Is there a scientific study of inks to determine their kindness, or cruelty, to vintage pens?

[Estycollector]

The reason I linked Binder’s page is because he explains why some inks are death to a FP and some were good. Pens need ink. It’s their food. 
 

If you understand Binder’s opinions, I don’t see that a scientific experiment is required. It’s like doing an experiment on engine oils just to satisfy a curiosity. There is a time where the information is already known. 

[RJS]

11 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

Lamy T53 Crystal Ink Topaz has already ruined two of my modern Moonman pens, by effectively drying to some sort of permanent adhesive after seeping into the threads between the gripping section and the (originally removable) nib housing.

Eek! I bought that ink last week when Amazon had it on sale for £4. Didn't think it would be such a potentially dangerous ink- will ensure it goes in a cheap pen!

[david-p]

9 minutes ago, Estycollector said:

The reason I linked Binder’s page is because he explains why some inks are death to a FP and some were good. Pens need ink. It’s their food. 
 

If you understand Binder’s opinions, I don’t see that a scientific experiment is required. It’s like doing an experiment on engine oils just to satisfy a curiosity. There is a time where the information is already known. 

 

I agree that Binder's pages on this subject (and on other subjects) are a serious contribution to the topic and am thankful to have been directed to them. He does point out the importance of pH in combination with other parameters, though his list of pH values is incomplete, as is the longer one from the far east, above. Thus as far as experiments are concerned, it would be useful to have pH measurements for more inks, if someone wants to do them. Quite a few well-known and popular ones are not in these lists.

 

David

[gyasko]

5 hours ago, bunnspecial said:

The repair guys who have repaired premature failure from certain brands or types of ink are still working on anecdotes, but their anecdotes are based on a fairly large sample size rather than a single pen.

 

The plural of anecdotes is data.  At least for the ones that are true.

[bunnspecial]

6 hours ago, david-p said:

 

I agree that Binder's pages on this subject (and on other subjects) are a serious contribution to the topic and am thankful to have been directed to them. He does point out the importance of pH in combination with other parameters, though his list of pH values is incomplete, as is the longer one from the far east, above. Thus as far as experiments are concerned, it would be useful to have pH measurements for more inks, if someone wants to do them. Quite a few well-known and popular ones are not in these lists.

 

David

 

I have made pH measurements of inks, but I do not have the highest degree of confidence in the electrode on the pH meter to which I currently have access.

 

If I actually get back in the office/lab as I'm supposed to week after next, one of the things on my to do list is to try and breath some life back into that one. It responds, and responds quickly, but the slope is high enough that I don't trust its precision. All of that tells me that it can probably be brought back to life hopefully simply.

 

In a prior job at a prior place, this would be about the time I'd be making my annual order of 15-20 electrodes. The epoxy bodied gel Oakton electrodes I ordered weren't as good as the glass/liquid filled ones, but they were good enough for most purposes and were a lot more durable. They were inexpensive enough(the last I bought were ~$50 each in bulk) that when one misbehaved I'd usually do an overnight soak in saturated KCl and if it didn't come back to life I'd toss it. I don't have the money now nor the justification to buy that many. The one I do have, though, is glass bodied and is quite a bit more serviceable than the cheap ones.

[david-p]

2 hours ago, bunnspecial said:

I have made pH measurements of inks, but I do not have the highest degree of confidence in the electrode on the pH meter to which I currently have access.

In the digital age, pH meters are readily available at reasonable cost. If I had my own swimming pool, I would need one to test the water; but that is not going to happen where I live! However, maybe somebody else reading this does have a swimming pool and the requisite gear and collection of inks to verify and extend the currently available measurements.

 

Alternatively, LAQUAtwin-22, the device used in the Japanese measurements, requires only 0.1 ml of liquid, claims an accuracy of 0.01 pH and can be had here, for instance.

 

David

[A Smug Dill]

4 hours ago, david-p said:

In the digital age, pH meters are readily available at reasonable cost.

 

I bought a pH meter off eBay, with the express intent to test the pH of fountain pen inks, for my own idle curiosity. Seemed like a good idea at the time, which was ironic/stupid considering that my tendonitis was stopping me from writing for several months then.

 

I never even unboxed it after it arrived (years ago). Can't be bothered with the effort and the cost of calibrating the thing from time to time, and really can't think of a good reason why I would want to verify and extend the currently available measurements, let alone put the information in a library for anyone else to access, when I can't even see a ‘need to know’ on my part for the hundreds of retail bottles of ink I have here.

 

The device now lives under the guest bed, along with piles of other stuff, gathering dust.

[arcfide]

Both acidic and alkaline inks could potentially cause problems, but the bad news for people who love both interesting inks and "vintage" pens is that high dye contents can also cause problems regardless of the pH. 

