Fountain Pens

Dear Red Platinum Preppy, If you wanted to be an eyedropper filler, you could have just asked. You did not have to spontaneously split your cartridge and send hot pink ink sloshing all over the inside of the barrel. Nice seal on those threads even without silicone, though. New rule: Noodler's Bulletproof inks only go in cheap, easily replaceable pens. There was so much stuff in my poor pink Cavalier, I think I'm going to run a load of J. Herbin through it to try to redissolve/suspend some of it. Just rinsing wouldn't do it. Sadly, most of my Esterbrooks meet the criteria of of cheap and easily replaceable. Not the Icicle (no way in hell), but right now I've got a plain black SJ with strange shrinkage issues filled with Zhivago (which is actually near bulletproof). Once that's empty, well, I've got a Platinum Preppy that wants to be an eyedropper filler. ;)

Kati-chan done good.

Pens arrived today! The pink Cavelier is nice. Except it has a squeezey converter, and I hate squeeze fillers. The bar seems pretty substantial, though, some maybe it'll be OK.

The Tucky, though. Sa-weet! It is carmine, but beautifully bright and clear, and the transparent section is just about PERFECT. I'm eager to get it restored; I think it'll be a great little pen. I'd definitely prefer to go the Fountainbel (less invasive) restoration method with this little guy. Alas, we've already got four pens with Dillo between Laura and I, so I should probably wait until we get those back and I can try Regulus Black's pen, which will be repaired with that method. (What Regulus was doing with a women's pen, I don't know, but I'm not willing to ask too hard. ^_~ Maybe he likes a bit of a breeze about his pen cap. *<:^) )

*does the Happy Djinn dance*

Buttloads of pen-related toys arrived today. I had orders to both Pendemonium and Pear Tree, and they both came in. I've now quadrupled my supply of bottled Waterman ink (from 1 bottle to 4), which is nice because I like to use Waterman for a pen's first fill and I don't like to have the same color going in more than one pen at once. I like to change which color I write my story in each day so I can tell what I did when. Not that I really have a deep need to know what I did when, but it's nice to be able to.
And a nice bottle of Magenta from Rohrer & Klingner, which I'll probably load up one of my Kulturs with and try tonight.
And a couple of insanely fine Platinum Preppies and a fountain pen ink fed rollerball. I'm hoping one of those will be able to pwn the cheap paper we use at work.

Most importantly, though, my new customized nib from Pendemonium arrived, and that's what's got me doing the happy dance! Yes! THIS is what I tried to order from Binder almost two months ago now. Now, I haven't done a full day's story writing with it and won't get to until tomorrow or Friday, but just testing it out, it feels so smooth! There may be a little less variation than the Binder nib, but it's also usable. And as an extra perk, it cost $40 as opposed to $70.
I'll give an updated opinion in a few days after I've put it through its paces.

Oh, BTW, the Falcon arrived... Monday. It's not quite what I expected. I knew it wouldn't be a highly flexible nib, but I expected it to feel somewhat like a sweet little BCHR I have. That little guy doesn't have any line variation to speak of, but the nib is rather springy, maybe even spongy. The Falcon right out of the box felt rather stiff. However, that seems to be loosening up a little as I use it. The fine nib is also VERY fine. At the same time, though, I don't want to go up to a medium because it would be almost twice as large according to Mottishaw's page, and that would be too big. It is very smooth, though.
Overall opinion: Well, I'm not sure what to say about it, except I find that I keep wanting to go back and use it some more. :)

Yay! I'm getting a Namiki Falcon!

I know I talked about it for a while, but this morning I went and ordered it. World Lux is having a 1-day sale in honor of Feb 29; everything is 15% off their list price. Their price for the Falcon is usually $135, which is not the best but not bad either for it. With the discount, that brings it down to just under $115, hands down the cheapest I've ever seen retail on one. So I went for it. On top of that, some sort of glitch seems to have given me free shipping. ^_^ Even if that gets corrected I'll still be getting it for less than $125 shipped, good price. If the free shipping stands, it'll be a great price! Kati's starting the day great. :)

Oh no. "Snap"? Pens aren't supposed to go "Snap".

And yet snap it did. Last time we were at an antique mall, I picked up a Cub Scout fountain pen. Yeah, Boy Scouts. Sac felt good, so I filled it up with obscenely bright pink ink and tried it out for a while. Nib actually isn't that great. Folded tipping. It feels pretty smooth, and it has a nifty stub effect, but the ink flow isn't so good. Well, got sick of it, decided to empty out the last three drops (I counted) of ink left and rinse it out. While doing that, the sac didn't seem to be re-inflating as quickly as it should, so I thought I should maybe resac it after all. Only, I tried to take the section off, and that bugger is NOT coming. Heat didn't do it, section pliers didn't budge it, and I didn't want to risk breaking it because I plan to resell this pen. (Or, if no one will pay the price I want, keep filling it with painfully girly colors. :) )

So, I decided to just finish rinsing it out, and warn potential buyers that it may need a resac soon. Only as I was filling, "Snap!" The J-bar broke! Right in the pen! Just snapped right under the lever while I was filling it! The thing is, it doesn't look rusted or anything. I do hope it's not a design flaw. It does seem like the lever might be longer than it should be.
...
Although, if the sac is going bad, it may have hardened more near the nipple, where I can't feel it. Maybe the J-bar's end was getting held up there, and so the sac was pushing it down into a bow shape.

I may actually send this one out for professional repair. When I get my vacuum filler back from Binder, I was going to send it to Dillo, so I'm thinking I'll send this along. He'll have more experience with really stuck sections, and he can adjust the nib while it's there, too.
Of course, if I'm going to do that, I'm half tempted to send along a nicer nib if I have one the right size, and have him put it in. ^_~

Oh yeah, Jinnayah's gettin' herself a new nib.

...
Doesn't quite have a ring to it, does it?
My 0.5 mm cursive italic nib from Binder sucks. Bad. It's rough. And since the writing sample included with it (this time, grr) suggests that Binder thinks this is acceptable quality, I'm not inclined to send it back to him AGAIN to get it fixed. Actually, as soon as I get the pen written out of ink, I'm just going to sell it. There are people out there who like a lot of feedback from their nibs; I'm just not one of them. At all. So, this is what the penultimate nibmeister can do, huh? I am unimpressed.

