Brilliant Blue Ink - No Ghosts Please

[mke]

I HATE ghosting!!!!

 

I am looking for a brilliant blue which doesn't show ghosting.

 

Pelikan 4001 Royal Blue: not ghosting on most papers but not brilliant blue at all

Waldmann Pens' Blue: not ghosting on most papers, already better than Pelikan, a little bit too violet, unfortunately after drying ...

If these two inks could keep their color from wet to dry, that would be nice.

 

I am looking for a dry blue ink which is brilliant blue AFTER drying.

 

I need to retest some inks I have, Waterman Florida Blue, Diamine Royal Blue, Diamine Imperial Blue, Octopus Ultramarine, Octopus Royal Blue, Monteverde Horizon Blue ..., but I think they all were too much ghosting. But I forgot, to be honest.

 

Any idea?

 

 

Thank you

 

--

Life is more than pens and inks: https://www.instagram.com/mkeinj

Edited April 22, 2020 by mke

[sebastel23]

please excuse my ignorance, but what is "ghosting"?

 

as for colours - i recently added a little bit of hero doctor red (#401) to some no-name royal blue. nice result, it gave just that little touch of violet that i was missing. (it was about one drop of red ink in a half full/half empty large cartridge of NNRB)

 

cheers,

sebastian

[Intensity]

Do you mean bleed-through / spread? Ghosting, as far as I understand it, is dependent on opacity of paper used. Unless the ink actually seeps through to the other side (bleeding). I'm thinking something like Sailor Jentle Souten. Diamine inks can be on the dry side too, something like Asa Blue.

Edited April 21, 2020 by Intensity

[mke]

"ghosting" is when you can see it from the backside; "bleed-through' is when the ink appears on the backside. I don't know the mechanism of both. Perhaps, ghosting is an intermediate step.

It does of course depend on the paper. But the ink has a big influence, too. In my experience, very dry ink often doesn't show ghosting, this is why I search for a very dry blue - with a nicer color than Pelikan Royal Blue.

 

--

Life is more than pens and inks: https://www.instagram.com/mkeinj

Edited April 22, 2020 by mke

[sebastel23]

ah, ok. understood. i'd consider the ghosting then a less severe form of bleed through. i made rather good experience with Pelikan 4001 in this regard, even the colour is a nice one to my eyes - and if i want more red in it, i simply add some (as described before).

[Mercian]

Hi mke,

 

I only have fine- or medium-nibbed pens, so this may not help if you usually write with, say, a Pelikan M1000 fitted with a BB nib, but...

 

I too dislike the ‘washed-out’ look of the colour to which e.g. 4001 Königsblau & Parker Quink ‘Washable Blue’, & even Waterman Serenity Blue all dry.

I have found that Parker Quink ‘Blue’ (as opposed to ‘Washable Blue’) remains a much more vibrant colour once it has dried, and in my pens it has not given me any trouble with show-through/ghosting or bleed-through.

Cheers,
M.

 

ETA: I have found Diamine Imperial Blue to dry to a pronounced shade of ‘blurple’, so it might be too ‘violet’ for you.

 

Also, I know that Aurora Blue dries to a good dark blue, but don’t know whether it suffers much from show-through or not.
This review of it by Sandy1 is as thorough and comprehensive as usual. She says that she got a little bit of show-through on Staples 20lb paper, but not on other papers.

Edited April 21, 2020 by Mercian

[The Good Captain]

Mr Pen, a UK based company sell their own special ink (made by Diamine) called "Radiant Blue". It's a real cracker and pretty close to a true blue that my old eyes recognise.

[sebastel23]

One more thing coming to my mind -- on the quest for nice "true blue" ink, I tried both Diamine Imperial Blue, and Diamine Sapphire Blue. Imperial is a bit more on the violet side, and Sapphire i found a bit lacking in brilliance (just a matter of taste, of course).

 

But I found both of them a bit more demanding on the paper. With my Pelikans (M sized nibs), I got ghosting on Clairefontaine 90g/m² easily, where 4001 was safe.

[stoof2010]

Lol every ink ghosts on Tamoa river lol

[lapis]

Horizon Blue

[inkstainedruth]

Lol every ink ghosts on Tamoa river lol

 

Although I always referred to the phenomenon as "showthrough", myself. So like intensity and sebaste123, I needed a bit of clarification of the terminology mke was using.

I can give a whole list of vibrant, mid-tone range "brilliant blue" inks. But I couldn't say one way or the other which inks showthrough/ghosting issues (although I could probably tell you, after sorting through my ink-testing journals, which are cheap Piccadilly sketch books with really crummy and absorbent paper, have bleedthrough issues).

Like other people have said -- it's probably very paper-dependent. I suspect it's also a matter of how wet/dry the ink is, how wet/dry the pen is, and what the nib width is.

