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Ink Smears When It's Dry


missclimpson

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I've got a pen loaded with either Duke blue black or noodlers blue black. Even after it's dry, it smears if I move my finger over it. Why does it do this? I don't have sweaty hands. The humidity in the building is very low.

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curious as to nib size, paper type. Papers with more sizing will tend to allow ink to "sit on" v. soak in to the fibers and will smear more readily. More concentrated inks will also smear more. A fine nib (especially a lot of the very fine Chinese and Japanese nibs) will concentrate the ink into a fine line that will sit on the paper and smear more readily.

 

That's the long version of what Watch-art said. ;)

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A. It may very well be your own hand sweat (no offence meant). It's the same thing with a licked finger which you smear over the dried ink. That can smear much more than pure water out of the tap.

B. Some inks are inherent here. They just don't dry out 100% on paper. Only a change in pen and/or paper can alleviate this. Or, of course, switch to a different ink.

 

Mike

Life is too short to drink bad wine (Goethe)

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Don't touch the ink at any time, unless you are a daredevil or writing a detailed review about absorbent qualities after the writing was left in the Sahara for 5 years and submerged in bleach for 3 years after that.

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I've noticed this with Noodler's #41 Brown on Rhodia paper, but it does eventually seem to become less smudgy. I went back to some stuff I wrote a couple weeks ago and now it won't smudge, although it did for a couple days after I wrote it.

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I've noticed this with Noodler's #41 Brown on Rhodia paper, but it does eventually seem to become less smudgy. I went back to some stuff I wrote a couple weeks ago and now it won't smudge, although it did for a couple days after I wrote it.

 

I have the same when I use Caran D'Ache Amazon on Rhodia. It's generally not an issue unless it's a note or something I'll be flipping back and forth a lot. I can only assume it's because the ink is so saturated.

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I've had that problem with several of my inks too (all Noodlers). I started adding a bit of water to the ink each time I load a pen and have much less trouble with them now. (learned this here on FPN) I use cartridges so it's easy to do. Distilled water would probably be best, but since none of my pens are expensive and our water is somewhere in the middle in terms of hardness I just use tap water. I had to experiment a bit to figure out how much water to add to each ink. It sounds counter-intuitive but it really does work. Maybe this will help you.

Edited by stonezebra
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I've noticed this with Noodler's #41 Brown on Rhodia paper, but it does eventually seem to become less smudgy. I went back to some stuff I wrote a couple weeks ago and now it won't smudge, although it did for a couple days after I wrote it.

 

I have the same when I use Caran D'Ache Amazon on Rhodia. It's generally not an issue unless it's a note or something I'll be flipping back and forth a lot. I can only assume it's because the ink is so saturated.

 

Rhodia isn't very absorbent so ink sits on top of it if you have a wet line.

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Thanks for the replies. I was using a Swan 3250 pen with a flexible nib and it does lay down a pretty wet line. I was writing on Moleskine paper.

 

It's like Death Valley in this building in the winter.

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I have the same when I use Caran D'Ache Amazon on Rhodia. It's generally not an issue unless it's a note or something I'll be flipping back and forth a lot. I can only assume it's because the ink is so saturated.

 

Rhodia isn't very absorbent so ink sits on top of it if you have a wet line.

 

You are correct, but most of my other inks smudge much less readily. I've simply found Caran D'Ache (Amazon) to be 2 or 3 times more smudge prone than other inks. I may try the water 'trick' because I absolutely love the color but shy away from using it for certain things because of that property.

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