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Thinner inks spread out in a thinner layer - I can stick a little ball of gel ink on a picture and even make a little texture in it, but this doesn't happen as
by Broken_Hippo 6y ago
Thinner inks spread out in a thinner layer - I can stick a little ball of gel ink on a picture and even make a little texture in it, but this doesn't happen as well with thinner ink. The thinner layers have more surface area, making evaporation faster.
You can see the effect with paint, too: Spray paint vs normal wall paint, for example. Also, when dehydrating fruits and vegetables, thin slices dry out faster (I know this isn't viscosity per se, but still with the surface area and thickness).
I'm going to guess that there are other things at play here too (how water gets trapped, etc), but I really don't know the science behind it.
- bernulli 6y agoGood points - but here the ink is still trapped in its enclosure and we don't want it to spread at all when we're not writing.
- Broken_Hippo 6y agoSpeak for yourself - I use more ink for art than writing :) Realistically, though, this still happens when writing. The thinner ink puts out a thin layer of ink when you write: The gel ink builds up a little bit. You can make little lines in a pool of gel ink in ways you can't do with a regular ink pen. Different ink moves differently, even when it is in a pen.
- bernulli 6y agoHaha, fair enough. But what I mean is that the whole discussion in the article is about ink that still in its compartment inside the pen, prior to writing/drawing/etc. It has nowhere to go and cannot spread.