Go to inks

[Spideysgirl]

What is your favorite ink and do you keep a pen in your rotation with that ink in it?

[RocketRyan]

One pen always has Pelikan turquoise in it, pen can vary though.

[jar]

No favorite. I like pretty much all inks. In fact most often I don't know what ink is in a pen.

[BayesianPrior]

Pelikan 4001 Brillant Black. Quick drying, some water resistance, suitable for any occasion. It just works.

Sailor Jentle Blue-Black. See above, but a little bit more character.

[Jon Szanto]

Of all the inks I own, there are three inks that are always in at least one pen: Aurora Blue, Namiki Blue, and Sailor Kiwa-Guro. Next most common are Aurora Black (and probably, soon, Aurora Blue/Black) and Diamine Sherwood Green.

[KKay]

At this time I do not keep any ink in a permanent rotation. I may start keeping a black, blue black pen inked. But I haven't done so yet. Sometimes I refill a pen once or twice with the same ink, back to back, but that is about it. I get bored with an ink if I use it all the time. So I like to switch around all the time. I do not have a designated sample ink pen either. I pretty well fill a pen with an ink that strikes my fancy during that time period. There for a while I was using KWZ Grapefruit pretty constantly in a very fine nib. But I was starting to get bored with it, so I pulled it out of rotation for a little while. I do not have one favorite ink either. I have several favorites...lol.


What is your favorite ink and do you keep a pen in your rotation with that ink in it?

[Lady Onogaro]

Good question. I always have a pen inked with Lamy turquoise, come to think of it.

[inklord]

Two inks are almost always in use: Rohrer & Klingner "Salix" and Sailor "Chu-Shu", one is ALWAYS in at least one pen: Rohrer & Klingner "Sepia".
Lately Sailor "Sei-Boku" is a runner up.

[FredRydr]

What is your favorite ink and do you keep a pen in your rotation with that ink in it?
Montblanc Toffee, and I always keep my Sheaffer Balance OS with full flex nib filled with Toffee, ready to write.

Fred

[Jon Szanto]

What is your favorite ink and do you keep a pen in your rotation with that ink in it?
Montblanc Toffee, and I always keep my Sheaffer Balance OS with full flex nib filled with Toffee, ready to write.

Fred

"I filled my pen with toffee - what could go wrong?"

[FredRydr]

I saw that! But I let it go. :)

Fred

[Robert]

As time goes by it seems that, regardless of ink color or pen, you'll most likely find Iroshizuku inks in my pens.

[Jon Szanto]

I saw that! But I let it go. :)

Argh - don't do that to me!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moSFlvxnbgk

[inklord]

What is your favorite ink and do you keep a pen in your rotation with that ink in it?
Montblanc Toffee, and I always keep my Sheaffer Balance OS with full flex nib filled with Toffee, ready to write.

Fred
...that's one ink I should try...

[Paddler]

Two of my pens are inked with Parker Quink blue/black. It makes no maintenance hassles in any of my pens (doesn't clog, doesn't rot the sacs, etc). It behaves well with most papers. It is widely available, cheap, and blue. My ink cellar has many other brands and colors that I use at whim in the other two inked pens.

[sharmon202]

Always a Sailor clear candy with Sei Boku for addressing envelopes. Been using cartridges in this pen for 3 years continuously, no cleaning or changing ink.

[Scooby921]

At this time I do not keep any ink in a permanent rotation. I may start keeping a black, blue black pen inked. But I haven't done so yet. Sometimes I refill a pen once or twice with the same ink, back to back, but that is about it. I get bored with an ink if I use it all the time. So I like to switch around all the time. I do not have a designated sample ink pen either. I pretty well fill a pen with an ink that strikes my fancy during that time period. There for a while I was using KWZ Grapefruit pretty constantly in a very fine nib. But I was starting to get bored with it, so I pulled it out of rotation for a little while. I do not have one favorite ink either. I have several favorites...lol.


What is your favorite ink and do you keep a pen in your rotation with that ink in it?

Same here. I do have some favorites, but I get bored of using the same ink all the time. I rotate through inks any time a pen runs out. I also rotate through pens at the same time. I don't usually have more than 3 inked at any given time, so running out of ink is a good time to rotate in a new pen with a different ink. Even doing this I often feel bad when using my TWSBI 580. It holds so much more ink and takes so much longer to use up that I start to feel guilty for not rotating to another pen and ink at a faster rate.

[notsim]

I have a Realo always inked with Yama Dori.