(I am also unimpressed that I'm STILL trying to get the Taccia sorted out, too. It's been in his workshop for a week without so much as a peep beyond 'it's here', so I finally gave up, wrote again, and asked for an update. You know what? I had three items in that order, and they messed up every one of them.)

But ya know what? I learned that Pendemonium does custom nib grinding. Well, I knew that, but it took me a while to figure out how to arrange it. Best of all, the nib grinding fee is only $15. Hell, I'll bite for that. Can't do much worse than Binder did, for less than a third of the grinding cost, and if it's better, I'll (finally) have a nice 0.5 mm cursive italic for $40 -- much better than the $70 the current POS cost.

(I'm resentful about the quality level of my expensive custom nib. Does it show? ^_~)

In any event, at worst I'll end up with another data point on what a fine cursive italic should feel like when writing. Of course, if I don't like Pendemonium's either, I may give Deb Kinney a try. I'd give Mottishaw a go, but I don't know that he'll work on the steel M200 nibs, and I don't want to either pay for gold or wait 6 months to get through his queue with a pen of my own.

While I was ordering from Pendemonium, I was a bad girl and got a bottle of Rohrer and Klingner ink in magenta. Sight unseen except for the monitor swatch, since Pear Tree doesn't carry this brand. Here's hoping I like it. (Like I've ever met a magenta I didn't like. ^_~) And a few other things, but that's the big one, and the one I feel guilty about.

Sadly, I crunched the numbers, and we won't be able to go to the Chicago Pen show this year. But, assuming I'm still on the pen thing, I'm wanting to drive up to Pendemonium and test drive a Namiki Vanishing Point. They fascinate me, but the way I hold my pens and the way they've placed their clips may not get along. I'd like to try one in person. If I like it, I'll get myself one. It not, I'm thinking a Sailor Sapporo. (I don't know if Pendemonium carries those. But I'm sure they'll have something I want.)

Let's talk ink

OK, it's more "let's listen to me rant about inks".

First, international short cartridges: Whose stupid idea were these things? I bet it was someone in marketing. "Hey, let's find out the smallest amount of ink a pen user will tolerate having available in a fill, and build pens around that! And then we can sell lots and lots of carts because they're so bloody small!"
Seriously, one of those things would probably hold maybe a day or two of ink for me. What a pain in the hinder.
____
Next...
You know, I want to support privately owned American businesses. But I'm ready to make an exception for Noodler's. I'm starting to feel towards Nathan Tardiff about like Tolkien. I'm not really thrilled with his work to start with, but his fans push me right over the edge.

What are my problems with Noodler's?
1) He mistakes quantity for quality.
a) Most of his inks are over-saturated, in the scientific sense. There is so much pigment that the ink base cannot hold it, and it falls out of solution. This leads to poor performance and clogging problems in pens. On paper, it causes slow dry times and smearing after dry. Let me really stress this: the excessive amount of pigment is a serious detriment to the performance of the ink. And yet if you point this out and suggest that he'd be better to balance with amount of pigment with the amount of carrier, he pulls out his favorite straw man. You see, if you don't like his overly saturated inks, you must "desire a weak ink akin to food coloring". That is a direct, word for word quote. Yes, you want his ink or you want diluted food coloring. There's nothing in between.
b) His ink bottles are often full to the point where it's hard to open them the first time. Of course, I'm sure if you pointed this out, he'd mock you for wanting less product. No, I don't want less ink; I want more bottle.
2) He puts his conservative politics in your face. Now, I do generally try to buy blue from corporations where I can, but privately-owned businesses, I'm not going to judge on the owner's politics unless he makes it an issue. Nathan does. From his "Iraqi Indigo" ink to the kerfluffle he purposely stirred up with his "would anyone call me a racist if I named an ink 'Heart of Darkness'?" thread to removing the mL measurements from his bottles because he's pissed about European regulations, he keeps forcing his political views into nonpolitical items, and often mocking the opposite side.
3) He's recently taken to answering complaints about product quality with whining about his business financials. Look, Nathan, your financially viable return rate has absolutely no bearing on whether one of your inks will instantly stain modern pens or not.
4) And in general, a constant attitude of victimhood whenever addressing the community, combined with a clear "I cannot possibly make mistakes, so the error must be yours. It's not my inks that's the problem; it's your use of them" or the pen company or whoever else is convenient and not him.
5) Questionable "tests" to show the superiority of his inks. The most famous is his pH test using aluminum foil -- a material not used in pens due to its reactivity with ink ingredients in general. But the only that really pushed me over was his "freeze" test with a bottle of water. He says it froze to the point of breaking the bottle in less than 80 minutes at 22F (-5.5C). There's only one way that would happen: he filled the bottle ALL the way to the top. No one with any sense, and no good ink company, would do that.

Now, let me share two specific examples which have led me to the "throw up my hands and give up" stage.
First, Nathan recently released a new ink called Baystate Blue, an eye-seeringly bright blue. This ink instantly stained the section of a brand new pen. In the time it took to dip the pen, fill it, and wipe it off, the pen was permanently, irreparably stained. Ammonia wouldn't take it off. Bleach wouldn't take it off. It ain't coming off. Someone later tried it on acrylic pen blanks (for lathe workers) and found the same result. This ink permanently stains the materials many pens are made of. What were Nathan's responses to this?
First post:
1) He quickly pulled out his favorite straw man again, the "if you don't want my ink, you want food coloring in water" one.
b) started whining about low profit margin, high taxes, European regulations, and return rates. What this has to do about the staining characteristics of this particular ink is anyone's guess.
c) threatened to pull Baystate from the market if return rates exceeded 3%. This caused a run on the ink. (IMHO, the people who bit are now getting what they deserve, as it's being widely discovered that the ink is also so prone to feathering as to be largely useless, and that if you really love the color, you're better off with a blue Sharpie marker.)
d) claim that this behavior should be expected because it is a "vintage style ink". And because it is labeled as such, anyone who didn't expect pen staining doesn't know what vintage inks were really like and the fault is thus theirs.

