Highlighter Ink Questions

[KaB]

I consider starting to use a fountainpen also for highlighting. I have seen some ink reviews on yellow inks that ran 'hard to read, not suitable for writing but great as highlighter'.

Two questions:

- can you use these also on text you've written with FP? Or only if your regular writing ink has some special characteristics?

- which yellow would you suggest?

 

(basically, I'm looking for an excuse to buy a 1.9 stub pen. Any suggestions on that besides Lamy?)

[JefferyS]

I can't help too much here. I use a Pelikan FP and Pelikan highlighter ink because I would rather underline with the highlight in books. If I used it on written notes, the yellow would be below the words, so smearing wouldn't be an issue. I do think that a stub nib with clear Pelikan highlighter ink would be a good combo if you use it to underline in yellow.

[graystranger]

Jeffrey is right on.

 

If you only want to use the highlighter ink for highlighting in your pen, I use a Pilot Parallel pen with a Pilot yellow highlighting cartridge in it. This gives me a perfect line of the width I want. http://www.gouletpens.com/search?query=parallel&facetValueFilter=

 

They come in four sizes but not a 1.9 mm. I use the 3.8mm pen. These are for calligraphy or drawing crisp lines. While you can write with them, the sides of these special purpose pens are sharp and they are not as good for cursive writing as a stub. But at only $10 they are wonderful pens for their purpose and the caps seal very well, can be left capped for weeks or months without the ink drying out. Easy to pull the nib and clean out. Not pocket pens, too long.

 

If you write with the lighter inks usually used for highlighting it will be difficult to read. Also note that the yellow and other very light highlighter inks are bright because they fluoresce under UV from daylight and fluorescent lights. At night with incandescent lighting that does not have UV in its spectrum, yellow highlighter inks do not show at all.

 

Goulet Pens has a number of highlighting inks. Noodler's Year of the Golden Pig is waterproof. There are many, many other inks, both bottled and in cartridges.

 

If you want to write with a stub pen and also use it to highlight you do not want the light highlighter inks in my opinion. I tried Noodler's Dragon Catfish Orange intending to use it for an editing ink. Very bright, super attention getting, but very hard to read when used to write text. I would go with a red, green, or orange ink made for writing for text. Use highlighting ink for highlighting. I edit with a F Pilot Metropolitan with Noodler's Fox red ink. Very fine line and I will underline with it.

 

I forgot to mention, when I highlight with my Pilot Parallel (or my Platinum Preppy) highlighting pens I am very careful about using it over text. It will smear some inks a lot (since it is water based ink). All fountain pen inks are water based too and many will smear the same as running a damp tissue over the ink being highlighted. I highlight by underlining unless I know the ink is totally waterproof (like printed text, carbon inks, or Noodler's 100% bulletproof ink).

[jmccarty3]

If you're looking for a reason to buy a broad stub, see here (the 1.9 Christoph nib is at the bottom of the page):

 

http://www.franklin-christoph.com/specialty-nib-info.html

[aj3537]

I love the preppy highlighters. For $3, you can't really go wrong. The Noodlers Dragon Catfish bottles comes with one. I've had mine for years and haven't had a problem yet.

 

I find neon yellow too hard on the eyes. I prefer Noodlers Sunrise for my yellow highlighter. Also, if using a preppy or any pen as a highlighter and are having issues with the ink bleeding thru the paper as your laying down a lot of ink at once, dilute the ink with water.

 

If interested in other highlighter colors, I did a previous post on mixing colors. I also have every highlighter ink color except pelikan and will gladly trade you some samples if interested.

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/288940-highlighter-ink-recipes/?hl=highlighter

 

As for using a highlighter over fountain pen ink, I haven't really noticed a problem. Make sure that the fountain pen writing is completely dry before highlighting.

[DonLeone]

I use 3 types of highlighters:

 

I rarely use the regular ones. They're disposable and they have highly inconsistent ink capacities. They're also unreliable. What's more is that they can get dirty and then you get contaminated ink.

 

Then I use Koh-I-Noor lead holders with 3.8mm water colour coloured leads. I use these over fountain pen ink in yellow, green, red and blue. I'll also carry a basic HB 3.8mm lead in one for sketching. I also use them for mindfulness zen stuff.

 

Then there's the big ones. The Pentel Brush pens loaded with a variety of light Herbin inks, Pentel black and Lamy Blue. These are for heavy duty highlighting sessions when I'm prepping an academic level book, reference book, dictionary or similar, like a print version of a law book or printed versions of scientific studies. A lot of it is ebooks now or in pdfs though. I've also used them for mindfulness zen stuff like drawing meditation, mandala drawing, the drawing of enso, etc. And I've now started using the black one and the lamy blue one for cartooning to explain stuff to people.

