The Behaviour Of Pigmented Inks

July 18, 2019

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?

July 18, 2019

I'd say you shouldn't expect to generalise the behaviour and performance of pigment inks.

I only have Sailor and Platinum pigment inks. (Not interested in getting more, and certainly not interested in getting R&K ones, sorry.) Sailor kiwaguro is not waterproof the way Sailor seiboku and souboku is. Platinum Carbon Black is waterproof, but it's also far more apt to feather and bleed through than the three aforementioned Sailor pigment inks.

July 18, 2019

What A Smug Dill said.

There are going to be differences between the different brands -- and sometimes within a single brand.

My only experience with Kiwaguro was in a Preppy set up as a rollerball, and I had horrible flow issues (as in, it didn't). But loved the behavior of Souboku enough that I just got a full bottle of it. I got another sample of Kiwa-guro to try it in a "normal" fountain pen, but haven't gotten around to it -- I don't use black ink much, and if I need a black ink for permanence for something I have Noodler's Heart of Darkness.

I do like one of the R&K Documentus inks, Hellblau (which is pretty well behaved, but I don't know if the line are pigmented inks); Dunkelblau was a kind of chalky color that I didn't care for, though.

Have not tried the Platinum Carbon Black.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

July 19, 2019

I have used a number of the inks mentioned above, the Sailor Kiwaguro and Souboku, the Platinum Carbon Black and Pigmented Sepia, the Noodler's Heart of Darkness, as well as DeAtramentis Document Black, Document Dark Blue, Document Brown, Document Red, and have had no problems with any of them bleeding on decent paper. Well, maybe the DeA doc dark blue had a slight tendency to bleed in my Rhodia webbie, but not enough to skip double sided writing. I know they aren't all pigmented inks but they are all supposed to have some degree of permanence, so I throw them in the same category for that purpose. I use only Euro fine or medium and Japanese medium nibs, so I am not laying down three lane highways of ink; no broads, italics, stubs, etc. My lefty underwriting style only turns anything that wide into an illegible muddy mess.

July 19, 2019

Confusion it should be because Pigmented ink is too general a term by all means ; Pigmented ink simply mean that ink color is a collection of micro / nano pigment particle / powder suspended in a medium and come out a fluid; and that pretty much mean any non dissoluble colour medium used in making an ink and used instead to provide the colour by virtue of existence of such colour medium as a particle laid down onto the paper ( or any media )

The pigment part usually is not the issue its the carrying medium that it is ... Carbon ink is the oldest and simplest of all pigment ink and it was and still is carried with all kind of medium from alcohol / spirit to oil to resin and pretty much today's pigment ink is the same with some high tech twist ( you can goto those high end photo printer Mfr site and check their talk about pigment ink vs dye ink used on their inkjets )

Capillary action dictates that if the fluid go onto the medium ( paper ), it can do multiple thing ; it can feather which mean its spreading sideways horizontally on the paper surface or it can seep which mean its going into the paper vertically through the medium ( bleep through ) ; too many a time the issue is with the fact that laying down too much ink simply mean the carrying medium had no time to evaporate / dry up before those action take over ; the trick for many pigment ink is to actually made it thicker so it simply cannot be wicked away ( try Asian stick ink ) but at the cost of slow slow drying time ; guess why there's blotter used back then. Many of todays pigmented ink are designed for single purpose and not general writing so they simply exhibit those unwanted property when they are used on something they were not designed for

Edited July 19, 2019 by Mech-for-i

July 19, 2019

Capillary action dictates that if the fluid go onto the medium ( paper ), it can do multiple thing ; it can feather which mean its spreading sideways horizontally on the paper surface or it can seep which mean its going into the paper vertically through the medium ( bleep through ) ;

The fibres in the paper are not necessarily either coplanar with the writing surface or orthogonal to it, though. Many a time I've seen artefacts of dark ink travelling along a single fibre, like an in-grown hair can sometimes be seen just under the skin's surface; but generally feathering is something else, which is my view is more related to the ink not being confined to either the surface of the paper or individual fibres in the paper, but seeping through the walls of the paper fibres into adjacent ones.