Inky T O D - Inky Regrets

[Carguy]

Diamine Cult Exclusives A Toe in the Ocean and A Dip in the Pool.

 

Both inks are overly saturated and simply don’t flow through any pen I’ve tried them in.

[inkstainedruth]

I definitely have some that I regret getting.  Fortunately, for a lot of them I was able to buy samples instead of full bottles.  

But of the ones in full bottles?  #1 would be Diamine Sargasso Sea.  When it first was released a number of people thought it would be the modern replacement for PPS.  it wasn't....  And it was super saturated and didn't behave well.

Another one was Iroshizuku Kosumosu.  I never got the lovely pink to orange shading I was seeing in reviews.  And on most paper, and under incandescent light, it seemed to be the color of overripe watermelon....   And I say that as someone who LOVES watermelon.... 

A number of Noodler's inks....  One was La Reine Mauve.  Well, it was mauve all right.  But it was also "nib creep, section creep, how the [bleep] did I get it on the HEEL of my hand creep...."  Fortunately, I only got a sample of it....  Another was Harold's Hearse.  Loved the name, hate the color (a VERY bilious yellow green).  [Birmingham Pens Gunpowder Tea is equally horrible a color, but at least I only have a sample of that, and as a giveaway at that.]  Another "saved by the sample" one is Black Swan in English Roses; I LOVE BSiAR, but BSiER is basically a red brown; I know of NO rose cultivar where the flowers that are REMOTELY that color, BTW... and I have SEVERAL books on roses, plus used to scope out an amazing website that gave all sorts of Information including what garden(s) a specific cultivar was growing -- worldwide.  And Empire Red.  I'm not sure if Nathan Tardif was making a political statement there (as he often does) -- but my idea of "red" isn't a faded, washed-out red with brownish undertones....

J Herbin Rose Tendresse.  On my computer screen it looked lovely.  In person, on the page, it's effectively a pink version of Noodler's Bay State Blue, with eye-searing neon violet undertones (glad that I only got a sample of THAT one...).  Ditto for J Herbin Lavender (one of their scented inks) -- on the page it's not a bad color (although I'd call it "blue").  But it smells bad.  It's this very chemical smell -- not like what REAL lavender smells like at all).

Another stinker (literally) is De Atramentis Patchouli,  Again, doesn't smell like real patchouli at all.  And I don't know if it's available as an unscented version, because the color was sort of interesting (reddish brown but more brown than red).  I was really disappointed because years ago there was a business that had booths in malls where you could custom blend cologne for yourself (and mine has both a fair amount of lavender and just a single drop of patchouli as part of the mix, just to add a spicy note without overwhelming the other scent components).  I thought it would be fun to try to blend scented inks together to try and match the cologne....  I was WRONG.... 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

[A Smug Dill]

45 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

Another one was Iroshizuku Kosumosu.  I never got the lovely pink to orange shading I was seeing in reviews.

 

I think you need Iroshizuku Bishamonten for that.

 

8 hours ago, ErrantSmudge said:

I have a bottle of Lamy Topaz and haven't had any problems with it.  I think Smug Dill got a bad bottle.

 

I doubt it, if by bad bottle you mean contaminated. However, I'm not that curious, or keen to prove you wrong, that I'd buy a new bottle, fill a Majohn/Delike pen with it, leave it in there for four months, and then try to unscrew the nib unit from the gripping section (after a long soak, to be fair).

 

Even Sailor Shikiori Yonaga (which I love) can cause terrible trouble when allowed to dry out in a pen, but at least it only ruined a Pilot converter, not two Moonman/Delike pens (one of which is ‘irreplaceable’, in that the colourway has long been discontinued for the Delike Alpha).

[ErrantSmudge]

[deleted]

[A Smug Dill]

23 minutes ago, ErrantSmudge said:

By the same token, please don't try to "prove me wrong" when I say that Lamy Topaz works just fine for me and has posed no danger to my pens.

 

No, but to prove your speculation wrong that I got a bad bottle, with the implication that its contents are abnormal for Lamy Crystal Topaz ink. The point is what happens when a fill of the ink has been allowed to dry out inside a pen after four to six months. If you don't ever let that happen, then I suppose what happened to my pens simply won't happen to your pens, irrespective of whether the contents of your bottle is somehow chemically different from the contents of mine.

 

The issue, for me, is whether ‘normal’ (as opposed to ‘a bad bottle’ of) Lamy Crystal Topaz ink will cause the plastics used in Moonman/Delike pens — and possibly other pens — to somehow fuse together when subjected to the edge case of being left in a pen for that long, beyond simply forming a crust that should be dissolved with a long soak. Not whether the ‘problem’ happens to you, or even that it happened to me. Ink should not chemically or physically react with plastic pen components that way, as far as I'm concerned.

