Ink Review: Diamine Violet

[Chrissy]

Today I'm reviewing Diamine Violet ink.
Diamine Violet is a typical violet purple that leans slightly more blue than red, but is a really attractive colour. It’s an ink from the standard Diamine ink range.

Compared with some other lavender/lilac/violet inks it’s a more saturated ink than it first looked, and it can show plenty of shading with fine or medium nibs. I found it flowed well with all of the pens I tried it in, felt slightly wet, and it’s lubrication was really nice and smooth across the page.

My review was written on coated printer paper, that isn’t very absorbent, and I saw no spread or show-through. The lines were crisp and it dried quite quickly for this paper.

On Field Notes paper it didn’t spread or feather, but I saw some slight show through and bleed through. However, writing on the reverse side of all of the papers I used would be perfectly acceptable as show-through doesn't look as bad on paper than when it is scanned and shown on screen.

Violet is not sold as a waterproof ink but showed some water resistance.

• Flow Rate: Good - quite wet
• Lubrication: Good - felt smooth across the page
• Nib Dry-out: Not noticed.
• Start-up: Immediate.
• Saturation: Saturated
• Shading Potential: Shading seen with F & M nibs
• Sheen: None noticed.
• Show-Through:
  
  • Oxford paper
  • Silvine Notebook (not much)
  • Rhodia Graph (not much)
  • CiaK by InTempo
  • Field Notes
  • Hobonichi Techo paper
  • Tomoe River 52gsm paper
  
  
• Spread / Feathering / Woolly Line: Not seen on any paper I used, even Field Notes
• Nib Creep / “Crud”: Not seen, even after several days in the pen
• Staining (pen): Not seen after several days - very easy clean-up
• Staining (hands): Easy clean-up off of skin with bar soap.
• Clogging: Not seen.[/*]
• Water resistance: Not sold as waterproof, but shows some water resistance.
• Availability: Available in 80ml and 30ml bottles plus cartridges from Diamine Inks web-site and many other outlets.

Diamine Violet.jpeg
Diamine Violet 1.jpg

[The Good Captain]

I've used this relatively frequently but think I prefer the Pelikan 4001 Violet, just a tad more.

[RocketRyan]

Hi Chrissy, another great review, send a possible purchase for me. But my big question is where did you get an 18k nib for your hemisphere?

[Chrissy]

Hi Chrissy, another great review, send a possible purchase for me. But my big question is where did you get an 18k nib for your hemisphere?

You're welcome. It's a nib from a Waterman Preface. I bought a beat up old Preface on ebay. The cap was loose, and there were nicks and scratches all over the lacquer, but it had a nice gold nib.

I already knew that the Preface nib was a good upgrade for the Hemisphere, so I waited for a perfect blue marbled one to come along, bought it, and swapped the nibs & feeds over.

I have 2 Hemis with gold Preface nibs and 4 Phileas's with gold L'Etalon nibs....I bought most of those nibs from "Dutchpen" over on FPN

[RocketRyan]

Thanks for the tip, I'm off to eBay now.