Fountain Pen Too Wet When Writing After Refilling

[3nding]

Hi everyone!

 

I have a problem with one of my favorite pens. Every time I refill the converter with ink it writes way too wet (feathers and bleeds through a lot) for a few pages before becoming just write for the remainder of the ink in the converter (it's a piston "twist" converter). I know about pushing a few drops out of the converter after filling and I have experimented with it, but there's no amount of ink I can let out that seems to fix this problem for me. I have also tried to fix the problem by thoroughly cleaning the nib and feed letting them soak in dish soap and rinsing multiple times, but to no avail. Does anyone have a solution to this?

 

Thank you all in advance!

Edited October 9, 2017 by 3nding

[LizEF]

My Nemosine Singularities do this - to the point of blurping ink. I solved the problem by filling the converter directly, then attaching it to the pen, then pushing ink into the feed (twisting the piston knob), then pulling it right back out again (turning the knob all the way back, thus sucking in air through the feed, and sucking the ink back). This leaves enough behind to write with, but not so much that it's dripping.

 

Another alternative is to put a paper towel / rag against the feed and let it suck ink out of the feed, but that seems unnecessarily wasteful.

 

A slow alternative is to let the pen sit nib-up for some hours while the feed drains back into the converter.

[3nding]

  On 10/9/2017 at 11:48 PM, LizEF said:

My Nemosine Singularities do this - to the point of blurping ink. I solved the problem by filling the converter directly, then attaching it to the pen, then pushing ink into the feed (twisting the piston knob), then pulling it right back out again (turning the knob all the way back, thus sucking in air through the feed, and sucking the ink back). This leaves enough behind to write with, but not so much that it's dripping.

 

Another alternative is to put a paper towel / rag against the feed and let it suck ink out of the feed, but that seems unnecessarily wasteful.

 

A slow alternative is to let the pen sit nib-up for some hours while the feed drains back into the converter.

 

Thank you Liz! That sounds like a great idea!

 

Do you push out ink until you see a small drop hanging from the nib or even less than that?

 

Also, do you have a trick to refill your converters without staining your fingers too much when it's a bottle than is nearly empty?

[LizEF]

  On 10/10/2017 at 12:00 AM, 3nding said:

Thank you Liz! That sounds like a great idea!

 

Do you push out ink until you see a small drop hanging from the nib or even less than that?

 

Also, do you have a trick to refill your converters without staining your fingers too much when it's a bottle than is nearly empty?

 

I push out ink until I see it at the filling hole or in the feed under the nib. If it won't write at that point, I push it out a little farther.

 

No, sorry, no tricks - syringe or sample vial are about all I can think of.

[3nding]

  On 10/10/2017 at 12:11 AM, LizEF said:

 

I push out ink until I see it at the filling hole or in the feed under the nib. If it won't write at that point, I push it out a little farther.

 

No, sorry, no tricks - syringe or sample vial are about all I can think of.

 

Thank you again, this has been super helpful!

[Kelly G]

A couple of questions.

1. After you expel at least 4 drops back out of the converter, do you turn the pen nib up and extend the piston back to its fully extended position? This sucks some of the excess ink out of the feed.

2. Do you wipe the nib and feed with a rag or paper towel to clear excess ink? Yes, it wastes a tiny bit of ink but that's better than a flooded feed.

 

Some advice: stop rinsing the nib and feed so much, especially with dish soap. Even though you rinse it well, the dish soap acts as a surfactant causing the ink to flow too freely.

I tend to only rinse my pens when I change ink or they indicate problems. Otherwise, I refill and go.

[EMQG]

  On 10/10/2017 at 1:05 AM, Kelly G said:

A couple of questions.

1. After you expel at least 4 drops back out of the converter, do you turn the pen nib up and extend the piston back to its fully extended position? This sucks some of the excess ink out of the feed.

2. Do you wipe the nib and feed with a rag or paper towel to clear excess ink? Yes, it wastes a tiny bit of ink but that's better than a flooded feed.

 

Some advice: stop rinsing the nib and feed so much, especially with dish soap. Even though you rinse it well, the dish soap acts as a surfactant causing the ink to flow too freely.

I tend to only rinse my pens when I change ink or they indicate problems. Otherwise, I refill and go.

 

I agree wholeheartedly with #1. #2 isn't necessary if you do #1.

 

I also agree with the thing about rinsing the nib and feed. Don't pull them out unless you're doing repair. It's not something you have to do to clean them. And don't bother rinsing them with soap unless you really need to. Water is fine for every couple months or if you're changing color, though.

[bayindirh]

  On 10/10/2017 at 9:52 AM, EMQG said:

 

I agree wholeheartedly with #1. #2 isn't necessary if you do #1.

