Difference between wet and dry inks

[Maria]

Dear Members of The Fountain Pen Network;

 

I admit that I have been writing off and on with a fountain pen for around forty years but, I have never heard inks called 'wet' or 'dry' ink; until I joined this learned network.

 

I have only been exposed to the 1960 through 1970's Sheaffer Script Black and Blue-Black inks for the family fountain pens. So, seeing all these new inks--my goodness! A full buffet` of inks are available to writers now.

 

So, for the sake of all of us new to 'new terms' in grading ink; as well as those just new to fountain pens-- what are the protocols in deeming inks -- wet or dry?

 

Respectfully,

Maria

[Ann Finley]

Hi Maria,

 

Perhaps someone else can answer this better, but I'll give it a try.

 

There aren't any exacting standards for proclaiming an ink "wet" or "dry." A person that is a left handed overwriter, like myself, is likely to consider an ink to be a wet ink if it smears after several seconds (if it's no longer smearing at 5 seconds I can use the ink), while a right handed person may consider the ink not to be a wet one even if takes much longer to dry.

 

And there are other considerations...Some inks seem to never dry--they can smudge a month later! Many FP users like an ink that lubricates their pens to such a high degree that it seems as though the nib isn't even touching the paper (but this can depend on the pen, too.) There are some inks, Private Reserve Plum comes to mind, that most FP users would agree is a wet ink. Most Sheaffer inks, such as you mention, are not considered "wet" inks. If you read our ink reviews you'll find that some inks are said to gush (wetter than usual) and some are noted as stingy (drier than usual), and some are noted as having "normal" flow. When you see that an ink is said to be highly saturated, you can figure that's it's not going to be a "dry" ink.

 

Most J. Herbin inks, Sheaffer inks, Pelikan inks, Omas inks, some Diamine inks and Waterman inks etc. are drier inks--but not necessarily stingy--in fact some of us would say they're "normal" or just right. In my experience, most Private Reserve and "regular" Noodler's inks are wetter than those mentioned above, but I find some of the Noodler's waterproof/bulletproof inks to be not too wet.

 

Hope this helps!

 

Best, Ann

 

[RLTodd]

AIR,

 

surfactants.

 

they make water wetter, with less surface tension, so it flows more easily.

 

example, take a little ink, touch a toothpick to some dishwashing detergent and stir the ink. put it in pen and observe "wet ink."

 

 

[BillTheEditor]

Hi Maria,

 

Perhaps someone else can answer this better, but I'll give it a try.

 

There aren't any exacting standards for proclaiming an ink "wet" or "dry." A person that is a left handed overwriter, like myself, is likely to consider an ink to be a wet ink if it smears after several seconds (if it's no longer smearing at 5 seconds I can use the ink), while a right handed person may consider the ink not to be a wet one even if takes much longer to dry.

 

And there are other considerations...Some inks seem to never dry--they can smudge a month later! Many FP users like an ink that lubricates their pens to such a high degree that it seems as though the nib isn't even touching the paper (but this can depend on the pen, too.) There are some inks, Private Reserve Plum comes to mind, that most FP users would agree is a wet ink. Most Sheaffer inks, such as you mention, are not considered "wet" inks. If you read our ink reviews you'll find that some inks are said to gush (wetter than usual) and some are noted as stingy (drier than usual), and some are noted as having "normal" flow. When you see that an ink is said to be highly saturated, you can figure that's it's not going to be a "dry" ink.

 

Most J. Herbin inks, Sheaffer inks, Pelikan inks, Omas inks, some Diamine inks and Waterman inks etc. are drier inks--but not necessarily stingy--in fact some of us would say they're "normal" or just right. In my experience, most Private Reserve and "regular" Noodler's inks are wetter than those mentioned above, but I find some of the Noodler's waterproof/bulletproof inks to be not too wet.

 

Hope this helps!

 

Best, Ann

Piggybacking onto your reply (which is excellent), "wet" and "dry" in terms of drying times are also affected by the pen (some pen & ink combos are gushers, some are ok, some are stingy, some are like the Sahara) and the paper (coated papers are terrible, in general, for example -- slow drying time to a crawl).

[winnietheblue]

What are some inks that might be considered dry or 'stingy', or often cause skipping?

Edited September 6, 2008 by winnietheblue

[stephenchin]

Ann mentioned several of the candidates for "dry" ink, to which I'd add Lamy Blue-black, a well behaved iron gall ink.

 

I would note that wet or dry seems to have two sometimes related connotations: one, how quickly the ink dries on paper; and 2, how fast it flows out of your nib.

 

surfactants and lubricants that make your scratchy nib feel smoother also can make your ink flow faster down the nib channel, leaving more ink on the page to dry. It will lubricate the point of the nib better, but make it more liable to smear. In addition, some vintage pens which were set up for inks that had considerably fewer lubricants and surfactants than are included in modern inks will sometimes run extremely wet on the page (e.g. vintage Pelikans, a situation often exacerbated by imperfectly sealing pistons). Sometimes too the nibs were tuned to work best with "drier" inks--again the flat, flexible vintage pelikans were designed to give some tooth or feeling, that can be blunted or smoothed out completely with modern inks. Put some vintage ink in there if you really want to appreciate the quality of the nib.

