Should a well tuned nib work with many different inks? Also dry ones

[rb120134]

When people have trouble with hard starts and skipping, people suggest to use "wetter" inks. But shouldnt an expensive fountain pen nib work with many different inks, including dry ones? Or do we just accept that wetter inks work better sometimes than dry inks? For instance, with my Graf von Faber Castell fountain pen, GvFC Royal Blue feels wetter and never skips or hard starts while GvFC Cobalt Blue hard starts and skips sometimes on Rhodia paper, or it takes some time before the pen starts writing. Is this problem unavoidable? Or a nib tuning problem?

[silverlifter]

5 minutes ago, rb120134 said:

But shouldnt an expensive fountain pen nib work with many different inks, including dry ones?

 

Unfortunately, the price of a pen bears no--or very little--relationship to the quality of the nib. A well ground, aligned nib should write well with a full range of inks, but there may be some variability of tactile experience (ie., slight sensation of feedback, or dragging, with very dry inks--also dependent upon the type of paper).

 

There may be some small issue with the nib that is compensated for with wetter inks, but exposed with drier ones. Try inspecting it with a loupe.

[rb120134]

1 minute ago, silverlifter said:

 

Unfortunately, the price of a pen bears no--or very little--relationship to the quality of the nib. A well ground, aligned nib should write well with a full range of inks, but there may be some variability of tactile experience (ie., slight sensation of feedback, or dragging, with very dry inks--also dependent upon the type of paper).

 

There may be some small issue with the nib that is compensated for with wetter inks, but exposed with drier ones. Try inspecting it with a loupe.

I use only Rhodia paper with my GvFC fountain pen, heard that smooth paper with dry ink can cause skipping

[silverlifter]

FWIW, I don't like Rhodia, especially for drier inks like DRI. I find the coating unpleasant. TR or cheap copy paper is much nicer to write on.

[ENIAC]

Here's the problem: When it comes to ink flow, a fountain pen is a system.  The nib is only one part of it.  In the vast majority of pens I've worked on to fix flow problems, nib issues have comprised only a tiny minority of root causes.  By that I mean way down in the single-digit-percentage area.  Barring something really obvious, such as a wrongly-tapered slit or a nib bent away from the feed, the problem has almost always been located north of the nib itself.

[rb120134]

51 minutes ago, ENIAC said:

Here's the problem: When it comes to ink flow, a fountain pen is a system.  The nib is only one part of it.  In the vast majority of pens I've worked on to fix flow problems, nib issues have comprised only a tiny minority of root causes.  By that I mean way down in the single-digit-percentage area.  Barring something really obvious, such as a wrongly-tapered slit or a nib bent away from the feed, the problem has almost always been located north of the nib itself.

and what is the most common problem you found north of the nib itself? 

[sandy101]

It may be a paper problem. 

 

I've got pens that detest rhodia paper. 

 

I suspect it has something to do with the coating. If the nib is sharp enough it will penetrate the coating and the ink will flow into the grooves carves by th enib. If the nib is blunt (or wider) and it does not fully penetrate the coating and so you get irregular ink flow and the nib gets crudded up with particles from the paper. 

 

I suspect this because I have a fine (tuned) Visconti nib that loves rhodia. Can write on it all day without stopping. I have a medium nib for the same type of pen and it hates the stuff. It skips every four or five lines - I have to dip the nib to keep it writing - and I think  it is the fibres/coating getting caught up. I thoug tht enib as poor, but it writes perfectly well of on moleskine or 80 gsm copy paper. 

 

 

 

[OMASsimo]

I think that a good pen should write perfectly well with almost every ink on almost every paper and almost all of my many pens do. As @ENIACstates correctly, the pen is a system, so flow issues could have many reasons. In my experience, however, the majority of the problems are due to nib and feed. But we might just talk about different pens because I mostly have European vintage pens.

 

Rhodia or Clairefontaine paper is hard, heavily coated, and very slick. Thus, if the nib tipping isn’t absolutely perfect, the ink film may break down and you get skipping. This kind of paper paired with a dry ink like Pelikan blue black 4001 is always my test case to check whether a nib is tuned perfectly. The second test is an absorbent paper to test whether the feed is up for the job. It seems that quite a number of highly praised current producers got a bit sloppy with their quality control and ship pens with nib issues. But most of their pens still write perfectly with almost any ink on almost any paper.

[ele]

Has anyone had a badly behaved GvFC nib? I've heard nothing but wonderful things and have had excellent luck myself with them right out of the box. Every paper, excellent. IMO G. Lalo is perhaps the ultimate test, as it is texture and will catch nibs with imperfections in smoothness or flow. 

[maclink]

I don't have any really nicely performing pens that are ink finicky.  I don't have flow issues and am able to concentrate on how the ink works and how the nib feels with the specific paper. 

Once there's skipping and/or hard starting and I have to be reaching for specific inks to try to rectify the problem, then I do feel that there's a problem that I am trying to compensate for.  Furthermore, so far, I haven't had a lot of success in rectifying such issues with an ink change.  