 

I also agree with the thing about rinsing the nib and feed. Don't pull them out unless you're doing repair. It's not something you have to do to clean them. And don't bother rinsing them with soap unless you really need to. Water is fine for every couple months or if you're changing color, though.

 

#2 is not always unnecessary. Some of my pens cannot pull all of the excess ink from the nib into the feed/converter, so it's at least worth doing both, until one gets familiar with the pen in question.

Edited October 10, 2017 by bayindirh

[Ted A]

My experience with some pens is that the feed is very saturated with ink. Setting the pen aside, nib up for a little while, some a half hour, allows ink to drain from the feed into the converter and you then have normal flow for that pen

[Bluey]

Rather than resorting to pointless hacks, just make the pen drier by cross the tines over each other 2 or 3 times.

[pajaro]

Possibly a drier ink.

[deepak23]

  On 10/9/2017 at 11:40 PM, 3nding said:

Hi everyone!

 

I have a problem with one of my favorite pens. Every time I refill the converter with ink it writes way too wet (feathers and bleeds through a lot) for a few pages before becoming just write for the remainder of the ink in the converter (it's a piston "twist" converter). I know about pushing a few drops out of the converter after filling and I have experimented with it, but there's no amount of ink I can let out that seems to fix this problem for me. I have also tried to fix the problem by thoroughly cleaning the nib and feed letting them soak in dish soap and rinsing multiple times, but to no avail. Does anyone have a solution to this?

 

Thank you all in advance!

Instead of pushing the ink out of the converter, try to pull some air in in the last bit. Fill about 80%, then lift it out of the bottle and pull out the pen and then turn the converter back all the way. Then wrap the nib in some tissue paper for a couple of seconds. That should solve your issue...

[3nding]

  On 10/10/2017 at 1:05 AM, Kelly G said:

A couple of questions.

1. After you expel at least 4 drops back out of the converter, do you turn the pen nib up and extend the piston back to its fully extended position? This sucks some of the excess ink out of the feed.

2. Do you wipe the nib and feed with a rag or paper towel to clear excess ink? Yes, it wastes a tiny bit of ink but that's better than a flooded feed.

 

Some advice: stop rinsing the nib and feed so much, especially with dish soap. Even though you rinse it well, the dish soap acts as a surfactant causing the ink to flow too freely.

I tend to only rinse my pens when I change ink or they indicate problems. Otherwise, I refill and go.

 

 

  On 10/10/2017 at 9:52 AM, EMQG said:

 

I agree wholeheartedly with #1. #2 isn't necessary if you do #1.

 

I also agree with the thing about rinsing the nib and feed. Don't pull them out unless you're doing repair. It's not something you have to do to clean them. And don't bother rinsing them with soap unless you really need to. Water is fine for every couple months or if you're changing color, though.

 

 

  On 10/10/2017 at 1:00 PM, bayindirh said:

 

#2 is not always unnecessary. Some of my pens cannot pull all of the excess ink from the nib into the feed/converter, so it's at least worth doing both, until one gets familiar with the pen in question.

 

 

I always make sure to do both of those things ever since I got the pen and I mostly rinse them with water, I only let them soak in water and dish soap twice to make sure there wasn't anything in there messing with the flow. This confirms to me that I was doing the right thing with refilling it, so at least it's not a technique problem

[3nding]

  On 10/10/2017 at 3:42 PM, Bluey said:

Rather than resorting to pointless hacks, just make the pen drier by cross the tines over each other 2 or 3 times.

 

I believe I have reached the limit of how dry I can make this pen. It's only too wet at first or after sitting for for a while, otherwise it's quite dry.

 

  On 10/10/2017 at 3:53 PM, pajaro said:

Possibly a drier ink.

 

I get this problem even with Pelikan Brilliant Black, which, from what I understand, is one of the driest inks that don't have "special ingredients" in the mix.

[3nding]

  On 10/10/2017 at 3:23 PM, Ted A said:

My experience with some pens is that the feed is very saturated with ink. Setting the pen aside, nib up for a little while, some a half hour, allows ink to drain from the feed into the converter and you then have normal flow for that pen

 

 

  On 10/10/2017 at 4:38 PM, deepak23 said:

Instead of pushing the ink out of the converter, try to pull some air in in the last bit. Fill about 80%, then lift it out of the bottle and pull out the pen and then turn the converter back all the way. Then wrap the nib in some tissue paper for a couple of seconds. That should solve your issue...

 

I will have to try both of these ideas out which seem pretty good. So far, filling the converter beforehand as worked, so I expect that pushing air in or letting the feed be drained by gravity should also work quite well! Thank you very much!

