Problems With & Question About Waterman Havana Ink

[bodobose]

Hi,

I have recently purchased two bottles of Waterman Havana ink bottles. From the faded boxes containing the bottles, it appears that the bottles remained a long time in the shelf unsold (probably in sunlight as the packets are faded somewhat). This ink is not available in India easily and so I paid little attention to this when buying as I was very happy to get them after a long effort. Now, the problem that I am facing is somewhat difficult to describe. I use double broad 1.5mm italic or 1.1mm or .07 mm stub nib pens and in all the pens I'm facing what I can best describe as partial skipping problem. Sometimes the flow is right and the lines are as thick as it should be, but sometimes the flow vanishes and then even with 1.5 italic nib, it is writing very thin lines. I imagine (correct me if I am wrong) it might be because of long shelf life, the ink has become thicker due to evaporation of water and so it is not flowing well. I don't know whether this particular ink has any history of flow problem, but I read great reviews about this ink and so purchased it.

I am quite new to this hobby of fountain pens, and so I would like to know some possible solutions to this problem from you... can I put some (distilled) water to make it thinner, if evaporation is the problem? (Plz. forgive me if my suggestion/question appears silly...)

Edited March 29, 2015 by bodobose

[fountainpagan]

Havana ink has a quite good behaviour,in normal conditions.

 

When a bottle of ink has been sitting for a longtime, untouched, the components can suffer some degradation. Yes, thickness can be a cause for your problem.

 

Did you stir well the ink before using it? That could be a good start.

 

If the ink behaves the same you can add a "wetting agent" to it, such as http://www.ilfordphoto.com/products/product.asp?n=44 - or an equivalent, if this one is difficult to find where you live.

 

Please be careful, the dose must be infinetisimal, otherwise your ink will be too liquid. I suggest you take10 ml and do some experiment with the wetting agent - probably 1 drop only, to start. Then you will see how the ink behaves.

Edited March 29, 2015 by fountainpagan

[mhguda]

My experience with Waterman inks echoes fountainpagan's. I've never had ink evaporate from one of their bottles, but cartridges is another story. In such cases I add water to top up the cartridge to the original volume, shake a bit and let stand for a while to get it to mix. I imagine you could do the same with the bottle: top it up with water until it has the old volume, shake (with cap on of course!) and let sit for a while. I don't expect you would even need a wetting agent as fountainpen also describes, in case your ink stays too dry. But if you do, really, a little goes a long way.

Good luck, and please let us know how you work it out...

 

P.S. the other day something similar happened to my half-full bottle of Chelpark blue black, to the extreme result that all the water had evaporated! I filled with water until the half-way mark (clearly visible) and shook a bit - then I filled a pen with the reconstituted ink. It worked exactly like before...

[bodobose]

Many thanks for your help! I will try your suggestions one by one and let you know the result! I am a big fan of Waterman inks, and I have all their inks that are available here! I really love the Havana shades made with wider nib points and want this to work on my pens!

[ac12]

From your description, you are using stubs or CI nibs. So you need to be careful to make sure that the nib is laying absolutely flat on the paper, both tines evenly touching the paper. If you rotate the pen, you will lift one tine off the paper, and that will interrupt your ink flow, and you get skipping or no ink at all.

[bodobose]

Sorry for the delay in replying! Had been out of station for quite some time.

Okay! I have got some feedback to share! After a thorough SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE of the bottle, it seems that the ink is behaving much better than before! How easy was the solution (no pun intended!) at the end! Many thanks for your kind suggestions... I love this ink and now I know how to get the best out of it!