Glass Dip Pen Ink

[sherrardk]

What sort of ink do I need for a glass dip pen? Is it just ordinary writing ink or something different?

[Buenchico]

You have a wider choice of inks available to you when you use a dip pen rather than a fountain pen, because you can use inks which would cause a fountain pen to clog. You can use a standard bottle of Quink if you want but you're not confined to just using it; you can use India ink, for example.

See here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dip_pen

If you want to get artistic though . . .
Amazon.co.uk User Recommendation

[retrocop]

Quink will do the trick I reckon.
Amazing. Only this week I found two nibs that were part of my school order.
Every Monday our form monitor would write a listof form supplies. We always wrote our class work and homework on Quarto lined paper. We had to use a dip pen and were supplied with new nibs as and when they split. The actual pen holders were just shafts of wood and our allocated nibs were slid under the sliding rings under the end. .No Biros or fountain/ Cartridge pens were allowed .
We had powdered ink that was mixed with water in a jug and our desk inkwells were replenished as needed.
Clarke's College. Finchley

[jno]

nib pens? Looxury. Quill pens for us and you had to catch your own goose...

[Jackdaw33]

You'll get a shock when you see the price; it's no longer 2/6 a bottle, the last one I bought was £7.99!

[woofgang]

same here retro. When we went from pencil to pen it was dip pen and we had penmanship classes. Absolutely no biros. In the last two years of primary we were allowed to use a fountain pen but it had to be inspected by our teacher. In grammar school for O level I did calligraphy so back to a dip pen and Indian ink.

[sherrardk]

I’ve bought a glass dip pen for my eldest daughter so I’m going to need something for her to dip it into.

[Jackdaw33]

We could use our own fountain pens. We were also allowed to use biros in rough workbooks but not copybooks.

[Buenchico]

Search for 'calligraphy pen ink'. e.g.
Amazon.co.uk User Recommendation

[Buenchico]

. . . or, if you just want black:
Amazon.co.uk User Recommendation

[Buenchico]

The Range sell a good range of drawing inks and calligraphy inks at sensible prices. (Your nearest store is on Three Elms Road, Hereford):
https://www.therange.co.uk/arts-and-crafts/art-supplies/ink/#sort=relevance&page=1&lpp=96

[sherrardk]

Thanks Buenchico, might send himself to pick some up - the ones on Amazon seem a bit pricey.

[Mamyalynne]

The small Winsor & Newton ones are a good starter size and you can get her a few colours - I have used those.

[retrocop]

In my school we were issued with a Copy Book. It was really the Clarke's College book of Calligraphy.
There were about 10 national branches of this school and there was an annual handwriting competition between all the branches.No wonder we were as thick as *** with few qualifications.We had to spend all day practising wriing pages from our bloody school magazine. Every ten lines or so you had to present your copy to the teacher to inspect and one blot or slight error would result in it thrown in the bin. How awful to get to the end of a long script and have to start again because your nib smudged. I could quite happily have killed those invigilators as a young lad.

[retrocop]

Memories

Glenda Bell (Finchley)

Hello from Canada:

Through Google I just stumbled upon the website and am excited to have found all the history of Clark's College and memories from ex-students.

My name is Glenda Saunders (nee Bell) and I attended the Finchley branch from 1945 to 1949. The first two years I took the general education program and the last two years the commercial certificate courses. After I graduated Mr. Savage recommended me for a position as Secretary to the Pathology Department at Barnet General Hospital where I happily worked until 1955 when I married and emigrated to Toronto. Since 1977 I have lived in Vancouver, British Columbia.

I remember Mr. Savage very well. He taught Math and English and used to quietly enter the classroom and if there was some chattering going on he would wrap his walking stick on the door or blackboard and we would all jump to attention. I think it was 1948 when there was an inter-branch handwriting contest. With his guidance all students practiced for weeks and we did manage to win.