Check out TWSBI's new pen. It's wood!

I have a couple of TWSBI pens, and I'm likely to get more of them. That's especially true since they've dropped the price of the 700 (from $80 to $65), shown us an economy model, and this wooden beauty.

I've linked this from the FPGeeks article on the new pen.

Diamine Hope Pink

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and here's a pink ink to celebrate.

I'm not sure what the genesis of this ink's name is, but it certainly fits this month.


I don't use a lot of pink ink. It's a fine color, but I put pinks in two pens this month to use for grading in honor of this month's national theme. Hope pink is the one that I used most. I'm actually pretty sure that this ink came in the first Goulet Ink Drop that I ever got. It was in with Private Reserve's Chocolate, and I think that was the first ink that I ever wrote a review of. It's not a very good review, and I really ought to re-visit those early inks.

Hope Pink is a really bright pink. It's vividly pink, but not painful to look at. I have been using it to grade some of my student's homework, and it behaves itself very well on even the cheapest-feeling papers that students use for their homework. It doesn't seem to bleed, feather, or spread.

You'll notice that the paper I wrote this review on is a bit different from the stuff I usually use. It's not Rhodia, it's from Staples, and it's their EcoEasy sugarcane paper. It's really the only recycled paper that I've used which is good for fountain pens. The dry-times on this paper are really long, but you don't get any bleed or show-through on this stuff.

Check out the sheen in these smear photos. It was a bit difficult to get my camera to focus on that part of the page, but you can clearly see it in the photos above. I didn't see that in my regular writing, but if I were to be writing with a really broad or wet nib I might see it.

Overall, I recommend this ink if you're wanting a bright pink. It's excellent.

Here's the video from my review and water test. I'll post a spoiler pic beneath it. (Scroll carefully if you don't want to spoil the results.)

Organics Studio Arsenic Gray

**I didn't pay for this ink, but it wasn't exactly provided for review.**

There's a bit of a story behind this ink. Aside from liking grey inks, we've got a family connection to this ink. My wife works as a soil chemist (and microbiologist) at NC State, and her lab focuses on arsenic in soil and water.

When we were at the Raleigh Pen Show, we saw Tyler from Organics Studio, and she told him that he should name one of his inks after Arsenic. Well, that happened.

At the time, Tyler had a little bottle labeled "5" that was the original version of this Arsenic ink. I used it for a while, but I wasn't all that happy with it. It was okay, but it was too pale for me. I like grey, but I need it to be a bit darker than #5.

We saw Tyler again in DC, and he hooked Audrey up with a bottle of the finished product.

I didn't use it right away because I was already using #5. I loaded it into Audrey's new Sheaffer Intensity (a great pen, by the way), and she was using it for a long time before I asked her to bring it home so that I could test the ink from her nib.

Lo and behold, it was pleasantly dark!

I thought this might just be a much wetter nib than the one in my TWSBI 540, so I tried it in my Lamy Vista's medium nib, and it was still way darker. I like Arsenic much more than I liked #5.

Check out this Organics Studio ink. It's a very good grey ink. Not to dark, not to pale. Good flow, no real bleed.

I'll have the video up once YouTube has it ready for me.  

Here's the video portion of the post!

De Atramentis Silver Grey

I've been into grey inks lately, and I have a few of these reviews stacked up, just waiting to be written. This De Atramentis ink looks way better in these pictures than it does in real life. The Rhodia paper really helped the ink pool and retain its color.

On regular papers (standard office paper, filler papers, legal pads and such), this ink is too faint to really be useful. It bleeds and feathers and spreads.

It's just not as good as the other grey inks that I've been trying out.

As a sneak peak, I've got Diamine Graphite, Organics Studio Arsenic, and Mont Blanc Einstein coming up soon.

Here's the water resistance test. It's a little surprising.

There's a new clone on the market.

It's been a rough week here, and I'll post about that later, maybe, but here's a short news item that I came across today.

Hero has finally gotten around to copying the Lamy Safari. It's a pretty close clone, and it cost about half as much as the Safari. Check out Ink of Me Fondly for a post on the clone. I'm half-tempted to buy one just to review and test out. Only about half, though. What about the rest of you?

-Mike

A new look!

Hi folks, 

You may have noticed that the blog looks a little different. No, you've not lost your mind. I've been thinking about changing up the design for a while now, and I finally pulled the trigger. I'm still working on the links and the cover-flow and what not, but I think it looks pretty decent so far. What do you think?

-Mike

The October Ink Drop and some bonus birthday inks!

The Autumn Leaves came early this year. Last year this set showed up in November. I like these fall-feeling sets because they're always pretty exciting colors. I love some oranges, reds, and browns. Access to these kinds of colors is part of the reason that I got into fountain pens.

I've had a couple of this set (Antietam and Golden Brown), but it appears that I never blogged about Golden Brown. I don't know why that is. I've been wanting to try out Qin Shi Huang for a while, and I can finally check that off of my list. Now I just have to get a black light so that I can try out the fluorescence it is supposed to have. Check out the close-ups below.

I also recently got some inks for my birthday. My Mom and Dad both know my passion for pens and ink, so they both sent me pen-things this year. Dad made me the pen case I showed a few days ago, and Mom sent me some special inks that I wouldn't have gotten my hands on otherwise.

There's a store in Houston, TX called Dromgoole's. They're a great store without much of a web-presence, but you should definitely go there if you're in the Houston area. They've got 5 exclusive inks from Noodler's, and I've got 3/5 of them now. Audrey is currently using the Pecan ink in her Monteverde Artists and I've got the Black Bat in my Lamy. Both of these are going to be in my rotation for a while, I think. I can't speak on the Pecan too much, but the Black Bat is the best black ink I've ever used. At least, that's what I think after about a day using it.

The third ink is a PR Supershow ink, and it looks like it will be a good one. It reminds me of Lamy Turquoise, but I haven't had a chance to use it yet. I only had a couple of pens available to fill with inks.

Thanks, Mom! (She reads the blog, but she almost never comments. Maybe this'll draw her out of the woodwork.)

All of these inks are swatched on some Anderson Pen Company Perfect Pads paper. The text is written with Sailor's Jentle Sky High.

Gourmet Pens Giveaway Round Up

Hey folks,
I'm not home to post an ink review right now, so you're getting a link instead.

Azizah over at Gourmet Pens does these Giveaway Round Ups, and I think they're a great idea. Go on over and check out all of the cool things that people are giving away right now. There are a couple of Rotring pencils and some other neat things to be won for free. Check it out.

-Mike