Tuesday, May 3, 2016

A Modern Form of Permanence

We spoke about Iron-Gall inks and their long lasting archival qualities here and there are some new inks on the market using Iron-Gall. What about permanence of an ink without resorting to paper rust?

I have not hidden my love of Noodler's Ink and there are many reasons as to why I prefer these inks but the main one reason is all of the wonderful, permanent inks made by Nathan Tardif of Noodler's Ink.

Noodler's Ink caused a stir in the pen community with these inks and Nathan still likes to push the envelope and to rustle feathers. I see no issue here. In my opinion, ink should be permanent. Why bother to write anything if it can all be erased by a water spill, an encounter with bleach or even light fading it over time? The whole purpose of ink is the preservation of thoughts and ideas. Non-permanent inks have a purpose too and tend to have amazing shading qualities and bring out the whimsy I am fond of.

Nathan even took it a step further and once offered up a challenge where top prize warranted $1,000. The challenge was to remove his ink from the page without damaging the paper. One person did this and became $1,000 richer. This fella used a laser to remove the ink from the paper making it look like it was never there. Nathan's answer? Make ink that is laser proof. So was born the Warden series of ink and are noted by the word "bad" in their names. Bad Black Moccasin, Bad Blue Heron, Bad Belted Kingfisher and Bad Green Gator make up the warden series of ink.

Noodler's Ink has Eternal inks which are archival and fade resistant. Bulletproof inks that are UV resistant and waterproof. Forgery proof inks are a staple of Noodler's Ink and I love that. Not all of Noodler's Ink products are permanent and even those inks are special as Noodler's Ink makes some very unique behaving inks. Noodler's has put out a PDF file with all of their inks properties. Check it out here http://noodlersink.com/wp-content/uploads/NoodlersInkProperties.pdf

Other companies have come out with "document" inks which are to be their archival type inks and they are fine but so many ink manufacturers have little to no water resistance in their inks and depending on your preference is fine. I prefer a more permanence to my journaling, thoughts and stories. When I wish to play around and be creative, I will pull out the fun inks like Apache Sunset which looks like you are writing with liquid fire and has no permanence.

My point is Iron-Gall is not the only way to have permanent, archival ink as was used for centuries. Modern ink can bond to the cellulose of paper without oxidation and is much more pen safe. It is good to know what is out there when you want to preserve a part of you for generations.

This post is not solicited by Noodler's Ink nor by Nathan Tardif. These are my opinions based off of trial and error and my experience. I have purchased all of my inks and have not received any compensation for this post.

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