Composition
Because fountain pens operate on the principle of capillary action, ink for them is almost exclusively dye-based. Pigment-based inks (which contain solid pigment particles in a liquid suspension) tend to clog the narrow passages of the pens. Some pigmented inks do exist for fountain pens, but these are uncommon. India ink, a carbon pigment-based ink, also contains a binder (such as shellac), which can quickly clog such pens. The ideal fountain pen ink is free-flowing, free of sediment, and non-corrosive. These qualities may be compromised in the interests of permanence, manufacturability, and in order to use some widely available dyes.
Read more about this topic: Fountain Pen Ink
Famous quotes containing the word composition:
“There was not a grain of poetry in the whole composition of Lord Fawn, and poetry was what her very soul craved;Mpoetry, together with houses, champagne, jewels, and admiration.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“Viewed freely, the English language is the accretion and growth of every dialect, race, and range of time, and is both the free and compacted composition of all.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“The composition of a tragedy requires testicles.”
—Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)