INK SWAB: 106/365 – Diamine Amber

DIAMINE 002

 

I looooove the way Diamine Amber swabs. The color is pretty amazing and it looks like it has some potential for shading.

As part of a mega-review, I looked at it in detail here and didn’t love it. Reviews on Goulet Pens say that the ink is great, but not for very fine nibs – that may have been my issue and I should give it another go sometime.

What is your experience with Diamine Amber?

INK REVIEW: De Atramentis Jasmine

Screen Shot 2015-03-18 at 2.31.17 PMDe Atramentis Jasmine is surprising in a number of ways . . .

  • the scent is reminiscent of jasmine
  • the color isn’t very well saturated
  • it writes surprisingly well
  • there is zero water resistance

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I tested this ink in a Lamy Safari with a broad nib and there is some amount of shading going on:

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There are a lot of nice things about this ink. It writes great – no hard starts, no feathering, no bleeding or show through – but I just don’t like it.  The color is nothing special to me and I can’t imagine a situation when I’d want to write in this color.

Having said that, reviews on Goulet Pens are great for Jasmine, though one reviewer said that it bleeds on Filofax paper – good to know.

What do you think?  Love it? Hate it?

Oh, and in case you care about such things – I bought and paid for the sample size of this ink with my own pennies.

INK SWAB: 72/365 – Noodler’s Sunrise Highlighter

SPECIALTY INKS006

 

Noodler’s Sunrise – Highlighter Ink

I really really like the color of this ink. It’s made for use in highlighting markers. I can see some spread/feathering and that does make me a bit concerned as to how it would behave in a marker or pen.

Have you tried this one? Howdit (it’s a word!) work out for you?

PEN REVIEW: Pilot Custom 912 – Music Nib

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Pilot Custom 912 – Music Nib

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The Pilot Custom 912 is a nice looking pen with classic styling. The body is black resin and the trim is shiny and silver in color.

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The cap screws on and posts easily to the back of the pen. The section is a bit shorter than average and this could present an issue for people with larger hands.

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Fill using the included Pilot CON-70 converter or Pilot’s proprietary cartridges. The CON-70 is unique in that it is a push-button / pump converter and it holds a bunch of ink (around 1 ml). I love it, but there are varying viewpoints out there.  The good news is that if a user hates it, one of the other Pilot converters can apparently be swapped in easily enough.

To learn more about the CON-70 pump converter, I suggest watching Brian Goulet’s video. Informative and entertaining:  “You have to really want it.”  “You have to attack it!” “BAM! BAM!”

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Music nibs are sometimes referred to as trident nibs because they have three tines. That is to say that this nib has two slits through which the ink flows. Lines drawn vertically are thicker with this kind of nib than lines horizontal lines.

Pilot Custom 912 Writing Samples

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With cursive writing, the pen writes wonderfully. But with printing I’m having some hard starts on some downstrokes. Arrgh.

The trouble can be seen in the image below. See where the M in “Music” and the I in “Nib” look a little off? It looks like there’s an issue with the left side of the nib.

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Now what?  Well, I love the pen and I’m not going to return it, but I will be looking for someone to tune the nib. Do you know a nibmeister with expertise making music nibs sing?

Also, if you have this pen, I’d love to hear what you think of it. Did you get the music nib, too?