Ink for steel pen and "ordinary" paper

Question

When using a steel pen, such as Speedball, on ordinary inexpensive paper, the ink bleeds and the result ranges from ugly to illegible. I have done a lot of genealogical research of 19th century handwritten records that have been reproduced on microfilm, and the results are good.

Does this mean that 19th century ledgers had better paper than the ledgers available today, or did they use a different ink? Is there an ink available today that will give good results with a steel pen and ordinary 21st century paper?

Answer 1

It is often not about the ink. And decent waterproof ink works well... It's more about the paper.

For all my final pen and ink work I really prefer Borden & Riley Paris Bleedproof Paper For Pens.
It is by far the best paper for ink work I know - whether it's calligraphy, ink washes, ballpoint.. et. al.

However, you do have to be careful to let the ink dry, 'cause it ain't gonna soak in much.

I'll use 100% rag vellum for rough stages, which works very well too, then use the Borden & Riley paper for final passes.

Standard bond paper is just too absorbent for most pen and ink work in my opinion. IT's fine for rough sketches or preliminary ideas, but once you start trying to nail down something with more refinement, you really need better quality paper. Bond paper, even "good" bond paper has teeth... small fragments of the cotton that will catch a nib or an ink drip and blowout a line. Vellum or the Paris paper won't have these. You'll get clean sharp , crips, lines all the time.

Answer 2

Yeah, that's normal, if by ordinary paper you mean like general purpose copier/printer paper. That kind of paper isn't generally designed for writing on, especially not with proper pens. It's the lowest of the low.

You probably need to buy something a bit better quality. However, I have found that regular Xerox Universal 80GSM copier paper is quite nice for practising pen work/calligraphy. Obviously, you'll want something a bit thicker if you are writing something for a client. Also note that back in the day, they often used parchment/vellum (not paper) for legal records. It was (and still is) horrendously expensive in comparison to cheap paper. A single book often required a whole herd of cows/goats!