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The
ballpoint pen scored over the fountain pen on many points. The most
important one was that the ubiquitous ink mark was done away with.
One could carry the ballpoint pen around anywhere and keep it in any
position. Of course, improvisations were bound to happen and
smoother and faster drying inks soon made their appearance.
Further improvements gave us fiber tip pens. Japanese writing, which
was traditionally done with a pointed ink brush, was laborious to
duplicate with a ballpoint pen. The Japanese therefore invented the
fiber tip pen, which was ideally suited to their style of writing.
Yukio Horie of Japan invented the first practical fiber tip pen in
1962. The ‘ink’ used in the fiber tip pen is more of a dye than
ink. This gave it the advantage of being almost indelible. An added
attraction was the wide range of colors. The tip of a fiber tip pen
is made of fine synthetic fiber. The dye reaches the tip through
capillary action.
As we have
seen now, the type of ink used in different types of pens is
different. The main components of any type of ink are a dye and a
medium of dispersal for the dye. The different types of inks used
are writing inks, drawing inks, printing inks, and invisible inks!
Remember Enid Blyton?
The
earliest writing ink was called India ink and was almost indelible.
This was because they were made of lampblack mixed with a gum. Not
all writing inks are black in color, are they? Mixing synthetic
dyes with gum makes the different colored inks.
Ink used in
fountain pens needs to flow freely, hence a special substance to
enable such movement is added to inks meant for fountain pens. This
ink, as we know, dries very fast too, in fact almost as soon as it
reaches the paper on which it is being used. The ink used in ball
point pens is much more concentrated. However, this ink too dries as
soon as it is out of the pen. Inks that are used for printing have
varnish as the medium for the dye. The process used for
manufacturing inks now incorporates the benefits of all the
improvements made through the years. |
