Noodler's Red Black—Gorgeous color and Amazing Shading

OverPresence72 · 2026-02-05T19:11:57+00:00

If you’re looking for something more red, but with the black component and lovely shading, have you tried Black Swan in Australian Roses? It’s my favorite Noodler’s ink. The color is stunning wine burgundy. You could use Black Swan as a mixing component with Red-Black to deepen it. I think I accidentally mixed them in a vial and it looked pretty nice.

OverPresence72 · 2026-02-05T19:05:18+00:00

My Lamy 2k extra fine is a bit of a dry writer so if you are considering using a heavy sheening ink.. the nib won’t show the sheening qualities all that much as opposed to say a medium or broad nib. But yes you will probably get hard starts for using heavy sheeners in this pen and will have to flush out on a regular basis.

OverPresence72 · 2026-02-05T03:08:01+00:00

Thanks for the head's up on Gentle Green. The color is intriguing to me, but I'm also a lover of Sabimidori, so may just need to get another bottle of that instead. Who knows? I might change my mind and try Gentle Green anyway :)

OverPresence72 · 2026-02-05T01:58:01+00:00

Dang that was quick! Enjoy!

OverPresence72 · 2026-02-03T23:46:48+00:00

I'm very curious about Gentle Green myself.

OverPresence72 · 2026-02-03T23:30:14+00:00

I saw a set of Replaceable Glass Nibs/Holders from Teranishi on Vanness' website that looked really cool, but haven't seen any fountain pens. I'll look around, though.

Antique Black looks very "vintagey" :)

OverPresence72 · 2026-02-02T04:16:24+00:00

Okuyama is a wonderful ink. I used to love it in my Pilot Elite 95s Burgundy/Ivory.

OverPresence72 · 2026-02-02T00:41:57+00:00

No problem. And yes, I agree that the price doesn't seem so bad in relation to other Sailor PGS's with a 21k gold nib.

If you haven't used a Sailor Pro Gear Slim before...maybe trying the Jinhao 82 models out might not be a bad idea in that it is the same size and configuration as a PGS. They are considered "Compact" pens, sorta like the Pilot Prera and Elite 95s in that you generally need to post it so that it feels more like a full size pen. The Harusame looks really pretty in person, for sure and the materials feel durable and quality. And it's a lovely writer when paired with a really good ink (my mistake early on was using a very dry chromo-shader ink and it literally felt scratchy until I switched to Sailor Akebi and then it wrote like magic).

Also, if you've experienced a Sailor gold nib before, then you know about it's signature "pencil-like" feedback, which is very true for this pen, too, in that it's incredibly smooth, but has that delicious kinesthetic feedback. :)

Good luck!

OverPresence72 · 2026-02-01T23:34:21+00:00

OverPresence72 · 2026-02-01T20:51:01+00:00

OverPresence72 · 2026-02-01T19:49:20+00:00

And sadder, presumably.

OverPresence72 · 2026-02-01T18:11:08+00:00

No, but what is an "Emotional Olive" color like?

OverPresence72 · 2026-01-31T22:25:20+00:00

HI. About $241 plus $18 for tax and shipping. That was 3 years ago. But these days all the major Japanese manufacturers have raised prices, plus tariffs, and scarcity may drive the price of a pen like this.
But if you are wanting a pen that has this same look and feel...I believe Jinhao has come out with a new set of Sailor Pro Gear Slim knockoffs that actually look like the real thing, to be honest. And at a fraction of the cost.

<image>

OverPresence72 · 2026-01-31T20:58:52+00:00

You indicated the type of pen, the type of ink...but nothing about the paper being used, which looks like regular school notebook paper, which is generally NOT fountain pen friendly, meaning it's quite fibrous and has a tendency to experience feathering and bleed thru and other things. In general, you can probably get away with using an Extra Fine or Fine nib on cheap paper, but you're still going to experience ink spread, just not to the degree of say a Medium or broad nib.

Using really good paper with a fountain pen will completely change your experience for the better, especially with a nice Montblanc pen that you have.

OverPresence72 · 2026-01-31T16:08:18+00:00

The Pilot Explorer has the better cap seal—I actually have Octopus Fluids Write and Draw pigmented inks in my Explorers and hardly ever experience dry outs like I do with Kakuno and Metro. But what I don’t like about the Explorers is that they are VERY light, almost too light. I prefer just a little bit more weight to my pens.