 

I've tried the pilot parallels but they put down huge amounts of ink and have a tiny converter thing. I've converted them to eyedropper which increased capacity but increased flow even more. To give you an idea... the paper, most paper I've used it with, will warp if you use a lot of parallelling on it.

 

 

Edit: I forgot to mention: the brush pens can highlight in variable size depending on angle. I can do about 1 cm thick to 1mm

Edited January 10, 2016 by Don Zardeone

[KaB]

THX for al the replies.

I don't intend to write with highlighter ink/pen, just... highlight.

So what have I learned:

 

 

- 1.9 is not sufficient, I should aim for 3.8

- highlighting FP-written text is likely to smear. (just did the test with a regular commercial highlighterthing: Diamine grape smears like crazy, Iro Tsuki-Yo smears marginally)

- there exist 3,8 coloured leads that you can use on ink.

 

So I guess I'd have to go with the Koh-I-Noor lead holders with 3.8mm water colour coloured leads.

[fplover01]

I have had good experience with the Pelikan highlighter ink and the Pelikan M205 DUO for underlining various texts, handwritten or printed.

[DonLeone]

THX for al the replies.

I don't intend to write with highlighter ink/pen, just... highlight.

So what have I learned:

 

 

- 1.9 is not sufficient, I should aim for 3.8

- highlighting FP-written text is likely to smear. (just did the test with a regular commercial highlighterthing: Diamine grape smears like crazy, Iro Tsuki-Yo smears marginally)

- there exist 3,8 coloured leads that you can use on ink.

 

So I guess I'd have to go with the Koh-I-Noor lead holders with 3.8mm water colour coloured leads.

Well, just coloured pencil in general works too. I just use those lead holders because of convenience and quality. Pencil when in a pen bag thingy, will bang around and make the inside of whatever they're stored in look all coloured. They also need to be sharpened and they can break, creating annoyance. The lead holders with leads are durable, reliable, can retract, are big enough to not bang around... lemme get a picture.

Al-Stars for scale

Blurry and taken apart. The white lead is supposed to be yellow but my phone camera skills are poop

Other side I got my non-repro blue, a red one and a regular HB 0.5mm. Then a kuru toga, a 0.3mm and my eraser.

I mention the coloured 0.5mm leads because they break super fast when used for coloring. That's why I have the 3.8mm ones, the width gives strength.

Edited January 10, 2016 by Don Zardeone

[amberleadavis]

I have used quite a few highlighter inks. I've found that the first thing you need to remember, if you are using it over a FP ink, then the original FP ink should be water resistant.

[amberleadavis]

Also, I just bought some highlighting pencils, including KIN that worked really well overtop of FP ink. I'll try and find the scans.

 

 

Here are a few of the ones on the Market:

 

http://www.levenger.com/Pens---Refills-8/Inks---Refills-221/Six-5.6-mm-True-Writer-Clutch-Pencil-Refills-165.aspx

 

http://www.rosettapen.com/da-vinci-comfort-grip-artists-sketch-pencil-dry-highlighter-5-6-mm-lead/

 

 

I've used these ones with liquid ink:

 

http://www.pentel.com/store/handy-line-s-highlighter

[amberleadavis]

http://sheismylawyer.com/INK/attachments/2012-12-10-test1.pnghttp://sheismylawyer.com/INK/attachments/2012_12_10_18_51_12.jpg

[amberleadavis]

OH and for a pen, I bought Zebra refillable highlighter and then used my own inks.

[amberleadavis]

http://sheismylawyer.com/INK/attachments/2012-12-10-test2.png

[amberleadavis]

This one is from Alohamora.

 

[KaB]

WOW Amberleadavis, what an extensive info-deck.

 

the Alohamora illustrationof Diamine Yellow is exactly what I hoped to do :-)

Is post #12 what you achieve with the Zebra? Or how should I read post #12?

[amberleadavis]

WOW Amberleadavis, what an extensive info-deck.

 

the Alohamora illustrationof Diamine Yellow is exactly what I hoped to do :-)

Is post #12 what you achieve with the Zebra? Or how should I read post #12?

 

I use this highlighter and add regular FP ink.

 

http://static2.jetpens.com/images/a/000/065/65594.jpg?s=00296813bbbf6f49518a3dff62e437bc

[aj3537]

Here are samples of my highlighter inks. The samples here are pure. When I put them in my highlighter pen, I dilute them by 50%. It makes the color lighter and it stops bleeding thru.

 

[amberleadavis]

That's beautiful. Thank you.

[KaB]

finally bit the bullet. Or rather, I didn't. I just ordered both the preppy (yellow and green + Diamine yellow ink) AND a Koh-I-Noor (a 5.6 version). Now waiting for a different source for 5.6 yellow leads. (Suppose Kaweco 5.6 leads will easily fit the Koh-I-Noor 5340 5.6 pencil).

 

I'll share my findings in a few weeks (once the orders have arrived)