What Ink Do You Use With Your Kaweco Sport?

[yarnkitty]

I have a Kaweco Sport Classic and I'm wondering what inks have worked well for people? Initially the pen did not perform well, lots of hard starts and skipping. I carried it around for several month in my purse and surprisingly when I tried using it again it wrote great. It didn't even seem to have dried out. I went through a couple of cartridges of Kaweco ink that I'd bought when I got the pen. Then I changed from the Palm Green to Summer Purple. I flushed tap water in between. The purple wrote ok but looked very pale. I tried taking apart the nib and feed and cleaning them and flushing everything with distilled water. The purple was still very pale. I flushed again after several days of trying to write with the purple and converted to eye dropper fill to try bottled ink. Noodler's Black Swan in Australian Roses performed the same way. Writing was smooth, but the color was very pale. I changed inks again and tried Private Reserve Purple Mojo. This time I immediately got beautiful, saturated color. The pen writes great.

 

So, long story short, has anyone else had similar experiences? Any ink suggestions?

[Torrilin]

Basically I throw whatever I feel like at mine.

 

I’ve fed it Kaweco Pearl Black, caramel brown, paradise blue, orange, grey, Pelikan turquoise, j Herbin Vert Olive and Rouge Caroubier, Waterman Mysterious Blue...

 

On the to try list: Platinum Carbon Black, Pilot Black and blue black, Iro yama-guri, Pelikan violet

 

The Bock nib and feed units tend to be rather iffy. There’s a LOT of threads about it. My F had a nib slit that was completely squished together, no room for ink at all. Flossing with a brass shim fixed it. My 1.5mm was such a bad baby’s bottom that it’d take most of my wrist strength to get a line initially. I used it for a nib grinding experiment and now it’s much better.

 

I haven’t yet found an ink that I’d like in mine all the time but honestly I bought them precisely to be handy shots of ink color. A short international cartridge is small and makes a great change of pace from my giant ink tank pens. There’s a lot of colors I can’t really face nearly 2mL of in one continuous go.

[npweston]

What size nib is your Kaweco? I have an EF - I think I've read somewhere that the EFs have fewer QC issues than other nib sizes. It works great for me with Diamine Prussian Blue. Also super classy

[senzen]

No problems with Poppy Red.

 

[dan in montreal]

Basically I throw whatever I feel like at mine.

...

 

The Bock nib and feed units tend to be rather iffy. There’s a LOT of threads about it. My F had a nib slit that was completely squished together, no room for ink at all. Flossing with a brass shim fixed it. My 1.5mm was such a bad baby’s bottom that it’d take most of my wrist strength to get a line initially. I used it for a nib grinding experiment and now it’s much better.

 

Same here: anything and everything.

 

The second paragraph here is key. All of the Sport and Student models I've handled have needed some tweaking to write well (widening of the tines, smoothing, etc). I've gifted many of them after that and haven't had any complaints!

 

Not the greatest nibs in the world, but they work OK. I still have 3 Sports and a Student in different nib sizes (F, M and 1.1) and they all perform reasonably well.

[Astronymus]

Kaweco Black in cartridges or something by J.Herbin in a converter. Totally random.

[TheDutchGuy]

I've got a bunch of Kawecos and they tend to have a "breaking-in" period. There are some tricks to speed up that process to be found here. Assuming the nib's tines are not excessively squeezed together, the pen will open up with use. I've had good results with a variety of inks. A stonewashed blue AL Sport is my every day pocket pen; it's inked with Waterman Mysterious Blue. The F nib really brings out a nice shading and the pen writes well on all kinds of paper, good and bad.

[yarnkitty]

Thanks for all the replies! My flow seems to be good (after that breaking in period). Maybe flossing the nib a little would help. I like a wet pen. I'm planning to try samples until I find something that works consistently. I appreciate the suggestions.

[TheDutchGuy]

Be careful when flossing the nib. When in doubt, don't. It's a steel nib so you need a brass shim. It's relatively easy to do, but it's not an "oh, well, let's try this" kind of thing. If you cause tiny burrs in the slit, the pen will get worse, not better. Like all nib tuning, it's either needed or it isn't needed.

