To produce ink sticks - or ink cakes, as they are often called - soot is pounded thousands of times into minute particles. When a glue (often deer bone glue) has been added, the mixture is pounded and kneaded into ink sticks of a multitude of shapes and sizes. Old sticks are considered the best - at least mentally. Ink sticks can be highly and beautifully decorated. Some sticks are marked with the amount of pounding they received (the higher the better) and some show date of manufacture (the older the better). Some sticks are shaped as temple bells. They are soft, and mostly used for copying old inscriptions on stones (c.f. brass rubbings).

Pearls, Dots, and Quality

The top quality Chinese ranges are often marked with a small pearl, inserted into the ink stick. In Japan, "dots" can be found on top of the ink stick, denoting class of quality. Five dots are maximum. These dots are normally printed on the box label, too. However, what is "quality" in this context? Please remember that most ink sticks are supposed to be used on an extremely absorbent paper. The amount of spread, (feathering, or blurring) on eastern papers is incredible - and often a wanted feature, since a skilled eastern type calligrapher govern the spread by altering his brush stroke speed. Some inks are to be used heavily diluted, to produce perfect and homogeneous blue, brown, red, or gray shades of black. When used on normally sized (= glued) Western papers, they behave in quite a different manner. An ink which looks really black on a western paper can look gray on eastern papers.

Ink for different tasks

In Japan, you can choose between sticks made for drawing, for Kana, and for Kanji (they differ in glue type). You can pick sticks made for different kinds of paper. And all of these can be had in different price levels. Incidentally, low-to-middle quality Japanese sticks are sold in cardboard boxes, while high quality ones are delivered in wooden boxes. Chinese manufacturers seem to use the same kind of box for every kind of stick.

Sticks can crack!

Newly made, low quality ink sticks have a nasty tendency to crack into small pieces when stored in Western houses, especially in those with electric heating. The Eastern climate is much more humid than ours, and when exported, the sticks have to get used to our dry climate gradually. It seems as old sticks are more safe against cracks. Cracked pieces can still be used, of course, even if they are not so nice to look at.

Why use stick ink?

But why use stick ink, when so many factory made, liquid inks are available? The answer is easy: using stick ink, you, yourself are able to govern to thickness and fluidity, to suit your pen, paper, desk slope, and writing style precisely. Look at the beautifully thin thin strokes you can make, look at the sharpness of the edges of your letters, look at their beautiful blackness...

How to make uniform ink

The blackness of the ink is a function of paper, ink quality, pen, ink stone, water (I normally use distilled water), and amount of rubbing on the ink stone. For a small task, I pour 3-4 drops of water onto my favourite ink stone, and rub the ink stick gently against the surface 200 times (= 200 movements to-and-fro on the surface). In this way, I am able to duplicate the same blackness again. Hold the stick so that the picture and/or text is readable, and start grinding the stick from its bottom. The top is where the quality mark is.

Do not make the ink angry!

Do not use too much force when rubbing. If small bubbles form, it means that you rub so hard that the friction heat is too high, and the nice properties of the glue are destroyed. If bubbles form, you have made the ink angry, according to a Chinese saying. Please note that different ink stones have different degrees of abrasiveness, some are coarse, some smooth. To take two extremes: imagine rubbing the ink stick on a coarse sand paper and compare the result when rubbing it on a glass dish. You may need 50 rubbings - or 500 - to get the ink really black. Test for yourself, until you are satisfied with the result. The amount of grinding needed also depends on how fine the soot particles are. The higher the price of the stick, the finer the particles (normally) - and, consequently, the more rubbing is called for.

Three main categories

Low quality sticks are made from any kind of soot, even from mixtures of soot. You can, for instance, find sticks marked "General soot ink", and "Selected soot ink" at the very bottom of the price list. Normally, however, ink sticks belong to either of three categories:

• Vegetable oil soot ink
• Pine soot ink
• Petroleum based or Synthetic oil soot ink

Vegetable oil soot ink seems to be the most common type nowadays. The quality of vegetable oil soot ink is governed by the thickness of the wick, used when burning the oil. Its colour has a tendency towards reddish brown. The immediate impression is somewhat thinner than the pine soot variety. It shows a good reflection. Thanks to the absence of impurities, the changes with age are small.

Pine soot ink is made by burning small pieces of wood, resin, or roots. The soot particles are relatively large. It looks thick and soft. It has less reflection than vegetable oil soot ink, which makes the ink look blacker. It's colour has a tendency towards blueish-black. Because of the impurities, pine soot ink will change somewhat with age (more or less depending on its quality).

For Synthetic oil soot ink sticks, the soot is obtained from a gas flame. As raw material, carbon black from natural gas, naphtha, and creosote are some types used.

Which to choose?

Traditionally, vegetable oil soot ink is believed to be the best ink. However, this may stem from the times when oils were very expensive, and people always have an understandable tendency to think that what's expensive must be good. In practice, pine soot ink has more "weight", and a more a vivid blackness. The older the stick gets, the better - within reason. Personally, I use both these types. For calligraphy, my favorite is "Yellow Mountain Pine Soot Ink", which behaves nicely and produces a good blackness. For illumination purposes, when a shading without ugly transitions is called for, few ink sticks can beat a class 101, vegetable oil soot ink. Also see page Some Typical Ink Sticks.

Back to Table of Contents.