Disadvantages of Waterman Ink

[LizEF]

Just now, theodore94 said:

I bought a Waterman Audacious Red Ink, and it's not quite "audacious" to me. It's a little washed out -- closer in color to an orange than a deep red that I was hoping for.

Something is wrong.  I don't know what, but something.  My Audacious Red is a very nice, bright red.

[theodore94]

Mine looks much better in pictures than it does in true life. The color in the picture is the one I want on the page!

 

 

[bunnspecial]

I haven't used red in a long time-I have a bottle that has the old "wavy" label and I don't remember if it was even called Audacious Red then, but presumably the color is the same.

 

For me, the color is okay as a true red, but I found it a bit less saturated than I wanted.

 

Skrip Red is still my reference red. A lot of the reds on the market are either too pink or two brown for me(the ever popular Diamine Oxblood comes to mind for me for the latter). Lately it's been Montblanc Modena Red for me, which from the swabs I've seen isn't as red as the Corn Poppy Red it replaced, but is still a nice color.

 

Others in my arsenal that are awaiting real evaluation are Lamy Crystal Ruby and Scribe Garnet. The latter is supposed to be a close of Penman Ruby, and my quick checks looked promising.

[Runnin_Ute]

My favorite true red is Diamine Classic Red. 

[artkaye]

I like reading how some people use a variety of colors and brands of ink while others have a standard and stick to it.

Every ink seems to have its disadvantages, choosing which disadvantage is the deal breaker is really an individual thing. For me, the ink shouldn't fade and it shouldn't bleed through the pages of the notebooks I use. The Waterman blue black works for me.

[RJS]

They make excellent inks, regardless of price. I go back to them regularly, and not just because they're cheap and well behaved, but because I like the colours. The only thing I'd change would be to make them water resistant, were that possible.

 

As a range, they lack variety, and the Blue-Black in its current incarnation is very uninspiring, to my eyes. They also recently discontinued their excellent brown ink.

[inkstainedruth]

@RJS Do you mean Waterman Mysterious Blue?  That's my go-to ink for the Red Shadow Wave Vacumatic.  Although I had some people in my local pen club completely confused one time a few years ago because on some papers it doesn't look blue black -- and they were asking what GREEN ink it was....   And I was going, "Nope, it's WMB -- I know what ink is in this pen!"

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[RJS]

1 hour ago, inkstainedruth said:

@RJS Do you mean Waterman Mysterious Blue?  That's my go-to ink for the Red Shadow Wave Vacumatic.  Although I had some people in my local pen club completely confused one time a few years ago because on some papers it doesn't look blue black -- and they were asking what GREEN ink it was....   And I was going, "Nope, it's WMB -- I know what ink is in this pen!"

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

Yes, that's the one. Its name didn't spring to mind. I had an old bottle that had an interesting green looking colour, a bottle that I've not seen since I moved abroad and it got misplaced while I was away... and I have a new bottle from a year or two ago. Very dull. I see nothing in it I like or see as vaguely appealing. There was a thread here about how it seemed to have been reformulated.

[lapis]

Waterman DOES have a violet in bottle. For me and Richard THE reference violet. 

[Estycollector]

I use Waterman because my pens are vintage. It was advised to use a wet ink in these types of pens. Serenity Blue is my favorite. 

[RJS]

1 hour ago, Estycollector said:

I use Waterman because my pens are vintage. It was advised to use a wet ink in these types of pens. Serenity Blue is my favorite. 

I love that ink. I always thought of it as wet too, but that's lubrication. I believe a thread here found that in actual fact it's one of the driest inks there is (as in the least watery...).

[Estycollector]

2 hours ago, RJS said:

I love that ink. I always thought of it as wet too, but that's lubrication. I believe a thread here found that in actual fact it's one of the driest inks there is (as in the least watery...).

Didn't know!! I've read Waterman is moderately wet, but well behaved...LOL!! 

[RJS]

Most inks have lower surface tension than water, as far as I can tell from that. It's been a year or more since I read through it!

 

Higher surface tension doesn't equate to poor flow, as the Waterman inks suggest. I remain confused by the topic. What is really "wet" and what isn't? IG inks can have very low surface tension, are capable of feathering badly, but don't gush out of a pen, all while feeling like chalk to write with.

[Estycollector]

This might be the article I read when I started restoring Esterbrook pens. " Waterman: are all super-safe for older vintage pens, well-behaved and pleasant to use in modern pens. They work well in almost any pen. Serenity and Mysterious, their blues, are my shop inks."

Ink for Vintage Pens – timsvintagepens

[Arkanabar]

On 4/9/2021 at 7:17 PM, sansenri said:

Methylene blue is an aniline based dye that was synthesized in the late 1800s for the textile industry. Many other uses for it were quickly found including office supplies (and probably inks), but also medical uses (it has antiseptic properties and was used against malaria - and it would not surprise me that its antifungal properties could be one of the reasons why it's extremely unlikely to find even a very old bottle of Pelikan Royal blue and other similar inks turned bad - I have a few that are 40 years old and are perfect).

The above is my own speculation, I'd be pleased to find the exact formulae...

I think you could figure out if they're all using the same dye by whether they can be blanked out with an ink eradicator.

 

Binder had two ink mixes he liked.  Binder Blurple is Tender Purple mixed 1:1 with Serenity Blue, and Binder Burgundy is Tender Purple mixed 1:1 with Sheaffer Redd.  I don't know if that would match your conception of violet or not.