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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.

An interesting article from Scientific American New Scientist (edited - thanks to those who pointed out the error), 1959, outlining the history of the development of quick-drying fountain pen ink, and how the ink and paper interact to influence perceived feathering or line spread. It also is clear how ink recipes can affect pen components or reliability thereof. http://bit.ly/Science_of_Quick_Drying_Fountain_Pen_Inks

This is a review of “Kaco Master”. It’s the best Chinese Fountain pen I have come across till now.Kaco is a young company which makes some great products. Kaco since its inception in 2011 have launched many pens & accessories . This “Kaco Master” is among their most premium offerings .This has German Made Gold Nib , it doesn’t feel like it’s made by Jowo or Bock. It feels a bit different from those both. I think they are made by special order or made by some other company ! Pros- – Great 14k Gold Nib – Well Tuned Out Of The Box – Soft & Springy Nib – Minimalistic Design – Top Notch Construction – Great Price – Great Packing & Presentation – Hourglass Shaped Section – Have Premium Look – Suitable For Long Writing Sessions Cons- – Only comes in one colour i.e. Black for gold nib. Although the steel nib version comes in many colors. – Don’t post securely. – I can’t expect anything more at this price !!! Packing- Great, The pen comes with a great grey metallic case, which comes in a black box over which “Kaco” is engraved. The metallic oval case has a foam insert in it where the pen can rest. This foam ensures that the pen doesn’t get scratched with the sides of the metal case. Specifications- – Nib Size -Fine Nib 0.5mm – Filling Mechanism: standard cartridges and converter – Capped Pen length: 154mm – Section Length: 25mm – Section Diameter: 12.5 mm – Uncapped Pen Length : 133mm – Diameter: 16.5 mm – Pen weight: 27.5g Appearance & Design- Good, The pen has a classic design. It’s made of great quality black resin which has been highly polished. The clip is of gold color & fit into a clip-shaped recess in the cap & almost aligns with the cap of the pen .The clip is strong & is very functional. It is unique & looks good in my pocket. The clip has a small logo of “Kaco” over it .The pen size is around 133 mm uncapped & 154 mm capped. It doesn’t cap securely.This pen is made in very nice black resin, it is super shiny & feels premium in hand . I wish they had other colors too. It has an hourglass-shaped section & a number #6 14k nib in Fine with “Kaco” logo engraved over. It has a plastic feed. The section is long & threads of the cap are precise. This nib looks good & is similar to JOWO nib but it’s not JOWO. The nib suits the pen size & looks good. This pen is very comfortable for long writing sessions too. Construction- Very Well Made, The construction of this pen is top notch.The pen has been polished well & has been given a mirror like finish on both clip as well as body. It looks pleasing to the eyes , but as a result it attracts dust & micro scratches may be noticeable. The pen is elegant & is a perfect minimalistic office pen. Filling System- This is a simple C/C pen. The converter is interchangeable with a Schmidt K5 converter. It has metal reinforcements in the mouth & it is perfectly functional. You can use standard international cartridges too Nib Performance- Amazing , Kaco Master has #6 nib which is very springy and relatively soft.It is surely better than JOWO/BOCK nibs. This nib has a slight forward curve which makes a different writing angle which is different from others, I think it’s some unique Chinese grind. This is very smooth & gives a distinctive feel while writing. The nib is similar to European Fine Nibs.On the box, it’s written the nib is made in Germany but nib doesn’t look like common nibs i.e. JOWO or BOCK . Conclusion- True Master, This is the best Chinese pen I have ever used & one of the best pens available at this price. I bought it for around $120. The pen is very well made & has a great 14 k gold nib. It has a minimalistic look,which is amazing. The glossy black color looks good but I feel there should be more color options in this pen. I really can’t expect anything more at this price. It is true value for money given the quality, ergonomics and writing experience. It’s a masterpiece about which most people don’t know about !

Dear All, This is my first post in FPN. Being a fountain pen lover, I have tried to buy pens from different sources. I found that ebay is a good place to get a fair deal on pens. I use credit card for payment via paypal account. Till now I've got around 8-10 pens from abroad as of now. These costs upto maximum upto 25 USD. In order to buy premium pens, I checked the govt portal for customs. Which says customs duty is applicable for fountain pens above 100$. I would like to know your experience while importing a premium pen from abroad. 1. Did you have to pay any customs duty for any pen? 2. How did you pay such customs duty 3. Please mention the original price of pen and customs duty so that they can be compared. 4. Please share if any bad experience happened. This will help newbies like me to add some romance to the love for FP. Thanks, Aniruddha

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.

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!

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.

****************************************************************** A Pen and Ink Log ~ For the past several years I've said to myself that there was a need to informally track my use of both pens and inks. Nothing so systematic as a digitalized rotation, but a casual handwritten system to monitor usage. I'm not much of a fountain pen collector, but rather am someone who prefers handwritten notes, correspondence and sketches to their digital counterparts. As such there are a number of pens which are used throughout the year for different writing projects, as well as for detail correcting of student research manuscripts. Here and there I've learned about impressively well-organized systems for keeping track of both pens and inks. As much as I admired what others had set up, they weren't what I had in mind. Since childhood I've been the do-it-yourself type about whatever might be achieved with a pencil lead, ink pen nib or a paintbrush. Working in Central China where brush pens remain in use and in the exact area where paper was originally developed, has reinforced my interest in handwritten documents, without in any sense denigrating contemporary digital innovations. What was in my mind was nothing more than a personalized, handwritten, small-scale notebook which would list the various fountain pens, ballpoint pens, rollerballs and mechanical pencils. The notebook would record each fresh inking of any fountain pen with an entry showing which pen, which ink on which date. By doing so I intended to show myself how frequently any given pen or ink was used, to encourage greater use of all writing resources. All of this remained in the ‘someday phase’ until this afternoon, when I finally decided that it was time to prepare what I'd long been mulling over. I'm posting this in the Fountain Pen Network Montblanc Forum, as most of the writing I do is with Montblanc fountain pens, and more often than not with Montblanc inks. By no means do I urge anyone else to follow what I've done, as it's a purely personal approach, in the same sense that each individual's handwritten journal is highly personal. The small notebook with fish on the cover is called “鱼语” or “fish language”. I'd seen a student using one in class so asked for their assistance in buying one for my use. Now I'm set. For one full week I've lived with no pens inked. It was my first “pen fast” in several years. It feels great to ink three pens to resume handwriting in daily life. Tom K.