 

While there are optimal inks, you may find your specific pen to like pens at one or the other end of the viscosity/lubricity spectrum.

[dcwaites]

There have been some excellent answers here, but my simple answer is that a wetter ink will leave more ink on the paper than a drier ink in the same pen.

 

Parker Quink Blue-Black is wetter than Parker Quink Permanent Blue.

 

One ink, Private Reserve Tanzanite, is so wet it is called the 'Ex Lax' of inks.

At the other end of the spectrum, I have some sachets of powdered ink that make an ink that is so dry, it is almost unusable in fountain pens. It was designed for clerical dip pens which are usually very wet writers (leaving a lot of ink on the paper)

 

As you build up your collection of inks, and you will, now that you have joined us , you will find some wetter than others.

You will also find that some pens are drier than others. You can match a dry ink to a wet pen, and vice-versa.

For example, I use my PR Tanzanite in my Parker 51 EF nib pen and get perfect results. It writes smoothly, puts down enough ink to have an intense, vivid colour, and yet not so much that it bleeds or feathers.

 

You can make an ink wetter by putting a tiny, tiny amount of detergent in it, or you can make it drier by diluting it with water.

 

The inks you have been using up till now fall in the middle-of-the-range category for wetness, as do the Parker Quink inks. Because of that, they are popular because they will work reliably in almost all pens.

 

 

Edited September 6, 2008 by dcwaites

[RevAaron]

I would be careful in grouping together "dry inks" with "inks that cause skipping." For me, I've never had problems with dry inks causing skipping- that's the fault of the pen. A dry ink could make things worse, to be sure. But I've not used any pens that are prone to skipping, with the exception that have some nib alignment issues, where a tine is elevated just enough such that at certain angles the ink won't flow.

 

In dry inks, the flow tends to be less- but not prone to skipping. With Pelikan BB, which is not iron gall but even dryer than Lamy BB IMHO, it just won't look so hot. In a pen that's wet enough, it looks great, but dry pen + dry ink = weak/light line.

 

Also, I've noticed a correlation between dry inks taking *longer* to dry than wet inks, presumably because they don't soak into the paper fibers as well. This changes when the ink is *really* wet, a so-called "gusher," and the lines it lays are so thick and wet that it saturates the paper, making it dry slowly and/or feather.

 

Props to the vintage Pelikans- among the best pens money can buy IMHO. I've had them work well with modern inks as well as as the dryer inks like Lamy BB.

 

Aaron

[lapis]

DITTO !!!

 

Mike

[Sailor Kenshin]

Fascinating topic for me. I used FPs in school, then started 'collecting,' and it wasn't until I joined FPN that I began to understand that there are wet and dry pens AND wet and dry inks.

[Gawain]

I never really understood the concept of wet vs dry inks until I received my Sailor Jentle back in cartridge form on Friday. I'm fairly new to fountain pens but have been buying pens and ink like a mad man for the past two months. I just purchased a Sailor Professional Gear and have been using the coverter and private reserve DC Supershow blue exclusively in it. I purchased the medium to fine nib. It has written like medium using the PR ink. Today I put the sailor jentle black in my sailor pro gear and now it writes like a fine and the ink dries immediately.

 

 

[Blade Runner]

Drier writing inks I have: Pelikan blue and MB iron gall blue black In some pens Aurora blue is dryish. Dry inks are useful to get finer lines.

[MinasTirithScribe]

It's been my experience generally (your mileage may vary) that Levenger cartridge inks are somewhat thicker and less flowy than other brands--at least, Levenger Raven Black is less flowy than PR Velvet Black and Levenger Fireball than PR Orange Crush. Levenger Cobalt Blue is an exception to this and writes wetter than its brand sibs.

 

R&K Smaragdgrun seems to write a broader line than does Waterman Green in the same pen. Waterman Green isn't dry but it is a little more compact.

 

I couldn't tell whether Noodler's Dragon's Napalm was notably dry or whether I merely had it in the roughest nib I own. The Noodler's FPN special editions Galileo MS Brown and Tulipe Noire are simultaneously very smooth and slightly more compact in line than are, say, PR Chocolat and Plum.

[Maria]

Dear Many Members of TFPN who responded;

 

I am very grateful for your many responses in the field of what creates and or defines 'wet' and 'dry' inks.

 

I never had a 'label' for ink's performances with pens. Now, it has terms that did not exist in my peak fountain pen writing days.

 

Hopefully, there are those like me and were too bashful to ask, can read and understand these terms; as I have asked for them as much as for myself.

 

Thank you all!

 

Respectfully,

Maria

 

[jde]

I for one, Maria, appreciated the question. I learned a lot from FPN'er responses!

--Julie

[Blade Runner]

Related to this topic is the value of in depth ink reviews that show and describe the ink's characteristics in a variety of pens with different nib widths and flow characteristics.

 

For example, I was having some less than desirable color and flow results with MB Bordeaux in an extrafine nibbed pen.

Then I read Wimg's excellent review of the ink which explained that this ink does best in a wetter and wider nibbed pen.

So I switched to a pen like that, and the ink became one of my favorites.