Right now, I've got Eclat de Saphir in the new-to-me Parker 75. It does run, to my eye, a little purplish; and of course it has zero water resistance. Possibly a little lighter/more cerulean blue (which also is pretty water resistant) would be Noodler's Liberty's Elysium (Goulet Pens exclusive), but may be a lighter color than you want, mke -- plus, I know that people get really opinionated about Noodler's inks just in general.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Skopa]

I also used éclat de saphir but it bleeded through the paper I used in my notebook and also on A4 printer paper (80g/m2).

A good surprise was Visconti blue, which is a very rich blue and doesn’t bleed through. I use it a lot and I am very satisfied

[Mercian]

I also used éclat de saphir but it bleeded through the paper I used in my notebook and also on A4 printer paper (80g/m2).

A good surprise was Visconti blue, which is a very rich blue and doesn’t bleed through. I use it a lot and I am very satisfied

If you are tempted by Visconti Blue, you need to know that, whilst the stuff in bottles is famous for being a delicious dark blue colour, the stuff that Visconti sell in their cartridges is a ‘washable blue‘ that dries to a colour that is pale as 4001 Königsblau

 

See e.g. this post from MarcinMilewski, in a thread from January that was asking for recommendations for the ‘Darkest Blue’.

[mulrich]

Paper isn't the only factor in ghosting but it certainly is a big one. What type of paper do you typically use? This will help know how aggressively anti-ghosting our recommendations should be. It would also help to know what you consider a brilliant blue ink since this can vary somewhat between people.

 

Just skimming through some of my ink journals, I think Monteverde Horizon Blue may be the best anti-ghosting brilliant blue in my collection but it still struggles on cheaper paper. Other brilliant blues that did okay: Private Reserve American Blue, MB permanent blue, Iroshizuku Asa-gao, Sailor Souten. Waterman Serenity/Florida blue was very hit or miss.

And I saw much less ghosting on Rhodia-type paper, regardless of the ink, which is expected.

[mke]

I use a lot of different papers but they are mostly local (i.e. Japanese) papers. Perhaps the most known are Kokuyo papers but I already found out that they behave differently - or do I want to say unpredictable.

 

Just looked through my inks: https://www.instagram.com/p/B_Q6Ohcjdme/

and took out for (re)evaluation:

Octopus Royal Blue

Athena Blue

Camlin Royal Blue

Waterman Florida Blue

Monteverde Horizon Blue

Sailor Blue

 

Brilliant Blue would be this: http://www.mrpen.co.uk/contents/en-uk/p746.html - but of course, in reality on different papers, that might be much less brilliant.

 

I will update my experiences after using each of the inks above.

 

--

Life is more than pens and inks: https://www.instagram.com/mkeinj

Edited April 22, 2020 by mke

[mulrich]

Waterman Florida/serenity blue is an all time favorite but it's a little more muted and has a little more ghosting than horizon blue (using Tomoe River or Rhodia). I dont have experience with the other inks.

[mke]

Thanks.

 

My usual writing pen (Waldmann 100th anniversary LE, Bock M) just run out of ink and I loaded it with Athena ink Blue. I tested it on one of the Kokuyo Campus notebooks, the paper has a light non-white appearance, perhaps recycle paper. It is a dark blue but not a brilliant blue. Need to test this also with an F/EF nib. I think it dries reddish, a phthalocyanine-based ink perhaps.

At least, it has no increased level of ghosting compared to the Pelikan and the Waldmann blue inks. That is already a very good point, I can use my paper on both sides.

It is apparently sensitive to handfats/oils on the paper - at the bottom of paper, it tends to feather - I use tissue paper to protect larger papers (A4-size, e.g.) against this happening.

 

I think added turquoise is necessary to become brilliant, e.g. the Joyful2 special ink Sailor Minakami Turquoise is very near to what I want to have, just an idea too much turquoise in it. However, despite its name, it is more a dark blue than a real turquoise. Parker Blue-Black gets its brilliance also by added turquoise.

Edited April 22, 2020 by mke

[TimeoDanaos]

I've been using standard Lamy blue for a while now, and I really think it's a wonderful bright blue that pops off the page, especially in a wet pen. But then again my advice may be invalidated for you by the fact that I also find Pelikan royal blue to be a perfectly bright and brilliant blue colour, so much that I recently bought a litre of it to avoid buying ink again until my next round birthday!

[amberleadavis]

MKE, Remember Ghosting is different from Show Through and Bleed Through.

KWZI Blue #4 and Violet #4 are ghosters. I will try and post up some images. Parts of the ink seep through the other side and it happens on all papers. You don't see the Blue or Violet on the reverse, but instead see a yellow or green.

 

This is show though and bleed through and it is very paper dependent.

 

http://sheismylawyer.com/She_Thinks_In_Ink/Inklings/slides/2013-Ink_615b.jpg

[amberleadavis]

BTW, be sure to post pictures in the Inky TOD (Topic O'Day) Thread.

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/267170-inky-t-o-d-visual-blights-bleed-through-show-through-and-feathering/