Write On! – It’s All in the Ink Pt. 2

If the adage is "it's all about the ink and paper" for rollerball pens, how does that statement apply to fountain pens? Sure there are other things to take into consideration for a fountain pen that don't come up with a rollerball and ballpoint, but are those considerations inherent to the pen itself or the preferences of the user? One could argue, those same questions apply to rollerball and ballpoint users, but there are fewer factors that impact user preference with those styles of pens than there are with fountain pens. Either that, or fountain pen users make it seem like there are more of these factors when it comes to their preferred writing instrument. Is there a way to quantify how much the ink impacts the writing experience of the tool? I think it's a lot harder to do with fountain pens than it is with rollerballs and ballpoints, at least from my personal exepreinces.

The nib is such an important part of the writing experience in a fountain pen, that it can't be discounted as easily as the ball bearing in a modern style refill. Is the nib smoothed correctly? Is it too smooth? Does it have a sharp spot somewhere? What writing angle are you using? These are just a few of the questions that play into the writing experience of a fountain pen before we even get to the ink. Does that mean it's "not" all about the ink? Probably not, more likely the ink is a little less important but at the end of the day, it's still makes up a big chunk of the pie when it comes to the writing experience of a fountain pen; and for many of the same reasons we touched on with rollerball and ballpoint ink.

I'm not sure how many fountain pen inks are on the markets. Tens of thousands for sure, maybe even over a hundred thousand. With the fountain pen boom that occurred in the last ten years, the ink companies also expanded, and because fountain pen users are a varied bunch, the inks are as varied as the users. Fountain pen inks range from highly saturated, bright colors to traditional iron gall inks, there are ink brands that have specialized inks that mimic the inks from the 1920s through the 1940s, and other brands that sell inks with suspended metallic sparkles. From fast-drying to lubricated, sheening and shading, and waterproof and bulletproof; there are categories and sub-categories for anyone and everyone. But how much does all of that matter? Are there fountain pen inks that are "good" for everyone? Arguably, I've only sampled a very small slice of fountain pen ink, but I think the answer is yes.

There are some inks that are universally good. The only problem with these inks is that their a bit boring. Your mileage may vary depending on how far you are in the fountain pen journey, but the first ink I always recommend to someone is one of the standard Namiki inks: blue, blue-black, or black. Over the course of moving from vintage to modern fountain pens and using a huge variety of fountain pen brands, Namiki Blue has become a staple for testing both nibs and paper. It has a nice saturation and flow, not too lubricated to where it wants to run or pool, and the color is deep enough to see how paper color and ink play with one another. I've found this ink to be gentle enough to use in my very particular vintage pens but fun enough to use in modern pens that really shine with high saturated inks or inks that have a lot of sheening qualities. Two other inks that were previously my go-to in this category are Waterman Serenity Blue and Sailor Blue-Black; but they're not as good as Namiki Blue, in my opinion. A caveat, I prefer to test new pens and papers with blue ink, but it's not my favorite ink color to write with; so while I'm suggesting mainly blue inks as universal inks, that's simply because it's my experience they perform best. I have no data on that, but I can identify more issues with blue inks than I can with black inks from the same brands, i.e. feathering, bleed through, paper issues, etc are all more visible with blue than black.

Because you need to know your nib to find the right ink for you, it's not all about the ink. I have multiple pens that cannot write with fast-drying inks because they're old pens and the nib and feed don't provide enough flow for these inks to get started. I've tweaked, smoothed, reset, and done hours of maintenance on these pen and no matter what, they don't perform with very dry inks. I have to use more lubricated inks, like a lot of the Japanese inks. With a lubricated ink, those pens that feel awful with a fast-drying ink suddenly glide across the paper leaving beautiful lines. Conversely, I have some very broad nibs and some titanium nibs that can't use lubricated inks at all. The added lubrication floods the nib and when I write leaves huge blobs of ink or massive lines that simply ooze together into nonsense. Getting to know your nib in regards to it's ink preference is just as important as finding your ink preference. It's a virtual guarantee that you'll enjoy writing more if your nib and feed are getting the right ink.

All of that requires a lot of trial and error, and I haven't even talked about shimmer inks, neon inks, black light inks, or any of the more fringe inks that have hit the market recently. All of those require even more testing. Where does that leave us with the "it's all about the ink" statement? It isn't ALL about the ink with fountain pens, but it's all about the ink AND nib AND paper. Finding the right combination of those three can be a time-consuming experience. I still have pens that I don't use because I've yet to find the right ink. I've SOLD pens because I couldn't find an ink or paper combination that worked for me. Inks are very important to the overall writing experience for the fountain pen user, and having that information going into the hobby gives you a leg up. I didn't have that knowledge when I jumped into the hobby. I didn't know "it's all about the ink AND the paper AND the nib". I thought it was all about the pen diameter and maybe the nib. Because of that, I went through a lot of growing pains with early fountain pens that never really seemed to work right. Hopefully, this helps you with your journey in fountain pens and makes things easier. If this is helpful, we can always expand on it to look at other elements with fountain pen inks, nibs, and paper.