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Rohrer & Klingner Salix, an unconfirmed observation


Lennart Wennberg

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I have observed that R & K Salix:

I. Makes my pens easy to start, even if they have rested for a while.

II. A pen with this ink often starts with writing a bit 'diluted'.

 

Question:

Could it be that this ink extracts water from the air?

 

Please, give me your thoughts on this.

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I think the "diluted" has to be with the ink drying around the tip (nib or feed). So writing forces the ink behind this layer out.. Or that is what I am thinking.

 

I don't get that with my bottle. I use it in an pelikan m200.

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5 hours ago, Lennart Wennberg said:

Could it be that this ink extracts water from the air?

 

You could test that by filling an empty ink cartridge most of the way with R&K Salix, draw a mark on its exterior to record the level, and leave it standing upright and untouched for however long the test period is, then check whether the ink level has gone up or down (or stays the same).

 

An ink cartridge only holds a small volume, and has a small cross-sectional area to limit the surface area of the ink exposed to air. You can even use the ink as-is, after the experiment, by plugging the cartridge straight onto a pen.

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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Water in the air is in a gaseous state, and to go back to a liquid state in the ink, if I remember freshman Chem/Physics, there would have to be cooling (condensation) of the water vapor for that to happen.  Absorption or adsorption of water is a different matter where a material/fiber/polymer may be involved.  Not an expert here, just trying to apply my understanding of the science as it relates to water behavior.

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13 minutes ago, Carrau said:

Absorption or adsorption of water is a different matter where a material/fiber/polymer may be involved.

 

Ethanol, for one, can attract and bind water molecules from the air around it, no?

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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Yes, ethanol is well known for this, however, it has different properties than water that enhance its ability to perform this trick.  In thinking about the ink, however, I wonder if the Iron component may have the ability to attract water, rather than the water attracting water.  A number of metals can do this, and I suspect perhaps iron may have this property.  We’d need a chemist to comment.  It’s thought provoking, to be sure, and something I haven't seen discussed here before.

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11 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

You could test that by filling an empty ink cartridge most of the way with R&K Salix, draw a mark on its exterior to record the level, and leave it standing upright and untouched for however long the test period is, then check whether the ink level has gone up or down (or stays the same).

 

An ink cartridge only holds a small volume, and has a small cross-sectional area to limit the surface area of the ink exposed to air. You can even use the ink as-is, after the experiment, by plugging the cartridge straight onto a pen.

Yes, but you have to enclose the cartridge in an air tight container to emulate the cap, perhaps...

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2 hours ago, Lennart Wennberg said:

Yes, but you have to enclose the cartridge in an air tight container to emulate the cap, perhaps...

 

Why? The experiment merely determines whether R&K Salix is hygroscopic, per:

 

19 hours ago, Lennart Wennberg said:

Could it be that this ink extracts water from the air?

 

Using a container with a small cross-sectional area makes it easier to see changes to the liquid column's height; and, as I said, you can even just use the ink in a fountain pen afterwards if you use an emptied ink cartridge as a container, so there are significant advantages in doing so. However, we're not trying to, and need not, try to reproduce or emulate all the environmental factors with the view, or hope, of reproduce the actual phenomenon (or on-the-page outcomes) of the ink becoming paler when used for writing.

 

Shielding the ink from light the way your pen cap would be more relevant than preventing exposure to air; and, unless you're using a pen with a snug-fitting spring-loaded inner cap (à la Platinum's Slip & Seal mechanism), how would you know that your pen cap is airtight anyway? The caps on most of my pens aren't that effective in preventing ink evaporation.

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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That's almost exactly the opposite issue to the one I have had with Salix (and Scabiosa) that I started a thread about a week or two ago. I find it starts out dark when you begin writing and within a couple of pages starts to look very diluted/washed out.

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