Is Water Resistance Of Any Importance For You?

[cellmatrix]

Its important for me to have water resistance such that you can at least read the writing after it gets wet. My writings or notes letters and such are meaningful enough to be that I dont care to spend a bunch of time writing something down only to have it obliterated by the rain or accidental spills of water tea etc. I personally like the color and properties of pelikan 4001 blue black which has become my go to ink. It shades, is somewhat dry, color looks good, kind of vintage appearance, its low maintenance and its water resistant enough for me.

[Scylax]

I basically won't use any inks that aren't waterproof. If I care enough to write it I care enough to protect it. There are too many liquid dangers inside and outside of home - drinks, rain, pets... I won't risk it, personally.

[WJM]

For the purpose of addressing envelopes I try to always have at least one pen (out of three I always carry) with a fairly water resistant ink. Which is either Pelikan Blue-Black or Pelikan Brilliant Black.

[tinto]

Well, on the other hand, I can not really remember that I had an accident with water anyway. Not once in the last 20 years. So maybe I am overthinking this and should just use what I want anyway.

But it is a good thing that Pilot Blue-Black is a very nice, inexpensive ink which comes with some water resistance on top. At least water resistance does not mean that an ink has to be boring.

I used only water resistant inks until a couple of years. I realised that when I face a water-related incident paper will be ruined anyway, so I don't care that much (still a little concerned, though).

 

It is a nice thing that some beautiful inks are water resistant (I'm in a love season with Edelstein Aquamarine, and R&K Scabiosa is a staple).

[khalameet]

I am still considering to buy the massive 350ml of Pilot blue black because this ink is both beautiful and fairly water resistant, or if I just should use something different for a while (I fear that I will get bored of 350ml of the same colour).

I would really like to use R&K Königsblau because it is a very nice shade of blue and dark enough to satisfy my eyes. But again, I am too concerned about a water based incident.

 

A few days ago I had to walk 30 minutes from university to the train station and got "surprised" by more or less heave rainfall (didn't care to check the weather forecast that day...). While my backpack is pretty waterproof, you could still feel a tiny little bit of moisture inside it after I arrived at home. But I guess even this wouldn't harm the ink on the paper.

 

But one thing which really bothers me with basically every ink which is not water resistant to some point: they smear pretty bad. I did not overcome an ink with no water resistance which did not smear. And it really bothers me if I have an ink which smears on the page. It just looks bad.

Edited November 16, 2018 by khalameet

[Sasha Royale]

Currently, water resistance is a small matter, in my writing. However, in college days, water resistance was very important, as there were often

rain drops, and the unimaginable range "stuff" that college students can spill. Copying class notes into my permanent book was part of my studying,

but the notes had to survive until I got home. Today, all of my class notes would be written in one of the Noodler's bulletproof inks.

[A Smug Dill]

But one thing which really bothers me with basically every ink which is not water resistant to some point: they smear pretty bad. I did not overcome an ink with no water resistance which did not smear. And it really bothers me if I have an ink which smears on the page. It just looks bad.

At least you can then choose to wash all the bad-looking smears away intentionally, if that happens.

[ethernautrix]

Not only am I never always not clumsy, people around me can be clumsy.

 

A recent spill could have been much worse.

[TSherbs]

Not only am I never always not clumsy, people around me can be clumsy.

 

A recent spill could have been much worse.

..."never always not"...

 

?? Ha!

[Mongoosey]

I am still considering to buy the massive 350ml of Pilot blue black because this ink is both beautiful and fairly water resistant, or if I just should use something different for a while (I fear that I will get bored of 350ml of the same colour).

I would really like to use R&K Königsblau because it is a very nice shade of blue and dark enough to satisfy my eyes. But again, I am too concerned about a water based incident.

 

A few days ago I had to walk 30 minutes from university to the train station and got "surprised" by more or less heave rainfall (didn't care to check the weather forecast that day...). While my backpack is pretty waterproof, you could still feel a tiny little bit of moisture inside it after I arrived at home. But I guess even this wouldn't harm the ink on the paper.

 

But one thing which really bothers me with basically every ink which is not water resistant to some point: they smear pretty bad. I did not overcome an ink with no water resistance which did not smear. And it really bothers me if I have an ink which smears on the page. It just looks bad.

 

If my writing material stayed at a desk I wouldn't care much about water resistance TBH, unless it was something publishable, or something I'd plan to take out in the elements often.

 

If I'm carrying my work in a backpack, I tend towards something water resistant enough to survive a rainfall. And heck, I've had some close calls where I've had people nearly knock over my drinks. At that time I wouldn't be able to use the paper and it would have to just be recoverable.

 

If you can, samples are the way to go, but I don't know how limited you are to that. At first a large majority of the inks I expected to like I either didn't like after sampling or regretted buying a bottle of. Most of the first inks I liked were not expected and due to sampling. I never expected anything out of Heart of Darkness, but I said, "WTH, it's only a couple bucks" and now it's my favorite.

 

The bottom line is that choosing Water Proof inks drastically limits your choices, especially if you have to use it on cheaper paper the less water resistance you need the more choices you have obviously.

[A Smug Dill]

I am still considering to buy the massive 350ml of Pilot blue black because this ink is both beautiful and fairly water resistant, or if I just should use something different for a while (I fear that I will get bored of 350ml of the same colour).

I would really like to use R&K Königsblau because it is a very nice shade of blue and dark enough to satisfy my eyes. But again, I am too concerned about a water based incident.