 

For IG inks, there isn't as much danger of stainless steel corroding from exposure or a gold nib from corroding, but plated materials are at danger of corrosion. Many new and old pens have suffered corrosion of their plated nibs from inks, even if they weren't highly acidic, and many older Platinum fountain pens that had the gold ring at the end of the section and were used with their acidic Blue Black IG ink have corrosion of the plating materials there (Platinum since moved that ring up higher). So, I would feel okay using an IG ink in a stainless pen, but not in a plated one. 

 

There's some concern that celluloid pens may be adversely affected by heavily alkaline inks. 

 

There is already extensive discussion about latex sacs and alkaline inks. Platinum's Classic line is all IG, so I presume they are all acidic, if someone wanted to use Japanese IG inks in colors other than blue black. 

 

If I were worried about a vintage pen, then I'd stick with unsaturated, low dye content, well-behaved inks that were either pH neutral or acidic. This means I'd probably be okay with a majority of the normal Lamy ink line, but not any of their Crystal line, for instance.

 

If people call an ink boring, uninspired, and it's relatively affordable and has been around for a long time, then that's probably something that's more likely to be okay. The moment an ink becomes "interesting" is when I start getting more worried. I think there's a good reason that things like Parker Quink, Sheaffer Skrip, Pelikan 4001, and Waterman inks are the way they are, versus the modern post-Park Penman era of vibrant inks.

[InesF]

3 hours ago, david-p said:

In the digital age, pH meters are readily available at reasonable cost. If I had my own swimming pool, I would need one to test the water; but that is not going to happen where I live! However, maybe somebody else reading this does have a swimming pool and the requisite gear and collection of inks to verify and extend the currently available measurements.

 

Alternatively, LAQUAtwin-22, the device used in the Japanese measurements, requires only 0.1 ml of liquid, claims an accuracy of 0.01 pH and can be had here, for instance.

 

David

Hi David.

 

Here you find some more measurements.

However, rubber, ebonite and some of the vintage materials are more susceptible to high pH-values, while non-precious metals (like regular dip nibs) corrode from low pH inks.

To my knowledge, any vintage pen can withstand the low pH of vintage iron gal inks (below pH 2) and do well with all the other inks.

Do not use pigmented calligraphy or Indian type inks.

[david-p]

22 minutes ago, InesF said:

Here you find some more measurements.

 

Thanks for linking to your measurements. Most of your collection is more exotic than mine!

 

Maybe others will chime in with their meaurements. At some point they could be combined. (I suppose, as I started digging this rabbit hole, I should do that... LOL)

 

David

Edited August 6, 2021 by david-p

[IlikeInksandIcannotlie]

I wholeheartedly agree with you, an experiment has to be reproducible.

15 hours ago, bunnspecial said:

BTW, I'm glad to see the above Reddit experiment, but the scientist in me wouldn't necessarily place a ton of trust in just a single test.

 

For one thing, I seem to recall that there are 2-3 manufacturers of ink sacs out there. Since they all seem to charge about the same price for their sacs, I'm assuming all are probably ab out the same quality, but that doesn't necessarily mean that their rubber is exactly the same. It's entirely possible that an ink is completely fine in one brand of sac and will cause nearly immediate issues in another brand.

Second, testing a single pen with a single ink from a given manufacturer doesn't necessarily allow us to draw a valid conclusion. Not every ink is the same within a given line, and every brand can have batch to batch variation. Noodlers is especially known for it, and IIRC the "Bad" Warden series inks are mixed by the bottle with some intentional slight variation so that an ink can be tracked back to one particular bottle.

 

The repair guys who have repaired premature failure from certain brands or types of ink are still working on anecdotes, but their anecdotes are based on a fairly large sample size rather than a single pen.

 

[bunnspecial]

5 hours ago, david-p said:

In the digital age, pH meters are readily available at reasonable cost. If I had my own swimming pool, I would need one to test the water; but that is not going to happen where I live! However, maybe somebody else reading this does have a swimming pool and the requisite gear and collection of inks to verify and extend the currently available measurements.

 

Alternatively, LAQUAtwin-22, the device used in the Japanese measurements, requires only 0.1 ml of liquid, claims an accuracy of 0.01 pH and can be had here, for instance.

 

David

 

Yes they've gotten smaller and cheaper, but I also have access to and the knowledge to use a laboratory grade pH meter. I tend to trust it more than I do an inexpensive one.

 

Also, I tend to not trust Horiba after we spent months fighting with them to actually get our Raman microscope(about $30K) to work correctly and it never was completely right.

[david-p]

2 hours ago, bunnspecial said:

Yes they've gotten smaller and cheaper, but I also have access to and the knowledge to use a laboratory grade pH meter. I tend to trust it more than I do an inexpensive one.

 

Sorry to hear of the diappointing outcome of your fight!

