Ink woes

[twigletzone]

Hi everyone,

I'm hoping someone can give me some background information about how ink should flow when using pointed/flex dip pens. I know that ordinary fountain pen inks aren't suitable and that most calligraphy inks are meant for broad nibs rather than pointed ones. I did some research and found that you can add gum arabic and water in varying proportions to your ink to adjust the flow to better suit pointed pen work, and I've tried a couple of recipes suggested on fountainpennetwork and achieved some degree of improvement. But I'm still finding that the first few strokes after dipping the pen lay down so much ink that there's a visible meniscus on the page; the ink literally sits there in a blob with a rounded top (and yes, I do wipe the pen on the edge of the inkwell to remove the excess ink). I'm finding this frustrating because with that much ink going down I can't see if I'm getting my corners nice and sharp and my tops and bottoms flat.

That can't be correct, right? Is the paper part of the problem too? Do I just need to go and buy some painfully expensive copperplate ink, or can someone suggest what I might be doing wrong?

[AndyT]

Do I just need to go and buy some painfully expensive copperplate ink ...?

That would be my advice.  I could speculate about your nib preparation and so forth, but there's not much point since your ink is an unknown quantity.  A bottle of Walker's costs £6 from Penman Direct and is just about the best you will find for pointed pen, full stop.  Blot's is a fiver or so; Roberson's somewhat cheaper.  Alternatively you could go down the walnut ink route and set yourself up with ink for a few years for under a tenner.  None of these options strike me as all that painful compared to the cost of good paper or nibs.

[silvereye]

or if you are in Asia you can easily get Sumi Ink from any stationery shop.

[Rednaxela]

Some time ago I've experimented a little with dextrin as a binder for fountain pen ink.

http://sehrgut.co.uk/sca/ink.php

So far no luck. My conclusion was that the fountain pen ink I used was too runny to begin with, and thickening it didn't solve this. In fact all it did was make the ink heavier resulting in it sinking to the tip even faster.

Then I tried adding water instead. This made the ink stick together much better and stay on the nib more easily. Also, I don't dip, but load the concave side of the pen with a straw.

This way I have something that's workable, though not quite ideal. For that I'll be following @AndyT's advice one day.

[Salman Khattak]

Noodler's Black with about 50% water added to it works well for pointed pen practice. All of the work in my tutorial is done with this ink. I have also used Pelikan Black with gum arabic and regular Quink blue black with good results.

The reason most fountain pen inks are not suitable for pointed pen work is because they contain surfactants in various degrees. This makes the ink more 'wet' than water. Adding water actually makes the ink 'drier' in these cases. You cannot make all fountain pen inks work well but the ones I have listed work well for me.

Walnut ink is a good option for practice but you will want something darker for your 'good' work.

BTW Iron Gall ink isn't that hard to make at home. There are recipes available on fountainpennetwork and elsewhere. I have made a couple of batches from Pomegranate peels and it came out great.

- Salman

[ash0kgiri]

Thanks for sharing @SMK. Are these ink gentle on nibs? I know walnut ink is. Have stopped working with Sumi as few of my nibs rusted.

- Ashok

[Salman Khattak]

Fountain pen inks might not work very well but are indeed gentle on nibs. They are designed to live in fountain pens without causing any damage to the sac, plastic, feed or nib.

Iron Gall inks are acidic by their very nature and will therefore eat away at the metal.

I don't recommend pigmented inks for pointed pen work in general (Sumi included). There are times when one might need to use a waterproof ink but then Noodler's Black is as waterproof as anything and will give you better hairlines with less maintenance of the nib & ink.

Of course these are just my preferences. I know a number of professional Calligraphers use Sumi ink with good results.

Salman

[ash0kgiri]

I had a strange experience with fountain pen Ink (Parker). Sometime back I bought a Noodlers Ahab pen and fitter a Brause Rose nib. It worked quite well and I decided to keep the nib in the pen. After a day or two I saw the nib had almost turned black and had some kind of coating in the hollow area. I removed the nib cleaned it but nothing changed.

Wonder why. Is it because the Rose is made of different metal?

- Ashok

[Estefa]

I had a strange experience with fountain pen Ink (Parker). Sometime back I bought a Noodlers Ahab pen and fitter a Brause Rose nib. It worked quite well and I decided to keep the nib in the pen. After a day or two I saw the nib had almost turned black and had some kind of coating in the hollow area. I removed the nib cleaned it but nothing changed.

Wonder why. Is it because the Rose is made of different metal?

- Ashok

A Rose nib is just not made of stainless steel – it simply rusts if you keep it wet. To my knowledge all normal dip nibs would rust if kept in ink (except maybe these chrome or other special coated nibs).

[Estefa]

But I'm still finding that the first few strokes after dipping the pen lay down so much ink that there's a visible meniscus on the page; the ink literally sits there in a blob with a rounded top (and yes, I do wipe the pen on the edge of the inkwell to remove the excess ink). I'm finding this frustrating because with that much ink going down I can't see if I'm getting my corners nice and sharp and my tops and bottoms flat.

