I love to use my steel dip pens? for writing at home. I normally use Waterman Black. This works well.

Would you use another ink (Black!), for example a brand suited for dip pens? Are these inks cheaper and thicker?

Thanks,

Johan

Hi Johan,

Other inks, suited for dip pens, may achieve higher opacity, because they can contain pigments or dyes that are insoluble once dry. Indian ink comes to mind.

If you fill a pen with a pigmented ink, or Indian ink, it may very well become clogged, and it will for sure if you don't rinse and flush it immediately after use, or if you can't remove all of the ink. With a dip pen that is easy: just rinse it under the tap and wipe it clean.

So these inks can be thicker as well, and often they are. Cheaper? I guess that depends. They are generally priced about the same as fountain pen inks, although they often come in smaller bottles - that means more expensive by volume. However, just as with fountain pen ink, price varies a lot, so YMMV.

I did find that some dip pens don't write too well with fountain pen ink, because fountain pen ink is quite thin, and the flow of a dip pen tends to be quite large. As a result, some well flowing fountain pen inks are virtually unusable with dip pens. The ink gets unloaded the moment the pen touches paper...

HTH, warm regards, Wim

Hi Wim,

So far Waterman Black does not give much trouble. It doesn't drip, for instance. But I might give Indian ink a try.

Not many topics on the FPN about dip pens btw. Well, they are not FP's after all

Anyone else using FP ink for dip pens?

Thanks,

Johan

Hi Johan,

Yes, I actually do .

With varying success you might say - just check some of my ink reviews .

Warm regards, Wim

I usually use a drawing ink with my dip pens since I might supplement the line drawing with a wash applied after the lines are dry and I do not like to see the lines run. The usual drawing ink is shellac based and thus not so souble in water, but completely soluable in alcohol.
For just writing with a dip pen, and by that I assume you are using one of the steel nib and holder types, almost any ink that pleases you may be used.
-bob

Hi!

I'm using Pelikan Brown for dip pens It behaves much better then WM inks - probably because it's denser then WM's (or Parker's).

I have a Russian FP ink (made by Gamma company) which cooperates well with my dip pens. I'm a little affraid of filling FP with it

Regards
--
alex

I have used all different FP inks with my dip pens, with fine results. Some of my colors actually look BETTER coming off the dip pen instead of out of a fp. The main problem I have had is ink blobs & that is because I am not yet real skilled in the use of dip pens....but I am learning! I have used Waterman, Private reserve, J. Herbin, & Diamine.

I use Omas Violet, an ink with so many flow issues that -in spite of its lovely color- was about being thrown away. It works pretty fine with dip pens.

Alejandro

Winsor & Newton makes a great line of Calligraphy inks that are very nice. A bit more body than normal FP inks. They are bright, pigmented fairly waterproof and lightfast. /:)

They advertise them as also being safe for fountain pens, and I do use them in a handful of my best gushers (Roring Cores XL nib). Blue cap FP safe, Red cap (metallics and white) dip pens only.

Disclaimer:
I'm not recommending anyone to use it in their heirloom, vintage, treasured or expensive pens as I would not use it in mine. However I've had no trouble with this ink in my Cores and have used them for over a year now.

I'll try out my dip pens with them the next time I open the ink cabinet.

Hi P-Zero,

Most inks indeed do look better when used with a dip pen. Some skill is when you use a dip pen, but I find the result very rewarding.

Hi Alex,

I might give Pelikan Brown a try!

Thanks to you all! /:)

I enjoy using steel-nibbed dip pens for writing letters. I find that FP inks do tend to FLOW quite quickly when using them with dip pens. I prefer to use India inks. Brands that I have tried are as follows:

1. (vintage) Osmiroid Calligraphy Ink - this appears to be an India ink, one of the most opaque, no longer available

2. Sennelier Indian Ink - expensive and not as opaque as I would prefer, expensive

3. Speedball Super Black India Ink - consistant performance, decent opacity, affordable

4. Dick Blick Black Cat India Ink - average opacity, as good as Speedball, cheap

5. Dr. Ph. Martin's Bombay Teal India Ink - lovely color, very opaque for a non-black, somewhat pricey but worth it for special use

Most used nibs: Hunt Globe 513 EF, Ex-Fine 512, and #56 School nib.


K.C.E.

I don't but I would rather use FP ink on mine.

I haven't been using them for a while. Maybe I have to dig them out again...

I use regular fountain pen inks for my dip pens with great results. I have five old inkwells filled with different colored inks and just keep adding water to them as the ink evaporates -- which also seems to work. For more fun, I use acrylic metallic inks for writing on black or dark blue paper.