 

Yes, I personally deem pens that have questionable cap seal effectiveness to not be fit for purpose (for my usage patterns). But what if I put it inside a Platinum #3776 Century pen with Slip & Seal, such that one would reasonably expect a full fill of ink not to dry out completely in under 24 months? Would Lamy Crystal Topaz ruin such a pen too?

 

I regret buying that ink on account of it having ruined two of my pens as a result, not that it is the only ink that could create such a problem.

[inkstainedruth]

2 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

I think you need Iroshizuku Bishamonten for that.

Nope.  The reviews I saw early on were definitely for Kosumosu.  And I just looked Bishamonten up and that seems to have been released as one of the 100th Anniversary inks (so way after I saw the reviews of Kosumosu -- which I think I saw close to a decade ago at this point...).

Ruth Morrisson aks inkstainedruth

[ErrantSmudge]

2 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

No, but to prove your speculation wrong that I got a bad bottle, with the implication that its contents are abnormal for Lamy Crystal Topaz ink.

 

I deleted my reply since I had second thoughts about it being a useful contribution to the discussion.  Certainly I was speculating because there had to be some sort of explanation for the very different experiences we have had with this ink, and your reply has helped clarifly some things for me. 

 

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The point is what happens when a fill of the ink has been allowed to dry out inside a pen after four to six months.

 

This is contraindicated regardless of what pen and ink you are using.  Were something like that to happen to one of my pens, I would not be unduly surprised to learn that some permanent damage had occurred due to caked-up ink that could not be removed, regardless of type of ink or its manufacturer.  And I would put the blame on myself for negligence as much as I would the ink.

 

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The issue, for me, is whether ‘normal’ (as opposed to ‘a bad bottle’ of) Lamy Crystal Topaz ink will cause the plastics used in Moonman/Delike pens

 

All Moonman/Delike pens?  Are they all made from the same plastics?  Or is this speculation?

 

And - could it actually be the plastics at fault here rather than the ink?  Legend has it that Lamy recalled a batch of Safari feeds because some of them were dissolved by Noodler's Bay State Blue, claiming a fault in the batch of plastics they used.

 

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— and possibly other pens

 

What other pens are you thinking of?

 

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Ink should not chemically or physically react with plastic pen components that way, as far as I'm concerned.

 

It's entirely possible that one of the compounds in the ink - a biocide or such - becomes so concentrated once the water and other solvents have left that it reacted with the plastic in your pens.  But we're not talking about ink being used under recommended circumstances.  It's an edge case, as you said yourself.

 

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Yes, I personally deem pens that have questionable cap seal effectiveness to not be fit for purpose (for my usage patterns). But what if I put it inside a Platinum #3776 Century pen with Slip & Seal, such that one would reasonably expect a full fill of ink not to dry out completely in under 24 months? Would Lamy Crystal Topaz ruin such a pen too?

 

Is it possible?  Yes, nearly anything is possible.  But given that the Platinum pen very likely is composed of different materials, and the ink is highly unlikely to dry out as per Platinum's design, I would willing to bet not.

 

Again - I'm not disputing that you had a very negative experience with Lamy Topaz in your Moonman pens, and I'm not suggesting you keep using it.  I do agree that my speculation was wrong that your bottle was a bad batch. But knowing more about the circumstances, I also feel less trepidation about using Lamy Topaz than before (if indeed I had any at all).

 

[A Smug Dill]

2 minutes ago, ErrantSmudge said:

All Moonman/Delike pens?  Are they all made from the same plastics?  Or is this speculation?

 

I certainly would not venture to say all Majohn/Moonman and Delike pens, considering that neither the Majohn T1 nor the the Moonman 80 mini-e use removable, screw-in nib units; and, in both my ruined pens, the problem site was the interface between the black plastic nib collar and the interior of the gripping section. Effectively, it took more force than the threads on the plastic could take, for the nib collar to come apart from the gripping section; and I know I've removed and cleaned both those nib units prior to filling the pens with Lamy Crystal Topaz ink. Does the manufacturer of Majohn/Moonman/Delike pens use different opaque plastics for different nib collars? It's possible; but I can't tell with certainty just by visually inspecting the nib units I have here.

 

10 minutes ago, ErrantSmudge said:

What other pens are you thinking of?

 

Any number of other Chinese pens that use removable, screw-in nib units with opaque black plastic collars to fit inside gripping sections of plastic interior walls. Many models of HongDian, Lingmo Lorelei (specifically, the models which come from the same mould as the PenBBS 308, but with black nib collars instead of clear ones like in the PenBBS), Kaigelu. Maybe even the Narwhal Nautilus. (Mind you, the nib unit in the Narwhal Nautilus I got sent last month cannot be unscrewed; and, given I ordered the pen specifically on account of having interchangeable Narwhal nib units, which I also ordered at the same time but were yet to be delivered, I returned the pen and asked for the entire order to be cancelled and refunded.) I don't know whether the opaque versions of the Jinhao 992 have black instead of clear nib collars.

