Ink Review #33

*Please note that the scan is the accurate representation of this color.

Overview

The color/properties:

Brown 732 is medium brown. There’s a light amount of shading and depending on the nib size and wetness it can vary from a soft gradient with the finer nibs, to a crisp cut where the ink pools. I noticed the shading the most on the Leuchtturm paper, but it’s still not a major shift in tone, and with the finer nibs, it has an especially soft and creamy appearance. The droplets show a thick black sheen, but I don’t think that would be transferrable to writing.

I should also note that there’s a very plasticky smell. I noticed it at first when I was doing the ink splat, but It’s even noticeable coming from the dried droplets.

Rhodia

Leuchtturm1917

Performance on paper:

Brown 732 was well-behaved on paper. There wasn’t any noticeable bleed-through or feathering on any of the test papers. The dry times were slightly below average, often extending past the 20-second mark, even with the finer nibs. When exposed to water the ink clouded and most of what was written washed away. What was left over was legible but still difficult to read and I wouldn’t expect a lot in terms of water resistance.

Midori MD

Maruman

Tomoe River

Kokuyo

Performance in the pen:

Brown 732 had a dry flow across all of the nibs that unfortunately didn’t provide a lot of lubrication while writing. It wasn’t unbearable, but if you prefer your inks to be slicker, this one isn’t going to cut it. The ink barely wrote out of the needlepoint, but otherwise, I didn’t run into any stops, skips, or hard starts during my tests with the other nibs. Still, I wouldn’t recommend using this ink with drier-tuned nibs. The cleaning process was easy, and the ink washed out with a single soak and flush.

• Performance in a pen: 6.5/10

• Performance on paper: 10/10

• Color saturation: 5.5/10

• Sheening: 1/10

• Shading: 4/10

• Dry time: 7/10

• Water resistance: 2.5/10

• Ease of cleaning: 10/10

• Shimmer: None

My personal thoughts...

I’ll start by saying that the color is fine. It’s what I expected — it’s an inoffensive, neutral brown. When I picked this ink up I had hoped that it would be a perfect brown iteration of Franklin-Christoph’s Blue 72. Both are very basic inks, but Blue 72 was such a pleasant and painless experience. I wish I could say the same about Brown 732. It gets the color right, but the dry flow and spotty dry times make it hard to recommend this ink over other browns.

More images/info:

Tools and materials used in the writing samples:

• A TWSBI Diamond 580 AL with 7 nib units including a Needlepoint grind, EF, F, M, B, 1.1mm stub, and an Architect grind. All nibs are tuned to perform at the same medium wetness.

• A Rhodia No16 A5 DotPad

• A Leuchtturm1917 A5 Notebook

• A Midori MD A5 Notebook

• A 68gsm A5 Tomoe River Notebook

• A Maruman Mnemosyne A5 Spiral Notebook

• A Kokuyo Campus A5 Notebook