[yarnkitty]

Appreciate the tip.

[MilanKov]

1.1 stub with Diamine Ancient Copper.

[Saryan]

Last week I got a Kaweco Al-Sport with an EF nib. Out of the box it was a terrible writer. All the usual Kaweco problems.

 

I cleaned the pen with water+ammonia, flossed the nib with a brass shim from Goulet and adjusted the tines a bit. They weren't centered on the feed and one was bent out of alignment with the other.

 

Since fixing those issues it's be an excellent pen. I've used both Diamine Midnight and Pilot Iroshizuku Shin-Kai on three different papers (Rhodia, Tomoe River and whatever the paper is in Travelers notebooks). I also have some Monteverde Fireopal cartridges I'd like to try once I get around to cleaning it again.

 

My only complaint is that for an EF, it's not as fine as I'd like, but I'm coming from a Pilot Knight with a fine nib so that may be biasing my expectations. I ordered a spare nib, maybe I'll try to grind it down a bit this weekend...

Edited September 28, 2018 by Saryan

[Bookman]

I bought my Kaweco Skyline Sport M only a few days ago at a stationery store, Paper & Grace, in Jackson Hole. The cart that came with it was Royal Blue. Royal blue is my favorite ink color—though, however named, royal blue inks do not look the same on the page, wet or dry. But Kaweco Royal Blue is either the perfect version of it or darned close. I returned to Paper & Grace the next day and bought two boxes of Royal Blue carts. I doubt I'll switch to something else anytime soon.

Edited October 7, 2018 by Bookman

[yarnkitty]

Mine writes great now with Noodler's Eel Cactus Fruit. When that runs out I'm going to try a Diamine.

[Antenociticus]

For about 12 years, in three different Sports (2 x F, 1 x M), I used nothing but either Pelikan 4001 Black or Kaweco Black cartridges. Never a problem.

 

I have been much more eclectic recently, and all inks but one have been fine. The one that wasn't was Super5 Atlantic Blue, a murky, everything-proof blue. This hard-starts every time, which rather defeats the point of an on-the-go pocket pen.

[Misfit]

All my Kaweco Sports have B nibs. I’ve used Diamine Apple Glory and Soft Mint,and J Herbin Terre de Fue and scented Rose. All worked well.

 

Good luck with yours.

[Lloyd]

I use my Kaweco Sport (XF nib) as an eyedropper filler and it's had nothing but Noodlers Bulletproof Black in it for years...it seems to never dry out despite very infrequent usage.

[wastelanded]

Any and all: I use Classic Sports as ink testers, as they're easy to tear down and clean.

Edited October 29, 2018 by wastelanded

[TheDutchGuy]

A colleague and fellow FPN member recently gave me a bottle of Noodler's Burgundy. Didn't quite have the right pen for it. Today is fountain pen day and my local brick and mortar store offered 18% discount, so I went out and got a wine-red Classic Sport with gold-coloured F nib. This is my 3rd Sport, after my trusty all-day every-day AL Sport Stonewashed Blue (that thing is like an extra body part to me, battle scars and all) and an earlier black Classic Sport F (which was a dud). My son and I bought a few Kawecos recently (various models) and every one was absolutely spot-on. I've noticed a significant QC improvement in the nibs. My new burgundy Sport is no exception: flushed it, filled it, enjoyed it from the first stroke. Amazing quality for a mere 18 euros. Really. I can pick it up after using a high-level pen (Targa, 146, Sailor) and hardly notice a decrease in writing pleasure. That Noodler's ink is quite wet, which helps with a new pen. Great match - the colour of the pen is very close to that of the ink.

[tinta]

Generally my most reliable fix for balky Kaweco/ Bock 060 feeds is to send them to Pendleton Brown. He has been my "nib whisperer" for my two Dia2s & Lilliputs.

I'm waiting for a couple of 14c Kaweco nib units from Pendleton that will have been set up for very dry inks (like Pelikan's Blue/Black).