Vintage style ink. *nose wiggle* Well, I'm sure it was an interesting experiment, but I don't think the world really wanted the return of Superchrome 51. :P
(That's a terribly geeky joke. Superchrome 51 was a Parker ink that destroyed pens. When it was released, it would literally eat any pen except for one that was specifically designed for it, the Parker 51, and even those didn't do wonderfully with it.)
What a load of bullshit! My pen box is filled with cheap vintage users -- pens that were used and abused with impunity every day of their lives until they were thrown in a drawer with a full load of ink and left with it there for 40 years or more. Let's go and find one that was stained by real vintage inks, shall we?
Let's see... Um... Hmm. I don't see a lot of stains. What about that green tip dip I gave Laura? No, they came off with water. Red Esterbrook? Nope, came off with Simichrome, and good old pen cleaner probably would have done it if we'd had some.
OK, how about visulated sections? They're supposed to be terribly prone to staining. Surely one of THOSE has been stained by a vintage ink. Um... Nope. I can line up half a dozen Touchdowns of various models, including one I've just been working on that I've been soaking for DAYS to get all the old ink residue out of, and every one of them is perfectly clear, maybe ambered with age but not an ink stain in sight.
Vintage inks did not stain pens when used properly.

Nathan also likes to keep repeating what a "small" company Noodler's is. I question how useful that statement is regarding a company that sold product on five continents until just recently, and still sells on four.

Some of his fans took his statements and ran with them, basically boiling them down to "ink stains, duh."
Not only is this rude, it's not true. Actually, most fountain pen inks do NOT stain permanently. Many can be washed right out of paper and other fibers. This is also, perhaps moreso, true with vintage inks, as I was inadvertently forced to prove this morning. (While standing on carpet, do not play with the newly restored filler of a pen you've been soaking to get ink residue out of. But, the 50-year-old ink came right out with a little water. ^_^;)

So, Nathan's second response:
a) ink stains. Duh.
b) Oh, poor me, living in a lawsuit happy country. (That's, um... where did that even come from? And lawsuit-happiness is FAR overstated from truth in the U.S.)
c) Threats to completely drop a retailer who did not want to keep carrying Baystate Blue due to its risks.
d) Blame the plastics that the pen is made from, because obviously the problem must be with the pen since it can't handle his vintage-style ink. (Besides my counter-argument above, I'd also like to point out that LOTS of people use vintage inks -- actual 50-year-old inks -- in their modern pens without problems.)

Suffice to say, I lost a lot of respect for Nathan for the way he handled this. And then, the final straw: Polar Bear Inks.
Polar bear inks were originally formulated to be liquid at temperatures down to -114F. Thus, they performed best at -20F, and started to suck above 30F. Now, obviously this is going to have a very niche market -- people running cold room tests, working outside in arctic conditions, and... that's about it. Not realizing its odd temperature range, people bought it, had poor results at room temperature, and returned it at a rate higher than his 3% threshold (as he again likes to remind people of in his explanation.)
Nathan whines that he had a four-panel informational explaining this and telling how to mix it for better properties, and retailers didn't like it. Dumbass. Proper labelling, if I may say so? "For temperatures from -100F to 30F. Will not work at room temperature." None of this four-page shit. Short, simple, to the point, no confusion.
But, that's beyond Nathan, So he reformulated the ink so that it's usable at higher temps. To do this, it partially freezes but is still usable at 22F. Colder temperatures, like those found in a normal kitchen freezer, will freeze it solid.
Small problem. Nathan apparently neglected to inform some key people about this change. Many retailers still advertise it as being good to -120F. Absolutely everyone who wrote in on FPN was shocked when a member's bottle froze solid in his kitchen freezer, and several advised him that he must have gotten a bad bottle* and should contact Nathan.

*Any time there's a problem with Noodler's ink, the immediate Cult of Noodler's knee-jerk is "oh, you must have gotten a bad bottle." It's an anomaly, it must be. If they were right, it still wouldn't be a positive, because Nathan would have such a high fail rate that I'd wonder if he had any QC at all.

You know, I see an ethical problem here. Nathan HAD to know when he formulated the original that it would be a very niche market. I don't have a problem with him discontinuing that, or with developing a more mass-market friendly "chilly weather" ink. But I have a serious problem with him using the same name and not informing retailers or buyers that the formula was VASTLY different. May I suggest that perhaps he would have been better with a "Polar Bear" niche ink labeled as I stated above, and a second "Penguin" or "Husky" ink for the less extreme temperatures?

So, I'm a coin filler. I sit here and be a coin filler.

Yes, pen stuff.

I won a little antique Eagle coin filler on eBay cheap ($9 shipped), most likely made between 1910 and 1924, and it arrived today. Sadly, I don't forsee it being a regular user. First, it has a trident feed, which IIRC were designed to get around someone else's patent, and are known for having irregular flow. More significantly, the top of the cap is just tabs of folded-over metal from the cylinder, and there's no inner cap. You can see straight through it. That'll make the nib dry out quickly. Worse, combined with the huge air holes of a trident feed, it may make the reservoir dry out quickly. And on top of all that, one of the nib's tines is bent, AND it's untipped. So, it's basically a demo model. BUT, since I mainly wanted a coin filler for the novelty of having one, and the price was definitely right, I'm happy anyway. :)

I'm becoming less and less pleased with my Binder order. The nib I sent back arrived today, but hasn't been looked at yet. :P But, on top of that, remember how I had problems with the Taccia I ordered at the same time? It would stop writing during pauses, sometimes even just the pause between words, so I had cleaned it out and put it away until I was less frustrated. Well, today I started thinking about filling it up and trying it again, and it suddenly hit me what must have been wrong with it. I came home, looked at the nib under a loupe, and I was right: it's baby bottomed. This is when the inner edges of a nib tip around the slot are curved so much that capillary action holds ink within the curve instead of delivering it to the paper. Once you get it going, it'll keep feeding ink, until something stops the flow -- like a pause in writing or even lifting from the page to start a new word. Sound familiar? I now really am beginning to doubt whether my order was given the advertised inspection and adjustment. This is an obvious problem. It never should have made it into my hands.

I have requested a refund for it, although it's not in compliance with his usual return policy. That stated policy on his webpage doesn't give me a good feeling, but I'll just have to see what happens.

