Orange Inks For The Win ...
Posted on 03 December, 2016
One of my other interests is pens and paper — primarily fountain pens. I'm not a collector per se, but have a slowly-growing assortment of mainly cheap(er) pens.
The real fun of fountain pens is in switching between different inks to see what does and doesn't work for you — an ink can have quite different properties depending on the style/width of nib and the type of paper that it's being used on.
If you're in the UK and using any kind of bottle-refillable fountain pen, I can heartily recommend Diamine inks — these are generally well-made, reliable and safe inks that will behave well in most pens and aren't too hard to clean out of the barrel. Best of all (again, at least in the UK) they're inexpensive — you can pick up a 30ml plastic bottle of nearly every one of their 100+ colours for less than £2.50 and once you've picked out some colours that you like you can can get a larger (glass) 80ml bottle for less than £6. Personally I get mine from Cult Pens, although they're available from other specialist sellers and through Amazon.
If you're elsewhere in the world, you may find that Diamine isn't quite such a good deal (they're made in the UK, so any local stockists have to contend with shipping and duty) but they're still worth seeking out.
All of which is a pre-cursor to an ink recommendation — I've been searching out a decent orange ink for a few months, and have tried several Diamine inks (Orange, Pumpkin, Diamine/Cult Pens' Deep Dark Orange to name but three) but have now fallen in love with their Blaze Orange. It's a wonderful orange/tangerine hue, not too bright, not too dark, and has some nice shading (subtle differences in colour that add visual interest to your writing).
Possibly not to everyone's taste, I admit — and there are certainly some highly recommended inks out there from other manufacturers — but given that you can pick up a 30ml bottle for only £2.35 right now what's the harm in trying?!
Posted in pens-and-ink
