Some Ink Tests

[Mechanical]

I've got photos of some of the Bungubox samples I've ordered: Tears of Alice, Something Blue, 4B, and Ruri Sea.  I've done these on b7 paper (from Jetpens) with a glass dip pen.  So in these teasers, I am maybe laying down more ink than what I'd get from a fountain pen. 

 

First up is Bungubox Tears of Alice... it's a green or aqua and has some possibilities for making a darker outline.  We'll have to see what happens when I get it into a regular pen. 

 

 

This next one is Bungubox Something Blue.  I think the line width will be pretty controlled on this one.  Light blue but still with a good sense of contrast. 

 

 

The Bungubox 4B (Bungu Box Blue Black) has a lot of promise.  Not sure you can see it here, but the formulation has a bit of green along with the blue black tone.  I already like it. 

 

 

And, finally, I'm eager to try out this Bungubox Ruri Sea which has some overt red sheen and good shading potential. 

[USG]

Like minds... more b7

 

There's a little fizzling around the Namiki Shogun/Asa-Gao but it's minimal.  Colors not captured well.

[USG]

21 hours ago, Mechanical said:

 

Here's a close-up of Bungubox First Love (Dye) on Cosmo Snow, written with a Parker 21 <F>:

click to expand->

 

I dunno, is this Parker 21 just really wet?

 

Here's the same on b7:

click to expand->

 

And more of the same on Iroful:

click to expand->

 

I enjoy this color quite a lot -- it really stands out and shades nicely -- but I may try it either n a drier pen or with an EF nib.

 

 

 

Just asking....  If your P-21<F> lays down enough ink to feather on Cosmo Snow and Iroful, why is your ink so turquoise, shouldn't it be a darker color?    Also, were there some samples on Hob. TR-S that didn't feather? 

[Mechanical]

33 minutes ago, USG said:

 

Just asking....  If your P-21<F> lays down enough ink to feather on Cosmo Snow and Iroful, why is your ink so turquoise, shouldn't it be a darker color?    Also, were there some samples on Hob. TR-S that didn't feather? 

 

Honestly, I'm still puzzling over what's going on with this p21.  Right, I had no problems with the Hobonichi. The only thing I can think of is that the Tomo River paper has more of a "surface coating" than the other papers.

 

Also thinking back on how I last used this pen, I had a months-long fill of Herbin Lie de The.... which seemed pretty darn wet!  Before that, it got a heavy duty flush and sat for a while.

 

But the color, in real life, this is a solid blue with shading,  This is a problem with my photography -- and whatever it is that my phone does to the colors with it's digital processing.  

 

 

[Mechanical]

Here's a detail of a page I wrote with a fresh fill of First Love in a Platinum 3776 on IROFUL paper.  And there's no feathering whatsoever.  So the previous problem has to do with my Parker 21...

 

 

 

[USG]

41 minutes ago, Mechanical said:

 

Honestly, I'm still puzzling over what's going on with this p21.  Right, I had no problems with the Hobonichi. The only thing I can think of is that the Tomo River paper has more of a "surface coating" than the other papers.

 

Also thinking back on how I last used this pen, I had a months-long fill of Herbin Lie de The.... which seemed pretty darn wet!  Before that, it got a heavy duty flush and sat for a while.

 

But the color, in real life, this is a solid blue with shading,  This is a problem with my photography -- and whatever it is that my phone does to the colors with it's digital processing.  

 

 

 

Not that my cell phone pics are any good, but One of the things I turned off on my phone camera is HDR.  I found that it alters colors.

 

35 minutes ago, Mechanical said:

Here's a detail of a page I wrote with a fresh fill of First Love in a Platinum 3776 on IROFUL paper.  And there's no feathering whatsoever.  So the previous problem has to do with my Parker 21...

 

 

 

 

I wonder what's going on with that P-51? 

In general, I like wet nibs. 👍😀

 

Humm, compared to your P-51<F> the  3776<M> looks like a <EF>, sorta....

 

[USG]

@Mechanical As discussed 

 

Show your Blue Black Inks:

 

 

 

The older 3776 with a Coarse nib always writes wetter and darker

 

This is a newer 3776 with a <B> nib

 

My best Platinum BB substitute

 

Here it is from an Architect nib

 

'Matured' Pilot BB ink

 

Shin-Kai ink "Outlines"

 

 

Taccia Katsushika Hokusai ( a "koiai" color ink ) arriving tomorrow.

[Mechanical]

On 11/4/2025 at 5:18 AM, USG said:

@Mechanical As discussed 

 

Show your Blue Black Inks:

 

@USG you really have your act together with these ink-paper-pen photos.  Good work!

 

My offering doesn't illuminate as much, but here you go. :-)  The photograph of this page is not as nice as looking at the paper directly.  Clicking to enlarge may help somewhat:

 

As it goes on the page, the R&K Salix, Quink Blue Black, and Pilot Blue Black have, perhaps,the most blue tinge. The Salix will gray out a bit over time. 
The Sailor Blue Black went on the "blackest" of this
set.  The Bungubox 4B had the best sheen and was one of the most interesting inks on the page. None of these had any particular problems of flow or lubrication, but the Quink and Sailor were notable permformers in this regard. 

