Last
weekend I assembled some inks, a dip pen and a large bowl
of water. My goal was to test the water resistance of the
blue, black and blue/black inks I own at this moment. I certainly
admit that this experiment has little relevance. After all,
I don’t make a habit of soaking my journals in a fishbowl.
And I use a multitude of ink colors, so if I did soak it,
the result would probably be interesting, but definitely unreadable.
But performing the experiment was fun, and if the results
are useful to someone, that’s a nice bonus.
With
a regular dip pen (Hiro Leonardt No. 41) I wrote a sentence
on standard 60 grams office paper, for each ink to be tested.
After the ink dried for an hour, I soaked the paper for 10
minutes. I let the paper dry completely and put the results
under the scanner (in that order).
Results
for blue inks
I
tested the following blue inks:
- Quink royal blue
- Sheaffer Skrip blue
- Penman Sapphire
- Hema blue
Hema blue
is a no-name blue ink, from the Hema store (Netherlands),
that is only available in cartridges. I don’t know who manufactures
this ink, but the color reminds me of Pelikan Blue. My PaperMate
fountain pen with a fine nib was filled with this ink, so
I used this pen for the “Hema”. The other inks were applied
with the dip pen.
None
of the blue inks were very water resistant. In fact, all of
them washed away almost complety. The Skrip blue totally disappeared
from the page. The other three left a very light blue shade.
None of them were readable anymore.
Results
for blue/black inks
I
tested the following blue/black inks:
- Sheaffer Skrip blue/black
- Montblanc blue/black
- Quink blue/black
- Lamy blue/black
Most
of the samples were still readable after a 10 minutes soaking.
However, Quink blue/black lost a lot of its color. Only a
blueish residue was left on the paper. Suprisingly the Montblanc
blue/black performed excellent. I have heard terrible things
about Montblanc inks, so I fully expected that it would fail
this test. But it was the only ink that kept a really dark
color. Skrip black lost its blue, leaving a grey line behind.
But the result was still very readable, and the ink did not
leave a hue on the paper. The Lamy blue/black was really disappointing.
It only left a very light blue line behind, making the writing
hardly readable anymore.
Results
for black inks
Finally,
I put the black inks out:
- Cross black
- Penman Ebony
- Quink black
While
the writing samples were still readable, all inks washed away
somewhat. What surprised me was that the blue/black inks performed
much better than the blacks. Of the blacks, Quink finished
as last. After soaking, only a blue line remained. The Penman
and Cross did not give in to each other. Each one remained
dark, but also spread a bit.
Conclusions
Most
blue/black and black inks that I tested had a reasonable water
resistance at least. Overall, the blue/black inks performed
better than the blacks (I had expected it the other way around).
The winner is Montblanc blue/black, followed by Skrip blue/black.
The real losers are the blue inks. None of them had any water
resistance at all.
Of
course, water resistance is only one, relatively unimportant,
quality of fountain pen inks. Most important for me are the
flow characteristics and the color. Since most of my writing
consists of notes taking, ink permanence is not a real issue.
Using an ink that tends to fade over the years might even
be an advantage for letter writing. After all, I write snails,
not my memoires.
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