Kung Te Cheng...or Equivalents

[elippman]

Thanks for the input. I do have a Pilot Metropolitan, with a prera nib. I was also planning to use an FPR Muft (F) and an old Sheaffer school pen from the 90s. They’re all relatively cheap (the Muft is free), and all different nib sizes. I figured I’d give them all a whirl and see what works best.

[elippman]

For those who are still following this thread, I see that Goulet has the big bottle-plus-pens of KTC on closeout at a slightly reduced price. The note connected to that says that Noodler's is discontinuing the big bottles, but will continue selling KTC in the 3-oz bottles. FYI.

[inkstainedruth]

For those who are still following this thread, I see that Goulet has the big bottle-plus-pens of KTC on closeout at a slightly reduced price. The note connected to that says that Noodler's is discontinuing the big bottles, but will continue selling KTC in the 3-oz bottles. FYI.

 

That's very interesting, because in the past it was ONLY available in the 4-1/2 oz bottles.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[eharriett]

That's interesting. I'm only about 20% through my bottle. Part of the benefit of this ink is it comes with that eyedropper/cap. A shame it will go away, since I put mine in an eye droppered pen.

[elippman]

Yes, it's an oddity, and I can't imagine why. As far as I can tell, one of the selling points has been that this is a tricky ink, but we're going to give you a pen that we know will work with it. I suppose that's out the window now.

 

By the way, Ruth, I noticed from some other posts that you are from Pittsburgh and that there's a group of fountain pen users who meet there. I wish I'd know when I lived there! I do like Minnesota, but the thing I miss most about that area (we actually lived in the northern panhandle of WV) was Pittsburgh. It's a great town, although tricky to drive in.

[inkstainedruth]

Yes, it's an oddity, and I can't imagine why. As far as I can tell, one of the selling points has been that this is a tricky ink, but we're going to give you a pen that we know will work with it. I suppose that's out the window now.

 

By the way, Ruth, I noticed from some other posts that you are from Pittsburgh and that there's a group of fountain pen users who meet there. I wish I'd know when I lived there! I do like Minnesota, but the thing I miss most about that area (we actually lived in the northern panhandle of WV) was Pittsburgh. It's a great town, although tricky to drive in.

 

Well, if you're ever back in the vicinity, we generally meet on the third Wednesday of the month, usually at the Panera Bread at Bakery Square (it was likely still the old Nabisco site when you were here). Josh, the guy who runs the mailing list these days, generally posts about it in the Clubs, Meetings and Events Forum before the last minute, although I'm not sure he's on here muchotherwise.

Yeah, driving here is sometimes, um, interesting (which may be why all the self-driving car companies are looking to do road test trials here... ). When I first moved here I wanted to go from Highland Park to Station Square and went the wrong direction; so I got there via Regent Square, Downtown (on the Parkway East to Rt 65), the North Side, and the West End Bridge.... We saw three different street maps of our neighborhood -- one was right, one didn't show our block and, and one showed our street continuing through the ravine at the corner and up through someone's driveway into Morningside.... (there were 3 different non-contiguous parts of Bryant Street: the several blocks in Morningside, the part where we lived, which stretched from King Avenue to N. Highland Avenue, and the part that jogged about a block to the other side of Highland Avenue (if you're going the other way and cross Highland, you end up on Bryant Court -- a cul-de-sac!) and continued another few blocks. Oh, I just looked at Google Maps -- it jogs *again* after the stretch between Highland and Heberton St., and then continues another block....

Pittsburgh is the place where roads are parallel till they cross , people give directions which will include phrases like "Turn left where the Isaly's used to be", friends of ours from the eastern suburbs wouldn't go to a party at our house because they'd have to cross a bridge to get there , and there are three SEPARATE intersections of Beechwood Blvd. and Monitor Street (I've counted)....

I grew up about 50 miles north of NYC. Where most of Manhattan is straight blocks unless you're way downtown....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[fiberdrunk]

That's interesting. I'm only about 20% through my bottle. Part of the benefit of this ink is it comes with that eyedropper/cap. A shame it will go away, since I put mine in an eye droppered pen.

Maybe you can hang onto your 4 1/2 oz bottle, and then just refill it from the 3 oz bottle. That way you can still have the eyedropper.

[eharriett]

Maybe you can hang onto your 4 1/2 oz bottle, and then just refill it from the 3 oz bottle. That way you can still have the eyedropper.

That's my plan!

 

Yes, it's an oddity, and I can't imagine why. As far as I can tell, one of the selling points has been that this is a tricky ink, but we're going to give you a pen that we know will work with it. I suppose that's out the window now.

