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Holy Grail Ink: Good Shading With An Ef Nib?


mivox

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My ink and pen preferences seem to be at odds with one another... It happens all the time: I see an ink whose reviews/swatches look just amazing and right up my alley, and when I get my hands on a sample, it looks like a completely different (sadder, drabber, un-sheeny) creature, because I really prefer using EF nibs. :crybaby: Because of course, most people don't do ink reviews with fine/extra fine nibs. They don't show inks off to their best advantage (unless you're trying to show that a particular ink is super-saturated no matter what nib it flows out of...).

 

Now, I know if I just learned to love broader, wetter nibs, I wouldn't have this problem anymore. And I promise I'm going to try! I ordered a Jinhao with the bent "calligraphy" nib, and I'm eyeballing a TWSBI mini-vac with a stub nib, and I'm curious how well a flex nib would play with a left-hander like myself... but for daily use, I love my EF/XF, neat, well-behaved nibs.

 

SO! The question at hand is: Can I get some ink recommendations for colors that shade nicely in fine nibs? Thus far, I've been most impressed with Noodler's Black-Red (my two ultimate ink wants: shading and intense color, even in an EF!), and a diluted sample of Noodler's Navy. I've got some ink samples in the mail, a couple of which are supposed to shade nicely (Liberty's Elysium & one of the Iroshizukus)...

 

Any others you fine folks can think of offhand with all these seemingly elusive traits? I've tried the "Black Swan in Whichever Roses", and they're OK... I forget which one I like better, but I don't think either would become a go-to.

 

TIA for any tips anyone has to offer! :)

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I share your situation; I love to see the ink perform, but I will not give up my EF ways. Right now, I'm enjoying BB Sapphire with a Sailor EF nib that is quite fine, and it gives some good shading and assertive color. Other inks I think do well in an EF nib are R&K Scabiosa and Salix, Lamy Dark Lilac, J Herbin Lie de The and Ambre de Birmanie, Callifolio Bonne Esperance and Bosphore, Sailor Yama-dori, and perhaps interestingly, Irishizuku Kiri-same and Fuyu-syogun, depending on whether you prefer cool or warm grey.

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My ink and pen preferences seem to be at odds with one another... It happens all the time: I see an ink whose reviews/swatches look just amazing and right up my alley, and when I get my hands on a sample, it looks like a completely different (sadder, drabber, un-sheeny) creature, because I really prefer using EF nibs. :crybaby: Because of course, most people don't do ink reviews with fine/extra fine nibs. They don't show inks off to their best advantage (unless you're trying to show that a particular ink is super-saturated no matter what nib it flows out of...).

 

Your point is very well-made. This is a major niggle with me & I don't hesitate to respond to reviews or photos of writing samples where a huge paintbrush of a nib is used to show off an ink. They often distort what an ink looks like & are unrealistic representations of what many people will experience. Whilst I acknowledge that some do indeed prefer broad, stubby, hose-like nibs, in reality many people don't use them, & inks look very different indeed from EF, F & even M nibs, as you rightly say. So if I try an ink in my EF & F nibs & I don't get the "amazing sheen", "beautiful shading" or whatever else is experienced from those gushers, then I'll make a point of responding in that ilk.

 

Saying that, there are some great inks that do demonstrate shading characteristics in my preferred EF & F nibs. It is worth looking at Oster inks (now available outside Australia), in particular their blues. Deep Sea, Blue Sea, Blue Denim. Bondi Blue - all shade well. As do Khaki and Moss in the green range, and also Dark Chocolate, Purple Rock & Graphite.

 

It's also worth trying any of the big Japanese ink makers, Sailor & Pilot especially. EF nibs are the standard in Japan, far outselling M+ nibs, and their inks are designed to be shown off to full advantage in finer nibs. Try Tokiwa-matsu, Yama-dori, Yama-budo, Take-sumi, BungBox Sapphire, Fresh Oranges and L'Amant. Plus many others.

