Better Ways To Write Checks

[iram]

Periodically I come back to writing with a fountain pen.

 

I cant afford expensive pens but tend to use Fine nibs if available

 

I am old school so big problem is writing checks. Find even fine nibs seem to bleed and form larger lines. Have found it necessary to reverse the nib writing to get an even thinner line though it makes writing more scratchy

 

I assume there may be no real solution??

 

Edited April 26, 2020 by iram

[corgicoupe]

I found that Diamine Archival Registrar's Ink doe not bleed with a fine nibbed Esterbrook.

[iram]

Ive been using and old bottle of Qink navy (box says Royal blue) blue ink from Parker .......Know idea how old it is only ink I have

 

I rotate through pens as they run out.......now switching to a FPR fine nib (forgot what model it is)

[Tasmith]

Wing Sung 698, fine nib with Diamine Registrar's works great for me. Registrar's is archival and highly water resistant.

 

Vanness Pens has Diamine Registrar's for $17.00 and Wing Sung 698's on sale for $18.00: https://vanness1938.com/collections/wing-sung-pens . Might be a little more than ordering elsewhere, but I've always received excellent service from them.

Edited April 26, 2020 by Tasmith

[mulrich]

Interesting. In my experience, checks have been one of the few non-FP paper I haven't had problems with but it sounds like I am an outlier. Maybe my bank just uses better paper.

[iram]

I should have mentioned I print my own checks I buy pre made stock usually from a Office Max or similar store. the stock appears thicker than say printer paper

[Tweel]

Although you have at least two pens and only one ink, changing inks would probably be the most effective way to address feathering and bleeding. Noodler's Black would probably work great on your paper, if you don't mind black.

[iram]

I was thinking about that change ink i do have a few pens but generally same results........I suppose its time to look into other inks.....thanks

[Black Spot]

I like to fill out my checks in the line for the cash register real slowly.

The Pilot metropolitan has a very fine point, even the M nib is quite fine and it costs under 20$.

You may have better results with that and if you do not you had a excuse to get a new pen.

Edited April 26, 2020 by Black Spot

[Arkanabar]

Spread and feathering are a couple of the things that I dislike as well. As others have said, this is more easily corrected with an ink change than a pen change. Dilution can help too, as it lowers the concentration of surfactants, which lower water's surface tension, in the ink. I used to have a bottle of Noodler's Borealis Black, that feathered just horribly. Even diluted 4:5 with distilled water, I got feathering on copy paper, but it was less.

 

The anti-feathering inks of choice are:

 

Iron Gall (e.g., Diamine Registrar's Ink, Rohrer & Klingner's Salix and Scabiosa, and Platinum Blue-Black and their entire Classic line. Iron gall inks are a solution of tannoferrogallic acid, which is transparent in solution, with an added colorant, so you can see what you're writing. When exposed to oxygen, the acid is oxidized into a dark grey, water insoluble precipitate. These inks are often described as dry, and tending to emphasize any scratchiness in your pens. But they are very resistant to spread and feathering. The acid will react with oxygen and form precipitate in the bottle, but keeping them tightly capped should slow this down. Some suggest that more regular cleaning is necessary, but I don't know; others say they've left iron gall inks in pens for months or years without issues. Of the lot, I'd say that R&K's offerings are probably the most benign.

 

Some recommend Noodler's Black and X-Feather. The legend is that black was developed so one could write on newsprint without issue, and that X-Feather was meant to feather even less than black. These inks are probably more prone to smudging than some others. Dilution may mitigate this issue. There are also some ISO-certified archival FP inks (MontBlanc Permanent Blue, R&K's Dokumentus line) that many report are very well behaved.

 

Many say that their nano-particle inks (Sailor's Sei Boku and Sou Boku, Platinum Carbon Black and Pilot Carbon Black) don't have these issues.

 

Finally, Sandy1's review of Pilot Blue-Black suggests that it is very feather resistant, even on pulpy daily calendars with high recycled content. And a more benign and well-behaved ink is hard to imagine.

[iram]

Thank you for advice......going to start looking for new inks........I also do have a Pilot metropolitan Fine point that will be next in my pen rotation

[bobs51]

Iram.. if you print your own checks, then maybe it's time to look for new paper, not new inks. I know that if you are using special check safety paper that it may be hard to switch, but try to find other brands you can at least try.

[Runnin_Ute]

I use Pelikan 4001 Blue Black for things like checks and addressing envelopes. Most envelopes are pretty crummy paper. It is a iron gall.

[Wahl]

I would look for a different paper.

[Black Spot]

I think you should send me a check so I can study the problem, I have plenty of time on my hands now.

[welch]

As Wahl suggests, the problem might be the paper. Old Quink Royal Blue, and I have a couple of those bottles, is from a time when everyone wrote checks. If it worked then on check-paper then used, it should work now.

 

Is your old Quink good enough to write other things? No clumps or mold-smell? Maybe not a colorful but otherwise good?

