Efnir: Jacques Herbin Émeraude De Chivor

[A Smug Dill]

I want to see whether the ink will spread on Rhodia Dotpad paper for me.

I'll take some photos of it in the morning, but now that I've replaced the EF nib on my Wing Sung 3008 (I broke the original one yesterday) with one that, when reverse-writing, is fine enough but still wet enough to put down shimmer, I must conclude that my bottle of ÉdC ink — of whichever 'generation' — does not spread when I write with it on my Rhodia Dotpads.

 

I might even try it in a PenBBS 494 on which I think I can fit a Pilot steel EF nib 'donated' from a Penmanship pen.

Well, never mind changing the nibs. I filled a PenBBS 494 — still fitted with its original steel EF nib, which is quite fine — with ÉdC ink, and the feed was completely clogged after less than an A5 page's worth of writing.

[LizEF]

I'll take some photos of it in the morning, but now that I've replaced the EF nib on my Wing Sung 3008 (I broke the original one yesterday) with one that, when reverse-writing, is fine enough but still wet enough to put down shimmer, I must conclude that my bottle of ÉdC ink — of whichever 'generation' — does not spread when I write with it on my Rhodia Dotpads.

...

 

I probably need to find a different word to describe what I'm seeing... All your work prompted me to go get the old review pages and compare the line widths for the word "Ink" in "Extra Find Nib Ink Review". EoC was indeed slightly wider than most. The following had similarly "slightly wider" line widths:

• R&K sketchINK Emma
• R&K sketchINK Frieda
• Herbin Bleu des Profondeurs
• Waterman Inspired Blue

Of course, this is all terribly unscientific with one person's eyeballs and writing samples, but there it is. None of these were wooly or feathery on Rhodia, they just wrote slightly wider lines than all the rest. There are others, I'm sure, that write slightly narrower lines than most (my memory says Aonibi is one), but I don't want to spend the time figuring it out now...

[A Smug Dill]

EoC was indeed slightly wider than most.  The following had similarly "slightly wider" line widths:

• R&K sketchINK Emma
• R&K sketchINK Frieda
• Herbin Bleu des Profondeurs
• Waterman Inspired Blue

 

But my question there would be, is that just because Émeraude de Chivor (and the other inks in your list above) flows 'wetter' than the average among the inks you've tested? A wetter line of ink could present both darker and wider, even from the same nib.

 

 

(click on individual image to enlarge)

[LizEF]

But my question there would be, is that just because Émeraude de Chivor (and the other inks in your list above) flows 'wetter' than the average among the inks you've tested? A wetter line of ink could present both darker and wider, even from the same nib.

[pics]

(click on individual image to enlarge)

I'm sure that's a significant part of the equation. I don't think it was necessarily the wettest ink I've used, but it was wet and well lubricated more than the majority, and I'm sure that translates into more ink needing a place to go. I think some inks tend to "pile up" rather than "spread out" - I assume this is related to surface tension, but perhaps there's something else that impacts this - but we're getting into realms of science that I either never knew or have long since forgotten...

 

Anywho, it's not terribly significant unless you happen to be searching for the finest line ever, in which case, a glitter ink surely is not the right choice...

[yazeh]

Liz and Smugdill, I know it's off topic, I hope you don't mind..

You both mentioned using ultrasonic cleaners.

I'm tempted buy one as I and especially my significant other is tired of goblets of pen parts soaking in water, like in a medieval apothecary or a fictional voodoo lair

 

My question how long does it take to clean a pen. I use mostly pigmented/bullet proof inks, for dedicated pens, but once in a while I need to clean them.....

Your insights much appreciated in advance

[LizEF]

Liz and Smugdill, I know it's off topic, I hope you don't mind..

You both mentioned using ultrasonic cleaners.

I'm tempted buy one as I and especially my significant other is tired of goblets of pen parts soaking in water, like in a medieval apothecary or a fictional voodoo lair

 

My question how long does it take to clean a pen. I use mostly pigmented/bullet proof inks, for dedicated pens, but once in a while I need to clean them.....