[Pennanngalan]

I always have a pen filled with Noodler's Heart of Darkness, 50% ink/50% distilled water (I like black ink to have shading). The 54th Mass. used to be a staple but the blue and the black components seem to separate and I just refuse to deal with that.

[mdeleon]

I love blue/turquoise ink so I always have Pelikan Turquoise, Lamy Turquoise and Noodler's Liberty's Elysium inked up. About to add Sailor Jentle Yama-Dori and Robert Oster Fire and Ice to the mix.

[Sammyo]

I seem to always have Sailor Blue/Black and Sheaffer Skrip Peacock in at least one pen at all times... until my Peacock sample bottle runs out :(:baby::cry:

[picautomaton]

Parker Quink washable blue, love this ink. Put it in a nice old pen with ebonite feed.

[stub]

Aurora Black is my go to black.

Aurora Blue is a go to for some wetter pens (I find this ink well lubricated but not all that wet and is dependable, well behaved and cleans out well. A solid royal blue performer). Nearly identical is MB Royal Blue. Similar color, behavoir. Also a slick ink but with a slightly relucant flow.

For drier pens i use a lot of Visconti Blue or Asa-gao

For Vintage pens, many get: Waterman Florida Blue

Blue-black of choice is Sailor

Probably half my pens get Sailor Blue black, Waterman FL Blue, Aurora Blue, or Visconti Blue. A few pens are always inked with Aurora Black for work.

If I need water resistence (monsoon season) Pilot Blue is a go to.

Red (markup): MB Corn Poppy Red.

But really it boils down to 1 Black, 1 Red for mark-up, one vintage safe blue, one wet blue, one dry blue. & Anything else is just extra.

BUT I HAVE A LOT OF EXTRA. heh.

[mcorrea]

Almost permanently I have J Herbin Eclat de Saphir in one pen (stub nib) and Perle Noire in another (fine nib). My third inked pen has a different ink every week. I try to keep it at three inked pens, but sometimes a fourth or fifth slips in.

[carlos.q]

I always carry two pens and one of them is always filled with MB Permanent Blue. It's fully waterproof, works well with cheap papers and has nice shading. :thumb:

[R.A. Stewart]

I'm so boring. Waterman Intense Black. Some day I'll get another couple of pens and maybe even a second bottle of ink. :cool:

[naimitsu]

Recently, I've been keeping MB Tolstoy in my EF VP.
And the Voyager has BB Aofuji... but mainly because I'm too lazy to take the time to do a full clean to switch inks because vac filled pen.

[inklord]

With all the inks available, is it really so that those who use mainly a few inks still use blue, black, or blue-black? Very few of us seem to use just one or two inks with those inks being, lets say, Sailor "Oku-Yama" and Noodler's "Zhivago". I find that puzzling. Other than myself, I know only one other fp person who could happily live with just one ink, and it's neither blue nor black nor whatever we may perceive to be a blue-black... So, come out of the woodwork, odd color people! Any single ink user claiming Diamine "Claret" to be "It"???
(Of course there's our Yama-Dori lover on pg 1 of this thread, and Mr.Toffee (Fred) - hooray to these pheasant and toffee lovers!

[R.A. Stewart]

Does Cthulhu still post on here? Last I knew, he used gall from the unwholesomely ancient oak forests of Y'gh'thaan mixed with the unceasing tears of the damned, and it was of a colour not of any normal spectrum.

[FredRydr]

Sounds evil enough to clog anything.

Fred

[Dreck]

Does Cthulhu still post on here? Last I knew, he used gall from the unwholesomely ancient oak forests of Y'gh'thaan mixed with the unceasing tears of the damned, and it was of a colour not of any normal spectrum.

You may be thinking of Noodler's El Lawrence (https://www.gouletpens.com/noodlers-el-lawrence-3oz-bottled-fountain-pen-ink/p/N19599)

[Paddler]

With all the inks available, is it really so that those who use mainly a few inks still use blue, black, or blue-black? Very few of us seem to use just one or two inks with those inks being, lets say, Sailor "Oku-Yama" and Noodler's "Zhivago". I find that puzzling. Other than myself, I know only one other fp person who could happily live with just one ink, and it's neither blue nor black nor whatever we may perceive to be a blue-black... So, come out of the woodwork, odd color people! Any single ink user claiming Diamine "Claret" to be "It"???
(Of course there's our Yama-Dori lover on pg 1 of this thread, and Mr.Toffee (Fred) - hooray to these pheasant and toffee lovers!

