Wet ink help please

[Chris1]

I have just received a pen and will review it in time but the ink that was in the cartridge that came with it is, I think, pretty dry-writing and consequently the flow is terrible in the fine nib. The ink actually disappears as you write and then comes back, but never produces a consistent ink line. I suspect it is Sailor ink, but am not sure.

 

I'm planning to take a few photos of the writing and then change the ink in the cartridge for someting with better flow, but rather than go through a whole batch of inks to try them all, I'd appreciate some quick help. Which ink to try first as being the wettest?

 

If a wetter ink doesn't result in a better flow, then I need to consider whether there is something else needing attention, but one step at a time. And, no, I don't (yet) have a converter for this particular pen, though one is on the shopping list. So I'm stuck with washing out the one cartridge and refilling with something else; a bit of a chore to do too often!

 

The inks I have readily to hand are:

MB Midnight Blue-black

Pelikan 4001 Black

Pelikan 4001 Blue-black

Lamy Black

Visconti Blue (which I think is a pretty wet ink)

Diamine WES Imperial Blue

Diamine Majestic Blue

Diamine Prussian Blue

Diamine Black

Penman Sapphire

Penman Ebony

 

I'm wanting to use black if possible, or blue-black, rather than brighter colours, but really want to show the pen off in its best light and that nees a richer flow of ink.

 

Any thoughts on which one to strat with? Thank you.

Chris

 

 

 

 

[Estycollector]

Waterman was recommended as a wet ink and good to use for vintage pens. I use Serenity Blue. 

[Penguincollector]

  I would try the Lamy black, Diamine Majestic Blue, or Visconti, as much of your selection ranges from really dry to average flow.  If you want a new ink, Private Reserve or Monteverde. I have Monteverde Midnight black in a pen right now and it’s nice and wet, as is Private Reserve Midnight Blues. Both are available in bottles and cartridges. Pilot is also a wet ink and the Iroshizuku line has an excellent blue-black, but you would need a converter or a hollow syringe to refill cartridges.

[Bo Bo Olson]

A long time ago, I bought a Waterman Blue...don't remember the old name, needing a wet ink for a dry semi-flex nib. It worked.

Eventually I replaced the Waterman Blue, with De Atramentis Royal Blue, something more saturated.

(Some DA inks are saturated, some are not, so shade.)

 

But there are Noodler users who think Waterman ink is dry.

 

IMO using such super narrow nibs, Japanese inks have to be wet.

[Mercian]

  On 3/28/2025 at 12:51 PM, Chris1 said:

I have just received a pen...

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Members will be able to give you better recommendations if you name the pen that you are using.

You may even find that other members have the exact same model of pen, and thus can say for certain that ink 'X' works really well in it, while inks 'Y' and 'Z' don't.

 

Edit to add:

Oh, also, I definitely recommend that you find a way to flush your pen (in both directions) with some water to which you have added a tiny amount of Fairy Liquid.

Doing this flushing will remove all and any traces of any oils that may be left over from manufacturing from out of the pen's feed and nib, and will ensure that it gives optimal ink-flow.

 

You should then flush it again (in both directions) with plain water (to remove all traces of detergent from it).
Use of a converter is best for this but, if you don't yet have one, you could run a few cartridge-fills of solution of Fairy Liquid in water through the pen, and then a few cartridge-fills of plain water through it.

(To do this, fill the cartridge with the relevant fluid, then stand the uncapped pen, nib down, on a wadded piece of kitchen roll inside a mug. All the contents of the cartridge should then 'wick through' the nib into the kitchen roll. The process takes a couple of hours per cartridge-fill.)
 

Slàinte,
M.

[Estycollector]

  On 3/28/2025 at 6:26 PM, Bo Bo Olson said:

A long time ago, I bought a Waterman Blue...don't remember the old name, needing a wet ink for a dry semi-flex nib. It worked.

Eventually I replaced the Waterman Blue, with De Atramentis Royal Blue, something more saturated.

(Some DA inks are saturated, some are not, so shade.)

 

But there are Noodler users who think Waterman ink is dry.

 

IMO using such super narrow nibs, Japanese inks have to be wet.

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Florida Blue, but that was before my use. 

[Mercian]

  On 3/28/2025 at 7:26 PM, Estycollector said:

Florida Blue, but that was before my use. 

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Indeed yes (I still have couple of cartridges of 'Florida Blue').

 

It was renamed to 'Serenity Blue' in ~2013 or 2014.
I have a bottle of 'Serenity Blue' from about 2016, and can confirm that it is the same stuff.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Get a rubber syringe bulb...baby ear syringe, it fits over the pipe spike inside the front section of the pen, and will clean old ink or 'oils' out of a CC///cartridge..converter fountain pen in minutes.

[Lithium466]

"A pen"

"cartridge that came with it"

"I suspect it's Sailor ink"

 

Knowing the pen would help, as @Mercian said  If we rate the "wetness" of inks based on their surface tension, the Sailor black (?) you got would rate average high (in term of wetness, not in term of surface tension) compared to your other inks. Maybe the pen needs cleaning, if you just popped the cartridge in, sometimes you get unexpected results with new pens.

 

Want a super wet (and lubricated) dark almost black ink? Sailor/Kobe #51 Kano-cho Midnight. More easily available perhaps, Pilot Iroshizuku Take-Sumi, etc.

