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So safe to say, that a significant majority of us here on FPN have dealt with nib creep in some form or another. While looking through a lot of the posted content, there is a lot of healthy debate concerning causes and solutions. My purpose here is to simply operate within the popular definition -ink seepage on to the nib (regardless of understanding of cause)- and have people post which pens and inks in combination seem to do it the most as a guide for those who are particularly bothered it. My list is as follows thus far: Lamy Safari: Sailor Jentle Black, Diamine Oxblood, Waterman Intense Black Pilot Metropolitan: J. Herbin Perle Noire, Waterman Tender Purple Please share your results and compare them to others so we can get a grip on this phenomenon of fountain pen ownership.

Hello, About 4 weeks ago in late August I purchased a medium nib Sheaffer 100 fountain pen as my first fountain pen. I have accumulated knowledge and I do believe that mine has a factory defect. My pen seems to suffer from "nib creeping" where ink in the slit flows onto the top of the nib. Being new to this, I assumed this was normal until I found out through the internet that fountain pens aren't supposed to do this. The nib creeping looks as follows: there is ink on either side of the slit, about 1/2 mm in width all the way from the point to the hole in the middle (it comes to a point toward the hole starting about 1 mm away from it). Sometimes it will be larger, even filling in the whole middle of the nib to the edges of the engraving. I read that this is caused either by a stray cut in the slit during manufacturing, creating a channel for the ink to follow; or, it is caused by the type of ink. I happened to have a bottle but it is not expressly meant for fountain pens, I don't think. It is titled "the Writing Collection" with a sticker that says "Au Musée" and "Scribe's black ink." If you know anything about this, I would be very keen to know. It has worked fine for me so far, but I can't find anything about it on the internet. It is quality ink with plenty of the properties of credited inks that I have read about, and I believe that it is not the problem in this case. I have disposable cartridges and I tried one of those and it did the same thing. If you could get back to me on what you think may be causing this issue and how we can solve it, I would appreciate it. I believe that it is a factory defect, personally; I cannot see any other reason, unless my knowledge of fountain pens is wrong (which it could be). To be clear, ink is not dripping off of it or anything, but I think it does impede writing a bit because an excess of ink is flowing onto the paper. That was quite long-winded!-Cyan

Hello, I accidentally posted this in the "Of nibs and tines" section, so click here to go to the original post. See you there! -Cyan

I have a Waterman Edson fountain pen with a broad nib. It is a beautiful pen. Unfortunately, I discovered that the nib "creeps", when the pen is held vertically. The leakage can be substantial if I ink the pen and hold it in a vertical position; ink would slowly gather at the tip of the nib, and even form a tiny droplet and fall from it. If I slightly tilt the pen to its normal writing position, this problem is alleviated. However, the nib would then become excessively wet when inked up freshly and used for normal writing. Also, I noted that when I use a converter to ink up the pen, as I turn the knob of the converter, the ink is not being drawn up as it is supposed to. Thus, I cannot fill the ink up to the converter's full capacity, but can only fill to less than one third of the converter's visible capacity. In addition, neither carriage nor the regular Waterman converter from my Carene would fit into this pen. They would not stay in position snugly, and would invariably fall off once pressure from hand is removed. After some research and thanks to the patient help from another FPN member in Canada, I think I may have pin-pointed the problem that the lance in the nib section is broken (it's not broken entirely, but is damaged laterally, either because of corrosion or force). In any event, it is currently not usable. Now there seem to be two solutions to this problem. The first is to find the right part and fix it myself or have some expert fix it. The second is to purchase a new nib section for replacement, and throw this one away (which seems a waste as the rest of the nib section seems alright). Any suggestions for either solutions, or alternative solutions that I have not thought of are greatly appreciated. I really would like to start using this pen instead of just putting it away to gather dust. Such a pity that right now I can only look at it lying on the table, not fulfilling its purpose as a true Edson.

Ok I replaced the sacs on the Waterman 512 1/2 PSF, 452, and Lady Patricia. I tested them with Noodler's Black Eel, a lubricated ink. I am admittedly new to flex nibs which all three have. So, I could just be naive. I don't know if I didn't wipe the nibs down enough after(wrap paper towel around the nib and let ink flow for a couple seconds or so) or what but when I started writing all three nibs ended up having a severe case of nib creep from the breather hole. I thought where was a leak in the sacs the sacs were fine and I would think if it were a leak ink would come out around the section and lever area. I did eventually wrap a paper towel around the nibs for about 5 seconds and I didn't seem to have the problem again. Was the feed just oversaturated right after inking or might there be other potential issues? I didn't have this happen when I used them for dip tests which leads me to wonder if it was an oversaturated feed.