Now, back to happy stuff. (See how I've got a bullshit sandwich here? ^_~) My happy spiffy good Snorkel arrived today. I think it might be Peacock Blue (a rare color, worth around $150 when restored), but I'm not entirely sure as I've never seen Peacock Blue or a normal aqua in person. Even if it is the normal color, though, I made sure to bid low enough that I could refurbish and resell it without taking a loss, and that's if I sell it. It's a nice pen in its own right, so I very well may keep and use it either way. Eventually a normal aqua pen will end up in this house, and I can compare. I really like the engraving on it: "Best Wishes". :) I've got another snorkel coming that I want to practice on first, though, as I've never repaired a snorkel before. It's just a normal Burgandy, so I can practice with impunity. :)

Sleepy djinn figures she has two choices.

1) I could go to bed. 2) I could babble about fountain pens for a while. So, pens it is! ^_~ I did not have to eat crow regarding the customized italic nib after all. From the photos Laura took of my writing, Mr. Binder doesn't think I'm rotating my pen as I write, and so he asked me to send the nib back so he can check its alignment. Which I did. So now I'm waiting for it to arrive there and get fixed and come home, and hopefully work this time. The "rotating the pen" theory was one I could take or leave. I could believe I'm doing so (although not by much if I am), but at the same time I have other pens I have to rotate the opposite direction to hit their sweet spot (my little pearl-and-white Prick, for one, and the grey Sheaffer tipdip I just fixed last week), and they feel different. This one felt more like it needed to be tipped up rather than twisted back. I do have to say that I think Pelikan makes the nicest fine nibs I've yet tried in my not-terribly-expensive pen explorations. I'm told they have trouble with extra-fines and sizes above medium, but both fine nibs I've gotten have been so smooth. If someone wanted to try a fountain pen for the first time and was OK with the money, I'd definitely suggest an M150 or M200 with a fine nib as a first pen. The M200 marbled colors are lovely if you like them, the black in either is a nice stately pen if you don't, and you can easily (and cheaply) change nibs until you find the size you like without having to buy a whole new pen. The only down side is that either one might be a bit small for some people, but the length is fine if you post the cap, and someone coming from ballpoints isn't going to have any trouble with the diameter. Let's see. Since last I babbled, I finished fixing up two Sheaffer Tip Dip Craftsmans (Craftsmen?), one grey and one burgandy. Sheaffer's burgandy is a very pretty color. I'm about to swear off buying Craftsmen from eBay, though. You see, the sac protectors in the Craftsman pens are made of steel, and will rust when exposed to water. A Touchdown will suck in a small amount of water even if the sac is toast. Many sellers test the pen with water to see if the filler is working, and don't know to open it up and make sure it's dry inside. (Heck, if they knew that much, they wouldn't test with water until they'd cracked it open and made sure the sac was pliable.) Of two I've purchased off eBay, both have arrived with rusted sac protectors. One was past the point of saving -- its carcass is in the parts bin. Except for the section. I'm still trying to get the interchangeable nib out. The second pen just took some steel wool to clean up, thankfully. There is a spot where the rust went through the coating, but it wasn't too bad, so I coated it with carnuba wax to protect it and it should be fine. Nonetheless, I think I'm going to limit Craftsmen to in-person sales. I can tell if one is rusted the moment I turn the blind cap (nothing quite like that crunchy feel), but I have to be able to handle it. Despite that issue, Tip Dips are just totally bitchin' pens. Awesome filling system, easily interchangeable nibs. Best kept secret in pendom. Luckily, Cadet tip dips don't have the problem Craftsmen do. They have a chromed brass sac protector, which survives water ingress much better. And, as an added perk, the one I bought at the same time as the second Craftsman arrived in working order. Just needed a little ink cleaned off the cap, a little grease put on the Touchdown tube, and some ink cleaned out of the nib, and good to go. :) So, there's three pens restored. I also finished with a full sized lever fill (which really only needed a shim on the section and a polish, but still!), and the most adorable little black-and-white gentleman's vest pocket pen. Originally I thought it was a lady's purse pen, but when it arrived it had a stain on the cap where a glued on clip was, and no longer is. The glue stain wouldn't come off, but it isn't terribly obnoxious, and I think it's an interesting part of the pen's history. And also I've got another a mini purse pen to the point where it just needs to be waxed and it's ready for the collection box. I probably overstate the importance of a clip or its absence in determining whether my mini pens were ladies' or gentlemen's, but it's a convenient dividing point nonetheless. I had a humbling realization. I was thinking "I've got to get some of these pens in my work box fixed and turned around so I can get some cash flow back" (for more pens, of course). Then I looked at what's actually IN my workbox. There's the mini pens, but they're mine. There's a couple of first-year Touchdowns, but they're also mine. Then there's some no-name lever fillers I got to practice sac replacements on, before I learned how easy a sac replacement is. *sighs* I'll be lucky if I could break even on those. (Of course, if I can't, I'll keep them to give to friends or something. But still.) So the good news is that, at most, I've got maybe $50 tied up in inventory. But the bad news is I've only got about $50 in inventory. ^_~ I swear Esterbrooks are coated in cocaine or something. Even the good nibs are too rough for my taste, and I keep saying I don't want any more. Yet I find myself continually drawn to them. I keep looking at them for sale. I keep using them. I've actually got two Esties inked up right now. Two! And I am desirous of inking the third. WTF? At least they're easy to fix up. Esties are kind of the old Volkswagon bugs of the pen world. They're easy to fix yourself, they run forever, and they have no heaters. ^_~ I'll also say that Touchdowns are really satisfying to work on. Relatively complex filling system, and yet I can get one (that isn't rusted) in working order in half an hour if you don't count drying time for the shellac. They're just really fun.

Nothing worse than a botched willpower recovery roll.