Sailor seiboku and souboku inks both offer significant shading and sheen, do not feather (at least not on the paper types on which I have used them), and is just about completely waterproof; they don't so much as bleed or smear upon soaking after being allowed to dry properly in the first place. I've used both inks quite a bit, and never encountered any clogging or crud from those inks in my pens, in spite of their being pigment inks.

 

(The effective price, or the total cost of acquisition, at which someone can get something through the supply channels accessible to them, never change the functional, qualitative and operational attributes of a product itself, so I'm not personally interested in taking others' price expectations or budgetary constraints into account when discussing which products are fit-for-purpose for a given use case or application. In other words, I'm not particularly interested in how much Sailor pigment inks would cost a particular user, compared to alternative solutions available to him or her.)

[wallylynn]

I only have one pen inked at a time because I don't write much. While I don't care about journals or notes, the pen does get used on the monthly envelopes and checks so the ink must be water resistant.

[Karmachanic]

 

(The effective price, or the total cost of acquisition, at which someone can get something through the supply channels accessible to them, never change the functional, qualitative and operational attributes of a product itself, so I'm not personally interested in taking others' price expectations or budgetary constraints into account when discussing which products are fit-for-purpose for a given use case or application. In other words, I'm not particularly interested in how much Sailor pigment inks would cost a particular user, compared to alternative solutions available to him or her.)

 

Good to know!

[welch]

I avoid any ink I cannot wash off my clothes or wood furniture, and have done so for about 60 years. That's how long I have used fountain pens.

 

No, I have never lost writing to rain-drops, but I spill a few drops of ink whenever I refill, so "water-proof" ink is more of a danger. Way back, we all learned to tuck paper into binders, to put the binders in a book bag. We would put the bags under a rain-coat. When we grew up, we put coffee cups on one side of the desk and writing, documentation, or books on the opposite side. That's an easy habit to learn.

 

Long-term storage? Put paper into manila folders and put the folders in a file cabinet. Simple file also protects from sun-fading. I have, for instance, a notice from my public school system, 1953, signed and dated in bright blue ink. Most likely written in "ordinary" Sheaffer Skrip or Parker Quink.

[Mescof1]

Not only am I never always not clumsy, people around me can be clumsy.

 

A recent spill could have been much worse.

 

The most expert intentional use of the double negative I've ever seen! Beautiful.

[1nkulus]

I basically won't use any inks that aren't waterproof. If I care enough to write it I care enough to protect it. There are too many liquid dangers inside and outside of home - drinks, rain, pets... I won't risk it, personally.

+1

 

OTOH, owing to a limited range, the entire selection can be easily acquired.

IMO, there are probably 50/60 inks with the majority being Noodler's.

[1nkulus]

Not only am I never always not clumsy, people around me can be clumsy.

 

At least you can then choose to wash all the bad-looking smears away intentionally, if that happens.

 

[A Smug Dill]

My fiancée and I just had the lesson reinforced to us the hard way why waterproofness, or at least decent water resistance, of inks is important if there is content that is significant enough to be worth writing down in a journal or notebook.

 

Sydney copped some torrential rain recently over a 24-hour period, exactly when we had to catch a flight overseas. I had a new notebook in a zipped pocket in my backpack that has a DWR (durable water repellent) exterior, and fitted with a built-in rain cover (which I did pull out and use properly). She had a personally valuable journal (in which she wrote bits and pieces over two decades) in our luggage, buried three layers deep; by that, I mean it was in the pocket of a packing cell, placed inside a heavy-duty water resistant duffel bag, which in turn was inside another, larger water resistant duffel bag, all properly zipped up.

 

We were absolutely drenched by the time we got onto the train that took us to the airport, having had to wade through ankle-deep water to get to the station, because many of the city streets were flooded, even though we managed to keep our backpacks and luggage above the flash flooding. The water resistant materials on the external layers of what we were carrying had all ‘wetted out’, meaning that the DWR capability has been overwhelmed by the sheer amount of moisture to which it was exposed. Still, the contents inside seemed kinda alright when we checked our bags in at the airport.

 

By the time we got to the hotel at the other end of our flight and unpacked, we discovered that heavy condensation managed to get through every crevice and made everything very damp. Every garment, every nook and cranny on our cameras and tablet devices, and of course every last sheet of paper. The corners and edges on my new softcover notebook had all curled up into a useless mess, and quite a bit of what she'd written or drawn in her hardcover journal had run and smeared over the damp pages, even though the journal had remained closed the entire journey.

[AndyYNWA]

I usually have 7-8 pens inked, and one or two of them is always filled with water-resistant ink, like Sailor Sei-boku or some of KWZ's IG inks.

 

I'm addressing several letters every week and don't want to risk anything.

[1nkulus]

By the time we got to the hotel at the other end of our flight and unpacked, we discovered that heavy condensation managed to get through every crevice and made everything very damp. Every garment, every nook and cranny on our cameras and tablet devices, and of course every last sheet of paper. The corners and edges on my new softcover notebook had all curled up into a useless mess, and quite a bit of what she'd written or drawn in her hardcover journal had run and smeared over the damp pages, even though the journal had remained closed the entire journey.

 

Sorry to hear about the unfortunate and devastating incident.

Were you able to salvage anything at all?

 

Keeping in mind that accidents never make an appointment, almost all my inks are IG/waterproof.

I do miss out on shading and sheen, but it is a compromise I gladly accept.