fountain pen ink – Page 3 – Loose Endings Studio

I acquired a few new bottles and samples of fountain pen inks over the last few weeks. The samples arrived this past Friday so I spent the weekend swatching and testing chromatography.

SET UP – I started my ink swatch collection initially with four swatch books. Three of them are made of paper that I typically write on with fountain pens – Rhodia (80 GSM), Clairefontaine (90 GSM), and Tomoe River (65 GSM). The reason I swatch inks on these three is to see how the ink and paper get on together. It lets me see exactly how the properties of the ink (sheening, shading, shimmer) is handled by the paper.

The col-o-ring swatch book (160 GSM) functions as a color reference guide for when I am just looking at inks to use. This swatch book is a favorite of many of my fellow ink enthusiasts which was my primary reason for using it. It is also the form factor basis of my other swatch books. It’s does what I need it to do and that was all I wanted.

The Chromatography book and some smiling swatch cards both made by Wearingeul.

Then I came across an Instagram post that featured swatch cards from a company called Wearingeul that I absolutely had to own for reasons. I knew they made fountain pen inks that were based on literature. I had recently picked up a 30 ml bottle of Shakespeare Twelfth Night, an Atlas Stationers exclusive ink – a beautiful pink ink with silver shimmer. To find our that they made swatch cards that revealed a particular cat’s smile when you swatch the ink…I couldn’t pass them up. I picked up a pack, the accompanying folder and an additional swatch book that had ink bottles on every page to swatch in. ( I was totally influenced by @seemownay in regards to the additional book) Because the book and the cards were the exact same paper I opted not to swatch the inks a sixth time but instead use the ink bottle swatch book as my chromatography reference guide for fountain pen ink art that I am slowly delving into.

I re-swatched all my inks (twelve at the time) on the cards immediately and have been truly giddy about the cards ever since. I smile every time I look at them. The smiling cat swatch cards (200 GSM) have now replaced my col-o-ring swatch book as color reference even though I still continue swatching in it at the moment. I am debating other uses for the col-o-ring book or possibly passing on the remainder of the book to another ink enthusiast – it would be shy roughly 30 cards..

Celadon Cat, Mad Hatter, Cheshire Cat, Writer’s Blood. The Twisbi is filled with Mad Hatter and I love the combination.

THE INK – In addition to the the bottle of ink I mentioned earlier I also picked up Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat inks from the Wearingeul Alice in Wonderland collection while looking for inks that didn’t contain shimmer. (You can see their swatch cards in the picture featuring the chromatography.)

The delivery of ink on Friday consisted of a kit containing eleven of Goulet Pens best selling inks and two bottles of ink. Because one of the bottles of ink was also in the sample kit I gifted the sample to a friend that also enjoyed using fountain pens.

The Inks (in order from left column to right column in the photo)

Column 1:

Sample – Organics Studio Nitrogen : A really pretty blue with a purple/red sheen that comes through even when using a fine nib.
Sample – Diamine Chocolate Brown : A rich brown that really is reminiscent of semi-sweet chocolate.
Bottle – Diamine Writer’s Blood : This ink was voted on/created in collaboration (via voting) with by the fountain pen community on Reddit. It was originally released in 2021. At first swatch I feel like it is a really close match to Diamine Syrah (which is a favorite). Looking at the chromatography it seems Writer’s Blood leans slightly to the paler pink side. (You can see them in the Wearingeul picture above)
Sample – Noodler’s Southwest Sunset : A yellow orange color that does remind me of a sunset. It even has an undertone of pink in it when looking at the chromatography. I wouldn’t use this for writing but I can see some potential for art.

Column 2:

Sample – Diamine Polar Glow : This was originally part of the 2019 Inkvent Calendar. In my swatches there doesn’t seem to be a lot of sheen however I’ve have seen other swatches of this color that show a red sheen quite similar to Organics Studio Nitrogen, I feel like the blue of Polar Glow leans more towards a teal.
Sample – Jaques Herbin Emerald of Chivor 1670 : This is a beautiful teal color that on first swatch I thought of Iroshizuku Ka-Jaku but when I compared the two there was a clear difference.
Sample – Organics Studio Henry David Thoreau : This ink surprised me. It’s a really pretty green that leans into blue just slightly and has a beautiful red sheen.
Sample – Pilot Iroshizuku Yama- Budo : I’d been wanting to try a sample of this ink for a really long time now. It’s a fushia/magenta color that I love. It’s a little more purple than Cheshire Cat from Wearingeul (see the Wearingeul picture).

Column 3:

Bottle – Celadon Cat : This is one of the Reddit colors released this year and I love it. It is such a pretty pale blue greyish color.
Sample – Robert Oster Violet Clouds : I love love this color. It’s a pale purple almost lavender color with a pink sheen that has a dark purple border.
Sample – Sailor Manyo Nekoyanagi : I can see why Sailor Manyo inks are a favorite. This is a really pale bluish purple with some pink. And you see all three colors.
Sample – Sailor Manyo Haha : I hear about this particular color quite a bit in Youtube videos I watch. It has a strong following. A really pretty pale blue green ink It’s similar to Celadon cat just more on the blue side. It writes the same as the other Sailor Manyo ink in that you see all of the colors. but not like a sheen that covers the original color. It’s hard to explain.

And that my friends is it. The only two inks I haven’t technically talked about in any depth are Mad Hatter and Cheshire Cat but their swatch cards are in the Wearingeul picture if you want to take a closer look at them. I swatched them before my Goulet order came in.

What do you think of the colors? See one that might interest you? Let me know what colors you lean towards in the comments.

Much love,

Charlie

A lot of fountain pen YouTube videos I watch are “currently inked” videos in which the person filming talks about the pen and ink combinations they are going to use in the coming month or what they have used in the past month. The number of pens and inks an individual might use in a month is mind boggling to me until I remember that I just don’t physically write as much as I used to.