 

23 minutes ago, ErrantSmudge said:

It's an edge case, as you said yourself.

 

Yes, and we're talking about our personal ink regrets in this thread. I really don't care whether it happens to others' pens; and it's up to the individual user to decide whether my anecdotes ought to factor into their consideration of which inks to buy and/or use. We aren't even reviewing an ink for all its qualities; one single undesirable quality that manifest in one particular set of circumstances may be sufficient to cause regret.

[RoyalBlueNotebooks]

 

 

Diamine Shimmerings Seas, Herbin 1760 Rouge Hematite, Pelikan 4001 Brown on Clairefontaine. 

[Pfire84]

I have a couple...

 

1. Buying way too much Ink.  Jeepers I have a ton.  I just catalogued my samples and realized at the rate I'm using ink I have enough in samples to last me about a decade and a half.  Gotta start using it more!

 

2. Diamine oxblood.  It's ok I guess.  Not worth the hype that other people put it up to be, imo. 

 

3. Getting so many whole bottles when a sample would suffice.  

 

4. Getting too many similar colors.  I went on a search for the perfect purple.  I have no less than 10 bottles of purple now.  /Sigh.  

 

5.  Not finding enough to write about with my lovely inks!

 

[PithyProlix]

3 hours ago, Pfire84 said:

I went on a search for the perfect purple.  I have no less than 10 bottles of purple now. 

 

Did you find anything close? What's your favorite? 

[RoyalBlueNotebooks]

9 hours ago, Pfire84 said:

 

1. Buying way too much Ink.  Jeepers I have a ton.  I just catalogued my samples and realized at the rate I'm using ink I have enough in samples to last me about a decade and a half.  Gotta start using it more!

 

5.  Not finding enough to write about with my lovely inks!

 

Without making light of your regrets, if I may suggest  a potential solution to 1 and 5, I found out that using flat calligraphy nibs helps with my feeling of regret a bit.

Also, keeping regular correspondence and/or a journal, letting yourself pour on the page a stream of consciousness might help alleviate some inky regret in regards to having accumulated lots of ink.

I agree with your point 3 by the way. 

[amberleadavis]

Remember you can always PIF your bottles of ink or send them to me and when I do a PIFs I will share your bottle or samples.

[amberleadavis]

@Pfire84

 

I found that using HUGE nibs helps use up the ink! And I doodle a lot.  Then, I PIF inks which is sharing here on FPN.  I think having lots of inks and samples is a great way to learn what you like - and what you don't. I've also found that an ink I don't like in one pen, may be perfect for another pen.

[mhguda]

Years ago, I had bought a big bottle of Chesterfield Sapphire, but when I put it in a pen, it was not quite what I expected - and I never used it again. But a few days ago I tried it again, in a different pen (one of a bag of really cheap ones I got in a sort of swap deal - details are vague) and wow! that is some ink! While it is not as dark as I usually like my blues, it is very intense. I now regret not doing this much earlier - I'm sure I would have enjoyed using the ink... The flip side of this regret is, I have a full bottle of a newly discovered great ink!

[Sailor Kenshin]

On 7/28/2022 at 12:22 PM, ErrantSmudge said:

Lamy Bronze.  Bought a full bottle from the Lamy store in San Francisco, then I discovered it was a pale, wishy-washy peachy orange.  It's been sitting in a drawer the past two years, waiting for me to organize a PIF or swap to get rid of it.

 

Mix it with something!

 

I bought a bottle of Lamy Petrol (at waaay over face value) because I thought it would be my perfect dark green ink.  I hated it in every pen I tried.  I was going to PIF it, but one day on a whim, I mixed a teeny bit of it with Diamine Silver Fox.  'Petrol Fox' is now one of my favorite inks.

[Runnin_Ute]

5 hours ago, Sailor Kenshin said:

 

Mix it with something!

 

I bought a bottle of Lamy Petrol (at waaay over face value) because I thought it would be my perfect dark green ink.  I hated it in every pen I tried.  I was going to PIF it, but one day on a whim, I mixed a teeny bit of it with Diamine Silver Fox.  'Petrol Fox' is now one of my favorite inks.

How much is a "teeny bit"? I have both, and that sounds like something I would like to try.

[Sailor Kenshin]

22 minutes ago, Runnin_Ute said:

How much is a "teeny bit"? I have both, and that sounds like something I would like to try.

 

Half a sample vial of the Fox.  Then add the Petrol drop by drop and test after each drop until you like the mix.  Petrol is STRONG.

 

I might have posted some Petrol Fox writing in one of LizEF's ink reviews.

[Mr5x5]

it was yellow, probably Diamine.  The sample looked like it would be a nice ink for writing but it was so intense if you weren't in bright sunlight you couldn't read what you wrote.  Think I gave it to someone for drawing purposes.

[Nick T]

Robert Oster Sydney Lavender. It feathers on all papers.