Because not only were you low on willpower when you started, then you end up even lower when you botch. :P I heard back from Binder, and he thinks maybe I'm twisting the pen and need an oblique nib. Which means I may be eating a little crow, but let me say that it tastes better than trying to swallow those emotions when I'm upset. We'll see. I decide to empty out the Taccia, clean it up, put it back in the pen box, and try it some other time when I'm not already upset at another pen. The way the ink was acting in the converter, I'm wondering if a flush with a little soap might help. (I shouldn't say this, and it's probably completely unfair, but I'm starting to wonder if my package missed the pass with the legendary Binder magic wand that it's supposed to get. I know the M200 nib must have been tested because it dropped a blot of ink onto the card it was packed with, but there wasn't the usual writing sample included in the package either.) I did get the Sheaffer tipdip I was going to pwn worked on. Unfortunately I was still a little upset, and ended up cutting the sac short by about a quarter of an inch. I decided to use it anyway, and it seems to be working fine now. It'll be a little short on ink capacity, but that's OK. Soaked up water OK (and STILL had green ink in the feed after going through the ultrasonic a full 9 times. WTF?!) Once it dries out, I'll fill it with the J. Herbin Bleu Nuit I took out of the Taccia, plus some extra. And I also get a sac put into one of the mini pens, so once it dries out from its own water test, I'll just have to pop it into the body, give the little guy a polish, and he'll be done. Hopefully tomorrow will be more productive. Meh.

Wrecking havok on the fountain pen world

I kind sorta somehow ended up with 8 pens inked, in part because I forgot that dip testing exists when my little Sheaffer ringtop came in. ^_^; (And I finally figured out how to do it right and everything.) So, I told myself that I couldn't ink the new Taccia until I got two of the existing pens emptied out.
Well, the blue Esterbrook FINALLY ran out yesterday (I swear it's been a day away through a week of use), and to my pleasant surprise, so did the Waterman Kultur. Of course, the Kultur goes right back into the rotation, because it is the pen I use to test samples from Pear Tree. But it counts nonetheless!
Actually, I'm kidding there. The other pen I expected to run out when I made that rule is a green-striped vintage Diamond that I repaired, and I've had filled with Parker Washable Blue Quink to test it out. The damn thing is empty; it just won't admit it. No, really, it is. There is nothing in the sac; I've flipped the bar all the way open checking the level. (Kati lives dangerously with her pens. I have a bad habit of checking the ink level of lever fills but slowly using the lever until extra ink appears on the feed.) All the ink is left in the feed, and I just can't quite get it to admit that. But it can't hold out forever, and then I'm filling my Taccia, dammit.


I feel bad. My pen box has six pens that I have yet to ink. And that's going to get worse this weekend, as I plan to do some *takes appropriate voice* EXTREME PEN REPAIR! My repair box has 19 slots, and 18 of them are filled. I'm wanting to take care of as many of those as possible (which just moves them to my user pen box for testing, but what can you do?) I know I can't empty them all out, though. The remains of the rusted Sheaffer tip dip need to stay until I confirm that the one I cleaned mold out of is really clean. (Otherwise I'm swapping sections to get one good pen from the two.) And I've got two first year Sheaffer touchdowns that need bigger sacks than we currently have.

That was actually a little frustrating. I acquired four Touchdowns for the express purpose of learning to repair the system. Of them, one tipdip off eBay arrived rusted beyond saving, and the two standard ones were the first year "fat" models that require larger sacs. And not knowing this, I only ordered the standard Touchdown sac size. But I'm gonnna pwn that grey tipdip today, darn it.

*glances at pen cup* And I won't be able to ink it for a while yet. ;P

--Bwa ha ha! That green Diamond finally admitted it was dry! W00t! --

Now, I could use a little reassurance on this next bit.
Impressions of the customized Pelikan M200 from Richard Binder. Well, overall it's great. Nice variation and shading, easy to use. But, there's two things I don't like about it. First, the sweet spot is a little high for me. I usually hold my pen around 45° to 60° from horizontal; the sweet spot seems to be more in the 60° to 75° range. And, it's a bit dryer than I'd like. I was thinking I'd like nice average flow, not too wet and not too dry, so I asked for a "5" on a scale from 1 to 10. If this is a five, I'm thinking I actually want a 7 or maybe an 8.
In retrospect, I can't blame Richard for the wetness. The nib lays down a nice flat line. No skipping or skimpiness with the ink, but no extra moisture there. Thinking on it, that is a good place to set your "5". It's more than I misunderstood the range across which fountain pens can act, which means I misinterpreted the midpoint.

I'm thinking about contacting him about the sweet spot's vertical location, though. I feel like I have to hold the pen in a death grip to keep it there. I mean, it wouldn't hurt to ask if he would lower it without a fee, would it? (Someone reassure me here. Believe it or not, I'm shy.) The worst he can do is say no, I asked for the wrong range and that's what I got. And if he does I think I can train myself to use it as-is. But he can't say yes if I don't ask, and I'd be happier if I could use it at my usual angle.


OK, enough pens. Lets talk ink. ^_~

I HATE Parker Washable Blue Quink. We got some specifically to use as a tester ink for newly restored vintage pens, and... I just can't do it. It's so BORING! Waterman Florida Blue has character compared to blue Quink!
I'm switching to the Waterman blue-black and the J. Herbins for testing. Those more expertly than I suggest using one ink consistently for testing, but... That's just not in my nature. And really, the important part is that you be familiar with the properties of the ink so you're just judging the pen, and I feel pretty familiar already with the different types I'd be using.

Also, I got some new samples from Pear Tree, and I have very high hopes for J. Herbin Rose Cyclamen as a better-behaved replacement for my Noodler's Saguaro Wine. I'm madly in love with the Saguaro color, but it dries slowly and smears badly; seems I can't use it without ending up wearing some of it. The Rose Cyclamen is a very bright magenta, possibly brighter than the Saguaro, if you can believe that, and seems better behaved. So once my Kultur's converter deigns to dry out, I'm going to load it up with the Rose Cyclamen and give it a whirl.

I love the Pear Tree sampler program, and it's excellent for screening colors. Unfortunately, I think it may take me several pen fulls to really evaluate an inks full properties, so I'm just going to have to accept the possibility of dud ink bottles now and again. Ah well, every other store makes me try to full bottle right off, so there you are.

These are the kinds of problems you want to have.

