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Are there any additive that could be added to an existing ink to make it feather less, beyond the usual thickeners, such as gum arabic? Has anyone measured their effects? Are any preferred for low pH, high pH inks? [According to the article referenced here, it was found that ink actually performs better without gum arabic, but only after it had been accidentally left out from the official government recipe.] @InesFposted an extremely detailed analysis of ink spreading and a theory on ink wetting. Some of the results are: Unfortunately the surface tension can't be increased easily (some salts increase surface tension marginally, but only in very high concentrations). I found one interesting patent that uses a different approach: To reduce the flow (wetness?), they increase the wetting angle of the ink/nib interface. This is done by adding a flotation agent, which also happens to reduce the surface tension. Feathering is then independently controlled by adding a colloid. https://patents.google.com/patent/US1932248A/en This is a highly alkaline ink, maybe the vintage Superchrome ink used similar ideas. The ink is made alkaline to quickly sink into the paper, but this leads to undesirable effects: They say that surface tension doesn't matter, but what matters is the wetting angle on the nib. To keep the ink from wetting the nib, they add amyl xanthate. Xanthates do lower the surface tension, see also Fig. 2 of https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/ja01308a003#, but increase the wetting angle on the nib: They name a couple of alternative substances to increase the wetting angle: The ink will still feather, which is fixed by adding starch Finally, they add bentonite clay to improve the flow. I have no idea why this works.

A couple of days ago I received my Pilot Custom Heritage 912 with Falcon nib. It doesn't seem to suffer from skippings or hard starts but it does seem too wet to me. On Rhodia paper it works fine, although it takes quite a while to dry. I used a Hiroshizuku Shin-Kai ink. The problem is that on Leuchturm notebook paper it produces an unpleasant bleeding. Is this ink too wet? Would this problem improve with an ebonite feeder? Has this happened to anyone? Thanks

It is that glorious time of year, where we fulfill our social obligations to family, friends and aquaintences. It is time to do the Christmas cards. However, all of the cards I run accross are made with very porous and open grained paper. I would like to use my wet flex nib pen to put some artful words in the card, but the card paper wicks horribly. Other than using a page out of my Rhodia book to include my words, is there a better solution for this? Is there a brand of Christmas card which is made of firmer and less wicking/bleeding paper?

Okay so I know this sounds strange (or normal for those who have been in the hobby for long enough), but I've received a lot of information regarding pigmented inks which have ended up being quite confusing. The main source of confusion is in its behaviour on paper. I've seen glowing reviews of inks such as Sailor nano inks, Montblanc Permanent Inks and Platinum Carbon ink, but then I've got some more confusing (not contradictory) information regarding the pigmented inks from Rohrer & Klingner regarding their behaviour on paper: bleeding and feathering (at least with flex)? little bleeding and feathering? There is also confusion coming from my own experience: Speedball India ink (don't worry, I used it with a dip pen, no fountain pens were used) spread everywhere, feathered, and bled quite a bit, even on high quality paper such as Clairfontaine, and even cartridge paper. I could only be *salvaged* when I went to dilute it, and only ended up behaving when I had made it a 6:1 water:ink solution, producing a very sad, light grey. Rohrer & Klingner Sepia Calligraphy ink ended up misbehaving too, though it was slightly better than the Speedball. May I please get some clarification on why this is?

Hi all, So I recently got myself a 2 oz bottle of Speedball Super Black India ink, and when I started using it in my Rhodia Webbie with a dip pen, I noticed that the ink bled quite a lot, which I was not expecting at all. I had thought that Carbon based ink would be some of the most well behaved ink, and that the Rhodia, Clairfontaine-made paper would easily stand up to it, being able to handle other, less-well behaved inks. When I turned the page, I noticed how the ink had bled through it quite visibly. Is this a normal thing that happens with India inks, or am I just just unfortunate enough to have received a faulty batch? If so, what can I do to resolve it?

Hi All, Fountain pen newbie here with some questions on ink. I am experiencing bleeding on inks that most people do not have bleeding problems with. Specifically, Diamine Majestic Blue, De Atramentis Magenta Violet and Rohrer & Klingner Cassia. I am using a Leuchtturm 1917. I have read different articles about dilution but several ink reviews for these inks do not mention any bleeding problems. I have added a photo of the reverse side of a Majestic Blue list and a ink sample page. When I first started using Noodler's Black, I had problems with "ink transfer" (not sure if there is a term for this). Dried ink on one page A would transfer to another page B (Page A and B are faces of a notebook A|B where | is the spine) when I wrote on the reverse side of page B. A little dilution got rid of this problem but the problem comes back when the ink starts to dry. Using ink seems pretty intuitive... Take ink from bottle, put in pen, write. Am I doing this wrong? Why am I having so many problems? Should I be diluting all of these inks? I know Rhodia paper handles ink better but I would like to find a solution that works with the Leuchtturm -- which should still be able to handle fountain pens! Thank you!!!