My hypothesis is maybe they altered the formula slightly and fixed the clogging problem while retaining the other properties making the Charlie pen unnecessary.

 

I can't remember for sure what I originally paid, but not including closeout prices, it seems that the cost of that ink has come down anyway. I recall it was high, one of the highest priced inks he had. And I recall thinking recently that the regular price for a 4.5 oz bottle seemed lower. They may have gotten better at making this, thus eliminating or reducing the clogging issue.

 

Maybe?

[displacermoose]

That's my plan!

 

 

My hypothesis is maybe they altered the formula slightly and fixed the clogging problem while retaining the other properties making the Charlie pen unnecessary.

 

I can't remember for sure what I originally paid, but not including closeout prices, it seems that the cost of that ink has come down anyway. I recall it was high, one of the highest priced inks he had. And I recall thinking recently that the regular price for a 4.5 oz bottle seemed lower. They may have gotten better at making this, thus eliminating or reducing the clogging issue.

 

Maybe?

That is an interesting notion. I'd love to be able to use it at work, but while I've found ways to encourage it to behave it still isn't completely reliable. Since I have to be able to take notes at the drop of a hat I can't be messing with hard starts. KTC manages to look not completely horrific on multiple colors of bad copy paper, which makes it highly desirable as an office ink. (We have different colors of paper to code certain kinds of notes. Very few inks manage to look not horrible on green office paper )

[fiberdrunk]

That is an interesting notion. I'd love to be able to use it at work, but while I've found ways to encourage it to behave it still isn't completely reliable. Since I have to be able to take notes at the drop of a hat I can't be messing with hard starts. KTC manages to look not completely horrific on multiple colors of bad copy paper, which makes it highly desirable as an office ink. (We have different colors of paper to code certain kinds of notes. Very few inks manage to look not horrible on green office paper )

 

I haven't had any start-up hassles while using it daily in the Pilot Metropolitan (I'm using it in a Leuchtturm journal). Hard starts are definitely annoying. This is working for me so far, though.

[elippman]

Ruth, you take me back down memory lane, but beyond the absurdity of trying to get anywhere in a city of bridges, there's the fact that I only had a standard transmission car at that time! Often found myself looking up at a red light with a row of cars behind me, sitting at what seemed like a 45-degree angle and wondering what kind of chaos would necessarily ensue when the light turned.

 

Anyway, I just chatted with Goulet Pens and they don't know why Noodler's has gone to the smaller bottle, but they're pretty sure that it's exactly the same ink. The customer care guys suggested that maybe it wasn't selling enough in the big bottle or maybe, due to the large number of dyes, they were having difficulty making it in large enough quantities. At any rate, it's now in a 3-oz bottle with no pen.

[inkstainedruth]

Fiberdrunk's suggestion of keeping the larger eyedropper bottle to refill from is a good one. I went that route when I accidentally bought a 4-1/2 oz bottle of Blue Ghost (forgetting I had a 3 oz. bottle already). So I use the eyedropper to refill from the smaller (older) bottle for now (I use the ink in a Charlie eyedropper). Mind you, I probably am unlikely to ever use up the smaller bottle of Blue Ghost -- invisible ink is fun, but I only use it occasionally.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[eharriett]

Fiberdrunk's suggestion of keeping the larger eyedropper bottle to refill from is a good one. I went that route when I accidentally bought a 4-1/2 oz bottle of Blue Ghost (forgetting I had a 3 oz. bottle already). So I use the eyedropper to refill from the smaller (older) bottle for now (I use the ink in a Charlie eyedropper). Mind you, I probably am unlikely to ever use up the smaller bottle of Blue Ghost -- invisible ink is fun, but I only use it occasionally.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

I went down that road and got 5 empty Akkerman bottles for troublesome inks. Not necessary for eyedropper, but I have some inks that go into vintage pens where I can't syringe fill the converter. The Akkerman bottles are the best. I'm no stranger to repurposing ink bottles for uses like that. Only problem with the Noodlers 4.5 eyedropper bottles is they're useless as bottles except for doing eyedropper fills (although they may have a second life for me in holding film photographic chemicals).

 

That is an interesting notion. I'd love to be able to use it at work, but while I've found ways to encourage it to behave it still isn't completely reliable. Since I have to be able to take notes at the drop of a hat I can't be messing with hard starts. KTC manages to look not completely horrific on multiple colors of bad copy paper, which makes it highly desirable as an office ink. (We have different colors of paper to code certain kinds of notes. Very few inks manage to look not horrible on green office paper )

 

I know a number of us have said it already, but a drop or two of lube mixed with the fill and I bet that hard start will go away. I skoffed until I tried. Now I BELIEVE!!

