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Ink Recommendation For Pilot Metropolitan


vineetkgiri

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I am looking for ink recommendation for pilot metropolitan medium nib. I have used Pelikan 4001 royal blue and Bril blue extensively on my pilot pen. Bril lacked the smooth flow of Pelikan. Both the inks fade quickly on bad quality papers, when I use them with Pilot Metropolitan. I want a relatively fade resistant (not waterproof) ink that is little saturated in character. Ink must have good flow and lubrication property . Few people recommended Diamine and Pilot blue ink. I wanted some critical feedback particularly about Diamine inks. I don't want to spend a ton of money by purchasing Noodler or iroshizuku ink. I am open to any color as long as it performs according to my criteria mentioned above. It will be great, if the ink that I desire is easy to clean.

Edited by vineetkgiri
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If you are ok with blue black , the 300/350mL of Pilot Blue Black is good value.

 

For blue ink, Waterman serenity blue is superior to the Pelikan royal blue in 2 ways:

1. it has better flow, it feels more lubricated

2. it lays down the ink in a color close to the royal blue of the Pelikan (better in fact), but it does not fade shortly after as the Pelikan does.

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Ditto on the above remarks. The 350 ml of Pilot blue-black is what I use for teaching, along with the red. You cannot top the price, and it is a quality ink.

 

You've being really limiting yourself with Pelikan 4001 and Bril Blue, just as you have by focussing on a Pilot Metro. Get another pen (Moonman makes some lovely, very inexpensive pens that top Pilot Metros, as do TWIBI Ecos) and a couple of inks. You can a little freshly-boiled and then cooled (about 10% by volume) distilled water to safely extend highly-saturated inks such as Noodler's.

 

Diamine inks are, pretty much across the board, good inks and good buys as well, and you can often find them in 30 or 80 ml bottles. They've been around since the mid-19th Century for good reason. You could buy only Diamine the rest of your life, and miss almost nothing (see below).

 

Waterman inks have long been worldwide standards due to their fine qualities and fair price. I am so very fond of their lack of pretentiousness. They get the job done and deliver true value. I personally use their brown a lot where others use many brands and shades of blue or blue-black. It is addictive, attractive yet serious enough, and easy on the eyes.

 

My friend, I do think you are missing something if you don't eventually try either Black Swan in English Roses or Black Swan in Austalian Roses, by Noodler's. They leave me breathless. Almost in tears. I bought the second when all I had was a Pilot Metro to use when my old, long-beloved Parker broke. I prefer them in that order given, and they are simply knockouts; they are cheap, too, given that you get 3+ oz of ink. Lovely, lovely inks to write with, and simply lovely to behold, and I am a determined Noodler's skeptic as six years later, I still only own five of his inks, two for their bulletproofness; on that particular day of creation, however, genius, high art, and perhaps even God, were hard at work together. They will not allow me to be stinting in my praise. Save up, and then savor. You only need a bottle of one of them. If you were nearer, I'd give you half a bottle of one of mine.

 

The Swans vary a bit lot-by-lot, but never swim far away from their sheer beauty. Let them swim into your life and make you smile.

Edited by Brianm_14

Brian

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2. it [Waterman Serenity] lays down the ink in a color close to the royal blue of the Pelikan (better in fact), but it does not fade shortly after as the Pelikan does.

My Serenity fades like the devil to a pale blue. I much prefer the 4001 RB.

 

Others differ, I guess.

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Vineet,

FPN contributors do ink fade tests regularly. Here is a recent spreadsheet, and a thread summarizing many tests. Diamine inks do fairly well, for the most part. Both eclipse and Prussian blue do well. And Waterman blue black does well.

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aZnx0HqTLwmocX2rhk5rP1jUUCSzjA7CVrZX8gvKkWY/

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/345798-will-it-fade-or-not/

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My Serenity fades like the devil to a pale blue. I much prefer the 4001 RB.

 

Others differ, I guess.

 

 

The fading I was referring to with respect to the 4001 RB is the fading between the color of the ink as it initially appear on paper and the color within few hours afterwards. The 4001 RB and the Lamy blue both do exhibit significant initial fading very shortly after you write.

In my experience at least, the 4001 RB does exhibit initial fading significantly more than the Waterman serenity.

Edited by salmasry
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Ditto on the above remarks. The 350 ml of Pilot blue-black is what I use for teaching, along with the red. You cannot top the price, and it is a quality ink.

 

You've being really limiting yourself with Pelikan 4001 and Bril Blue, just as you have by focussing on a Pilot Metro. Get another pen (Moonman makes some lovely, very inexpensive pens that top Pilot Metros, as do TWIBI Ecos) and a couple of inks. You can a little freshly-boiled and then cooled (about 10% by volume) distilled water to safely extend highly-saturated inks such as Noodler's.

 

Diamine inks are, pretty much across the board, good inks and good buys as well, and you can often find them in 30 or 80 ml bottles. They've been around since the mid-19th Century for good reason. You could buy only Diamine the rest of your life, and miss almost nothing (see below).

 

Waterman inks have long been worldwide standards due to their fine qualities and fair price. I am so very fond of their lack of pretentiousness. They get the job done and deliver true value. I personally use their brown a lot where others use many brands and shades of blue or blue-black. It is addictive, attractive yet serious enough, and easy on the eyes.