Your insights much appreciated in advance

 

I own this thing. It's simple compared to some sonicators, but it works well for me. Apparently the cycle is 3 minutes (I've never timed it, but that's what the product description says.) I know I've run the section through more than one cycle, but I doubt I've ever run the same thing through more than 4 cycles (and even that would be extremely rare). To save on pen flush (I always use pen flush if it has to go this far), I put the pen part(s) in a smaller thing (like a sample vial), with a lid, full up, then put that, standing up, in the water that's in the sonicator (you don't want to run it dry or with just a container with water - you need water in the device).

 

I've still got more De Atramentis Document inks to test, so when we get to those, I can pay better attention (assuming they're as bad as DAD Black).

[A Smug Dill]

My question how long does it take to clean a pen.

 

How long is a piece of string? Or, how long does it take to clean a dinner plate with a dish brush?

 

A typical ultrasonic cleaning cycle is three minutes in duration -- and the only, or default, setting on some machines -- but there is no guarantee that it will clean a pen in a particular condition thoroughly. There are also situations in which no number of repeated cycles will suffice. Ultrasonic cleaning is effective in busting up and/or shaking loose solid particles trapped in hard to reach places where the shimmer doesn't shine, but in itself won't dissolve dried ink that is firmly stuck inside the feed or the converter; that would still take solvent (which is primarily water, with or without additives) and time, although warmth and ultrasonic cleaning could cause the reactions at the glob's contact surface with the solvent to happen a little more quickly. It will also still take flushing, most likely both before and after the cleaning cycle; tiny but solid pieces that are trapped inside a channel, or between fins, on a feed that has not been removed from the gripping section may be shaken loose and free to move about, but during the ultrasonic cleaning cycle there is no deliberate and/or directional flow of liquid to transport those pieces out from the nooks and crannies.

 

I use mostly pigmented/bullet proof inks, for dedicated pens,

 

The pigment particles are expected to be tiny enough to move freely through the feed and down the nib slit carried by the liquid component of the ink. (That said, as I mentioned earlier in this thread, one could make the tine gap to tight that the shimmer particles in Émeraude de Chivor cannot travel down onto the page, but get congested somewhere up the nib slit, and the build-up will either stifle ink flow or eventually fall off and land as a glob where and when you least want it.) If the particles are not glued by dried ink onto some surface, a good pressurised flush with water should be enough to clean them out of the feed and/or section. If a bunch of particles are only physically compacted against each other to form a clump, which partially or fully clogs a channel, ultrasonic cleaning will (eventually) break it up provided that the piece is surrounded by a bath of water; but chances are that there is dried ink holding them together.

 

So, if you only clean your pens when you observe symptoms of clogging, then they'll still need soaking first to ensure the ultrasonic cleaning cycle is effective. On the other hand, if you routinely clean your pens every two or three weeks, and they aren't apt to partially dry out in that time in spite of being capped when unused, then a three-minute ultrasonic cleaning cycle will most likely give it a thorough clean without soaking, because ... let's face it, a good flush with a bulb syringe will probably do an adequate job in that situation anyway.

 

Thus the earlier metaphor of the dinner plate and the dish brush. It probably speeds the cleaning process up -- by a little or a lot -- no matter what if you use a brush, and if your dinner plate has decorations in low relief (or, alternatively, exposed cracks on the surface) then there may be places for food scraps to be trapped where you can only get inside with a brush or a pick; so, using a brush can only help. However, if sauces from dinner have dried on the plate overnight before you get around to cleaning it, having a brush does not automatically guarantee you can get the plate clean in 30 seconds or some other fixed duration; and you may still have to soak the plate in spite of having a brush. An ultrasonic cleaner is the equivalent of a brush, not a fully automatic dishwasher to which you can just leave it to do the cleaning having started a cycle of some known duration, and expect to come back to dishes that are clean and ready to be put to use again right away.

[yazeh]

Thank you both for such detailed response and sharing your experience.....

Ah the proverbial dinner plate. That's why I would never lit them sit.... I wish I could say that for my pens

[A Smug Dill]

@yazeh

A couple of anecdotes regarding ultrasonic cleaning:

• Both the Wing Sung 3008 and PenBBS 494 have transparent feeds. Following the use of Émeraude de Chivor in the pens, after serial five-minute ultrasonic cleaning cycles of the disassembled pens — such that the feeds were separated from the nibs and the gripping sections — in both feeds I could see a spot of green (or teal), with no visible hint of gold or otherwise shimmer, 'stuck' inside the core of the feed; and, in both cases, it took pressurised flushes (with just water) using a bulb syringe to get rid of the spots. (Actually, it happened to my WS3008 twice.)
  
