McCaffery's Penman's Ink

I very much enjoy using MaCaffery's inks. I love them.

McCaffery's Inks are just the right consistency -- straight out of the jar -- for Copperplate and Engrossers scripts. I use McCaffrey's black ink, an iron gall ink, and love the delicate hairlines. But if I am designing a wedding invitation that will be printed, I use his Prairie Night ink or Old World Gall Ink. The printer needs thicker, blacker hairlines.

Iron Gall Inks, such as Black McCaffery's Penmen's ink, are prized for their ability to produce fine hairlines as well as dark shades in pointed pen work. If you are looking for a thicker, denser black, say for pointed pen work that will be reproduced, you can look to a pigmented ink, such as Moon Palace or Best Bottle Sumi (they may need some thinning to work well in a pen). Your letters will be a blacker black and the thins will be thicker and the printer will be happy. Old World Gall Ink is an Iron Gall ink that also has pigment, so it produces results more similar to Sumi.

I love this ink for my copperplate. I do not need to add any gum arabic to it. I do have one problem. When I get within 1/2 inch of the bottom of the jar the ink becomes thick. I added distilled water to it but it still will not flow a well a the top section of the jar.

I've been using this ink exclusively in my maps (and other reproduction 19th Century paperwork) for almost a decade. I absolutely love it.

Well, the above poster is entitled to their opinion but this is the closest thing IMHO to the ink of old. It will go on grey but in a hour or so the shades will be rich and the hairlines a very, very, thin pale grey. This is exactly what one wants for Ornamental Penmanship. Now it's quite possible you might want an ink with blacker shades and strong hairlines for copperplate or E.S. but that is not what this ink does well. I would put Blots a close second but even that ink cannot pull the faint hairlines of McCaffs!

I have many other calligraphers using McCaffrey's Ink, and so was excited to try it out. But when I did so, I found that it was much more watery than I'd expected. I never achieved the ink consistency that I liked... maybe I need to add some arabic gum to thicken it up a little, but overall, I wasn't impressed enough to buy more.