I don’t make videos but I can blog about my thoughts on the pens I currently have ink in and how I think the pairing of ink and pen work for me. Because I have more than a few pens and I do plan on acquiring more ink samples and occasional bottle I think this will become a series. I doubt that it will be even close to monthly let alone weekly but it will be recurring over time.

And with that let’s get into the fountain pens I currently have inked as of today.

Three of the four pens I own are in the pen case. The black pen is on loan.

Currently I have a total of five fountain pens inked up. Four of them are my own and one is on loan for me to test.

Pilot Vanishing Point with a medium <M> nib is inked with Diamine Syrah. (On loan)
Lamy Al-Star with an Extra Fine <EF> nib also inked with Diamine Syrah.
Platinum Preppy Wa with a Fine <F> nib is inked with a Platinum Black ink cartridge.
Hong Dian LT N23 (Year of the Rabbit) with an Extra Fine <EF> nib is inked with Pilot Iroshizuku Ka-Jaku
Retro 51 Lincoln with a Fine <F> nib is inked with Noodler’s Heart of Darkness. (Not pictured as it’s in my purse.)

I’ll start with the Pilot Vanishing Point first by saying that it took me a few days to recover from the amazement of being offered to try this pen out. Generally speaking I don’t know many fountain pen users that will loan out their pens. Especially the more “expensive” ones. The mere idea of having it returned damaged in some way is a strong deterrent for most. I am very grateful to the person that decided that they trust me to not damage their fountain pen. (It has pretty much stayed on my desk this entire time I’ve been testing it.)

If I had a wish list of pens the Vanishing Point is not on it. I would say I was more curious about the pen. It has the form factor of a clicker pen most associated with ball points or roller balls. In essence it retracts the entire filling mechanism and nib back into the body of the pen and a little flap seals the pen from drying out. If you don’t like messing with caps or like the feel of clicker pens you might enjoy using this pen. Over the last few weeks while sitting at my desk I used the Pilot Vanishing Point to take notes, practice hand writing via transcription of some poems and generally wrote on a variety of different papers. I had minor issues filling the pen with ink – it was difficult to gauge how far I had to dip the nib into the bottle and it didn’t seem to want to pull ink into the ink chamber. The combination of Diamine Ink Syrah and this pen might not be the best pairing. No matter what paper I wrote the ink flow was relatively smooth but the nib gave me feedback and squeaked continuously. I didn’t have an issue with the weight of the pen though it did take a little time to adjust my writing as the pen kept wanting to roll in my fingers even with the clip as guide to hold it. Could this have contributed to the squeakiness of the nib and the feedback? Possibly. If I reink the pen with a Pilot ink and the writing experience is the same then it would be highly likely.

I really like writing with my Lamy Al-Star. It’s a smooth writer and it plays well with all the inks I’ve used in it so far. My preferred method of inking Lamy pens is via cartridge. I take an cleaned out empty Lamy cartridge and syringe fill it with ink. While I had no real qualms with pairing Syrah with this pen – it wrote beautifully when I used it. I did find myself wishing I was using a medium nib instead. I think perhaps this was because of my experience with the Pilot Vanishing Point’s medium nib. Lamy makes it very easy to change nibs on most their pens and getting an additional nib isn’t that expensive. I was in the process of putting a medium nib on my wish list for a future purchase when I remembered I also own a Lamy Safari. I dug the Safari out of my pen box and checked the nib size because I couldn’t remember off the top of my head. It was a medium. I looked up a reference video on how to change Lamy nibs so I wouldn’t make a mistake and proceeded to swap the nibs. The Lamy Al-Star didn’t skip a line and writes exactly like I want with Syrah and a medium nib. This was my first foray into nib swapping and while I realize not all pen brands swap nibs as easily as Lamy, I’m glad my experience went well.

The Lamy Safari on the left now has the the EF nib (silver) and the Lamy Al-Star has the M nib (black).

I haven’t decided if I like the Platinum Preppy Wa. When I first put the ink cartridge in and started writing it worked well enough. But when I picked it up a second and third time it was nothing but hard starts and skips. As I’ve continued to use the pen it has somewhat improved ink flow but still skips more than I would like. I can’t say much about the ink itself. It’s a standard black as far as I can tell. Maybe once whatever kinks the Preppy has are worked out I’ll have a better picture.

I picked up the Hong Dian LT N23 Year of the Rabbit (2023) earlier this year and when it arrived I inked it up with Pilot Iroshizuku Ka-Jaku almost immediately. The nib on this fountain pen writes so smoothly and I feel like the ink is a perfect match for it. The all metal pen is on the heavier side and I would not recommend posting the cap at all. It sits comfortably in my hand and I feel like I could write with it for an extended period if needed. This is truly a delightful combination. I’d be hard pressed to fill this pen with any other ink and I am not a person that generally has to match an ink to a pen.

The Retro 51 Lincoln has only ever had Noodler’s Heart of Darkness in it. Primarily because I use it as my every day carry pen. If I am not using it at my desk for something specific it lives in my purse. Noodler’s Heart of Darkness has been my go-to black ink for several years though you wouldn’t know that looking at how much is in the bottle. It works well in the pens I’ve used it in without complaint. In the Retro 51 it has started to stall a bit but I think that’s just because I haven’t cleaned the pen recently. I just keep refilling a cartridge as needed and continue on. Recently I’ve been contemplating switching to De Atramentis Archival Black since I already own three inks from the Document ink line.

And that’s it for currently inked pens. Do you have any combinations of pens and inks that you really like right now?

Much love,

Charlie

Tag: fountain pen ink

New Inks

Thoughts on Currently Inked Pens (1)