 

Other non-Japanese brands - quite a few Diamine inks like Red Dragon, Autumn Oak, Ancient Copper, Amazing Amethyst etc. Pelikan Edelstein Jade, Montblanc Corn Poppy Red, Lavender Purple & Irish Green, Seitz Kreuznach Arctic Blue, Cognac, Indian Summer, Lime Green and Navy Blue.

 

I could go on; there are many many more........

 

Feel free to PM me if you want more info on the many inks I've tried in my EFs that exhibit shading &/or sheen.

 

 

 

Edited to correct spelling

Edited by migo984

Verba volant, scripta manent

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I'm getting some decent shading from Noodler's Dostoyevsky with a Jinhao X750 and a Goulet #6 EF nib.

 

I also get really good shading from Noodler's Blue-Black when diluted by 50% in my Lamy F. (It's a lovely dark green/blue almost-black color when diluted.)

 

Admittedly, the Jinhao seems to posses a very wet feed for being plastic, and that Lamy F is really more like an M... so your mileage is going to vary!

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I am another person who loves shading but prefers to write with fine nibs, because my handwriting is very small.

 

I second the recommendation of Rohrer and Klingner Scabiosa and suggest that you also look at J Herbin Bleu Myosotis and Cacao du Bresil.

 

Kyo-iro Soft Snow of Ohara, Iroshizuku Murasaki Shikibu, and Oster Purple Rock all shade somewhat but not dramatically on the papers on which I use them.

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I'm going to need to start an ink sample fund, I see... hahahaha

 

Thanks everyone! Definitely a lot of options to work with! And I'm glad to see I'm not the only one on the hunt for ink shading from my EFs. :D

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Interesting.

I did not think that one could get shading out of an EF/F nib, with the nib being so narrow.

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Interesting.

I did not think that one could get shading out of an EF/F nib, with the nib being so narrow.

 

It's not much compared to, say, a 1.1+ stub, but it's enough to make things interesting.

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Interesting.

I did not think that one could get shading out of an EF/F nib, with the nib being so narrow.

It's not spectacular, but I've gotten enough shading out of a couple (mentioned above) to keep me entertained. :-)

 

Lamy blue cartridges also shade pretty nicely, but I don't care for the color... Too reminiscent of ballpoint ink to me. I'm on the hunt mostly for a blue right now... But I put kiri-same in an EF Lamy today, and it's nice... Just wish it was a tad darker.

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I was using Nagoya castle sepia in my nakaya EF nib a few weeks ago. Managed to retrieve this from the deleted folder. I had made this writing sample for someone else. There is some shading, but no sheen.

 

post-127041-0-53533200-1472879446_thumb.jpeg

 

There are many inks that would shade from F and EF nibs. Cigar, old burgundy, saku, seiran, shinzan etc. The broadest nib I have is a Japanese FM nib I and get both sheen and shading from that.

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I have always read the ink reviews in much the same way as a nudist might read reviews of clothes. They are interesting, but don't really apply to me. From what seems to me to be eons of writing with extra fine nibs (my nib of choice) and only black ink (for so much of my lifetime, black ink was required for anything other than personal writing), talk about sheen and shading was just meaningless. Go ahead, describe a fine single malt Scotch or a fine wine to someone who has never tasted either. All your descriptive terms will simply make their eyes glaze over and they will be no closer to appreciating the Scotch or the wine than before you began. So it has been for me. Although, I did see some degree of shading years ago when my, at the time, preschool granddaughter used a watercolor brush and some J.Herbin "Encre Rouge Caroubier" I had been given to paint a flower on my study door.

 

Why do I occasionally read ink reviews then? Because some of the reviewers do it so wonderfully! There is passion in their review. They really have genuine feeling for the way the ink they are reviewing performs. Many of the inks are really beautiful. Do I have any intention of every trying the ink they are reviewing? No. That does not detract from the review or my enjoyment of it.

 

Now, I am bound to the color ink I use only by my personal preference and decades of habit. Lately I've been thinking I should try something besides black ink and the one rare blue-black ink. Lately I have been trying to imagine using a blue ink.