My customized tiny cursive italic nib arrived today! Which works out nicely, because my Pelikan M200 arrived yesterday, so in five minutes or so I should (knock on wood) be able to assemble what is hopefully a magnificent pen. And of COURSE I'm going to ink it right up. Never mind that I've got... 1, 2...7 pens already inked up (work pen shouldn't count, though). I've got to see if I have actually achieved uberpen status or not, after all. So, I've got to decide what to ink this puppy up with. The Saguaro Wine is my favorite color of the inks present in the house right now this moment and what was used in the sample I loved, but Noodler's is not the nicest of things to do to a brand new pen, nor the best for evaluating a pen's properties. Violette Pensee is my next favorite, but it doesn't shade. None of the J. Herbin inks that I've tried so far do, as lovely as the colors are. (I think J. Herbin is my favorite brand of ink so far.) I think I'll go for the Waterman blue-black. I haven't used it in a while, it's a nice color even if not my favorite, pretty shading, and you can't ask for a better behaved ink for evaluation purposes. And the Taccia arrive to. (Poor thing, destined to be overshadowed from the first.) The garnet red looks very nice in person, and it comes in a sweet zippered faux leather carrying case to boot. I'm not going to ink it up until I get some stuff cleared out of my pen cup, though. BTW, Mergle, I mixed up the Noodler's black/Waterman blue-black on Tuesday night. No precipitates so far, and the ink is just black on paper. I'm not really in a good position to evaluate the quality changes, though, because I put it in a pen I've never used before, so I don't know what's the ink and what's the pen. On my specific Sheaffer Prelude, though, it is the nib creepiest thing ever. Dayum. I've had a little trouble with flow tapering off, although a shake of the pen (I know, I live dangerously) gets it going just fine again, and it stays that way until it's sat for a while. Since it is a brand new pen, the feed probably isn't completely primed is my guess there. But, in any event, no instant pen death in the mix.

Pens Make Everything Better

Despite some trauma with my water heater spraying water all over my basement, the day came out OK because I had some fountain pens arrive, and that makes everything better. Especially the prize among them, a gold-filled Sheaffer ringtop in beautiful condition, with a flexible nib. A nice wet-noodle-y nib WITH fast springback. Very much what I was looking for in a vintage nib. It's a little scratchy, and the pen is quite short even for my itty bitty hands, but a wonderful buy nonetheless.

And that makes me happy. :)

I don't really want to be a Noodler's basher

BUT, if an ink

1. has flow properties that are significantly improved by adding an additional 10-20% of plain water, and
2. sends large flakes cascading through the water when rinsing a just used dip pen, and
3. is infamous for falling out of solution, and
   
4. shows absolutely no loss of darkness when diluted with an equal amount of water
   

then it's not highly saturated, it's over saturated. I'm sorry, but in my humblest of opinions, at that point the additional dye is detriment.

I'm not thrilled with the flow properties of Noodler's black, but I do like the waterproof part. So I thought I'd add some Waterman Blue-black to it and see if I can't get something that flows nicely while still retaining a waterproof component. And if it gets any slight blue shading, bonus. But, before I did that, I wanted to see how far the Noodler's black could be diluted before the black started to lighten, since if it got wet, the Waterman's would wash away and only the Noodler's would be left. So, first I tested by adding plain water to 10 drops of Noodler's ink, one drop at a time, writing a sample with a dip pen after each drop was added.
I stopped at 10 drops of water, which looked identical to the pure black ink. Worse yet, the first drop of water made the ink flow MUCH nicer, and two was pretty good. (After that, it started getting a bit soggy).

I think once my sample bottle dries out, I'll mix up half Noodler's black and half Waterman blue-black and see what happens. It should flow fine, since the Waterman is more viscous than water. It's mainly a question of if the color gets any nifty shading effects, I think.

(In case you're wondering, blue-black is the only Waterman I have right now.)

Now I'm curious to try this with my Saguaro Wine. Maybe a little water would keep it from smearing so easily. But I should have a J. Herbin Rose Cyclamen sample coming any day now, so it may end up being a moot point.

So much for world domination.

My plan to conquer the fountain pen world didn't quite go according to plan. Ordered my marbley blue M200, and a "star trek" nibbed Hero just fine, as well as a glass dip pen hopefully acceptable for testing ink colors. Went to Richard Binder's page, ordered my customized 0.5 mm cursive italic nib just fine, went to get my Royal Purple Taccia Continental... Dammit. Between last night and this afternoon, they sold out of Royal purple. Do I want Royal Purple $20 more than another color? No. Well, do I want one at all if I can't get the one I want at the price I want...? Yes. -_- I talked myself into it. It'd be nice to have another nice converter pen to test ink colors in. (Believe it or not, I've managed to end up with a dearth of cartridge/converter pens. My pen box is invaded by lever fillers and touch-down variants.) And I really want to try a Taccia nib. I ended up ordering a garnet red Continental instead. I won't be completely surprised if I get an e-mail telling me they no longer have it in fine, though. In which case, cracked ice in fine or nothing. I'm not willing to go up a nib size; I write small. I'll confess I was tempted to go ahead and order my Falcon. But, I don't really want to get two REALLY nice pens at once. This way I'll be able to enjoy the customized one for a while, and then I get to get another new toy.

I think I'm going to go get myself on trouble.

I was going to send two nibmeisters requests for suggestions for the custom nib I've been talking about and let them duke it out. BUT, turns out one is in Japan for a few weeks, and there's a smoking crater where my patience is supposed to be, so I'm going with the first. He suggested a 0.5 mm cursive italic for an M200, which will be a custom order. And since I expected either that, a stub italic, or a "there's no way I can do all that in one nib. If you're willing to compromise on...", AND the other guy doesn't generally work on the "tradition" line of Pelikans, it sounds good to me and I think I'll give it a go. So, my master plan to take over the fountain pen world is to order the custom nib and maybe a Taccia Continental Royal Purple from him (because I'm a brat, and he has it the absolute cheapest I've seen, and I know he'll wave his magic nib-checking wand over it before it ships), and order the M200 that it'll go in from isellpens.com along with a cheap Hero "51" clone with one of the "star trek" nibs if they have a color I like, because I'm geeky like that. That'll about clear me out for this month, with a little left for play, and then next month I think maybe if I don't fritter away too much (or I'm smart enough to get it first), I might get a Namiki Falcon.

One part of me says I should wait until the Sheaffer ringtop and the Esterbrook with the 9314-F I've got coming arrive and try them out first. (It insists it's the sensible part.) But another part of me (which I say is the sensible part) says that after trying the Pelikan M150 (ooh... so nice...), there is no way any Esterbrook nib will ever be smooth enough for me, and even if the Sheaffer perfectly recreates the writing I want the way I want, no lever-fill ringtop will ever be able to keep up with a full day of intense story writing. Hell, I've killed full sized lever-fills with that. Can't guarantee an M200 will make it, either, but it's got a better chance and will give me warning if it won't. (Clear ink window, let's you see how much you've got.)