An old rocker-blotter is wonderful for drying any ink blobs and absorbing heavy ink in your writing -- or if you're just in a rush. (Ebay often has them for $10-$20.)

I'd love to snail with any of you dip pen people if you're interested. (Heck, I just love to snail...)

Unless you're using an expensive and hard-to-replace nib, you can use any ink you want.

Clean your nib well immediately after use.

Waterman black is not very black. Most of the other major brands have a darker black.

I used to use dip pens a lot. I used Shaeffer Skrip Permenent Jet Black ink with them, and come to think of it I used Skrip Blue/Black for a while too. This was long ago and what I used woud be considered very NOS now. But I used it successfully.

I recall that I had to develop the habit of writing quickly because if I dawdled with the pen touching the paper for too long I got feathering and such. So in my experience there are differences between using a dip pen and using a fountain pen. I can usually write more slowly with a fountain pen. And these days I don't write so fast in any case!

As for using India ink, I couldn't get it to not feather like crazy on the paper I was using. I did use it to mark the inside covers of notebooks so that I'd have a chance of getting one returned to me if I lost it somewhere. But my cheap paper could never take the India ink for simple writing.

If you think your ink is too runny, try Ziller ink thickener.

If you want to see FEATHERING, try using generic ink jet refill. You get FLOW, it dries super fast, it's "bulletproof" on paper but washes out of pens easily with water. Forget italic writing, all you see is a wooly caterpillar, but it's extremely fast writing. I look for my smoothest nibs, but fun to use also in Sailor's 4-in-one nib for brush effects.

I have lots of ink jet refills because the printers died long before they got used up, and we went to B&W laser anyway. Lots of fun mixing colors. Using a green concoction: think of a dark blue-back, only green-black. Sort of a dark olive drab.

Haven't dared to use the green concoction plus ink thickener in my VP. Yet.

I use standard fountain pen ink (Usually Parker Quink Black, or Waterman's or Sheaffer's black or blue/black) for my dip-pens. Never had any problems. I tried using old-fashioned powdered ink once. It was some packet of blue/black ink powder which I mixed with water.

It was a bloody disaster. Did not work at all.

I use fountain pen inks almost exclusively in my dip pens. I kept journals for many years this way. Out of the thousands of different types of dip pen nibs, I own perhaps fifty. I haven't yet found one that unloads its ink immediately when touched to the paper. If I did, I would probably toss it over the side.

Some dip pens come with simple metal reservoirs. These metal devices hold a larger drop of ink so you can write longer on a single dip.

Some dip pen holders come equipped with a feed like a fountain pen. This holds a big drop also. Sengbusch is one manufacturer of these. Sheaffer's Fineline Division made a desk pen that takes a screw-in nib/feed assembly. There is no sac or other reservoir in the pen. This pen can write a whole page on a single dip. You would only use FP ink in this one.


The ink stick is an ink technology from the orient. It is a dry rectangular chunk of carbon black, mixed with honey and gum. To make liquid ink, you rub the stick on a wet stone surface. In this way, you can adjust the thickness and opacity of the ink. I think this ink was originally used with calligraphy brushes, but it works well with dip pens if you don't make it too thick.

Paddler

Having recently acquired a large number of Post Office dip pen nibs (really nibs for clerical use) I have been experimenting with inks and papers.

Even fewer papers are suitable for my nibs than are suitable for fountain pens, and not all papers that are work with fountain pens work with dip nibs, although all dip nib suitable papers work with fountain pens.

The old style clerical pens are very wet, and can leave a lot of ink on the paper. Using these pens with modern, free-flowing inks can be very unsatisfying.

I did make up a quart of ink from a packet of ink powder, and it works quite well. The ink is rather thin, and when the pen leaves a lot on the paper, it dries to an acceptably deep colour. The pen and ink match each other.

Of all the fountain pen inks I have tried, only Parker Quink Blue and Black work with the old style dip pens. Even then, they work better when diluted with water.

New style dip pen nibs, such as those made by Nikko, don't work with the old style ink. The amount of ink laid down is too little, and the dried line of ink is hardly visible. These pen nibs do work with some modern fountain pen inks, but will work better with pigmented drawing inks and India ink.

New style writing nibs, such as the Hunt 512, work well with some fountain pen inks (Parker Quink, again), and are easy and less messy to use than the old style clerical nibs, but lack character. The clerical nibs are like using a very narrow italic nib.