I refuse to use an ink whose name I can't pronounce. That puts a serious limit on the choices right there. I tried a couple of Herbin inks and have to wipe my chin when I name them. I get a hard look from my wife when I mention Poussiere de Lune.

I use a lot of homemade black walnut and butternut inks but those are a little too specialized for most fountain pen users.

[inklord]

I use a lot of homemade black walnut and butternut inks but those are a little too specialized for most fountain pen users.
Wow - you get those filtered well enough so they don't clog the feed?

[Dreck]

I use a lot of homemade black walnut and butternut inks but those are a little too specialized for most fountain pen users.
Wow - you get those filtered well enough so they don't clog the feed?

That's what I'm wondering. What would I have to do to procure a sample of your black walnut ink?

[gbryal]

The only ink I have two bottles of is Waterman's Mysterious Blue. It's my first choice for my vintage pens, and any new pens, and sort of a default, known good ink.

[Paddler]

I use a lot of homemade black walnut and butternut inks but those are a little too specialized for most fountain pen users.
Wow - you get those filtered well enough so they don't clog the feed?






I use a lot of homemade black walnut and butternut inks but those are a little too specialized for most fountain pen users.
Wow - you get those filtered well enough so they don't clog the feed?

That's what I'm wondering. What would I have to do to procure a sample of your black walnut ink?

I filter the inks through a respirator filter that is fine enough to remove pollen from the air. The filters are easily and cheaply available at local hardware stores. A small plastic funnel and some hot melt glue cobbles up a gravity fed ink filter. Examination with a microscope reveals no stray walnut cells that could clog a feed or bridge up in a nib slit. Coffee filters are not fine enough.

Walnut ink is a bit corrosive, so I have to be careful to use only gold nibs. Steel nibs for dip pens wear flat quickly.

As for samples, I don't know what to say. I have about a dozen different kinds, made with different recipes at different times of the year. The walnut ink gives a rich, warm brown line. Made with iron, it is a rich black color. Butternut husk ink starts out like walnut, but then it coats the inside of the inkwell with a yellow substance and then it turns a mousy brown. I haven't saved any of that.

I posted some recipes on FPN, years ago. They should still be there. They are not posted under ink recipes. They are under the general blab threads. A search for butternut should turn them up. (I don't hang out there any more. There are so many blinky ads it crashes my browser.)

[inklord]

I use a lot of homemade black walnut and butternut inks but those are a little too specialized for most fountain pen users.
Wow - you get those filtered well enough so they don't clog the feed?






I use a lot of homemade black walnut and butternut inks but those are a little too specialized for most fountain pen users.
Wow - you get those filtered well enough so they don't clog the feed?

That's what I'm wondering. What would I have to do to procure a sample of your black walnut ink?

I filter the inks through a respirator filter that is fine enough to remove pollen from the air. The filters are easily and cheaply available at local hardware stores. A small plastic funnel and some hot melt glue cobbles up a gravity fed ink filter. Examination with a microscope reveals no stray walnut cells that could clog a feed or bridge up in a nib slit. Coffee filters are not fine enough.

Walnut ink is a bit corrosive, so I have to be careful to use only gold nibs. Steel nibs for dip pens wear flat quickly.

As for samples, I don't know what to say. I have about a dozen different kinds, made with different recipes at different times of the year. The walnut ink gives a rich, warm brown line. Made with iron, it is a rich black color. Butternut husk ink starts out like walnut, but then it coats the inside of the inkwell with a yellow substance and then it turns a mousy brown. I haven't saved any of that.

I posted some recipes on FPN, years ago. They should still be there. They are not posted under ink recipes. They are under the general blab threads. A search for butternut should turn them up. (I don't hang out there any more. There are so many blinky ads it crashes my browser.)

Thanks for all the info - never thought of using respirator filters to clean up fluids, but it makes sense! We have a big old Black Walnut tree by the house and we use both the nuts and make dye from the hulls... I know what my next project will be!

[Lovementos]

I always have my Sailor 1911 filled with Sailor Kiwaguro Nano Carbon

[southpaw52]

I enjoy a variety of inks. I normally keep a dozen plus pens filled. I do not use a particular ink with a particular with a certain pen. The inks I chose for filling are Iroshizuku, Sailor, and Diamine.

I clean my pens monthly, then refill them with choices from previously stated inks. Sometimes I mainly use mainly blue inks and red inks, other times a rainbow of colors.

That is the great thing about pens/inks is the unlimited choices.