 

As far as accuracy goes, while I understand your natural professional bias (as an engineer myself I like to measure things to the newarest 0.1 dB), we surely dont need pH indications better than +/- 1  to estimate whether an ink is good for a given pen. As they say, "It's close enough for jazz!" Its a bit like the fad of measuring the pressure in bicycle tyres these days, or using torque wrenches in non-critical cases which can be felt by hand.

 

David

[IlikeInksandIcannotlie]

On 8/5/2021 at 2:44 PM, A Smug Dill said:

Lamy T53 Crystal Ink Topaz has already ruined two of my modern Moonman pens, by effectively drying to some sort of permanent adhesive after seeping into the threads between the gripping section and the (originally removable) nib housing

Have you had any problems with any of the other Lamy Crystal inks (especially Benitoite)?

[Estycollector]

So, I am more of a practical user than most members, I've  never had an issue with Waterman ink. I use an FP as I would an ink pen, so it needs to work. All of my Esterbrook pens in use have only Waterman for the reason that it is wet. 

 

I do, however, understand that others use pens for other purposes. 

[bunnspecial]

42 minutes ago, Estycollector said:

So, I am more of a practical user than most members, I've  never had an issue with Waterman ink. I use an FP as I would an ink pen, so it needs to work. All of my Esterbrook pens in use have only Waterman for the reason that it is wet. 

 

I do, however, understand that others use pens for other purposes. 

Out of curiosity, what do you mean by “practical user?” 
 

I’m not trying to start an argument, but I quite literally use FPS as virtually my only writing tool. I will sometimes use a BP if handed one to sign a receipt or a pencil if needed, not otherwise it’s a fountain pen. It’s not always the same pen, but it’s always one. 
 

I have nothing against washable Blue inks-I’m using that term generically for Waterman Florida/Serenity Blue, Quink Washable Blue, Pelikan and Montblanc Royal Blue, Lamy Blue, and probably a few I’m missing. Which of those I use often depends on the pens, as sometimes I want to use the lowest dye loading I can find(61 capillaries, which get Quink washable) but otherwise those ones inks vary in wetness, and I tend to pick them based on how wet a pen flows. 
 

That’s not a catch all ink for me, though. I really enjoy richer blues, which can mean some more modern inks. Sometimes I need at least some degeee of water resistance, and iron galls(specifically Pelikan and Montblanc) generally are good enough for me. 
 

I also often need a mark-up ink,  either red or green, and some of the more traditional offerings don’t do it for me. 

[Estycollector]

17 minutes ago, bunnspecial said:

Out of curiosity, what do you mean by “practical user?” 
 

I’m not trying to start an argument, but I quite literally use FPS as virtually my only writing tool. I will sometimes use a BP if handed one to sign a receipt or a pencil if needed, not otherwise it’s a fountain pen. It’s not always the same pen, but it’s always one. 
 

I have nothing against washable Blue inks-I’m using that term generically for Waterman Florida/Serenity Blue, Quink Washable Blue, Pelikan and Montblanc Royal Blue, Lamy Blue, and probably a few I’m missing. Which of those I use often depends on the pens, as sometimes I want to use the lowest dye loading I can find(61 capillaries, which get Quink washable) but otherwise those ones inks vary in wetness, and I tend to pick them based on how wet a pen flows. 
 

That’s not a catch all ink for me, though. I really enjoy richer blues, which can mean some more modern inks. Sometimes I need at least some degeee of water resistance, and iron galls(specifically Pelikan and Montblanc) generally are good enough for me. 
 

I also often need a mark-up ink,  either red or green, and some of the more traditional offerings don’t do it for me. 

I understand that some do speciality artistic writing and I love it. I am assuming that those users might need special inks to produce their art. 

[bunnspecial]

9 minutes ago, Estycollector said:

I understand that some do speciality artistic writing and I love it. I am assuming that those users might need special inks to produce their art. 

I’d hardly call my writing artistic. Despite that, I’m just commenting more generally that one ink doesn’t necessarily work for me. 
 

Of course collecting ink can be as bad if not worse that collecting pens. I’m at over 100 bottles not counting the duplicates I’ve stockpiled…

[Estycollector]

41 minutes ago, bunnspecial said:

I’d hardly call my writing artistic. Despite that, I’m just commenting more generally that one ink doesn’t necessarily work for me. 
 

Of course collecting ink can be as bad if not worse that collecting pens. I’m at over 100 bottles not counting the duplicates I’ve stockpiled…

Oh, so okay, but I'd never have so much ink simply because I would have no practical need. 

 

On other hobby forums, some members have years of shaving supplies and tobaccos tucked away. I make no judgements at all. 

[A Smug Dill]

On 8/8/2021 at 1:14 AM, IlikeInksandIcannotlie said:

Have you had any problems with any of the other Lamy Crystal inks (especially Benitoite)?

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/361898-efnir-lamy-benitoite/?do=findComment&comment=4458971