 

The 4B was the wettest in terms of the amount ink laid down on the paper with the Pilot BB a close second.  Several of these  were done with a Pilot dip pen which didn't have the steady ink supply characteristic of the fountain pens.  Not quite a fair comparison on that account.

[USG]

10 hours ago, Mechanical said:

 

@USG you really have your act together with these ink-paper-pen photos.  Good work!

 

My offering doesn't illuminate as much, but here you go. 🙂The photograph of this page is not as nice as looking at the paper directly.  Clicking to enlarge may help somewhat:

 

As it goes on the page, the R&K Salix, Quink Blue Black, and Pilot Blue Black have, perhaps,the most blue tinge. The Salix will gray out a bit over time. 
The Sailor Blue Black went on the "blackest" of this
set.  The Bungubox 4B had the best sheen and was one of the most interesting inks on the page. None of these had any particular problems of flow or lubrication, but the Quink and Sailor were notable performers in this regard. 

 

The 4B was the wettest in terms of the amount ink laid down on the paper with the Pilot BB a close second.  Several of these  were done with a Pilot dip pen which didn't have the steady ink supply characteristic of the fountain pens.  Not quite a fair comparison on that account.

 

Very NIce MCL  I knew you had a lot of BB inks.

I enlarged it like you said....

I noticed that your Pilot BB didn't "mature" like mine did.

I'm not as sensitive to wetness, flow and lubrication as you are.  I'll have to go back and check.

 

Meanwhile, the Koiai ink came in.  It's a very impressive ink.  I thought it was going to be a dark blue but it was so dark and rich it could have been blue black, so  I'm going to include it in with the BBs.

 

I first had it in an Asvine C80<F>.  It was so rich I thought it could easily work in an <EF>, so I unscrewed the <F> nib and replaced it with an <EF> nib.

 

 

2nd example from the <F> nib

 

 

Switching to the <EF> nib.  Stll very impressive @Lithium466.  I'll have to go back and get a pic without the sheen to replace this top pic.  Maybe a different paper?

 

 

Terranishi Melancholic Blue was also a Koiai color.  It had the brightest sheen.  I'm going to repeat this on some TR-S paper and see if I can get a pic of the deep blue color.

 

[USG]

Pelikan M1000<EF> 

Water Testing Bungubox Pigment First Love ink 

CLICK TO ENLARGE

 

Completely waterproof

 

 

[Mechanical]

Both the Taccia and Bungubox inks look pretty great, IMO. Do both of these inks flow readily? 

 

Also with the Bungubox First Love Pigment ink, do you find it a bit darker than dye version?

[Penguincollector]

  I’m so infatuated with that pigment First Love. It’s going on my Xmas list, along with some more Teranishi ones. 

[USG]

14 hours ago, Mechanical said:

Both the Taccia and Bungubox inks look pretty great, IMO. Do both of these inks flow readily? 

 

Also with the Bungubox First Love Pigment ink, do you find it a bit darker than dye version?

 

Hi MCL

Both the Taccia Koiai and the FL Pigment inks seem to flow easily but it's hard to tell, you'd be a better judge than me.

 

I find the FL pigment ink to be lighter in color and lean a little more toward turquoise than the dye ink

 

14 hours ago, Penguincollector said:

  I’m so infatuated with that pigment First Love. It’s going on my Xmas list, along with some more Teranishi ones. 

 

Hi PGC

It's a great ink... who could wait for Xmas  🤷‍♂️

 

[Penguincollector]

8 hours ago, USG said:

It's a great ink... who could wait for Xmas  🤷‍♂️

 

  My husband and I have a tradition of stashing things bought in November and December under the tree. Anticipation keeps things interesting when you already know what most of you’re getting. 

[RedPie]

20 hours ago, Penguincollector said:

 

  My husband and I have a tradition of stashing things bought in November and December under the tree. Anticipation keeps things interesting when you already know what most of you’re getting. 

That is nice. We are doing something like that too, we just start at Thanksgiving. 

[USG]

On 11/10/2025 at 7:02 AM, RedPie said:

That is nice. We are doing something like that too, we just start at Thanksgiving. 

That’s so nice RP. 👍😀

[Penguincollector]

On 11/10/2025 at 4:02 AM, RedPie said:

That is nice. We are doing something like that too, we just start at Thanksgiving. 

   Thank you.  Normally we do as well, but for some reason we started early this year. I’m oddly ok with the retail Xmas creep too, when I am normally not. It’s cheerful, and up here it’s getting pretty gloomy.

[inkstainedruth]

This turn in the discussion of making me think of one of the "icky nursie" romances my mom wrote back in the 1960s.  That particular one has to do with a girl who graduates from college after getting dumped by her boyfriend and someone buys her a (failing) gift shop to run, when she has ZERO experience in business.  And at one point, someone (a customer, I think) says, "I know that these days Christmas comes before Thanksgiving any more -- but before LABOR DAY?!"

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[USG]

I've been following an interesting water resistance test conducted by @AceNinja which can be found here.

 

What he did was to follow a continuously submerged writing sample for 1  year.

 

Nov 1, 2024

Removed after 2 minutes in the water

Nov 10, 2024

Dec 14, 2024

Feb 7, 2025

Nov 10, 2035

 

 

[carlos.q]

I continue to be amazed by the water resistance of Sheaffer Skrip black.