 

If so, then no need to experiment with current inks that claim to be "quick-dry" or "no feather" when you have Quink with Solv-X in the art- deco bottle.

[txomsy]

Welch, that is not necessarily true (not that it isn't, it may well be), because paper has changed a lot, specially in the last years as inkjet printers are not so demanding and makers have switched to lower quality and cheaper pens to increase their margins.

 

My own experience (and I do not use checks, I speak of just writing) is that paper has gone down noticeably in quality. I still have 'old' paper (from 40+ years ago, from before even A4 was in use) and believe me, there is no comparison. Even lint rich paper from then was far more friendly than modern copy paper.

 

As ofr the OT, I think that a small clarification is due: writing is the result of a combination of three main factors: pen, paper and ink.

 

Regarding pen, one thing to consider is that Eastern (mainly Japanese) nibs use a thinner standard in nib size than Western pens. Thus, a Western EF will usually write like a Japanese F or even M. Conversely, using a Japanese EF pen may result in a line like that of a Wester EF turned upside down (i.e. much thinner). So, using a Japanese EF may be a solution.

 

As for ink, not all inks are born equal, some have more or less surfactants (spread more or less on paper). In the good old times, there was not much choice and it was easy to give advice. Nowadays, the options are huge. I think that Arkanabar has summarized them rather well, at least to mention some of the more popular options.

 

As for practical advice: if you have a Pilot EF, I would first try that and see if it solves the problem. That may be the cheapest and quickest (specially given the current situation) solution.

 

I would be wary of getting started on the ink testing rabbit hole. Once you get started you may never end your quest for "the best" ink for you. Instead, and considering current confinement situation, I would take advantage of it to read as many reviews of some of the inks mentioned by Arkanabar as possible, and then make a decision for one of them and go for it.

 

Ideally you should test it first to avoid buying something you end up not liking, In the good old times it was easy to go to a brick and mortar (B&M) shop and ask for a dip test. Since you get your own paper, it should be easy to bring a sample sheet to test it... but FWIW, B&M shops are rare now in the US, so this may not be a solution. You may want to order some sample (2ml) vials from an online seller (like Goulet, JetPens or many others) to try first. The idea is to avoid ending -like many of us- with a large collection of inks you will never be able to use up in your whole life.

 

Generally speaking, many traditional blue-black (BB) inks seem to be permanent, iron-gall based (Pilot, Waterman, Pelikan, Montblanc...) and well behaved, many Noodler's inks have been designed to be tamper-proof with checks and legal documents in mind (personally I know X-Feather and am happy with it), and then there are lots of permanent inks to try (I would use a permanent ink for checks to avoid tampering). When looking up reviews, the magic words are "Document" (or "Dokument"), "Registrar", "Iron-Gall", "Nanoparticles", "Permanent" and the like. Just search the net for reviews, look at pictures to get an idea of the colors and at the comments to see how good (for your purposes) they are.

 

And finally, as already mentioned, you can try diluting the ink. Most inks are oversaturated and diluting then (sometimes a lot) will still yield a readable line. If you decide to do that, do it first on a small amount in a separate vial (e.g. an Eppendorf test tube) to avoid spoiling a full bottle. Depending on where you live, you may be able to use tap water, but it is usually deemed safer to use distilled water. Just take a small syringe to measure say 1ml ink and 0.1 or 0.2ml (or maybe more) water, pour on a vial, shake and tr.

.

[Braxfield]

Ink is a bit like coffee. There's always another one you can try, and for some the search may never end. On the other hand whilst some of us may occasionally run out of coffee, few of us will ever run out of ink. I'm set for the next hundred years.

 

Near Mint, as you may already discovered, the online retailer Jetpens has some nice informational pages on different inks and their qualities. I find the content consistently reliable.

 

Of the half dozen water resistant inks I have tried recently the one I currently enjoy the most is Platinum Carbon Black, Not only is it effectively waterproof, it has lovely flow and, for me, just the right degree of "blackness". I would describe it (perhaps unhelpfully) as several notches below the Earl of Spades waistcoat, which is to say, not jet/raven/glossy black but rather charcoal. Its soft, not-quite-black sits beautifully on ivory paper. Worth a dip.

Edited May 1, 2020 by Braxfield

[fc2462]

Another +1 on the Diamine Registrar's Ink. That is my "go to" ink for writing on any kind of fountain pen "unfriendly" paper. I even love it though on my Tomoe River notebooks because it is so fast drying. I keep it inked up in at least one pen all the time.

[Honeybadgers]

diamine registrars will solve all your problems. Your checks could be printed on toilet paper and you'd still be good.

 

If it has to be black, noodlers X feather will solve the issue too, not QUITE as good, but still great. It doesn't work well on good paper though, it's made to soak in FAST and as a result, can be very smeary on good quality paper. Registrars will work on everything, but does require regular cleaning since it's a pretty strong iron gall. I have it permanently inked, but I still thoroughly clean that pen every 2 months.

Edited May 6, 2020 by Honeybadgers