 

My friend, I do think you are missing something if you don't eventually try either Black Swan in English Roses or Black Swan in Austalian Roses, by Noodler's. They leave me breathless. Almost in tears. I bought the second when all I had was a Pilot Metro to use when my old, long-beloved Parker broke. I prefer them in that order given, and they are simply knockouts; they are cheap, too, given that you get 3+ oz of ink. Lovely, lovely inks to write with, and simply lovely to behold, and I am a determined Noodler's skeptic as six years later, I still only own five of his inks, two for their bulletproofness; on that particular day of creation, however, genius, high art, and perhaps even God, were hard at work together. They will not allow me to be stinting in my praise. Save up, and then savor. You only need a bottle of one of them. If you were nearer, I'd give you half a bottle of one of mine.

 

The Swans vary a bit lot-by-lot, but never swim far away from their sheer beauty. Let them swim into your life and make you smile.

Thanks for your recommendation ! I am little hesitant to increase my pen collection after I got rid of couple of preppy's and Zinhao's. I have limited myself to Pilot Metro and ASA Daily. Daily is an excellent writer, its an Indian Ebonite with schimdt nib. I don't know If Moonman will be a step up. I am saving for gold nibs. I don't like keeping pens that I don't use regularly. I have tried some Indian made inks like Camlin, Daytone too. Daytone havana brown is one of my favorites. I found Pilot metropolitan only worked best with Pelikan 4001. In the images attached you can see that when I used relatively broad nib as compared to pilot metropolitan, the writing didn't fade much.

Edited by vineetkgiri
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Both of these were written couple of years back on a bad quality paper. The ink was pelikan 4001. While the writings of pilot metropolitan have started to fade, the one with X750 still retains the colour. I apologize for my bad handwriting. The image doesn't give the impression that it is fading, but it has actually faded a lot. some of my notes are barely legible.

post-136747-0-02264400-1567413630_thumb.jpg

post-136747-0-98952400-1567413646_thumb.jpg

Edited by vineetkgiri
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If you are ok with blue black , the 300/350mL of Pilot Blue Black is good value.

 

For blue ink, Waterman serenity blue is superior to the Pelikan royal blue in 2 ways:

1. it has better flow, it feels more lubricated

2. it lays down the ink in a color close to the royal blue of the Pelikan (better in fact), but it does not fade shortly after as the Pelikan does.

Thanks, pilot blue black was recommended by lot of people. I have used waterman serenity blue couple of years back but only once . I used it on a very bad quality paper and I don't have the writing sample to check whether it faded or stayed. I was reading reviews here and some people compared it with washable inks that fade.

Edited by vineetkgiri
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Vineet,

FPN contributors do ink fade tests regularly. Here is a recent spreadsheet, and a thread summarizing many tests. Diamine inks do fairly well, for the most part. Both eclipse and Prussian blue do well. And Waterman blue black does well.

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aZnx0HqTLwmocX2rhk5rP1jUUCSzjA7CVrZX8gvKkWY/

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/345798-will-it-fade-or-not/

Thanks, a lot! Have you used ASA blue, Majestic blue or oxford blue? I have read some rave reviews of the oxblood. Is it fade resistant ?

Edited by vineetkgiri
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Waterman or Diamine are both excellent inks, I have and use both.

 

If you fancy a dark blue I would suggest Diamine Oxford Blue or for a brighter blue Diamine Sapphire or for a purple/blue Diamine Bilberry is fantastic. I've used both in expensive and inexpensive pens and never had a problem; the colours are good and they clean out very well.

 

Waterman black is one of my favourites just beaten by Herbin's Perle Noire.

 

I'm not sure if KWZ is an option but if they are then they have an excellent range of colours and are worth considering. I use Warsaw Dreaming (a dark charcoal grey) a lot and Grapefruit (bright orange) and like Waterman and Diamine I've never had a problem with KWZ.

 

Al

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In a Metro? Any ink you want.

 

Well, not quite. I had acquired a small bottle of some vintage Sanford Pen-It Blue Black, which I'm pretty sure from its behavior that it was an IG ink that had died a horrible death (I was getting almost no color out of it -- I suspect that the iron content had long since precipitated out). Well I tried that ink in my Metropolitan, and shortly thereafter I realized that the sac in the converter was toast.... :angry:

Some of you may remember last spring when I was looking for a new converter for that pen? Well, that's the reason why.... I had gone to flush the pen out and found that the sac in the converter was, well, sort of shriveled up.... :blush:

The good part was that I was able to get a replacement con-B converter for it. And that I think I only paid a buck for the Sanford ink....

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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  • 3 weeks later...

I have not found the Pilot Metropolitans to be persnickety about inks. Perhaps you could look at Goulet's ink comparison chart for the properties that are important to you. Good luck!

Festina lente

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

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  • 1 month later...

Camlin Royal Blue is a good workhorse ink

An alternate of camlin is bril blue. I have found it to be a very free flowing ink, it works wonderfully with pilot metropolitan. Its a pity that it fades too! My pilot metropolitan started having flow issues when I used it with Diamine majestic blue. My search for fade proof wet flowing ink continues.

Edited by vineetkgiri
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  • 1 year later...
On 10/28/2019 at 9:16 PM, vineetkgiri said:

My search for fade proof wet flowing ink continues.

Platinum carbon black, platinum pigment blue, sailor kiwaguro, souboku and seiboku. These are pretty much permanent and fade proof inks I have tested. 

All have wet flow.

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