 

On a couple of my problem pens, the skipping was transient and disappeared with use (2-3 fills of writing).  My FA nib stopped skipping/hard starting with a feed change.  Another nib turned out to have some negative camber with one of the tines.  I got the nib exchanged and it's now fine.  One of my most recent purchases turned out to have some stubbornly stuck manufacturing crud in the single  feed channel.  I saw it only with magnification and manually removed it.  The pen is working flawlessly now and I am inclined to keep it inked all the time... so nice is the tuning.

[Detman101]

11 hours ago, ele said:

Has anyone had a badly behaved GvFC nib? I've heard nothing but wonderful things and have had excellent luck myself with them right out of the box. Every paper, excellent. IMO G. Lalo is perhaps the ultimate test, as it is texture and will catch nibs with imperfections in smoothness or flow. 

EDIT: Saw original post referencing Graf Von Faber Castell

I've got the Franklin-Christoph 14k XXF-Flex nib unit and it's an absolute joy to use. I had to learn how to write softer to use it and I'm still no expert with it, but it's amazing.
I don't know what it wrote like out of the box because I had CustomNibStudio work on it before I ever used it though.
It writes with all the inks I've used with it, dry Sailor inks...wet Iroshizuku inks...middle-of-the-road Diamine inks...everything.
I think that it really comes down to the quality of the nib you're using and how the feed is set and your pen's dynamic ability to adjust.
I have my F-C nib set in a Penbbs-355 with a variable shutoff valve.
When I use a dry ink...I just open the valve-opening a little more to compensate and it flows close to normal, no skipping.
If I use a wet ink......I just reduce the valve-opening to compensate and it lays down ink close to normal...slightly wetter, but not gushing.

[rb120134]

Here I have a short video of the Graf von Faber Castell nib, as you can see at around 1:54 it starts skipping, here it only skips for a couple of seconds, but sometimes it wont write for a very long time, like 20 seconds.  Using rhodia paper here

 

 

[Detman101]

Oof...that looks like feed issue.
Does that pen have a converter?

[rb120134]

3 minutes ago, Detman101 said:

Oof...that looks like feed issue.
Does that pen have a converter?

Yes, I am using a converter. What could be the issue and how can I resolve it?

[Detman101]

22 minutes ago, rb120134 said:

Yes, I am using a converter. What could be the issue and how can I resolve it?

I have a recommendation, but I would request that more input from other users be submitted first.
Also, sending the pen off to a nibmeister for flow-correction is advised if that is an option for you.

 

Converter feeds are prone to anemic ink-flow when they're not setup properly.
My solution involves taking the converter, nib and feed out of the pen, thoroughly cleaning the feed and nib with a flush solution (tiny bit of ammonia, a little soap and distilled water), then flushing feed with distilled water and letting it air dry, also running a razor down the ink channel of the feed to widen/deepen it slightly, cleaning the feed again after the modification, then reassembling everything and testing. This process is not reversible, so much care needs to be taken.

[rb120134]

23 minutes ago, Detman101 said:

I have a recommendation, but I would request that more input from other users be submitted first.
Also, sending the pen off to a nibmeister for flow-correction is advised if that is an option for you.

  Reveal hidden contents

Converter feeds are prone to anemic ink-flow when they're not setup properly.
My solution involves taking the converter, nib and feed out of the pen, thoroughly cleaning the feed and nib with a flush solution (tiny bit of ammonia, a little soap and distilled water), then flushing feed with distilled water and letting it air dry, also running a razor down the ink channel of the feed to widen/deepen it slightly, cleaning the feed again after the modification, then reassembling everything and testing. This process is not reversible, so much care needs to be taken.

Could using cartridges instead of the converter also help?

[Detman101]

3 minutes ago, rb120134 said:

Could using cartridges instead of the converter also help?

Yes, I would try that first!!!
Good suggestion!

[rb120134]

Just now, Detman101 said:

Yes, I would try that first!!!
Good suggestion!

Are cartridges less prone to anemic ink flow?

[Detman101]

28 minutes ago, rb120134 said:

Are cartridges less prone to anemic ink flow?

I would not say that they are, but they present a different air/ink flow to the pen that may or may-not alleviate the anemic ink flow of your current setup.
That is one of the nice options regarding C/C pens.
I, personally, only use eyedroppers these days. I've retired all of my C/C pens or given them away.

[sandy101]

1/ Did you "burp it" after filling it? If not, there may be air bubbles in the feed which is causing your problem. Air bubbles are in the feed which prevents ink flow. To get them out, after filing with the convertor, squeeze a drop of ink out into the bottle to remove them.  

 

2/ Try turning the pen 45 degrees, so the two tines are at the same angle to the page. It is possible the angle you are holding the pen means the ink distribution onto the page is uneven. It is possible that is where the problem is.    

 

3/ Try a different paper. Not all pens/nibs like Clairefontaine/rhodia/coated papers - certainly not all of mine do.  

 

4/ Yes, sometimes cartridges work better than convertors. I couldn't tell you why - and sometimes the reverse is true.

 

5/ Ink - a "wetter ink" such as Sailor/Waterman/Caran D'ache might help. 

 

However, I think a different paper might solve your problem. Try writing a page on bog standard copier paper. If you get the same skipping, then try steps 2-4.