Posts filed under Robert Oster

Robert Oster River Of Fire Ink Review

(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)

In Australia, Robert Oster has been producing some unique, beautiful inks that I'm sure we've all heard of. One of the more famous ones is Fire and Ice, which has a lovely blue shade and gobs of red sheen. Be careful looking at the collection of Robert Oster inks — you'll want to pick up a surprising number of delicious inks to try.

One of the new inks for 2017 is River of Fire — a gorgeous dark green with hints of blue and subtle red sheen. It's a beautiful ink that performs admirably at a decent price.

From JetPens, here's a short description of Robert Oster and his inks:

Inspired by the rich scenery and culture of Australia, Robert Oster inks are available in a stunning selection of vibrant and contemplative colors. Made with a commitment to environmental friendliness, all Robert Oster inks are non-toxic, 100% made in Australia, and bottled in PET plastic bottles from the country's first carbon-neutral plastics plant.

The environmental-friendly aspect is pleasing enough, but throw in the lovely colors and you've got a real winner.

River of Fire is a lovely green with hints of deep blue. It reminds me of a glimmering river, shifting from dark green, light green, and blue as it flows. It's a beautiful shade, and there's plenty of it. The saturation is phenomenal, and you never feel like it's not dialed up enough to let those gorgeous colors shine through. This is an ink that deserves a fat, wet nib to showcase its beauty and hidden attributes.

While the main color for River of Fire is medium to dark green, it has a lovely amount of shading between the greens. It shades easily and often, regardless of nib. There are blue undertones, and those come out more when using a wetter nib, so keep that in mind.

Like its cousin, Fire and Ice, there's a bit of red sheen at times. It isn't as prominent as the sheen in Fire and Ice, but it's there if you have the right light. To my eye, it's mostly red sheen, but I pick up blue/green sheen as well. It's a real delight when you see these characteristics pop up when you aren't expecting them. What looks like a normal, nicely shaded green ink has some sheeny tricks. To get the best results for sheen, use a really wet nib and Tomoe River paper.

The bleed and feathering factor of this ink is incredible. Even when using wide, wet nibs, this ink keeps its cool. I've tried it on all the paper types I own, and I haven't seen any bleeding, feathering, or show-through. It's really incredible. That green goodness stays where it's supposed to.

Another surprising attribute of River of Fire is the dry time. The dry time ranges from 5-20 seconds depending on the nib and paper, but I was shocked to get consistent 8-10 second dry times using a 1.1mm stub (broad side) on Clairefontaine. That's incredible. On other papers, the dry time is more consistent with other inks, coming in around 15-20 seconds in the darker, pooled areas. For most writing conditions, 10-12 seconds seems to be the average.

The flow and lubrication of this ink is also top-notch. It starts consistently, has no issues with skipping or stuttering, keeps well when uncapped for a couple of minutes, and lubricates the nib well. This really helps out when using a wide nib, because the ink flow has no problem keeping up with the amount of ink required in such a large nib.

I'm still only dipping my toe in the Robert Oster well, but I know I'll certainly be trying out others. If there was a "one of each" sampler pack of Oster inks, I'd be all over it. It's a slippery slope, but one worth sliding down if you enjoy unique, well-behaved, nuanced inks that pack a punch.

JetPens has a huge range of Robert Oster inks available, and at $17 for a 50ml bottle they are an excellent value.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Posted on July 12, 2017 by Jeff Abbott and filed under Robert Oster, Ink Reviews.

Robert Oster Signature Ink Review: Hippo Purple

(Susan M. Pigott is a fountain pen collector, pen and paperholic, photographer, and professor. You can find more from Susan on her blog Scribalishess.)

There’s a new Robert Oster Signature ink in town, and this one’s a special edition. It’s called Hippo Purple, and it was made especially for the Hippo Noto Tomoe Notebook, a Kickstarter project.

*Image via the Hippo Noto Kickstarter page*

The Hippo Noto Tomoe Notebook is a special sub-A5-size notebook (131mm x 208mm) with 500 pages of 68gsm Tomoe River paper. The creators of the notebook named it Hippo Noto because their late son’s favorite creature was the hippo, and “noto” means “notes” in Japanese. You can read all about the Hippo Noto Kickstarter project here. The project ends April 23, 2017, so if you’d like to support it, you’ll need to act quickly.

Robert Oster created a special Hippo-colored ink as a part of the Hippo Noto project. The ink has shades of magenta, ochre, and blue, creating a unique brownish-purple that mimics the color of hippos.

The ink is wet and writes quite well in my TWSBI Eco with a stub nib. It does not exhibit much shading with this nib and is a rather flat color. It is not waterproof. I did my ink testing on Maruman Septcouleur white paper (my usual ink testing paper), not the Tomoe paper that will be in the Kickstarter notebooks.

Although I was able to create some fun ink splats, this ink doesn’t have the gorgeous sheen I’ve found in other Robert Oster inks.

In wide nibs (I used a Pilot Parallel 2.4mm), the ink demonstrates subtle shading. I really like the unusual color.

You can order this special edition Robert Oster ink only through the Kickstarter project. So if you like this unique shade of brownish-purple, be sure to go to the Kickstarter page and pledge $47 for one notebook and a bottle of Hippo Purple ink.

(This ink was provided to Pen Addict at no charge for review purposes.)

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!

Posted on April 21, 2017 by Susan Pigott and filed under Robert Oster, Ink Reviews.

Robert Oster Signature Ink Review: Peach

(Susan M. Pigott is a fountain pen collector, pen and paperholic, photographer, and professor. You can find more from Susan on her blog Scribalishess.)

Robert Oster signature ink has become one of my favorite brands primarily due to its wonderful shading properties, and, in many cases, the sheen. I’m partial to blue inks, but I picked up a sample of Peach when I purchased some other inks from Vanness Pens.

Robert Oster Peach is a fantastic yellow-orange ink. It is not subtle; it is flashy and sweet as the fruit after which it is named. Just look at the shading and color in the writing sample below:

Initially, I was a bit disappointed with the ink because my usual ink tests didn’t exhibit the qualities I expected, such as rich shading. For example, my swab looks flat and uninteresting as do my swirls, but the swipes show some of that gorgeous color where the ink pooled. The ink dried more quickly than other Robert Oster inks I’ve tried. I thought it would be a wet ink, but in my Omas italic, it was fairly dry. The ink is definitely not waterproof.

Chromatography reveals several colors, including pink, peach, yellow, and vivid orange.

Ink splats show off the rich colors and even a bit of deep orange sheen.

With wide nibs you’ll see lots of shading and ink pooling, and you might get some shimmer on the edges of your letters. Even in finer nibs the ink exhibits some shading. So if you like a vivid yellow-orange, you will definitely like Robert Oster Peach.