Is it possible that you just have too much ink on your nib to begin with …? It was something I did when I started with pointed pen, to avoid to have to dip too often.

If you do a fat swell stroke it's normal to have a blob on the page until dry. The trick is, if you start with a downstroke and want nice crisp corners, only to start to apply pressure when you have your tines in position. That is obviously one of the things that are easier to show than to describe.

There is a good video by Erica about that technique, in the Pointed Pen Nirvana. I can look it up for you if you haven't found it yet.

As Salman said, fountain pen ink can work quite nicely with gum arabic. Just don't load too much on the nib! I did an envelope job (in Spencerian) a while back with Pelikan 4001 Blue Black, with some added gum arabic – it had just the perfect hue of blue for the client. It worked nicely!

[JanisTX]

I'm with Salman re. Noodler's ink!  It's my go-to ink.  I also like their "bullet-proof" ink (it's water-resistant), depending on what I'm working on.  I have been using Sumi ink lately and find it to be quite reliable, as well!

Janis

[AndyT]

Hmm.  My recommendations were targeted: @twigletzone  resides in the UK where the range of products available is a little different from the US.  For instance, decent sumi is only intermittently to be had.  The Noodler situation might come as a surprise: there is only one official stockist and at the moment they do not have Noodler Black.  Pelikan 4001 is easy enough to find, but it struck me that a one bottle solution which is guaranteed to work would be a better way to hit the ground running than experimenting with gum arabic or dilution.

However, since twigletzone has a fountain pen background and may wish to stick to inks which can be safely used in one as well as with a dip pen, any of the iron gall types can be relied upon to work pretty well.  The most economical for a UK buyer is probably ESSRI.

[twigletzone]

In answer to various folks' observations:


I don't think I'm overloading the nib, I found the rhythm of dipping quite pleasant to get into.

I'm doing my level best to prep the nibs well, following tutorials I've found online. For the most part the nibs seem to be coating themselves in ink pretty adequately, which as I understand it is the key thing.

My paper is awful, I freely admit that, but I'm on a very (very) tight budget so I may just have to live with indifferent paper stock for now.

Estefa, I'd be very grateful to see the video you're talking about, I don't think I've found that one yet.

As to what I can get locally - I have a very good local art shop which stocks Higgins Eternal, Pelikan 4001, I believe at least one iron gall black, and some sumi inks too - no idea if the sumi they carry would count as "decent" to a conoisseur. I know they *used* to do Diamine registrar's ink, which is an iron gall blue-black, but they stopped stocking Diamine colours a while ago so they may no longer have it. I can't remember if they carry Walker's Copperplate or whether I imagined it - if they do I almost certainly took one look at the price and dismissed it from consideration due to budget. Walker's is no better online, either - it comes out at about £10 including shipping to order 30ml, and I can't afford to buy in bigger quantities. Hence the tone of mild horror when I ask about having to buy the expensive stuff.

I don't have a problem with the mere presence of iron gall inks in my household, if I can manage not to put leaded petrol in my car I can manage not to ink up a fountain pen with acid, but purely for financial reasons it'd be nice not to have to keep two separate types of ink.


So far my experiments with gum arabic and water have yielded something more or less usable based on some Quink blue I had kicking around. Quink blue-black is something I've seen mentioned on FPN as being unusually good for pointed pens, too - is it particularly unique as fountain pen inks go?

But I'm running low on my blue Quink mix so coming up with something I can use longer-term is a very current project. It's sounding like I either keep on with the gum arabic thing, which is at least cheap even if it's a pain in the neck, or resign myself to having iron gall ink for dip use?

[Empty_of_Clouds]

It's easy to focus on the ink as the only factor, but I feel that more attention needs to be paid to the kind of paper used.  As many fountain pen enthusiasts will at great pains point out, it is a three-way proposition: ink, nib, paper. 

For the record, although I am no calligrapher I do write with a dip pen on Rhodia, Midori and Tomoe River papers, and I often use a variety of fountain pen inks alongside the more usual suspects of Higgin's Eternal, Sumi or Walnut ink. 

[AndyT]

@twigletzone

So let's get this straight: you want to use cheap ink intended for a fountain pen with a dash of gum arabic on "awful" paper, and you want someone to tell you it'll give good results?

A good ink will partially mitigate the failings of poor paper and vice versa; economise on both and you're on a hiding to nothing.  I'm not unsympathetic to your budget constraints, but that's an immutable law.  The only thing that comes to mind which will work acceptably on substandard paper and which should be cheaply available at your local art shop is a tube of gouache.  It's a hassle, but not that bad an option.

Upgrade you paper and I'd recommend ESSRI, which you can use in a fountain pen - never mind all the rubbish spouted about how iron gall will eat your nib.