After removing the bubble wrap, I ended up with this oblong object, all wrapped up in the Goulets' signature blue saran wrap. (And yes, as you can already see, I went a little overboard on these things...)
Each (tightly capped) little vial contains a generous portion of the given ink, and is nicely labeled.
I also bought this syringe kit, to make it easier to transfer ink from the vials to pens. The bottom of the vials is cone shaped, which should make it easier to fill a pen, but I imagine you'd still have trouble getting the last little bit. Plus, I are clumsy.
So, rather than futzing with dipping the nib, I took the converter out of my orange Safari and filled it with ink using one of the syringes. Selecting an ink to start with was tough! I admit to using the very childish close-your-eyes-and-grab-one method, and ended up with Diamine Majestic Blue.
All fueled up and ready to go!
I put the little Safari back together, waited a second for the ink to start, and we were off!
Looking forward to playing this ink for awhile, and with the rest of the colors as time goes on!
5 comments:
OK, that is completely cool. Tell us more as you go!
Details! We want details! (As you discover them.)You are going to have serious fun testing all those inks.
A bit silly perhaps (not that I care) but looking through all those ink color possibilities on the Goulet site I got the same sense of delight I felt when opening a big box of crayons as a kid. Nice to know that feeling can still exist 50+ years later.
Jeff the Bear
I'm a little embarrassed by how many of them there are! Somehow they're a lot less tangible when they're just line items in an on-line cart...
I have a fair sampling of Diamine colors, some of Private Reserve's bright blues (which I've always been curious about, but not enough for a whole bottle), and Noodler's Zhivago (ditto). Considering I'd estimate each vial holds enough for two or two and a half fills of your average converter...this is gonna keep me busy for awhile!
I gotta say, if all the Diamine inks are as nice as the Majestic Blue, I'm going to have some tough decisions to make when I'm through all the samples. That color is a little lighter than I anticipated (I plan to try the rest of it in a wetter pen), but still a nice intense color with some pretty shading--click on that photo to enlarge it and you'll see some of what I mean, though I'm sure the color isn't perfectly true. And it flows nicely/dries quickly. I really like it thus far.
Oh, one other nice detail: my invoice included a handwritten note from Brian Goulet--and he identified the lovely dark blue ink he was using (Omas Blue). Gotta love the personal touch!
Wow. I had to crack open some smelling salts half-way through. Too much oxblood and syringes. Feeling better now.
Yah...in retrospect that may have been an icky-ish choice to use for a needle and syringe demonstration...
I made sample swabs of all the ink colors this past weekend: used Q-tips to spread some of each on Rhodia paper so I could see what they all look like and compare and contrast similar colors. The Oxblood really is pretty bloody looking: goes down fairly bright red and dries a little rusty looking. My reaction to it as I was swabbing it out and watching it dry on the page was "Ewwwww! Cool!"
But I'm not sure how I'll feel about writing with the stuff.
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