Fountain Pen Inks
The fountain pen’s ink flow works on the principle of equilibrium between internal and external atmospheric pressures and this is one reason that most fountain pens have a hole and a split in the nib. When one puts the nib to paper with light pressure, the split of the nib widens and brings ink stored in the pen through the feed to the split of the nib by capillary action and the flow of ink begins. When ink comes out it creates a vacuum inside the pen – the hole in the nib then lets air to fill the vacuum! Modern fountain pen inks is use aniline dye and added to are glycol for smooth ink-flow and phenol which fights bacteria and mold. Also added are drying agents to speed drying time of the ink and some preservatives that stops corroding and drying of the ink while in the pen. Generally fountain pen inks have a slight odor of ammonia and some manufacturers add perfumes to overcome this odour.
What kind of ink to use in a fountain Pen
As a general rule, fountain pen ink produced by the fountain pen maker should be used; however any other dye/water based ink can be used belonging to another brand as it will be designed to flow well through the feed of a fountain pen. A note of caution: do not use artist’s inks, drawing inks or carbon ‘india’ ink since these are not designed to flow through a fountain pen feed. Different fountain pen inks do vary in their flow characteristics. Agents like glycol are used to adjust ‘viscosity’ of inks and many a times inks offered by the same manufacturer will have different viscosity for different colours they offer. Basically this means that ink that works in one pen might not work so well in another. Most pens will perform best with a particular brand/colour that has optimal flow characteristics for that particular pen. So the general rule of thumb is low viscosity (fast flow-thin) and high viscosity (slow flow-thick) – however, you will be surprised when you start experimenting with different inks/colours in your search for the perfect ink for your preferred pen!