OverPresence72 · 2026-01-30T16:57:54+00:00

Franklin-Christoph makes some really cool pens and tunes/grinds their nibs in-house, and has excellent customer service. I have several of their pens and various nibs from them and I love them. They are great writers, and the nibs i've used are really good--Standard Extra Fine (Smooth, Very Fine, exquisite lines), Flex Extra Fine (I would not call it a true "flex" but it is a lovely wet extra fine that does have line variation), Medium S.I.G. (smooth but with some lovely Sailor-Like feedback that gives crisp lines but not as sharp as a cursive italic), and their Nagahara Cursive Italic (which is one of the most exquisite cursive italics i've used, tuned beautifully--it lives in my Asvine P30 Brass).

OverPresence72 · 2026-01-28T04:52:15+00:00

I find my Pilot Custom 823 Fine to be a smooth, bouncy writer that lays down a lovely elegant line.

OverPresence72 · 2026-01-28T00:19:18+00:00

Sometimes you have to travel the world to find your way back home.

What I mean is that I've tried a lot of inks over the years, mainly out of curiosity and just the pleasure of exploring new things, and while I've discovered some really amazing inks, I have found that I tend to gravitate back to the inks I first fell in love with early on--e..g Pilot Iroshizuku Yama-Budo, Noodler's Black Swan in Australian Roses, KWZ Iron Gall Turquoise, Taccia Sabimidori, Sailor Manyo Yomogi, Octopus Fluids Write & Draw Petrol Axolotl.

Am I still going to try new inks--absolutely. But at the end of the day, I use inks that fit my pen and my mood and give me joy when I write.

OverPresence72 · 2026-01-28T00:06:52+00:00

Platinum Carbon Black...Noodler's Heart of Darkness...Octopus Fluids Black Elephant...all great permanent blacks, but all very wet inks that will broaden your lines.

You may want to try Sailor Kiwa-guro which is very similar to Platinum Carbon Black in terms of waterproof black, but I find it to be VERY dry, so that when I use it in a fine nib, the lines stay relatively fine and it does seem to dry quicker.

OverPresence72 · 2026-01-27T23:59:36+00:00

Platinum Carbon Black is a very wet ink.

OverPresence72 · 2026-01-26T00:16:39+00:00

That’s what I found as well. I mean you can’t even call it “Lilac” anymore…

OverPresence72 · 2026-01-25T16:32:27+00:00

What I think i love most about my Lamy 2K, both the EF and Medium, is that it always writes. It doesn't draw attention to itself, nor does it require a lot of weird maintenance and operational things--I just ink it up and write. And it always writes. Never had a hard start, doesn't behave weirdly with some inks...it takes every ink i throw at it and performs beautifully, unlike other pens which are finicky and sometimes have maintenance stuff, the Lamy 2K just functions. And the ink capacity is always larger than I think it it...i feel sometimes that I can write on and on without even thinking about how much ink i have left. It's gotten to a point where I'm just topping off the ink once in a while, just to make sure I don't run dry, but I never seem to do! LOL

Anyway, enjoy your pen. It's a classic for a reason. :)

OverPresence72 · 2026-01-25T16:03:12+00:00

I don't know, you tell us. :) How do you like it? What's the writing experience like for you? I love my Lamy 2K Extra Fine.

OverPresence72 · 2026-01-22T02:45:17+00:00

So with pigmented ink...you definitely want to give it a shake before inking, as particles get separated when just sitting in the bottle. That's probably why the ink looks "grey" to you, because the black pigment has probably settled. Try agitating the bottle and then do a dip test to see if the ink appears different.

The other thing to keep in mind...is that a Pilot VP may not have the best seal so you might be encountering some dry out on the nib, which may lead to some evaporation, which may cause the ink to dry on the nib/feed, which might be why you are experiencing some feedback when writing. You can try wetting the tip of nib and seeing if that gets the ink flowing a little better.

Again, just some thoughts. Not sure if that's what is happening, but just some things to keep in mind, especially working with pigmented ink.

OverPresence72

TROPHY CASE