Pen and Ink

Brown Paper Packages

Not tied up with string but a Jiffy bag with a self adhesive closure - doesn’t scan as well.

Biting the Bullet

Someone in the illustration class at Putney School of Art and Design was asking if there is any kind of waterproof ink you can use in fountain pens - like the Rotring Art Pen. I’d asked this question of The WelkinReticulum myself and found two. Noodlers Bulletproof Black and de Atramentis Document Ink. I hadn’t tried either so couldn’t say how good they were or if they gunked up your pens like Indian ink does.
I bit the bullet and ordered some Noodlers Bulletproof on Monday evening, it was waiting for me when I got home on Wednesday.

Testing, testing…

I filled up my ancient extra fine Rotring Art Pen and have done a couple of sketches with watercolour wash over the top and it is waterproof. Amazing! According to the blurb on Noodlers website, it reacts with the cellulose in the paper to work its magic, rather relying on shellac like Indian ink. It was originally created to thwart forgers. It can’t be bleached or washed out, and it’s those characteristics that make it attractive to artists.
Time will tell what effect it has on the pen and nib. If there are no contraindications I’ll load up the TWSBI.

Galling

The other little bottle in the package contained Diamine Registrar's Ink. Made in Liverpool. I’ve been hankering after some of this for ages, partly because it feels like you have to be a member of a secret society to use it - like the Platignum Man from Uncle pen with invisible ink I had when I was a kid - and because it’s an iron gall formula that you can use in a fountain pen. Most iron gall ink would rot the guts out of it.
The colour was a paler blue than I expected, just like regular blue ink, but it darkens as you write. After a minute or two it becomes a deep blue black. I have an old bottle of iron gall ink - made to a medieval formula - that writes a pale insipid grey but quickly darkens to black on contact with the paper and air, but you wouldn’t put it in a fountain pen. It does nasty things to steel nibs, Brother Richard of the (Parenthetic) order of St. Reatham in the Vale would have used a goose quill.

On the line which is dotted…

After Mam died and the formalities had to be taken care of, we all traipsed down to the registry office in Cottingham Green (which is actually black as it’s a car park) to do the reqwyrt and sign the official documents.
The registrar had half a dozen Lamy Safari pens of different colours neatly laid out on her desk. She handed my Dad a form to sign and he picked up a pen. I like to think she gently slapped him on the wrist, but I’d be embroidering the story. She gently, but firmly explained that he must use this pen as it contained special ink that doesn’t fade.
So, my Diamine Registrar's ink is in a clear Lamy Safari Vista, just like the professionals.
I wrote a couple of lines with the Noodlers and the Registrars’ ink, let them dry then brushed water over them. Neither of them smudged or feathered.
I’m now using the Registrar's ink in my journals. In a thousand years when only my bones, my boots and my journals remain. Archaeologists (probably aliens, as we’ll have annihilated each other by then either by intent or neglect) will discover them and they will become known as The St. Reatham Codex.

So where can we get our mitts on some of these madjicke potions Awa Rich?

Noodlers Bulletproof Black

http://www.purepens.co.uk/acatalog/Noodler-s-Bulletproof-Black-Ink-798.html

Diamine Registrar's ink

http://www.purepens.co.uk/acatalog/Diamine-Registrars-Ink.html

deAtramentis Waterproof Document Ink

http://www.thewritingdesk.co.uk/showproduct.php?brand=De+Atramentis&range=Document+Ink&cat=ink&subr=