[displacermoose]

 

I went down that road and got 5 empty Akkerman bottles for troublesome inks. Not necessary for eyedropper, but I have some inks that go into vintage pens where I can't syringe fill the converter. The Akkerman bottles are the best. I'm no stranger to repurposing ink bottles for uses like that. Only problem with the Noodlers 4.5 eyedropper bottles is they're useless as bottles except for doing eyedropper fills (although they may have a second life for me in holding film photographic chemicals).

 

 

I know a number of us have said it already, but a drop or two of lube mixed with the fill and I bet that hard start will go away. I skoffed until I tried. Now I BELIEVE!!

I'm a big believer in PhotoFlo. It works miracles. The problem is that it also turns KTC from an ink that will never feather to one that does so on moderately bad office paper. I can use it on my good papers in any pen I want all day long, but I haven't yet found a way to make it usable for work. My current go-to work inks are Lexington Gray (which doesn't clash with anything), Visconti Blue (which I can live with on green and blue paper, but cringe a bit on the yellow), and Scabiosa (not too horrid on yellow or blue, but absolutely putrid on green). We won't talk about the moment of stupidity that led me to put Ancient Copper in a work pen when I was feeling autumnally festive (MY EYES!!!!). I should probably just give it up and switch to black, but I don't like black on principle.

[elippman]

So I contacted Vanness and they said that they don't have a restock date yet for OS Cuddles' Flo, but they thought JB's Perfect Pen Flush might be an adequate substitute. I described what I would be using it for, but they stopped short of saying they thought it would work to improve flow with KTC. Any thoughts?

[ENewton]

I was all ready to believe that the formula had changed, because my only experience with KTC was a sample that I bought a few months ago, and for me the flow was a major virtue of the ink. It reminded me of Sailor Shigure, except distinctly blue. On the basis of other reports, I might have doubted that my sample was KTC until I observed the permanence.

 

I won't be buying a bottle, because I don't tend to use blue, but if I wanted a blue, KTC would be a likely pick for me.

[elippman]

Indeed! There are a minority of people who have no problems with it. I'm going to ink 3 pens with it, at least one of which will have no lubricant at all, just to see what happens.

[eharriett]

So I contacted Vanness and they said that they don't have a restock date yet for OS Cuddles' Flo, but they thought JB's Perfect Pen Flush might be an adequate substitute. I described what I would be using it for, but they stopped short of saying they thought it would work to improve flow with KTC. Any thoughts?

 

That recommendation perplexes me. Is there a chemist who can weigh in on it more? My (admitted ignorance) understanding is Cuddles is a lubricant made to cut the ink's viscosity and thin it out slightly. Pen Flush is almost entirely ammonia. Is that not correct? I hope someone knows. If I am wrong, I want to learn something!

[elippman]

I had understood from some Goulet video or written explanation that a pen flush usually involves ammonia, water, and a surfactant. My thought was that Cuddles' Flo is probably just a surfactant, since it pitches itself as facilitating the movement of the ink rather than cleaning it off the inside of barrels. I too would like to hear from anyone who has more than anecdotal knowledge, though.

[inkstainedruth]

I haven't used either JB's or Cuddles Flo (or PhotoFlo for that matter, since I can't seem to find it in anything smaller than a pint bottle). But I'll admit that I wouldn't consider JB's for this use -- it's a pen FLUSH, after all.

But now I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with the stuff sold along with the De Atramentis Document inks -- forget what it's called OH, but it's the stuff used to facilitate mixing those inks together. I picked up a sample a while back, but my experience with the inks themselves -- although I haven't tried all of the Document line -- is that there's enough spread and bleedthrough with the inks already. But I'm thinking now about whether adding just a drop to KTC might improve the flow and aid with the clogging issues.

The ink tends to work pretty well with the first fill... if it's a daily user. But refills cause a lot of clogging issues. And diluting it with distilled water? That loses all the indigo part.

Although, I may try it in my Metropolitan, and see if the issue is that the pen I use it in normally (a resin-body Noodler's Konrad) is a bit too porous and just doesn't have enough blocking power against air (I've also tried it -- once -- in my ebonite Konrad, but had the same problem. Or maybe it's that the Metropolitan, with its smaller capacity converter, just means I'd go through the ink faster and give less chance of it getting cloggy....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth