An inky survey (via the Pen Addict)

[catbert]

Community member Dr. Nicole Sharp put together a survey to collect data around the perceptions of wetness and dryness as it relates to fountain pen inks. A note from Dr. Sharp in the Pen Addict Slack is below:

“As many of you know, I study the physics of fluids, and I've teamed up with a rheologist to look at the characteristics of different fountain pen inks. We'd like to correlate our scientific findings with how people perceive different inks, and, to that end, we've created this survey. We're asking you to rank the listed inks on a scale of 1 (extremely dry) to 10 (extremely wet) based on your own experience. If you've only used one of the inks, that's fine, just rank that one. Used a bunch of them? Awesome, rank them all!

The more FP users we can get info from, the better we can correlate our rheological results with the subjective ones, so please share the link and encourage your pen friends to participate.”

https://www.penaddict.com/blog/2023/...lease-fill-out

[Yazeh]

Thanks for posting this link.

I tried to fill the form, but I'd only tried a few of the inks and that a long time ago (Sazerac and Soft Snows of Ohara). I could have guessed my way and said both were dry (TAG inks and orange inks are "often" dry.
But I'm not sure if I agree with the wet/ dry definition. I would've gone with lubricated /dry definition.
What do you guy think?

[Chrissy]

It can be subjective and a personal choice to distinguish between wet and dry and well lubricated and not lubricated. For me ink flow either feels wet and even looks glistening wet when it appears on the paper, or it feels dry because it's more difficult for it to get through to the nib tip from the ink source in the pen and there is significantly less ink on the paper. Dry flow can also mean you feel like you need to press on more when trying to get the pen writing nicely or worse you need to shake the pen.

Lubrication for me is how smooth it feels to write with across the page. Even if an ink looks wet (and glistening) on the paper doesn't mean it feels smooth and lubricated when you write across the paper with it. If it feels scratchy and there is feedback then it isn't well lubricated but the line might still look wet and glistening and it might not have been difficult to get it to write. Therefore I would say the flow is wet or reasonably wet, but the ink has poor lubrication. Poor lubrication doesn't always mean the ink has dry flow and smooth lubrication doesn't always mean it's a wet ink.

That's just the way I do it.

[LizEF]

A dry ink will look wetter on the page longer than a wet ink. A lot of people judge wet / dry by how an ink looks, not by actual volume output. Further, as Chrissy said, a lot of people conflate lubrication and flow. The opinions will be all over the board...

[catbert]

The creator of the ink survey posted some clarifications about her approach and choices.

https://nicolesharp.com/2023/11/clar...he-ink-survey/

[TSherbs]

I filled it out, but I had only used one of the inks

[Herry]

The HEB survey was a fantastic opportunity for me to share my thoughts and suggestions directly with the company. It's evident that heb survey values its customers and wants to ensure they have the best possible experience. I can't wait to see the improvements they implement based on the feedback they receive.