Water Test - Many Inks

[cjr]

It's time for another look at how different inks fare when soaked for an extended period of time in water. This test was a 12 hour soak in room temperature tap water. Ink was applied to Rhodia 80 gsm paper and allowed to dry for over 24 hours. Once dry, the sheets were placed into a pan of water. A photo was taken just as they were inserted into the water to capture the ink behavior on first contact with water. Many of the inks had components that quickly flowed off the page.

 

The full 12 hour soak revealed the true permanence of the inks, or lack thereof. Some of the more colorful and fun to use inks have very low water resistance. However, there are a surprisingly large number of inks that hold up very well to extended exposure to water. These would have been useful on the Titanic I'm sure. A couple of the inks completely fled the paper and left no trace.

 

I'll leave it to the observer to decide which inks are the most permanent. The original version is on the left. 12 hour soaked version on the right. The two insertion photos are at the bottom.

 

Hope you find it helpful in your search for permanent inks for your fountain pens.

 

 

This is a complete list of the tested inks

Noodler's 54th Massachusetts

Platinum Pigment Blue

De Atramentis Document (mix of several colors)

Noodler's Kung Te cheng

Pilot Blue Black

Noodler's Zhivago

Noodler's Bad Blue Heron

Franklin Christoph Blue 72

Noodler's Luck of the Draw

Noodler's Black

Noodler's Legal Blue

Noodler's Bad Green Gator

Noodler's Empire Red

Noodler's El Lawrence

Noodler's Lexington Gray

Sailor Souboku

Noodler's Black Swan in Australian Roses

Noodler's North African Violet

Noodler's Nikita

Noodler's Red Black

Noodler's Blue Black

Monteverde Canyon Rust

Faber-Castell Moss Green

Noodler's Air Corps Blue Black

Noodler's Zhivago

Noodler's Navy

Noodler's Liberty's Elysium

Noodler's Bad Belted Kingfisher

Noodler's Walnut

Pelikan 4001 Violet

Levenger Forest Green

Robert Oster Blue Water Ice

Noodler's Baystate Blue

Noodler's Upper Ganges Blue

Edited December 15, 2018 by cjr

[amberleadavis]

This is wonderful. I'm adding it to the Start Here links.

[Fuzzy_Bear]

That's funny. BSB fights the water, but not the sun.

[benjitzu]

This is great! Thanks for putting all of these together in one place and conducting a thorough bath - very helpful and simple to see the results.

 

I have most of the Noodler's inks that remained on the page. Excellent inks when it comes to water resistance. Though I still use many inks that would wash away completely at the first hint of moisture, I always have at least couple pens inked with Noodler's.