Saturday, February 22, 2014

The Wonderful World of Ink

For every quality fountain pen you must use a quality ink.  The best part is that most good inks are not expensive at all. The good traits of an ink are the following:
  1. Solid Color: If an ink is black it should not be light and discolored, so to say leaning towards a brownish mess.  The ink must look appealing throughout - true to its intended color.
  2. Preferred Wetness: The ink dries to what you feel is appropriate. I like using ink that is a little bit wet when writing but dries quickly on paper.
A problem that I encounter with a lot of plain Blue inks is the color not being solid. Too often ink is too light. An exception is the Omas brand regular blue ink, which has a great solid darker color, which of course leads to a perfect shading.

Most of the time people, including I, lean towards buying and using turquoise and topaz inks which are vibrant, slightly greenish, yet casual and professional types of blue that my history teacher Mr.Reynolds uses in his Pelikan tradition series or M200 Emerald marbled Fountain pen. Some quality, inexpensive turquoise inks are made by Pelikan and Pilot (Iroshizuku lake-sumi).

When I use black ink which is both casual and professional, an ink I use a majority of the time, I like my black ink to have a solid dark color, or be black, really black like cheap Higgins Black magic. I also use Pilot-Namiki black, or the strangely inexpensive private reserve Velvet Black ink. But there is something else which is a new type of black called Zhivago by the all american brand Noodlers which comes in a small moonshine Looking Glass, or as us Floridians call it, a jar. The ink itself is a dark black with notes or a tiny bit of shading of Army green.

Skrip - Ink Substitute
Now let's face it. Inks can be messy. That is why there is something called Skrip, which is a nonstaining,
permanent writing fluid, or ink substitute made by the Sheaffer brand, which has been advertised for use since the 1950s for people of many all ages (5 and up).   

My recommendation is that you always use an ink that represents you.   

1 comment:

  1. (with all due respect) i believe you forgot to add ink cartridges

    ReplyDelete