Slowest Drying Ink

[C-town]

What is the slowest drying ink you have ever used? I am looking for an ink that takes insane amounts of time to dry and sits wet on the paper. I know it's not very practical for every day writing or my note taking in highschool, but I just like the look.

[TheRealScubaSteve]

PR Sherwood Green comes to mind.

[lgsoltek]

All Noodler's ink I've used, especially Habanero. I've had a splash of it that was still wet after a whole month in a hot and dry room. It's insane.

[tinkerteacher]

Ink drying times depend more climate and paper used than the actual ink used, in my experience.

 

Writing in a Mead composition notebook in, say, a bone dry desert environment is a very different experience from writing in a Clairfontaine notebook in, say, a wet uber humid jungle environment.

 

To replicate that is easy enough. One just needs a decent humidifer and some heavily coated paper.

Edited July 8, 2015 by tinkerteacher

[NinthSphere]

Yeah, paper is a biggie. I switched out Antietam for the reddish Galileo's Manuscript Brown because it was taking forever to dry on my Rhodia pads. With cheaper paper, dry time is never an issue, since it just gets absorbed.

[Pira]

All Noodler's ink I've used, especially Habanero. I've had a splash of it that was still wet after a whole month in a hot and dry room. It's insane.

 

 

Yeah. I was just complaining to a friend 2 weeks ago that blobs of Apache Sunset on a drawing from April were still smearing . Two months!!

[lapis]

Especially Noodler's "Blue" and Diamine's Majestic Blue. The latter in any case inasmuch as it can easily be smeared, even after days of use.

 

Mike

[Canopus]

It's not just the paper, the humectants and surfactants play a huge role in this. The first makes the ink absorb a little bit of the moisture from the environment while the second reduces surface tension which promotes evaporation and absorption (hence too much will cause feathering.) Dyes also act a bit like humectants, so highly saturated inks like Noodler's will naturally take a long time to dry, which is only exacerbated by what I suppose is a heavy hand of humectants to give that lubricated feeling we all like and corrected a bit by another heavy hand of surfactants to make such viscous ink flow decently. When you go to such extremes as Noodler's you are facing a very delicate balance between good or (bleep), more often than not it's a balance between mediocre and horrible. But that is what you get by pushing the envelop that far. This also applies to other brands and specific inks. Of course then you have proprietary dyes and chemicals with just throw another variable into the equation.

 

I've had a bad experience with Noodler's El Lawrence, it is not too bad to dry, but the dots and commas take hours to dry as well as any "thick" part of the trace. You you do multiple passes you can add days to that. I suspect it's both the humectant and the reactive dye in excess, which explain why it smears when wet and why a thin trace dries by absorption quite fast (surfactant.) Not too bad plus it's a lovelly color. My biggest gripe about it is the reactive dye which is not supposed to stick to plastic sticks to plastic, it's not a stain but an insoluble film that needs to be mechanically removed. Well right pen for the right ink.

 

Another pesky ink is Sheaffer Skrip Black, lovely dark saturated black color but the exact same problem.

 

I haven't tried it yet, but a friend complain about Diamine Jet Black and the residue on the lid of the bottle sure feels like grease. A trait I'm glad is absent on their Blue-Black.

[Randal6393]

Hmmm ... when inks start to exhibit extra-long drying and smearing, it usually means it's time to add a bit of good water to the ink. Be careful and use a samples vial, if diluted too far ... Usually, 20 to 20 % suffices.

 

Enjoy,

[Buzz_130]

The longest drying ink I've used is PR DC Supershow Blue. I really like the color, but I've found on Japanese (Apica, Midori, and Tomoe river) paper that I've gotten ink smears on my hands days after writing. I save this ink now with more absorbent papers.

 

Buzz

[sidthecat]

I've never had a problem with the DCSSEB, but I also mix it with another ink.

 

Mont Blanc's Mystery Black is terribly slow-drying; I finally stopped using it altogether. It may do for you.

[amberleadavis]

PR Sherwood Green comes to mind.

 

That's the second slowest to dry, here in the Nevada desert.

 

The slowest was when I spilled Vintage Sheaffer Black - more than 6 weeks on regular paper and it was still smudging. (Oh wait, Canopus, already explained why and had a similar experience).

[SeeksAdvice]

Noodler's Zhivago. Still not sure it ever actually fully dries on stuff like Rhodia.

Noodler's Midway Blue on white "Tops" legal pad paper. I think I've still got some stuff from last year that could possibly smudge. Granted, was a very wet B-BB pen, but after 20 minutes it wasn't dry...

MB Permanent Black - Not sure if it's IG, Carbon, or what. Am sure that the stuff is permanent in one regard - the ability to smear/smudge on the page. F nibbed M800, Stingy EF Sailor, Dry F nibbed VP ... no matter. One of the most disappointing ink purchases I've made that didn't have a catfish on it.

Diamine Sargasso Sea. Bought it because I liked the color. Hated it because of its behavior. All of the problems of some of Noodler's bulletproof/warden lines, with none of the benefits. Took a long time to dry on Rhodia, etc.