Debbie Ohi's Inky Journal

Debbie:

I'm pleased to find out that you did not have a case of "leaky fingers", but a leaky pen. What kind of pen is it? Cartridge? Piston fill? Lever and sac? Can you detach (unscrew) the section from the barrel? If so, the silicon grease goes onto the grip section's threads. The other possibility is a crack in the threads-- Ugh!

Debbie: I've had the same issue with my Ahab and no amount of silicone grease would keep the ink at bay. For this reason, I am 'paying it forward' in the other forum and donating it to a student or newbie to the hobby who wishes to tinker around with it.

Surgical gloves?

The sort of converter in the Ahab us treaded and is perhaps not tightened enough. So I would suggest trying silicone grease on both the converter and where you thread the section and barrel together. See if that works.

+1 to Cap_Mlam- comment (cracked me up)

 

Noodlers Ahab was my second pen. It did the same thing. Over and over. I tried everything and eventually gave up. Heat setting the nib helped some my leak was from around/above the nib. But no matter how much I greased it and repositioned it, changed nibs, - same result. About once a year I give it a new try. One of these days we’ll get it!

 

TWSBI was my follow up and i never looked back!

 

The trade off with the Ahab is you get that massive ink capacity when you use it as an eyedropper pen, but that massive incapacity can often end up everywhere else that you don't want it, as well as on the paper. Noodler's pens are unfortunately meant to be tinkered with, and I pretty much lost patience with both of the Ahabs that I have, one for writing and 1 for drawing, for the very same reason you describe. Heat setting the nib works well, so does adding an O ring to the seals on top of silicone grease, but I've also been much more satisfied with the Noodlers Konrad, despite its smaller ink capacity, because it just leaks less. I will say that the Ahab DOES behave after you spend enough time messing with it, but it does take a lot of messing with. Unfortunately, at least during the era that I bought them, there were some quality control issues so the threading was not always the most reliable. Sounds discouraging, doesn't it? Good luck!

Thanks for the helpful suggestions, all.

 

It does sound like the Ahab is going to need more tinkering than I am capable (in terms of patience)!

They all leak...

I too encountered the same problem. I try to keep my second finger far enough away from the edge of the, I think it is called, barrel. Once it goes over the ink is on my finger. Once I found a puddle of ink on my paper having no idea where it came from. I use this pen for travel and keeping short notes and that is all besides my continuing writing practices.

+1 to Cap_Mlam- comment (cracked me up) Noodlers Ahab was my second pen. It did the same thing. Over and over. I tried everything and eventually gave up. Heat setting the nib helped some my leak was from around/above the nib. But no matter how much I greased it and repositioned it, changed nibs, - same result. About once a year I give it a new try. One of these days we’ll get it! TWSBI was my follow up and i never looked back!

 

Same here, I have a beautiful King Philip Ahab, tried everything too. Got new converters but no matter what I do is always burping, liking etc...I haven't gave up on it just yet, but I love how it looks every time I take it out and write with Black Swan in Australian Roses which goes very well with this special edition Ahab, people seem to be mesmerized by it.

I have always prefered the quality of Noodler's Konrad for flex pens. Also FPR makes a great superflex. Never had these issues with either that I can remember. Twsbi is also a great pen that you will use for a lifetime regardless of your level.

so there is only a couple things it could be. the connection of the piston to the pen(which has a tiny o-ring) and is my best guess for where the leak is coming, depending on the age of your ahab. or where the feed comes out of the housing. the underside of my abah is often saturated with ink and i just dont realize i am getting my middle finger onto the edge of the feed where it comes out of the housing. but that little o ring that seals the piston may be bad, if greasing it doesnt solve your issue i recommend replacing that little o-ring and heat setting the feed by cleaning the pen of ink and sticking half the pen(nib down) into hot water, not too hot but like 190 DEG F seems to do the trick. this will help to expand not just the ebonite feed but all the gaskets and O-rings(note do not remove breather tube when doing this, and do not leave piston plunger in, it may not slide well after heat treating)

They all leak...

my ahab does not leak at all. i know there is mixed reviews on the ahab and noodlers in general, but i have had really good luck with mine. i know there was some minor changes to them recently, i purchased mine in 2019, so that could be a part of it. but it is literally one of my absolute favorite pens. for 23$ you really cant beat it. the only thing i dont like is the smell! it reminds me of rubber worms for fishing...with that said, I opened the box, filled it up and it performed well, I didn't encounter any issues other than it ran dry after a half page or so, I widened the channel on my feed, learned to slow my pace down and haven't looked back. a great little pen!

Heat setting seemed to fix mine, but it also took away some of the flex

I went into this greasy spoon cafe in scarborough, UK. I see this guy writing in a notepad. What took my attention away from ordering was that he was using what i realise now was probably an Ahab too.

I apologised for disturbing him and said it was just because he was using a fountain pen. This thing had burped cavernously. The section was stained & so were his fingers. I said to him: "I hope that isn't Baystate Blue you are using". The guy was shocked. I had correctly identified the ink he was using. I told him of my experience with BSB and how difficult it was to get it off my flesh & it stained like crazy.

I thought the pen was an eye-dropper at first which had belched because it was so hot. I recommended Diamine Sapphire as easier to get off places it wasn't welcome and mentioned FPN too. Because he wasn't having a very good time.

The man was a journalist in training and was learning Pitmans shorthand at his own initiative.

I really didn't want to see him put off using fountain pens for life because of one pen that was a pain in the proverbial. I suggested he join FPN & ask for help. Meanwhile grab some cheap Jinhaos off ebay.

The pen looked great, but honestly it looked like a turkey that belonged in a bin. I felt sorry for him given that it probably wasn't cheap and a Jinhao X450 would have been a better experience and could potentially be retrofitted with a flex nib.

Thank you for all the advice, everyone!

 

To Pen90rnAddict: I've tried FPR pens but have not had great success. I may give them another go.

 

To Penman88: Hm....interesting. I bought my Ahab years ago, so maybe the newer ones are less likely to leak?