Now I just need to figure out what nib I want to get on the M200 when I buy it. I know from the M150 that I like the fine, but I already have a perfectly nice M150 with a fine nib I like. I'd like to try an extra fine, but Pelikan is somewhat infamous for not doing them well. Of course, it hopefully won't be in there for long, but if I end up not liking the customized nib, it'd be nice to have an easy fallback.

So, there it sits. :)

I admit it; it's just a matter of time.

I am becoming more and more convinced that I'll need a custom nib to reproduce the writing style I want, and I'm becoming more and more eager to get recommendations and estimates on one from professionals. In fact, the only reason I'm not writing nibmeisters right now is that I really want to ink up the Pelikan M150 first. If I don't like the way Pelikans feel in my hand, that narrows my choices down to... one? My thoughts right now are either a custom nib for a Pelikan M200 (similar to, but slightly larger than, the M15), or a customized Namiki Falcon.

Of course, first I'm assuming that my customized nib would be possible. I'm asking for 0.1 to 0.5 variation, with no conscious effort, and no sharpness or roughness. This very well may be a "chose two" situation, and how much I'm willing to compromise will be inversely proportional to how much it's going to cost.

Actually, another reason I'm rather eager to get an estimate is so that I can budget for it better. My initial enthusiasm was supported by the saved allowance of several previous months where nothing interested me, so little was spent. That buffer is starting to wane now, and I'm going to have to start budgeting to get exactly what I want instead of dinking around trying to figure out what that is. Of course, I wouldn't know what that is if I hadn't dinked around, but I think I do now, so I can stop. (OK, you take my custom nib and grind it onto a Sheaffer Triumph nib on a periwinkle snorkel... OK, that's not going to happen. But let me dream for a second. Ahh...) Knowing how much this will cost me will let me better budget for pens to restore, which is pretty fun.

There's another problem. I have pens I like to write with, and pens I like to restore, and they don't always coincide. Sometimes, but not always.

People at FPN keep telling me dangerous things. First there was the thing about the saturated inks. Then someone pointed out to them, if they buy a pen at $100, enjoy it for a year, get bored, and resell it for $80, they don't view it as a loss, they view it as a rental fee.
Oh, that's a dangerous thing to tell me. There are many cases where I could live with that. ^_~

Thoughts on Saturated Inks in Vintage Pens

There are two brands of fountain pen ink that are well-known for having highly saturated inks: Noodlers, and Private Reserve. They produce a wide range of very rich, very intense colors, but the trade-off is some additional risk using them. Therefore, the conventional wisdom is that these inks are fine for modern pens, but shouldn't be used in vintage pens.

Then someone pointed out something dangerous to me. Structurally speaking, vintage pens are not appreciably different from modern pens. To the extent they are, they were designed to handle the poorer quality, more corrosive inks of the past. Theoretically, then, it shouldn't really matter if the pen is vintage or new. And indeed, of the few arguments this person got, they amounted to one spouting the common wisdom, and two not wanting to risk damaging a vintage and the difficulty of replacing damaged vintage parts.

So I got to thinking about it, and there are really two issues to worry about with the highly saturated inks: staining, and clogging.

First, staining. Really, any ink has a risk of staining, and the further you get away from black and blue, the worst it is. Top risks are red, then purple, then green. Since highly saturated inks have more dye in them, theoretically they'll have a higher staining risk.
Now, there's only so far I can let staining fear hold me back, because any pen in my use will have purple ink it at some time in its life. It's a law of nature. But here's the kick that's easy (at least for me) to forget about: is there anything to stain? The only material on a pen that will stain from ink is transparent plastic. Demonstrators (transparent pens) and pens that have transparent sections can all visibly stain. Anything else? You'll never see it. Even if it does stain, it's on the inside of an opaque tube. Is it really a stain if you can't see it? (Wow, that's downright zen.)
For pens that do have transparent parts, it really doesn't matter if it's modern or vintage. Both are at risk for staining. Age doesn't really figure in at all.

I do have to remark that, of the five pens on my desk right now, only one has a transparent section. Ironically, it's also the only modern one, a Waterman Kultur. And it's the one I shamelessly put highly saturated inks in. ^_~

The other risk of highly saturated inks is clogging. I suspect this is where the "modern pens only" comes in, but again it has less to do with age and more to do with filling systems. Some filling systems are easier to clog than others, and easier to clean that others. 90% of modern pens are cartridge/converter, and that's perhaps the easiest system of all -- you take out the cartridge and either soak or push water through the section, feed, and nib. If it gets clogged with ink, the odds are good that you'll be able to clean it out with relative speed and ease. On the other hand, if an old Snorkel gets clogged with ink, there's a lot of time and a little prayer involved (as I know from experience. :P) But, a modern piston fill without a removable nib is also going to be a pain in the butt to clean, while a vintage Esterbrook with removable nib and feed unit is going to be very easy, despite being a lever fill.
Once again, it has less to do with age, and more to do with the individual pen.

So, my final decision on when and where to use saturated inks comes down to evaluating the individual pen without regard to age. Is it easy to clean? Is it unlikely to stain (or are you not bothered if it does, as with my poor Kultur)? If so, go ahead and use saturated inks with impunity. If not, you're probably better off staying with more traditional inks.

Tiny Pens Are Stalking Me.

Yes, the latest hobby is still going strong. ^_~ But I'm gonna learn how to restore Sheaffer touchdowns soon! By necessity if nothing else. ^_~

Now, I'm purposely collecting vintage ladies' purse and ringtop pens, which means I also end up with some gentlemen's vest pocket pens in the mix. (Don't always see the clip before I bid. And sometimes it's just too damn cute to pass up anyway.) And those are all tiny by definition. But I'm not talking about those.

I'm talking about my everyday (well, semi-everyday) pens. I keep ending up with pens between 4-1/4" and 4-3/4" long. My very first vintage surprised me by being that small. The first Esterbrook I got was an SJ, which is that size. The BHR ringtop I got is that size. (OK, it's a ringtop, so it doesn't count.) I found another Esterbrook with a good nib at a local antique mall. Got it home, it turned out to be another SJ. Funniest, though, is that I bought a modern Pelikan M150 from Pendemonium when they had their end-of-year sale. Opened up? Same size as the Esterbrook SJs.

