments (will share later). Let me know what you think and then we get closer to some prototypes! Will share more designs in due course Photos below so that it is easier for you to give feedback.

Sketch of one of my ink display ideas using the new Picasso pen and Diamine shimmering ink! What do you think about this "stepped" bridge design for ink in bottles with drawers and spaces covered by doors (for pen/ink accessories)? I imagine it to be made of some nice wood. Or should it be made of plastic/3D printed wood-plastic? Pardon me that it is not in super good proportion and not that symmetrical as I had hoped (bad artistic skills haha...esp. when you cannot erase it like pencil)

I came across this post about the launch of the new Jimi Hendrix Great Characters Ink by Montblanc. It interested me because I have been looking to buy some purple ink. I have tried inks from Pelikan, Diamine, and Pilot Iroshizuku. When I started searching for other inks in the range, I came across the Enzo Ferrari Great characters ink, which is also purple. I was wondering if anyone here has a sample of both inks side by side on paper? It's hard to find ink swabs on paper for these two online!