Trying to find out if anyone has used Kurotokage (black lizard) ink from the Osaka Pen House in Japan. Swatches? Experience? Does it smear?

Hi everyone, Does anybody know of a brand of not too expensive paper (for a student) that is FP friendly and that comes in notebooks and/or loose leaf and/or pads that is easy to find in Canada (through places like Amazon or Staples). So far I have had to resort to buying Hilroy notebooks but they are very inconsistent so I'm looking to upgrade to something better for my everyday writing without breaking the bank on something like Rhodia or Clairefontaine. Thank you all very much in advance!

*comes in a 3 oz glass bottle * it's definitely pink *more of a blue-pink than an orange-pink (the third photo looks the most accurate to me, but your monitor may show it differently) *dries pretty fast, under 5 seconds *highlights over a variety of inks without smearing *not water resistant (that's not a surprise!) The first sheet is the 32 lb HP laser paper - the only part that really shows (obviously) is where I shot the paper with a syringe full of ink! The second sheet is cheap 20 lb copy paper, and I (personally) wouldn't have any trouble highlighting on both sides of the paper. You can see it a bit, but it's really not bad at all.

I hope that I’m posting this in the right forum. What follows is in cash related, and is a “recipe” of sorts — but it’s for removing ink., not for making ink. Moderator, if this doesn’t belong here, please move it wherever it does belong. To gently and immediately remove even the stubbornnest fountain-pen/dip-pen inks, and most (or maybe all) marker inks, from your skin (and anything else, as far as I have been able to test), just rub in a TINY dab of Freezer Frost Remover liquid: not on Amazon, just now, but sold here — https://pmi.green/products/pa-8662-klean-logik-freezer-frost-remover-16-fl-oz — and naturally intended for the purpose described by its name, so it’s good to have this around the house in any case. You won’t need much at all — start with a few drops, and work up from there as needed: rub it in, wipe it off, and enjoy that it’s nearly odorless and it actually feels soft and smooth: somewhere between hand lotion and baby oil. What I used to rely on, before a very minor household accident clued me into using Freezer Frost Remover instead, was Nair or any similar depilatory — BUT left on/rubbed in for only 30-60 seconds rather than left on as directed for several minutes — Which dudnt quite fill the bill, as it’s lye-based: smells harsh, feels harsh on the skin, and can damage fabric and a lot of other things that you might need to remove ink from. Try Freezer Frost Removal for ink removal, too! You’ll love it! UPDATE: Another source of the product is https://www.smallapplianceparts.net/freezer-frost-remover-16oz/#:~:text=Unique formula contains MeltX to dissolve away frost%2C,have to add to your kitchen cleaner products! What does the magic (on a freezer or on inky hands) Is apparently an ingredient that the firm has trademarked as “MeltX” (I have been unable to find out what “MeltX” actually is, but maybe you know someone who could. Do you have any friends with a chem lab?) 😉

I adore Graf von Faber-Castell Violet Blue ink. When I was looking into getting a bottle, I could not get an accurate impression of the color from on-line photographs. The ink looked different everywhere. One review said it was vibrant. None of that was really accurate when I finally did get my bottle and started writing with it. Violet Blue is a powdery, muted color-shifting ink, translucent and highly shading. It can go from almost pink-lavender to deeper lavender-purple, and even bits of blue. I would say even though it is a blue-lavender, it also has a warmth to it where the sophisticated muted pink element comes through. I've had a Sailor Kobe #57 Hime Ajisai (Hydrangea) and while also beautiful, the Kobe ink is different: more fluorescent fibrancy, more saturation. I prefer this GvFC. When drawing with the ink and using a water brush, the pink is water resistant, and the light blue-lavender lifts off. This ink reminded me strongly of Hydrangeas--the more lavender-pink ones. As it happens, there are lots of hydrangeas in full bloom in my area now, and as I was walking home today I decided to pluck a few flowers and do a photo shoot. The lavender hydrangea flowers are exactly the color of this ink. The pink hydrangea flowers match the water resistant component of this ink very well too. Without further ado, here are some photographs for hydrangea lovers: (Tomoe River 52g in a Hobonichi Cousin planner) Fabriano Bioprima paper: While not as strong of a match, Graf von Faber-Castell is also strongly reminescent of Blue hydrangea flowers in its color range: powdery light blue that shades toward lavender. I also immediately though of blue hydrangeas when I started writing with Gulf Blue.

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

I had a wee bit of unexpected cash, and decided to treat myself to a pen I've wanted for ages....the Delta Israel 60. It also felt apt as I was 69 in May I'm looking for the perfect matching shade of blue, from a reasonably available in UK brand. Any suggestions? Alex

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.