Dip pens

I acquired a steel nibbed dip pen today, and a small bottle of ink, for a grand total of $5 or so. The results are kind of interesting. The nib I have—a so-called crow-quill—is capable of a range from very fine lines to somewhat broad lines depending on the amount of pressure applied. Unfortunately the nib is also quite a bit harder than the paper it is writing on and will punch through and generally damage the surface with great enthusiasm if it is not wielded with a very light touch and with specialized strokes.

I was having trouble with the ink not generating a good black—as though overly diluted with water—until I realized that it may have separated during storage, and so according to instructions I shook it up well and indeed, the results were much improved.

Writing on crappy paper with it is not a good idea—even good paper can have bleed-through issues, such as my artist's sketchbooks, although things are considerably better in the latter than in my lesser notebooks. This makes me want to finish those damned book projects that were stalled waiting for the paper to get ordered, so I can have mine with my very nice beautiful paper.

The need to dip the pen is annoying but not fatal; the reservoir actually contains a nontrivial amount of ink and dipping once a sentence or two is not so bad. The pen itself is pretty primitive, but that's nib pens in a nutshell; the nib itself seems not too bad, and cleans okay if not beautifully, largely due to the need to scrub somewhat when dealing with pigmented ink.

If you're wondering why one would go through all this effort for an obsolete pen technology, there are two major reasons why I am interested. The first reason is that this pen can generate a really beautiful hairline, very narrow, which I value—this, however, can be achieved with a good technical ballpoint or with a fine nib on a fountain pen. The second reason, and the only reason why people put up with nib pens at all, is because they (and their cousins the technical pen) are the only technology available for writing with pigmented ink such as India ink—the advantages of this are numerous, but briefly the ink once dried is waterproof and permanent in a way that makes Sharpies look like an utter joke. Using a pigmented ink in a fountain pen or a ball point pen is almost guaranteed to clog and thus seriously impair said pen. Mistakes are usually erased using a knife, as if the ink is properly formulated nothing else will really do much of anything. This is more useful on vellum or parchment, though. A third and more personal reason is that I find it technically interesting.

As well, although I do not find this particularly motivating, India ink is period—even in the West, although iron-gall nut ink (which instead of clogging will corrode a fountain pen very quickly) is more appropriate, if much more suitable for vellum or parchment than paper proper. Further, while steel nibbed pens are not quill pens, they use essentially the same principle.

I'm hoping to pick up more nibs and perhaps more bottles of ink tomorrow, because this has fired my interest. Some of those nibs will invariably be suitable for calligraphy, because I happen to find the Carolingian miniscule quite beautiful.