Diamine Ink and sacs

[John T]

So about 4 months ago I resacked a Sheaffer Snorkel with a latex sac. I have kept it inked with Diamine Royal Blue ever since. I went to flush it out today intending to rotate it out and ink another pen... all of a sudden I had blue ink all over both hands, not a good sign. 

 

I took everything apart and pushed the plug out of the sac protector, half the sac stayed inside of the protector and had to be scraped out.. Darn thing was like chewing gum. Everything is nice and clean now drying in a container with dessicant.

 

I thought most standard Diamine inks were safe for vintage pens. Has anyone else had issues?

 

[Mr.Rene]

Maybe the problem is a reaction between metal sac protector and latex sac...powder talc avoid this problem.

Regards.

[John T]

Just now, Mr.Rene said:

Maybe the problem is a reaction between metal sac protector and latex sac...powder talc avoid this problem.

Regards.

I apply talc powder very liberally before going into the barrel or sac protector. Maybe but pretty sure this isn't the cause of the issue... but I also apply silicone grease lightly to the outside threaded portion of the sac protector... I wonder if that might have caused the issue... 

[es9]

This is weird. I have never had an issue with a basic diamine ink, esp blues. They’re considered pretty darn safe. 
 

I wonder if it’s just a bad batch of ink or something. 

[Dillo]

It's hard to say. I've bought sacs that were bad or going bad before. More recently, I got a pen that was said to have been resacced from a well known pen repairer, and the sac was already perished when I received the pen in my hands. The sac was goo

[mattaw]

Good afternoon! I had the same problem with a Diamine Oxford Blue, a shimmer/sheen ink in my snorkel 5 years ago. Brand new sac, lots of talc.

 

The sac melted into goo in several months. Additionally I had ink seepage from the triump nib-mount metal threads to the plastic mount.

 

I am afraid I never posted about it, mainly as I did not want to mislead people who wanted to repair their own snorkel (there are far too many people doing that already), or damage Diamine's reputation over one incident.

 

Since then I used PVC sacs from David Nishimura. He sells a pack of 3 sacs, point seals, and barrel seals for $20 w. $5 shipping to USA: https://www.vintagepens.com/catill_sacs_seals.shtml . The pens have worked fantastically well after that, plus some of Ron Zorn's Sheaffer thread sealant on the nib threads - not standard, but fixed the seepage there.

[3rdlakerobert]

A customer asked me to re-sac a couple Snorkels he'd had to retire from use. One apparently just had an old sac that had sprung a leak. He caught it immediately and flushed everything out. Then he mentioned that the other had been in his wife's lab coat when she tossed it in the wash. It was unusable afterwards. I found that pen's sac was now just a glob of latex. Turns out it went through the wash AND the dryer. So add another potential cause to the list.