Ink Review: Bril Red

A while back, I finally got the bottles of ink which I had ordered. I had ordered Bril inks. Though I wanted all the colours, the shopkeeper could only get me two: red and royal blue. Royal blue is pretty famous but red is not very well known. Anyways, lets dive into the review.
Bril Red is not an ink which I would like to call a 'true red' ink since it is more like pink which has a hint of red but if you are looking for an ink for correcting students' notebooks then this may be a good choice since it has that 'popping out of page' kind of effect. Though, I would like to mention that if you want to torture someone, just make them read ten page  written with this ink. Believe me, this thing will be more effective than the Cruciartus curse from Harry Potter...
This ink bleeds through paper unlike any other ink I have ever seen. Also it feathers with the regular copier paper a lot. This ink is recommended only to be used with M and F nibs. I used it in my ASA Rainbow which has a fairly wet B nib and at some places, my handwriting is not even legible (I have a pretty bad handwriting but still it is quite legible). The flow is fairly wet, quite comparable to Waterman black.
When it comes to shading, this ink fails miserably. It has a solid pinkish colour. As a result this ink can be used as a highlighter ink in a dry enough pen.
I had some Private Reserve Shell Pink lying around and some homemade red ink as well. So, I have included a side by side comparison of their colours. The Hero ink is there just to poke fun at other inks when it comes to water resistance.

A comparison.

A written sample.

Bleeds like any thing.

ASA Rainbow review.

ASA recently launched a new pen, called the rainbow. This pen is available in a bunch of colours and is made of acrylic. These pens are c/c and eyedropper convertible and have Schmidt nib units. It is available in fine, medium and broad.
I ordered their 'flaming orange' (quite a fancy name if you ask me!) version with broad nib and rounded ends. I must say that the pen sure does look stunning and writes equally well!

BODY
The pen's body is made of acrylic and looks quite nice. The quality of the acrylic is pretty good. The pen is completely hand-made. The surface has a bit of imperfections but since it is hand made, I have no  problems. The acrylic has a lot of 'depth' which I could not capture well in the picture. The ASA logo is not clearly visible and one has to squint a bit to see it clearly. The cap is screw on type and takes 1 1/3 turns to fully unscrew.

NIB
The nib is a Schmidt Broad which writes more like a medium. It is quite smooth and has a bit of flex but it is almost negligible. It is a stainless steel nib.

This is actually a whole unit with a schmidt converter (optional).

SECTION

The section is shaped like the section of the ASA I can. It is extremely comfortable to hold and is well suited for long writing sessions. It too is made of the same Acrylic as the rest of the pen. The section can be seen in the above pic.

MEASUREMENTS 

I compared the measurements with those on the ASA site and they seem pretty much the same.

Pen Length (Capped)	135mm
Pen Length (Un-capped)	100 mm (Excl Nib)
Pen Length (Un-capped)	120 mm (Incl Nib)
Section Length	25 mm
Cap Length	65 mm
Cap Dia	16 mm
Barrel Dia	14 mm
Section Dia	12 mm avg.

WRITING SAMPLE

The pen writes quite wet. I would rate the wetness to be 8/10. It is pretty smooth as well. In terms of smoothness, it will easily score 9/10. The ink used in this sample is parker quink blue and the paper was 70gsm century A4 sheet.

SUMMARY

I am quite pleased with the pen. The finish is quite nice and it writes pretty well also. I have no complains with this pen and it is currently my favorite! (They are not paying me to say all this, all the opinions are my own.)

Camlin permanent black ink review.

Ink Review: Camlin Royal Blue

This is the review of one one of my favorite inks, Camlin royal blue. This ink is the default student ink in my area. Its color is vibrant but not very 'popping out of page' sort of color. It may feel a bit uncomfortable if you have to read 50 or so pages written with this ink.

The ink is well lubricated,  it is well behaved but does stain pens. So I would not like to fill it in demonstrator pens. Its drying time is okay, I didn't need to use blotting paper while writing but if you are using high quality paper like Nightingale paper, the drying time is significantly more.

The ink is not very water resistant. It just leaves a mark that is enough to be read but not a lot. So, I would rate its water resistance to be 4 out of 10. This ink does fade, but not a lot. It does have shading but very minimum . I would say this ink is okay for normal use but if you want to have a ink with shading, then this ink is not for you. Here is a writing sample:

Writing sample and measurements.

So, here is the writing sample:
The pen measures:
 5 1/10 inches total capped
4 1/2 inches uncapped
7/16 inches diameter of the barrel.

Ratnamson No. 15.

One day I just bumped into a blog post by someone on Ratnamson pens. I researched about it and after reading, seeing and discussing about them, I finally called them and placed my order for two pens. Both of them were No. 15 but one with a gold nib in black ebonite and the other in brown rippled ebonite and steel nib. The black one was for my father as his birthday was just round the corner and since I was already ordering one pen for dad, I ordered one for myself too.

The pens took a month to reach me after payment. That one month was well very exciting and disappointing as I used to get excited each day for the pens to arrive but they would not. 

Anyways the pens came one day and I was absolutely stunned by the beauty of the pens. Although not perfect but they were handmade and they looked beautiful. I immediately cleaned the pens and inked them. I inked mine with Camlin royal blue and my dad's with Waterman intense black. Since I had ordered a gold nib pen, the pens came in a white and red box. 

The pens wrote wonderfully! they were smooth and wet. They were not so smooth that you don't feel like you are writing but smooth enough. The gold nib had 'The Famous Ratnam And Sons 14ct" The gold nibs are made by them by hand and the steel ones are outsourced. The steel one has 'Iridium Point' written on it. The steel one is gold colored and the gold one is obviously, solid gold.

One funny thing is that the steel nib has more flex than the gold nib. The gold nib is much thicker than the steel one so that is the reason I guess.

The pen uncapped.

The clip. You can see a cap jewel on the top. It is made of ebonite.

Detail of the rippling.

The nib is gold colored steel. The Iridium point is a bit off. 

The feed is made of ebonite.

You can see the box. The pen is resting on it.

 

The writing samples will be there in a separate blog post. 

Introduction.

Hi all, my name is Vardhan. In this blog I will share my small fountain pen collection (only pictures no real pens guys!) with the world. I have been into fountain pens since the time I have been writing with pens that is when I was in class fourth. The year was 2011 when we were introduced to pens. 
My first pen was a steel Parker Vector with a medium nib. It was a gift from my grandfather. I used to use that pen only. I fell in love with it and that was the time when my fountain pen collection started.
Since then I have collected a few fountain pens (and destroyed a few!). They are as follows:
2 Reynolds Grippy
2 Parker vector
1 Reynolds gold ladder 611
1 Ratnamson No. 15
1 Camlin Trinity
1 Hero 332.
I will do the reviews of these pens and more pens which I will add to my collection.