• I discovered that a fill of Pelikan 4001 Blue-Black iron-gall ink^† from thirteen(!) months ago has completely dried out inside one of my pens. No problem; I wasn't too worried about it, the gold nib didn't appear to have been discoloured or corroded, and the rotary mechanism of the converter still worked after a bit of cajoling. So I rinsed it under the tap, sucked water through the nib into the converter and pushed it back out again a couple of times (just in case) to dissolve dried ink that may have 'cemented' the mouth of the converter to the feed's nipple, then removed the converter, and gave the section and feed three or so pressurised 30ml flushes until the water came out mostly clear. I then dumped the gripping section nib-down into a beaker of water; and, within minutes, heaps more colour seeped out of the section and feed to settle at the bottom. So I stuck the beaker, with gripping section and all, into the ultrasonic cleaner (which contained a dilute alkaline solution, thus I didn't want to just dump the section 'encrusted' with dried acidic ink into the bath already in the tank directly). Much more colour came out. Pressurised flush until the stream that jetted out of the nib appeared clear, then soak in beaker of clean water, followed by another cleaning cycle in the ultrasonic cleaner when more colour seeped out, repeated another eight or ten times (which means more than half an hour of total time in the ultrasonic cleaner). Yet still more colour came out. Foiled and frustrated, I left the gripping section to soak in the beaker overnight. No less than ten hours later, there was still an observable wisp of colour seeping downwards from the gripping section! It took another two pressurised flushes and ultrasonic cleaning cycles before no more colour came out when soaking in a beaker.

So don't expect an ultrasonic cleaner to perform cleaning magic, even when you use an ink without insoluble particles and certainly when you use one with particles.

^† From a very old bottle, so much so that colour of the ink in it is more dark grey than blue. I have a newer bottle bought last year for comparison.

[LizEF]

...

• I discovered that a fill of Pelikan 4001 Blue-Black iron-gall ink^† from thirteen(!) months ago has completely dried out inside one of my pens. No problem; I wasn't too worried about it, the gold nib didn't appear to have been discoloured or corroded, and the rotary mechanism of the converter still worked after a bit of cajoling. So I rinsed it under the tap, sucked water through the nib into the converter and pushed it back out again a couple of times (just in case) to dissolve dried ink that may have 'cemented' the mouth of the converter to the feed's nipple, then removed the converter, and gave the section and feed three or so pressurised 30ml flushes until the water came out mostly clear. I then dumped the gripping section nib-down into a beaker of water; and, within minutes, heaps more colour seeped out of the section and feed to settle at the bottom. So I stuck the beaker, with gripping section and all, into the ultrasonic cleaner (which contained a dilute alkaline solution, thus I didn't want to just dump the section 'encrusted' with dried acidic ink into the bath already in the tank directly). Much more colour came out. Pressurised flush until the stream that jetted out of the nib appeared clear, then soak in beaker of clean water, followed by another cleaning cycle in the ultrasonic cleaner when more colour seeped out, repeated another eight or ten times (which means more than half an hour of total time in the ultrasonic cleaner). Yet still more colour came out. Foiled and frustrated, I left the gripping section to soak in the beaker overnight. No less than ten hours later, there was still an observable wisp of colour seeping downwards from the gripping section! It took another two pressurised flushes and ultrasonic cleaning cycles before no more colour came out when soaking in a beaker.

So don't expect an ultrasonic cleaner to perform cleaning magic, even when you use an ink without insoluble particles and certainly when you use one with particles.

...

My one and only vintage pen experience was restoring an Esterbrook for a work friend. It's the reason I bought the ultrasonic cleaner (called a sonicator in the lab where I worked). It also had dried ink and a dried and broken up sac. The experience was much like you describe above. But it all came out well in the end, and wrote beautifully - still does, as far as I know.

