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Black Inks (Anti Fade Jet Black)


The Ghoul Caligrapher

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So have you guys have any recommendations about a really dark black ink that that doesn't fade out. I do regular caligraphy and I tried out diffrent bottled inks plopped them in my converters and tried them out. I tried a Cross black ink but the colour is terrible and goes gray. I heard about Noodlers black inks and how good they are but have yet to try it myself. So..WHAT DO YOU GUYS RECOMMEND?

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Noodler's heart of darkness is supposed to be among the blackest black inks available, but i've not tried it. plain old bulletproof black is plenty dark enough for me --- i've never seen it fade or go grayish, and it's very well behaved in my experience.

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Aurora Black. Pretty darn black. While not bulletproof, it is water resistant.

 

Fade usually refers to an inks ability to resist sunlight. I can't speak to Aurora's UV resistance.

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Noodler's Heart of Darkness is so black that it reminds me of how Sharpie ink looks on paper. Noodler's Old Manhattan Black (available exclusively at Fountain Pen Hospital in NYC) is almost as black but looks better on work papers, imho.

 

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I got Noodler's Black for Calligraphy practice expecting it to be a dark flat black - no luck with broad-edged nibs. Aurora black performs much better. Even Lamy black works better in my Calligraphy pens than Noodler's.

 

On the plus side, Noodler's black works beautifully with pointed dip pens. The adhesion to the nib and flow are just perfect for Copperplate or Spencerian. While the flow is good in broad-edged dip pens, the results are not even close to jet black.

 

Salman

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Absolutely the blackest ink I have personally ever seen is Organics Studio Charles Darwin. And it's also one of the fastest drying inks on the planet -- almost instantaneous on cheap paper (Piccadilly sketch pad) and about 3-4 seconds, IIRC, on Rhodia.

But I can't recommend it per se -- it spreads and has bleedthrough like you would not believe (both of which were only partly contained by putting it in a pen with an F/EF nib). I also don't know how UV resistant it is.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

"It's very nice, but frankly, when I signed that list for a P-51, what I had in mind was a fountain pen."

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So what would u recommend for a broad nib?

 

I have gotten the best flat black from Manuscript ink cartridges. I have not tried their black ink from a bottle but it is on my list.

 

S.

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By fade out do you mean that it fades in the sun (if so, see my fade experiments), if you mean it remains black and does not look gray as less ink hits the paper...then I would have to think of a different response.

 

For the first let me say that Noodler's Polar black is one of my favorites.

 

http://sheismylawyer.com/INK/attachments/47_small.jpg

Fountain pens are my preferred COLOR DELIVERY SYSTEM (in part because crayons melt in Las Vegas).

Create a Ghostly Avatar and I'll send you a letter. Check out some Ink comparisons: The Great PPS Comparison 

Don't know where to start?  Look at the Inky Topics O'day.  Then, see inks sorted by color: Blue Purple Brown Red Green Dark Green Orange Black Pinks Yellows Blue-Blacks Grey/Gray UVInks Turquoise/Teal MURKY

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I find that Platinum's Carbon Black is a pretty darned black black. Has less light grey sheen than Sailor Kiwa-Guro. It's also 100% fade proof due to being a carbon based ink (see Amber's results for Kiwa-Guro). Most serious misbehavior I see from it is that the stuff can be smudged if worked at.

There is Borealis Black from Noodler's, which I haven't tried in an FP yet, just in chisel point markers to redact stuff. It's not UV resistant IIRC. Got a bottle of it because staff were nervous about the "bulletproof" inks I had.

 

X-Feather is also pretty dark.

Was a bit disappointed in my bottle of Old Manhattan Blackest Black - just didn't have the same burned onto the page by the fires of hell blackness that the first bottle I had did. But, also better behaved.

Imagination and memory are but one thing which for diverse reasons hath diverse names. -- T. Hobbes - Leviathan

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Noodler's Black is an excellent choice. Quite dark even in broad nibs, very tolerant of low quality papers, and waterproof in most cases, although a broad nib may put so much ink down it cannot all bind and will smudge some.

 

I do not recommend Noodler's X-feather unless you are required to use very absorbent paper for some reason. It will take an eternity to dry on good (in fact, on reasonable) paper, and a broad nib used for calligraphy is going to be very generous with ink anyway.

 

Heart of Darkness is another good black ink from Noodler's. They all dry fairly black.

 

However, if super black, waterproof, shiny ink is what you really want, I'd use a dip pen and Higgins drawing ink, or perhaps Kohinoor if you can still find it. Those are carbon inks with shellac or gum arabic to make them totally waterproof once dry. DO NOT use them in a fountain pen!

 

Peter

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I saw that our Darwin was recommended - you might try our Newton as well. Its a pigmented JET black ink - pigmented so it will NOT fade, and is just about as waterproof/bleachproof etc as possible, while still being fountain pen safe.

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I liked Charles Darwin Black. It's another truly "inky" black.

 

http://sheismylawyer.com/She_Thinks_In_Ink/Colors/Black/slides/2013-Ink_615a.jpg

Fountain pens are my preferred COLOR DELIVERY SYSTEM (in part because crayons melt in Las Vegas).

Create a Ghostly Avatar and I'll send you a letter. Check out some Ink comparisons: The Great PPS Comparison 

Don't know where to start?  Look at the Inky Topics O'day.  Then, see inks sorted by color: Blue Purple Brown Red Green Dark Green Orange Black Pinks Yellows Blue-Blacks Grey/Gray UVInks Turquoise/Teal MURKY

 

 

 

 

 

 

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