Waterman inks are mostly on the high surface tension side. Everybody has their vision of dry and wet inks, and that varies depending on the pen...and for what type of ink the pens were designed!

[Chris1]

Many thanks everyone for your helpful suggestions.

I'll give it another thorough cleaning with a drop of fairy, though the original owner must have used it before.

I used to have some Florida Blue somewhere so I'll look that out, otherwise follow your good ideas above. 

It is a Sailor 1911 standard with HF nib so indeed quite fine, but isn't right yet. I'll get there...

[Lithium466]

That makes sense. Now from your list, my vote goes to Diamine Majestic blue or Visconti blue. 

[Bo Bo Olson]

  On 3/29/2025 at 10:28 AM, Lithium466 said:

Visconti blue. 

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Has been on my to buy list for well over a decade....my wallet has me in court for wallet abuse. There I was so nice to it, even oiling it so opening it wouldn't hurt so much.

 

I haven't been down south eating my way through Toscana since  before I came back to fountain pens, should go down there again. And buy some Visconti ink.

[Chris1]

I do love my Visconti blue, especially in the glass mushroom bottle.

 

Anyway, back to the pen. I've throughly washed it through with a bit of fairy and it is now as clean as a whistle. I tried Visconti blue and also Waterman (only had a drop of blue-black left). Both were a bit of an improvement on yesterday but still far short of giving a good performance. A dip in Pelikan blue-black led to the writing drying up completely! (Washed and dried between each).

 

I looked at the nib with my 15x lens and can see no gap at all at the tip, though there is a small (normal) gap between the tines from the breather hole on towards the tip. Might that be the issue? I'm sure most of my other pens have a gap, even if tiny.

 

Thanks again everyone for your help! My objective is a nice, wet, black line and smooth writing with next to no pressure. 

 

 

 

 

[Mercian]

  On 3/29/2025 at 3:42 PM, Chris1 said:

A dip in Pelikan blue-black led to the writing drying up completely! (Washed and dried between each).

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Pelikan 4001 Blue-Black contains iron-gall.

Iron-gall inks can deposit precipitates in the ink channels in pens' feeds, which will reduce/compromise ink flow.

If a previous owner of your pen used i-g inks, and once let the pen dry-out and never cleaned the pen, it is possible that some precipitates have been deposited inside its ink channels.

 

The easiest (and a safe) way to remove them is to make a solution of one part white vinegar to five-to-ten parts plain water, allow it to sit in the pen for a while, then 'wick' it through the nib as described above.
The acid in the vinegar will re-dissolve any iron salts that might have precipitated out inside the pen over time, and so should improve ink flow (if i-g deposits were indeed the problem).

IF the vinegar dislodges any old ink, you should see it coming out on the paper into which you are 'wicking' the solution through the nib.
Repeat the process until no more old ink comes out on to the paper, then flush the pen with plain water to get all traces of vinegar out of it.

I use i-g inks a lot, so I do this vinegar flush often.
Personally, after filling the pen with vinegar solution, I clip the pen inside my shirt. This exploits my body heat to speed up the chemical reaction of dissolving any old precipitates.

 

My worst case was when I once let some R&K Salix dry-out in an aerometric Parker "51". I had left the pen untouched for six weeks due to a family medical emergency.
It took me WEEKS of doing the vinegar flush to get all the precipitated iron salts out of the many tiny channels inside that pen's 'collector' - and the pen smelled of vinegar for ages afterwards.
Your Sailor shouldn't require anything like that kind of attention!

 

 

  On 3/29/2025 at 3:42 PM, Chris1 said:

I looked at the nib with my 15x lens and can see no gap at all at the tip, though there is a small (normal) gap between the tines from the breather hole on towards the tip.

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Here ↓ is a photo of the nib & tine-gap on what is my wettest-writing pen...

 

 

...if your Sailor's tine gap looks like that ↑ it shouldn't be impeding ink-flow.

 

Slàinte,
M.

 

 

[Chris1]

Again, many thanks for the help and good advice. The close-up photo is very helpful!

I don't think the pen has any IG issue from its previous owner and I only dipped it in Pelikan b-b as a comparison with the Waterman and Visconti. That told me the ink will have a huge impact with this pen. 

 

Since it is clean and still writes pretty reluctantly with the wettest of my inks, the Visconti, I looked again at the tip with my Belomo 15X. There is a gap between the tines but it is very small near the tip. Rightly or wrongly, I've run some 35mm negative between the tines (very slowly and very carefully). First impression is that it has greatly improved things and I could write several lines with one dip of the Visconti blue without the ink starvation I had before. I'm certainly not going to try brass or steel on a 21kt nib.

 

I'm now going to flush out the one cartridge I have and fill with Visconti blue and will let you know how it goes.

 

btw, the tipping is perfectly aligned. 

 

I'll get there...

Chris

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

Thanks for the tweek..........not having had that problem....yet.

It's amazing what a little tweek will do.

[Karmachanic]

  On 3/30/2025 at 10:26 AM, Chris1 said:

I'm now going to flush out the one cartridge

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Follow BoBo's advise and flush the feed. Problem may lie there.

 

[Chris1]

I'll do that again as suggested, as it can do no harm, though after the last flush through with a little fairy liquid in water everything was clean.