Ink Review #87

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

Overview

The color/properties:

At a glance, you might not think so, but Robert Oster Motor Oil is a truly fascinating color. What is it? Yellow-grey? Yellow-Brown? Black and yellow? Looking at the swatches doesn’t tell you a lot because, depending on on the lighting in which you observe this ink, it could be any of those. There aren’t a lot of inks that I’ve been this excited to see the chromatography strip for. What is even going on here?

After looking at it for way too long, I’ve decided it’s a grey ink with heavy yellow undertones. There’s not necessarily a sheen, but there’s definitely a light luster that shows up when the ink lays down heavily enough, causing it to appear more brown. Otherwise, there’s an average amount of shading with a soft cut between a lighter and darker shade of grey, with heavy yellow undertones in the areas where the ink doesn’t pool.

Rhodia

Leuchtturm1917

Performance on paper:

Motor Oil is well-behaved. Most of the bleed-through on the Kokuyo paper was limited to the larger nib sizes, and there wasn’t any noticeable bleeding or feathering on any of the other test pages. It should be fine on most fountain pen-friendly papers. The dry times were average, with large nibs drying within 15-20 seconds and the finer nibs drying within 5-10 seconds. The water resistance was fun, but not great — water exposure caused heavy brown clouding, and while there are some traces leftover of what’s written it may prove difficult to read.

Midori MD

Maruman

Tomoe River

Kokuyo

Performance in the pen:

Motor Oil has a medium flow that was consistent across each of the test nibs. The lubrication was adequate for a comfortable writing experience, but it wasn’t especially slick either. I ran into a few minor hard starts with the broad nib, but otherwise, there weren’t any hard starts or skips with the other nibs. The cleaning experience was easy, and it only took a singular flush and soak for the water to run clear, without any color or residue remaining in the pen.

• Performance in a pen: 8.5/10

• Performance on paper: 9/10

• Color saturation: 7.5/10

• Sheening: 1/10

• Shading: 5/10

• Dry time: 7.5/10

• Water resistance: 2/10

• Ease of cleaning: 8/10

• Shimmer: None

My personal thoughts...

Today marks the 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans! What better way for me to celebrate the occasion than with a review of Robert Oster Motor Oil? I mentioned earlier that this was a fascinating color, and it is, but it only took a moment of observation to point out that motor oil doesn’t look like this when you pour it from the bottle. Of course, it won’t be long before the oil darkens to a color not too unlike this ink, and I think it makes for a far better ink than pale green-yellow. On the whole, I think this is a great and original ink idea, too. I could hardly believe it when I saw it on the table of Robert Oster inks at a pen show. “Motor Oil? Awesome!” I had to have it. And now it remains in all of my motorsports-inspired pens (which I’d like to point out, there aren’t enough of).

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