Recipe: A random blue cartridge that came with a Monteverde Invincia and a few drops of Noodler’s Red-Black
Origins:
I recently got a fountain pen that doesn’t take converters. It came with one cartridge (Standard International Short), but I managed to get it jammed inside the barrel of the pen. So I had to destroy the cartridge to get it out. I had a few more laying around, so it wasn’t a big loss.
So I used a blue cartridge that came with my Monteverde Invincia, and I hated the color. It was a lame, weak blue. I’m not sure if it was Monteverde ink or not, but it was unacceptable. Instead of throwing it out, I figured I’d experiment a bit and mix in another color and see what happens. So I put in a couple drops of Noodler’s Red-Black, thinking I’d get a nice, rich purple.
What came out was more of a weird brown-black with purple overtones. I wasn’t crazy about it, but I figured I’d use it up to see if it would grow on me. It didn’t. But I did discover some interesting things about it (click the image below to enlarge it).
Weird Chromatography:
I’m always interested in ink chromatography to see what a given color is made of, and I decided to see how my Frankenpurple would fare against a piece of filter paper. I was kind of surprised in the spectrum represented.
Nowhere to be found was the original blue. Purple makes up the bulk of the spectrum, indicating that the red and blue must have enjoyed each other’s company. Toward the end of the spectrum was some pretty vibrant yellow and a bit of bright pink. There is this weird brown/black smudge on one side. Not sure if that’s just the colors failing to separate, or an indication that some weird chemical process was occurring between the two inks.
But what did catch my attention was that ink stayed behind where I drew the original line. Inks that aren’t water resistant often don’t leave behind any color where the original pen line was. But this one left a lot, indicating some degree of water resistance. Good reason to conduct a water drop test.
Wash Away the Poison. Or Not.
I wrote out some words and doodles on a piece of Maruman Mnemosyne paper. It took a while to dry. Actually, it took about a half hour to dry completely. Just to make sure, I waited a couple days before performing the test. I then dropped some water on a few spots, let it sit for several minutes, and blotted the water with a paper towel.
Some ink came up, turning the water light purple, but I was pretty surprised by how much stayed behind. The color didn’t even change, just turned a little lighter. So my concoction turned out to be pretty water resistant (click the image below to enlarge it).
I’m including a picture of the paper towel, just because you can see further separation of the purple, brown, yellow, and pink colors.
Dark, Thick, and Gooey.
I also wanted to play with some plain old ink splotches, but by this time, only had a drop or two of ink left. I drizzled a few small drops onto some paper, none of which ended up very interesting. so I figured I’d just spray whatever was left in the syringe into scatter-shot patterns to see what colors a fine mist would take on.
It all looks black with a faint hint of purple. And it’s still freaking wet. It’s now been about two or three days, and some of the drops are still wet. This stuff isn’t drying…which is weird, because the air in Missouri is extremely dry right now (click the image below to enlarge).
Final Thoughts
Well, I tried. I got a pretty cool bit of chromatography out of the deal, but this ink is pretty ugly overall. If I were to try this again, I’d probably use something like Sailor Oku-Yama or maybe even a single drop of Diamine Red Dragon to go with the weak-ass blue. Red-Black was too dark and gave me something closer to tar than the rich, purple ink I was aiming for.
And quite honestly, I’m not sure if there isn’t some weird reaction taking place between the two inks. It’s color got darker and the ink got goopier over time. I wouldn’t recommend it.