 

Thanks to this post by mivox and the many members who have responded, I find I may yet find out what these terms "shading" and "sheen" mean when applied to ink and an extra fine nib. Thank you.

 

-David (Estie).

Edited by estie1948

No matter how much you push the envelope, it will still be stationery. -Anon.

A backward poet writes inverse. -Anon.

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I was using Nagoya castle sepia in my nakaya EF nib a few weeks ago. Managed to retrieve this from the deleted folder. I had made this writing sample for someone else.

Oh, that's some lovely shading! Thanks for the image. :-)

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My inexpert opinion is that an EF nib suppresses shading, but not sheen. This is paper-dependent, of course, but that's always true. A favorite example for me is Shigure, which I have in a very fine nib, and it always sheens like crazy (red sparkles!).

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Hi,

 

It wasn't until I started to explore ye olde nibs and feeds that I started to appreciate quite narrow nibs, However, I was a bit dismayed that such nibs+feeds were/are reluctant to generate the shading that I was accustomed to in the wider nibs.

 

I was/am working against my 'muscle memory' of years of writing with firm M++ nibs. With the narrow nibs I seem to concentrate more about keeping the nib running on the sweet spot than shading : line quality (acutance) is more important than shading, yet I also do not dawdle when I write, rather I have a brisk hand. I suggest writing with your lightest possible hand, just let the pen whisper to the paper. Nibs that are ever so slightly soft (non-Manifold) hold promise as the slight bit of flex [relative to native line width] allows the nib to put down more ink, so hand pressure is so very very important. I've been trying to find the handle on a 0.3 CI, which holds promise.

(I am surprised that I haven't been barred from the 'Hand Writing Improvement' Forum.)

 

To generate any measure of shading, I suggest going to an iron-gall ink or a nano-particle ink. It may be necessary to dilute those inks to lower the saturation. Some of the low dye-load aniline dye inks also do the necessary: Pelikan 4001 BlBk, Noodler's tour de force Apache Sunset and the enticing Montblanc Royal Blue are worth a fair go. Choice of paper makes a BIG difference: hard smooth coated surfaces promote shading.

 

Member Phthalo posted samples of tiny handwriting from narrow nibs, which are well worth Googling. e.g. https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/11965-two-ultra-fine-binder-nibs/?p=109806 and https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/32136-xxxf-and-xxxxf-round-and-italic-points/?p=296056

 

Bye,

S1

Edited by Sandy1

The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

 

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I would second Yama-dori, it shades very nicely with a Sheaffer F1 nib.

Sailor Sky Blue, formerly a Clear Candy color now rebranded/included in the Jentle line-up, has lovely shading in Sailor MF nibs, like my High Ace Neo (you'd think MF means between F and M but it seems to be between F and XF); unfortunately, it only comes in their proprietary cartridges, two in a package, so a hassle to use the color in other pens though not impossible. The Neos are nice enough pens so no real hardship in using one just for that color.

It's hard work to tell which is Old Harry when everybody's got boots on.

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Here's what I've got in my EFs at the moment, all showing some decent shading. I've been looking at other blues lately, and think I'll probably get a sample of Sailor Souten to try after the Kon-Peki I'm using now. I'm not in love with the gray, so that pen will definitely be the next subject of ink testing/rotation....

 

I had high hopes for Liberty's Elysium, but that seems to be an ink that needs a broader/wetter nib to show itself off.

 

post-123952-0-96966000-1473195792_thumb.jpg

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The following inks shade in the following pens I own.

 

In my Parker 75 Silver plated Grain d'Orge with an extraa fine nib.

 

Diamine 150 Anniversary Blue Velvet and Bung Box Hatsu ai (first love)

 

In my Pilot Custom Art Craft Enjyu with an 18k #15 fine nib. Although a fine nib, it is finer than my Parker 75 above.

 

Pilot Iroshizuku Shin Kai, Syo Ro and Kon Peki and to a lesser extent Tsuki Yo.

 

Diamine Blue-Black shades very nicely in a vintage Conklin with a very fine (judging from the line it writes) 14k nib.

 

Hope this helps.

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