I am new to FPN, and just starting down the slipperly slope. I need to write an intro in a more formal sense. But I have been reading the bit about Noodlers "creeping" along nibs and also through threads in piston sealers. I am a bit of a techie, and am curious if anyone knows how the viscosity of various inks, and their surface tension, vary. I have a gut feeling that one or both of these might explain some of the phenomena reported.

I think we just discussed something similar a few days ago. You can probably model things reasonably accurately by throwing away viscosity and just keeping surface tension.

Well I'm not a techie, but I can tell you for sure that Noodler's permanent inks do creep, and I don't understand it at all! I have Luxury Blue and Devil Red, and they eventually leave a thin coating over the entire nib. <_<

Now -- why do they stop there? Why don't they just keep going? I mean, what stops the ink from creeping onto the section? Let us know when you figure it out, okay?!

Petra

I think Greg Clark (The Ink Sampler guy...) had a project to measure surface tension. It's not that easy to do without an equipement that does not come cheap.

My guess is that viscosity should more or less be the same for all inks, but that surface tension is the property that is most likely the determinant here.