Erasable Inks

[jonro]

I'd like to be able to use a fountain pen in some situations where I would normally use a pencil. Does anyone have any experience with any erasable inks? How well do they work?

[saintsimon]

Most Royal Blue inks, like Pelikan Royal Blue, are erasable, as they are intended for the school market. There is a specific eraser felt tip pen wit the eraser liquid to do the job. It changes the blue ink colour to transparent permamently. You can't overwrite it with erasable ink again. You have to use a different kind of ink or ballpoint etc.

Edited January 16, 2007 by saintsimon

[BillTheEditor]

J. Herbin Bleu Myosotis is an erasable, medium blue (periwinkle). Said to trend toward the green side, but like all such judgments this is highly subjective and may vary with paper, nib width, and ambient lighting.

[brh]

Try this link (pinned @ top of Inky Thoughts) for a list of eradicable blue inks. The eradicators are typically double-tipped, one side eradicates and the other is a replacement blue that can write on the eradicated spot. The Pelikan Super-Pirat seems to be one of the more readily available eradicators, Pendemonium, Pengallery, etc. seem to have them available.

 

-brian

[*david*]

You will never find an ink that erases like pencil, because the ink soaks into the paper. When you use the eradicator, it mainly bleaches your mistake. It also (unfortunately) changes the paper so that you can't write normally in the same place - you can't write your correction with a fountain pen. (Or not in the same spot on the paper anyway.)

[jonro]

Thanks for this information. It makes sense that pen ink, while it can be bleached, can't be erased like graphite, which mainly sits on a paper's surface. I'll have to get an eradicator to test. I can't help but wonder if it would be technically possible to create a graphite ink that would work with fountain pens and also be efaceable with a conventional eraser.

[brh]

I doubt it... It would have to be fine particles of graphite in liquid... Then something would have to make it bond to the paper... This would probably have to be something like a shellac, which would cure over the graphite making the erasing part impossible. Not to mention, the very nature of a particulate ink like that would be quite risky to put in a fountain pen. It might be possible for someone to formulate something that would be a better erasable ink... No ideas there..

[BillTheEditor]

Thanks for this information. It makes sense that pen ink, while it can be bleached, can't be erased like graphite, which mainly sits on a paper's surface. I'll have to get an eradicator to test. I can't help but wonder if it would be technically possible to create a graphite ink that would work with fountain pens and also be efaceable with a conventional eraser.

Parker tried this many years ago with its "Liquid Lead Pencil." It didn't work very well (line was too light gray in color and was hard to erase), Parker stopped making refills in 1962, and surviving examples are collector items with no practical use.

 

1955 Time Magazine article on Liquid Lead Pencil launch

 

Jim Mamoulides article on the Liquid Lead Pencil

[jonro]

A company named "Pentech" has revived the liquid lead pencil. I bought 2 at OfficeMax. They are cheap, but suffer from the same limitations as the Parker product. I suppose that I could cut one, drain the ink and test it. But, I suspect that the graphite particles are too large for a fountain pen (like pigment inks) and would probably ruin the pen. Modern fabrication methods could probably produce a "nano graphite" particle that would work with fountain pens.

[BillTheEditor]

A company named "Pentech" has revived the liquid lead pencil. I bought 2 at OfficeMax. They are cheap, but suffer from the same limitations as the Parker product. I suppose that I could cut one, drain the ink and test it. But, I suspect that the graphite particles are too large for a fountain pen (like pigment inks) and would probably ruin the pen. Modern fabrication methods could probably produce a "nano graphite" particle that would work with fountain pens.

Interesting. I usually shop at OfficeDepot, and have not "inventoried" their pencil aisle in a very long time, so this is news to me. Apparently some ideas are so "obvious" that companies keep reinventing solutions that don't work very well.

 

Personally, I carry a cheap green plastic version of the Faber-Castell "Perfect Pencil" with me for those times that a pencil would be more appropriate. It rides clipped to the inside of my cell phone holster, along with a Parker Jotter ballpoint. I don't use the outrageously expensive F-C "refill" pencils, though (online they cost anywhere from $2 to $9 each!). I buy dark green Mongol pencils with replaceable erasers by the dozen from PencilThings.com, use them at my desk until they are short enough (about 2/3 length) to be the right size for the Perfect Pencil, and then stash them for P-P use later. The Perfect Pencil is a compact combination point protector/pencil extender/sharpener. There was a thread about Perfect Pencils here a few weeks ago, with places on the Web where you can buy them.

[jonro]

That is very interesting. I had never heard of "The Pefect Pencil," and I use a lot of those, too. I'll have to try to find the inexpensive version to test and see if I like it.

[kissing]

I think Pentel has a liquid lead pencil on the market too. It writes a very faint blue line that rubs out with eraser.

 

I hated it

[mrx]

The problem with eraseable inks is that they are rubbish. When you erase thm, the paper gets all wet, it stinks, and the permanent pen kinda takes the top layer off the paper and furs it.

[bizerkel]

The problem with eraseable inks is that they are rubbish. When you erase thm, the paper gets all wet, it stinks, and the permanent pen kinda takes the top layer off the paper and furs it.

 

 

I disagree. If you let the paper dry for a minute before correcting, they work great. I carry a pen with Waterman Florida Blue and a Pelikan Super Pirate (as mentioned before) with me every day to class (I'm in grad school), and it's great for the occasional mistake. Sure, you're not going to erase, say, a paragraph of writing, but it's a more clean erasure than any other erasable pen (remember those lame erasable ballpoints that neither wrote nor erased?)

[Hélène]

I use erasable ink whenever I am taking a test or want something to be neat. My profs reccomend pencil for tests and in class essays but I find that a pen with royal blue ink and an ink eraser/eradicator/effaceur works better for me.

[liapuyat]

Pilot recently released a pen with eraseable ink that writes like a gel pen. The model is called Frixion, and it comes in Black, Blue and Red. The tip of the cap has a "friction" surface -- it's not a conventional rubber eraser, it erases the ink without rubbing off a layer of the paper. The ink looks a bit watery, and if you run the pad of your finger over the dried words you will feel a slight raised edge where the ink has dried on the paper. In other words, this ink dries in a layer on top of the paper and isn't absorbed by the paper fibers, thereby allowing it to be erased by the matching "friction" cap tip.

 

It's an "office supplies" type of pen, with a plastic body. My sister uses it in her journal to record her baby's notable adventures. As a young mom she requires low maintenance writing materials, and this fits the bill for her needs. I use the red version for editing. If you have an office supplies fetish you'd get all the colors, with matching refills.

 

It's already being sold in Asia, so maybe Jetpens would have it in the US.

Edited January 10, 2009 by liapuyat

[Goodwhiskers]

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/in...amp;#entry89648