Well, I'm curious...

It's just I've got a couple of Moleskines, and they feather with some Yard-O-Led ink I got, but the Parker Quink doesn't. At least on most pages.

So what exactly is in the papers that causes feathering? And why is it more/less prevalent with ink choices?

Rich

Actually, it's what's NOT in the paper that causes feathering.

Ink will travel along the paper fibers, spreading out in all directions until all the water and other components are absorbed. Think writing on a paper towel. Writing papers have various materials (called sizing) added to them to keep the ink contained while allowing it to penetrate the area immediately beneath the nib so that it "dries" (gets absorbed -- ink actually takes a while to completely dry, but being absorbed makes it not smear in a short period of tome). These materials vary with the paper and intended use. Back in the old days (up to the mid 1800's), paper was almost always sized with animal gelatin (also known as hide glue). This is probably the best sizing, although it will support mold growth if the paper stays damp, as it will absolutely prevent feathering of nearly any ink, particularly iron gall inks, and it also protects the paper from acid degradation. However, it also makes ink dry VERY slowly -- this is why sanding or blotting was absolutely standard practice. Fresh writing dried slowly enough that letter presses were used to make copies -- the ink was wet enough that a second sheet, laid over the original and firmly pressed to it would make a mirror image copy on the second sheet! Of course, ink was made to work this way, it's a perfect copy.

Anyway, when it was discovered that alum (potassium aluminum sulfate) and other similar chemicals do much the same thing while being much cheaper and easier to incorporate into the paper, they replaced animal gelatin. The paper, by now usually sulfite pulped instead of mechanically pulped, is now acid, and degrades much faster. Modern papers are often buffered with calcium carbonate to reduce the acid, but are still almost always sized with something like alum.

When ball points became the majority writing tool, the need for sizing was greatly decreased, as the ink is rather dry and doesn't penetrate the paper much, and is oil based anyway so it won't wick down the fibers like water based inks do. Quite a bit of office paper behaves terribly with fountain pens, also with fiber tips and wet roller ball pens, so recently the sizing is getting better, although copy paper is usually pretty bad.

The reactions between the components of the ink and the sizing determine whether the ink will feather or not. No way to tell except by putting pen to paper, but I'm not surprised that you find Quink to behave well. I don't care for the color (the Black is pretty gray, ditto for Skrip Jet Black), but Quink doesn't feather on my cheapie bound notebooks, where Skrip does a bit and Baystate Blue is unusable in a wet pen.

100% cotton papers in general do not feather, but are so heavily sized that pens will write finer than usual and the ink will dry very slowly -- a major consideration if you are a left hand overwriter!

Peter