[yazeh]

@yazeh

 

A couple of anecdotes regarding ultrasonic cleaning:

• Both the Wing Sung 3008 and PenBBS 494 have transparent feeds. Following the use of Émeraude de Chivor in the pens, after serial five-minute ultrasonic cleaning cycles of the disassembled pens — such that the feeds were separated from the nibs and the gripping sections — in both feeds I could see a spot of green (or teal), with no visible hint of gold or otherwise shimmer, 'stuck' inside the core of the feed; and, in both cases, it took pressurised flushes (with just water) using a bulb syringe to get rid of the spots. (Actually, it happened to my WS3008 twice.)

• I discovered that a fill of Pelikan 4001 Blue-Black iron-gall ink^† from thirteen(!) months ago has completely dried out inside one of my pens. No problem; I wasn't too worried about it, the gold nib didn't appear to have been discoloured or corroded, and the rotary mechanism of the converter still worked after a bit of cajoling. So I rinsed it under the tap, sucked water through the nib into the converter and pushed it back out again a couple of times (just in case) to dissolve dried ink that may have 'cemented' the mouth of the converter to the feed's nipple, then removed the converter, and gave the section and feed three or so pressurised 30ml flushes until the water came out mostly clear. I then dumped the gripping section nib-down into a beaker of water; and, within minutes, heaps more colour seeped out of the section and feed to settle at the bottom. So I stuck the beaker, with gripping section and all, into the ultrasonic cleaner (which contained a dilute alkaline solution, thus I didn't want to just dump the section 'encrusted' with dried acidic ink into the bath already in the tank directly). Much more colour came out. Pressurised flush until the stream that jetted out of the nib appeared clear, then soak in beaker of clean water, followed by another cleaning cycle in the ultrasonic cleaner when more colour seeped out, repeated another eight or ten times (which means more than half an hour of total time in the ultrasonic cleaner). Yet still more colour came out. Foiled and frustrated, I left the gripping section to soak in the beaker overnight. No less than ten hours later, there was still an observable wisp of colour seeping downwards from the gripping section! It took another two pressurised flushes and ultrasonic cleaning cycles before no more colour came out when soaking in a beaker.

So don't expect an ultrasonic cleaner to perform cleaning magic, even when you use an ink without insoluble particles and certainly when you use one with particles.

 

^† From a very old bottle, so much so that colour of the ink in it is more dark grey than blue. I have a newer bottle bought last year for comparison.

Thank you for sharing your detailed experience. Basically I understand there's no magic bullet. And a combination of all tools will help with the cleaning procedure of toughest nature. Each one has it merit.

I guess I was looking for a system, that I pop a pen in the cleaner and voilà a couple of cycle and it's done, dry it and put it away.

I'll stay with my apothecary jugs for now then

[yazeh]

My one and only vintage pen experience was restoring an Esterbrook for a work friend. It's the reason I bought the ultrasonic cleaner (called a sonicator in the lab where I worked). It also had dried ink and a dried and broken up sac. The experience was much like you describe above. But it all came out well in the end, and wrote beautifully - still does, as far as I know.

Did you use the lab sonicator for the vintage pen or your personal one?

[LizEF]

Did you use the lab sonicator for the vintage pen or your personal one?

My personal one.

[yazeh]

My personal one.

Thanks....the problem with vintage ones is the sac.... the eternal rinsing..... the joys of vintage pens

[LizEF]

Thanks....the problem with vintage ones is the sac.... the eternal rinsing..... the joys of vintage pens

Yeah, cleaning and re-sac-ing (?) that pen convinced me I really don't want a sac-filled (aerometric?) pen. I now have a vintage Kaweco piston-filler, and per the advice of the person who gifted it to me, I plan to stick to one ink for it (just haven't decided which ink yet ).

[yazeh]

Yeah, cleaning and re-sac-ing (?) that pen convinced me I really don't want a sac-filled (aerometric?) pen. I now have a vintage Kaweco piston-filler, and per the advice of the person who gifted it to me, I plan to stick to one ink for it (just haven't decided which ink yet ).

It's such a relief when we find the forever ink for a pen. One thing I've learned about pen and inks, fidelity is not on high on their list

[LizEF]

.... One thing I've learned about pen and inks, fidelity is not on high on their list

Yes, they and I enjoy variety!

[yazeh]

Yes, they and I enjoy variety!

[A Smug Dill]

Yes, they and I enjoy variety!

 

 

Pardon my French.

[LizEF]

 

 

Pardon my French.

(I think I missed something - or I'm just dense.)