How Do You Define A Wet/dry Pen?

[aerolord]

Hello, I have been into fountain pen for less than 3 months and I always watch reviews on YouTube and often many will mention about the wetness of their pen.

 

How is the wetness being define or determine?

[Cushy Butterfield]

Good question. I'd like to know too.

[Rose Nibs]

For me a wet nib leaves enough ink on the page for it to sit there wet and shining so I can smudge it inadvertently. A dry nib deposits less ink with the result that there is no wet and shining liquid sitting on the paper (most paper) and no smudging. But dry nibs can be stingy and unsmooth.

[abhinavrakesh]

One more thing i have noticed with dry pens, no matter how saturated or dark ink you use with dry pen you'll not get the accurate color or darkness of your ink. The writing on paper will look like dull and faded.

[inkstainedruth]

The ink flow is not as good. Especially if you also have a dry (less lubricated or not as free-flowing) ink in it.

A lot of times it's going to be trial and error as to which inks behave better in which pens. And you can't necessarily say "X brand makes wet writers" any more than you can necessarily say "Y brand's inks are dry": I have some pens that are in *theory* identical models with identical nibs -- but they don't all write the same and I have to pay attention to what ink goes in them. Even supposedly wet pens like Pelikans -- my M200 Green Marble has an M nib that writes drier than my M400 Brown Tortoise's F nib (the M400 is a gusher, and does great with Noodler's Walnut, which was fairly awful in a Platinum Plaisir which has an M nib but is a much drier writer than some pens I have).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[marcelo]

I have a namw for it

 

Lamy Studio Medium Nib.

[Sandy1]

Hi,

 

As we are without metrics, definition is not possible, yet determination can be made by putting performance/behaviour in context of other pens.

 

Let us not ignore the influence of ink and paper which are too numerous to mention here, and each person's manner of writing - I write with a brisk light hand, which skews results.

 

I prodded that fluid uncertainty over the course of doing some 138 Ink Reviews, usually with six pens and four+ papers, which only raised more questions. (So sorry.)

 

When/If you suffer from symptoms associated with insomnia, you may choose to take a wee shufti at relatively on-the-level OOTT @ https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/196998-one-of-the-ten-blue-inks/?p=1997029 and the 11 2 20 series @ https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/212759-11-2-20-blue-inks/?p=2222513

 

Should any other questions arise during your voyage of discovery, many Members will contribute to your understanding and pleasure - they've helped me keep afloat with the masts above the keel for years.

 

Bye,

S1

Edited June 14, 2016 by Sandy1

[Sandy1]

Hello again,

 

I sincerely apologise for suggesting that one needs to go in depth and suss out a large number of samples to deal with the matter of determining if a pen is wet or dry.

 

While there are exceptions, let us proceed by generalities and dead reckoning:

 

Wet or dry is relative to other pens. In the previously mentioned Ink Reviews, there is a very important NIB-ism image, which includes down-strokes from a number of pens of various degrees of wetness.

 

Now consider the degree that each pen dyes the paper: wet pens will dye the paper to a greater extent, and just might cause a wooly line / feathering or line width gain. The dry pen does the opposite: letting the paper show through the ink, and if too too dry will leave a 'sketchy' line, which lacks a crisp edge of width less than a pen's native width.

 

One of the Jokers in the deck is that some inks appear much the same no matter the wetness (flow) of the pen. I consider those inks to 'run on rails', so are not suitable for evaluating pens. Rather I prefer [dry] inks that are of rather low dye-load which make wetness of the pen evident.

 

I use two inks for pen sampling: the ever so boring Waterman Serenity, and since the bozos bean counters people at Montblanc discontinued iron-gall ink, R&K Salix, which is another I-G ink, does well.

 

Bye,

S1

Edited June 14, 2016 by Sandy1

[Baenlynn]

Like Sandy said, wetness is relative and depends on the combination of pen, paper, and ink. Wet inks in wet writers will be super wet, and on smooth paper they can take minutes to dry. Drier inks in wet writers will be a little drier, and dry inks in dry writers might even be a little scratchy. Paper also plays a part in this. On cheap, toothy, paper the ink from a wet writer will chase long fibres, and on more expensive paper it will sit on top until the carrier evaporates.

