The question now is whether there were any real grounds for this excitement. Are those Mix-free inks that unique?
Mixability seems to be the main argument people use to favor these inks. Therefore, it might be worth to remind that there are many other mixable inks in the market.
Sailor Jentle inks are some of them, as the regular ink events by this company show. On those, the ink master creates the color of your choice by mixing Sailor inks in the adequate proportions.
The Sailor ink master —Mr. Ishimaru— at work in Machida, Tokyo (April 2010). German inks Standardgraph, on their side, offer a gamut of 22 mixable inks.
Some of the mixable 22 Standardgraph inks. Picture taken from the Standardgraph catalog. In any event, mixing inks is not a dangerous experiment provided some basic precautions were taken:
— Do all the mixing in a container and shake well before filling any pen with the mixture. Should it react, the deposit would appear in the container, thus preventing us from using it in any pen.
— Avoid mixing pigmented and washable inks together to be on the safe side. Although if done following the previous rule nothing grievous should happen.
— Should we need more precautions, start by inking a cheap pen –the market is full of them— before filling that one-hundred year old pen in pristine condition inherited from some eccentric ancestor…
The Platinum mixing kit. Probably, the most interesting item in the whole marketing operation, no matter how overpriced it might be. Those elements is all we need to start mixing--some eyedroppers and some containers. I know many of us have enough inks at home to start out tests without waiting for any official permission from Platinum—or any other ink maker. Let the alchemy begin!
Finally, do we really need nine inks to create exotic colors? Or twenty two? Call me naïve, but I thought that three –yellow, red and blue— were enough.
My thanks to Ms. Olga Portús.
(Pilot Custom 74 SM tuned by Mr. Yamada – Pelikan Royal Blue)Bruno Taut
(Madrid, February 19th, 2011)
[labels: tinta, Platinum, Standardgraph, Sailor]
1 comment:
I agree that having so many "mixable" inks is more of a marketing/sales gimmick than anything. You would typically need only 3 colors to create any combination. Taking Noodler's as an example, you can use Shah's Rose, Navajo Turquoise and Firefly Yellow. And then you could also add a white and a black ink to lighten and darken the resulting color.
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