The nice thing though is that it's not a bad size for my tiny hands. Even better if it posts well.

Remember the Mabie Todd Swan that the person who sold me the Snorkel was going to send me. It arrived. My gosh, what a sweet pen! The cap, as warned, is banged up, but it's such a dark blue that it's hard to see in use, and it is sooooo smooth. He might stay in my rotation for a while.
And ironically, since I patched the cap with wax, that Snorkel is the most reliable pen in my cup right now. Hasn't hesitated to start once since then.

Now, you know the damaged Esterbrook nib that produced the writing I fell in love with. Well, it's smoothing itself out a little bit, which is good. But I was really studying it, and I think I've figured out what's going on. (No, really this time!) The slightest bit of pressure, even just that of the weight of the pen, immediately spreads the tines to produce a light of around .4 mm. So what's really happening when I write isn't that writing pressure is spreading it so much as lightening that pressure on the upstroke is drawing the tines back together to make a fine line (possibly all the finer because of the single bent tine.) The 9048 nib came in, but I don't feel like getting my fingers even more magenta by hot-swapping, so I'll try it out once either my blue SJ runs out of ink or I get a sack in one of my others. I'm kind of hoping an undamaged Esterbrook "flexie" nib might act the same way. If so, that might always explain why most people get little if any flex out of them, since most people keep more pressure than I do throughout their letterforms.

If not, I'm again toying with the idea of seeing if a nibmeister can't custom grind something to reproduce that behavior. I can even send them the Esterbrook nib that does it for an example if they want. It doesn't help that I discovered that isellpens.com has full M200s for $55, and I personally like the blue marble on those better than just about anything else on the Sovereign line. I keep trying to talk myself into a more expensive "more adult" pen (no, I don't know why), and I keep coming back to "but I like the blue marble", so why fight it?

Of course, I want to try out the M150 before buying another Pelikan.
And I'd like to try an Esterbrook 9314-F nib and a Duke 209 calligraphy pen before investing in a custom nib. If I just keep buying pens, maybe I'll never get to it. Of course, I'll have more that way than just going with the custom nib. But I'll have a bunch of pens out of the deal.
(I know, I only have two hands. I can't write with any more than that at a time.  ^_~)

Best. Seller. EVER.

As you may remember, I remarked on having trouble with my "new" Snorkel a few days ago. First, an update on him. As I mentioned then, a good soak and flush got the fill working again, and that half of the problem was happy. As for the cap, I decided to try sealing the hole with wax, as I had seen suggested for Park Sonnets. I didn't figure I could do any harm, as both inner and outer cap are metal, and it'd be easier to undo if it didn't work. Well, it did work, the cap is now air-tight, and we have been good friends since then. He's written well every time I picked him up since, and I plan to leave him in my usual rotation for a while. Well, the seller found the thread in the FPN Repair forum asking if the pen's behavior was normal or not, wherein I discovered the hole in the inner cap with the help of some of the other members. He then PM'd me saying he felt terrible that the pen didn't work. He apologized that, although he had similar problems, he'd thought that the repair he'd done had worked; and explained that he hadn't realized there was a hole in the cap, and that was probably causing the ink to dry out, which caused the pen to clog. (All makes sense; that's my end conclusion as well. The cap issue probably undid his clogged snorkel repair.) He reiterated that he felt bad to have sent me a "non-fully working pen" and asked that I send it back for repair or refund. (No! It's mine! Mine, I say! ^_~) I assured him that I'd gotten the problem fixed and the pen was working just fine. If he had the ability to permanently repair the cap, I'd be happy to send that part back once I'd written him out of ink, but otherwise the fix was working and I was happy with the pen. Also, I don't blame him at all for missing the hole in the inner cap, because I don't know what possessed me to check the cap for air tightness to begin with. I think it was because I had recently read a repair thread where that was the problem, but it's certainly not something I would expect for a normal checkout, and it's mainly coincidence I found him. Now, let me say that I don't feel bad about the price I paid for the pen at all. It was completely reasonable, maybe even a little low, for a Snorkel in working condition. Even when it was giving me trouble, my whining aside, I wasn't thinking "I got ripped off!" so much as "well, sometimes you'll see that with a vintage pen". So, seller wrote me back asking me to let him know if the cap started leaking again, and although he didn't have any spare Sovereign caps, he would send me a spare from another Sheaffer the same size. And, because people I buy from see my real name on the payment, asked "Out of curiosity, and considering your name: do you have any Mabie Todd SWAN pen?" Now, for the non-pen people, Mabie Todd is a well known vintage brand that started in, I think, the 1880s and stopped US production in 1941 (continued in the UK for a while). They are upper second-tier/lower first-tier pens (i.e. well regarded today, although not a Parker, Sheaffer, Waterman, Conklin, or Wahl.) Swans were their premier line, intended for upper class users who could afford some extra bling. They are also known for having marvelous nibs. As vintage pens go, their prices aren't as insane as some (at least, not always ^_~), but they are typically not what I would call cheap pens, either. I keep my eye out for them, but I've yet to find one at a price I was willing to pay. I kind of wondered if he was going somewhere with this question, but at the same time, it could also be a very conversational thing to ask another vintage fountain pen user who shares a name with a well-known brand. So I truthfully wrote back that I didn't have one yet, but I desperately wanted one, both on principle and because I hadn't yet found one I liked at a price I would pay. He wrote back that "a nice one" with some "unfixable surface flaws" in the cap would be coming my way. I squee'd. Loud. I love writing with vintage pens, so surface flaws aren't a problem to me on a pen that's structurally sound. (In fact, sometimes they're a perk. They keep people from trying to take my nice pens. ^_~) And the simple fact that he's sending something at all has me absolutely gobsmacked.

1. I didn't contact him with the problem. He actually sought me out.
2. The Snorkel works just fine now; there was just some birthing pains.
3. I'm sure he didn't make a profit on the Snorkel sale. Again, I think I got a good deal, even with the initial issues.
4. He's sending me what I'm sure will be a very nice pen to make up for the trouble.

Best. Seller. EVER.