 

For me, the definition of wet is anything that will still smudge heavily more than 10 seconds after writing on standard printer paper. My Noodler's nib creaper definitely fits that bill. Meanwhile any one of my Lamy pens using the same ink will be completely dry in 8 - 12 seconds.

[bleair]

Like others have said, what makes you feel that a pen writes "dry" is subjective, and varies, and is hugely influenced by the ink loaded into the pen, and the paper you're writing on, and your mood + how fast you're writing - which impacts how light or heavy your hand presses the nib against (or not) the paper, and even the temperature you happen to be writing with - how's that for being evasive?

 

With several of my dry pens I can feel that the nib's tines are tighter together and as a result when using a very dry ink I may have to use a tiny bit more pressure when I first uncap the pen and start writing (I have a light hand typically) If I don't, I'll get hard starts. Some inks also "wick" down the nib and onto the paper with more ease than others. When using my driest pens on my smoothest-coated papers (like Rhodia) I'll also notice that the dry ink doesn't flow as readily, and again, if I use an extra light touch, or if I've turned the pen a tiny bit in my so that the nib contact isn't perfect to the paper I might get hard starts, or a thinner-than-normal line width.

 

Lastly, Sandy's comment about using two distinct inks can help you notice this. Salix is a drier-than-average ink while Waterman Serenity blue is a really nice wetter-than-average ink. Using these two inks in turn in the same pen can help highlight differences in the pen in terms of it being a "wet" or "dry" pen.

 

Most pens are in the middle on the wet-dry scale and you likely won't notice. It's usually subtle.

[Blue_Moon]

The words "For me..." in this thread say it all. As people have said, it is indeed subjective. What's wet to one may be dry to another, and vice-versa. I personally like the test that SBRE Brown uses. Lay ink down on paper quickly with back and forth motion (color a section of the paper), then immediately smear it with your finger. It WILL smear regardless of whether it's dry or wet ink. However, if it's dry, the smear will only go a very short distance - 1/4 of an inch - an inch, etc. If it's dry, it should go further, sometimes much further. However, for the most part, you are the one who determines how far a "dry" ink should spread, and the same with a "wet" ink. An ink is generally considered dry when a consensus of people believe that it is dry, and the same for wet.

[mulrich]

When I get a new pen I'll test it using Waterman Serenity blue (cheap, reliable, and easy to clean) to get a baseline for comparing to other pens. Dry nibs tend to produce a little lighter line, wet nibs a little heavier. Almost like using a regular or bold font on your computer.

[jar]

As Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said about pornography, "I know it when I see it."

[Proto]

I usually see a "wet" pen as one that lays enough ink that you can see it drying on the page-- it has a glossy sheen to it immediately after leaving the nib as a liquid often does.

[sidthecat]

I use two two colors of ink that tend to change a lot with the relative wetness or dryness of the nib: on one end of the continuum is an A. A. Waterman that lays down a thick, dark line that sometimes has to be blotted. On the other is a Wahl Eversharp Skyline that writes a very thin, pale line, even with pressure. I'm looking for a better nib for the latter.

[tzinc]

is there a list of Wet and Dry pens...

is a Safari dry?

[dipper]

On 12/25/2022 at 3:07 AM, tzinc said:

is there a list of Wet and Dry pens .... ?

 

I don't recall anyone being sufficiently brave (or foolhardy 😀) to attempt to write such a list. 

 

However, your question does prompt memories of the general content of posts in this forum, over a period of years, about certain pens that seem to be consistently mentioned as being "wet" writers. (Lamy 2000?).

 

Dry writers tend to be mentioned in posts where the poster is aware that their individual pen has some unusual problem or fault. As in, "Help! How can I fix my dry XYZZ pen?"

 

Two things make the imagined "list" a remote possibility:

The underlying wetness of any pen can be adjusted by slightly bending the tines of the pen nib to alter the gap between the tines.

Without any adjustments to a pen, the actual wetness of a given pen being used will vary depending on the specific ink being used and the paper being used.

 

In contrast, inks can be tested and compared. (Assuming that an ink will be more accurately repeatable, bottle to bottle, than pens tend to be.)

So, given that any pen can be adjusted, and we can select inks to make a pen write wetter or drier, the lack of a list of wet vs dry pens is not an issue.

(Actually, inks can also be adjusted for wetness. Some users add a little plain water or a speck of sufactant (detergents etc) to their ink - to alter the wetness result in their pen, on their paper.)

 

See ...