Water resistance of inks

[psfred]

Got to playing at work today and checked the water resistance of my Noodler's Navaho Turquoise. I work in a lab, and require water resistant ink if I'm going to use it in my journals or reports. I've used ball point cause that's what I get for free, but I prefer fountain pens.

 

So I doodled on a post-it in Noodlers Black and Navajo Tuquoise and ran water over the posti. To my surprise, the Navajo didn't vanish! I was used to Sheaffer Peacock from years gone by, and it wasn't very safe around water.

 

Having gotten a wild hair, I then decided to test all the inks I have on hand, including four green samples from PearTree (that sample program is GREAT!!!).

 

Here's the scan of the original. Noodler's black and notes were written with my Dewen cheapie pen (identical to a Cross Penatia). All the rest were writen with an Estie I'm repairing used as a dip pen --there may be some blue carryover as the nib always wiped blue when washing it. I'm soaking it now.

 

My appologies for the penmanship.

 

I'll post the 10 min water soak results when the paper dries.

 

Peter

[psfred]

Here's the mostly dry results of the soak test.

 

Peacock is gone, as I remembered, but I'm pleasantly surprised by most of the rest. Nooler's Forest green and Green Marine fade, but don't vanish. Hunter Green, Zhivago, and Aircorp blue-black smudge a bit and bleed, but stay very legible. The rest fade and sometimes change color (Copperburst goes purple), but there is enough left to read.

 

The Skrip blue-black is left over from my parents, may be 40 or more years old. The Skrip red has a sticker on top "29 cents", so it's probably at least that old, too.

 

The Green Marine, Skrip Blue-black, and Zhivago went on a bit thin, probably from water in the pen tip.

 

All the inks except the Noodler's black and Zhivago bled through the paper as well, if that is a consideration.

 

Paper was cheap copy paper, nothing exciting.

 

I didn't attempt to correct the color - on my monitor, the initial inks look almost identical to the paper, but on the wet test, they are slightly more purple. The Skrip Red is red to magenta, not purplish.

 

Peter

Edited October 31, 2006 by psfred

[OneGoldenAfternoon]

Wow, that's really quite helpful! (Too bad about the Sheaffer Peacock though, it's such a nice color too... Oh well.)

 

Off to get me some Zhivago! :roflmho:

[tnmike1]

Scored a bunch of bottles of the vintage Skrip Blue Black awhile back and just love the stuff. Shades well, very permanent and a definition of what "blue black" should be. As I posted somewhere awhile back, notes and letters my mother wrote with this ink from the 1940s are still quite intact and the color looks like it hasn't changed over the years