[pajaro]

I have had this sort of issue when a converter was old and wouldn't hold the vacuum, thus not holding the ink in the converter. Happened with Montblanc 144 and Waterman Laureat, probably others. You might try using a cartridge or a newer converter to see if it makes a difference.

[Bluey]

  On 10/10/2017 at 11:32 PM, 3nding said:

 

I believe I have reached the limit of how dry I can make this pen. It's only too wet at first or after sitting for for a while, otherwise it's quite dry.

My Lamys, Pelikan, and Twsbis did that, if I understand you correctly. They would start off really wet and then gradually get drier and drier and drier, and sometimes completely dry up mid sentence even though they were mostly/partly full of ink. A pen shouldn't be like that. For me one shouldn't have to resort to hacks to get to write hassle free.

 

I still think the solution that I suggested will make it write as it should. I did the same thing on a Pilot FA nib the other day. Although it didn't exhibit the behaviours mentioned above, it did randomly skip even though it was massively wet.

 

The reason why the solution of crossing the tines works is that the ink flow was too wet resulting in it quickly becoming exhausted, causing it to either skip(in my case, because the FA is a very soft nib so the ink supply would suddenly cut off) or (in your case) to gradually become drier.

I suspect something similar is happening with your pen, and that it will encourage the ink flow to be more regulated.

 

To visualise it, picture 2 rivers: a fast flowing narrow river and a slower moving wider river. Whereas the fast flowing river is self dredging and therefore will produce a consistent flow, the wider river will silt up and lay deposits so that it can't flow as freely as it once did. The gap between the tines on a pen is this river.

 

If it's not something that you want to do, it's worth bearing in mind as a last resort.

 

You mention that it's your favourite pen, so does that mean that it's only recently started behaving like that, or has it always been that way?

Edited October 11, 2017 by Bluey

[3nding]

  On 10/11/2017 at 12:05 AM, pajaro said:

I have had this sort of issue when a converter was old and wouldn't hold the vacuum, thus not holding the ink in the converter. Happened with Montblanc 144 and Waterman Laureat, probably others. You might try using a cartridge or a newer converter to see if it makes a difference.

 

It works pretty great with a cartridge of the same ink and the converter is fairly recent, but I bought a new one online nonetheless, just to make sure, and I am waiting for it to arrive to try it out.

[3nding]

  On 10/11/2017 at 12:43 AM, Bluey said:

My Lamys, Pelikan, and Twsbis did that, if I understand you correctly. They would start off really wet and then gradually get drier and drier and drier, and sometimes completely dry up mid sentence even though they were mostly/partly full of ink. A pen shouldn't be like that. For me one shouldn't have to resort to hacks to get to write hassle free.

 

I still think the solution that I suggested will make it write as it should. I did the same thing on a Pilot FA nib the other day. Although it didn't exhibit the behaviours mentioned above, it did randomly skip even though it was massively wet.

 

The reason why the solution of crossing the tines works is that the ink flow was quickly becoming exhausted, causing it to either skip(in my case, because the FA is a very soft nib so the ink supply would suddenly cut off) or (in your case) to gradually become drier.

I suspect something similar is happening with your pen, and that it will encourage the ink flow to be more regulated.

 

To visualise it, picture 2 rivers: a fast flowing narrow river and a slower moving wider river. Whereas the fast flowing river is self dredging and therefore will produce a consistent flow, the wider river will silt up and lay deposits so that it can't flow as freely as it once did.

 

If it's not something that you want to do, it's worth bearing in mind as a last resort.

 

You mention that it's your favourite pen, so does that mean that it's only recently started behaving like that, or has it always been that way?

 

You described the situation perfectly, although it never goes completely dry if I try to make it go dry on purpose by writing none stop and fast. Black ink will go from very dark and feathery to pale and dry in a matter of maybe a page or a page and half I write without pausing.

 

I didn't think of it this way (the two rivers) before but it really makes a lot of sense. For crossing the tines I have attempted to do it a few times and manage to get one barely over the other but I feel like I'm really pushing very hard and that if I push any harder I will snap it. Is this normal? It's a palladium nib so I'm not sure it will necessarily react like a gold nib. I'm afraid I might have some trouble realigning the tines without making them too wide again.

 

As for it being my favorite pen, it's really because I enjoy absolutely everything else about it. The look, the sturdy design, the weight, the size, the practicality of having a cartridge/converter pen that I am not afraid of bringing in the lab and that, when the ink flow is just right (which is about maybe a few pages out of a converter) it's one of the smoothest pens I own.

 

Thank you very much for the info, it's really helpful!

[3nding]

I tried crossing the tines and succeeded in overlapping them, but somehow it's wetter now... I really don't understand what is going on anymore.