I have just taken delivery of some inks from our friends at Diamine. I chose them for their colour and from reviews on this site, two are 'fountain pen' and two are 'drawing and calligraphy' inks. I wondered what made them different.

In the bottle the fountain pen inks are transparent and the calligraohy inks are opaque. They all seem to work ok in fountain pens, good opacity in all when dry.

Can anyone enlighten me as to the difference in the make up of these two ink types, please? Why the calligraphy ink is opaque in the bottle, whether its possible to use either ink for either use?

Many thanks


Greg

Presence of laquer and/or other things which can gum up fountain pens if it dries out in the pen.

William

Calligraphy inks are opaque in the bottle because they are paints. They contain finely ground solid matter (pigment) that gives them their color. They also contain emulsifiers such as gum arabic or shellac. The net result is that they will clog fountain pens. Note that I don't say they might clog fountain pens. I say they will clog fountain pens. Even with superb pen hygiene, it's just a matter of time until these inks deposit enough solid matter into your pen to clog it. In most cases, clogs like this are the very devil to clear, and sometimes the result is a dead pen.

Fountain pen inks aren't "sticky" enough to work well with dip pens; they flow too easily, and you can't load the nib with enough ink to do more than one or two characters. That's why calligraphy inks contain emulsifiers.

Hmmph. Thanks very much for the info, two pens about to be flushed through before its too late. Very grateful.

Anyone want to buy any paint?


Greg