Poky Blue

[TLab3000]

If you love Chinese fountain pens as much as I do, you will probably know this ink. It's Poky Blue, but other vendors might offer the same ink with another name.

I've had black and blue Poky ink and while the black one is almost impossible to use, I somehow like the blue ink. And I'm really not a big fan of blue inks, only three of the about 25 inks I have are blue.

Anyway, there's something about this ink I like. Unfortunately, it turned every pen I used it with into a bad starter. I have two Baoer pens that didn't want to write with it at all (which is a lie, they did write, but only after trying for 15 minutes!). Those two Baoers write perfectly with J. Herbin Perle Noire and Lamy Blue. The weird thing, once you get a pen filled with Poky Blue to write, it'll lay down a nice wet line. Weird, huh?

So this review is kinda pointless. Well, whatever.

 

Please note that the FP I used for this review is a bit on the dry side and the FPs I used for the comparison are rather wet.

http://www.bibu31.de/tmp/poky.jpg

[amberleadavis]

Thank you for the review and warning. You might like MontBlanc midnight blue it has some of the purplish pretty notes that think ink has.

[Colors]

You mentioned that you like Chinese pens; which Baoers do you have? I have two 338s and one 317 and am having difficulty with them. The 317 refuses to write anymore...with any ink. The 338s have to have a really wet ink to function.

 

How do yours function? If they write well, how do you get them to write consistently well?

 

Thanks

[Pterodactylus]

http://imageshack.us/a/img842/8764/gc03.jpg

 

(Mont Blanc 146 - B ..... Diamine China Blue)

(Noodler´s Ahab - EMF ..... P.W. Akkerman Binnenhof Blues)

(Mont Blanc 14 - OBB ..... Private Reserve Tanzanite)

(Pelikan 400NN braune Schildkröte - F ..... Sailor Jentle Sky High)

Edited July 18, 2013 by Pterodactylus

[TLab3000]

@Pterodactylus: Wow, thank you very much! That's a very welcome, useful and nice response.

 

@Colors: Two of my Baors write very well now, two are okay.

I love Chinese pens and the Baoers were the only ones I had difficulties with, apart from a Hero 616 that lost its feed while I was writing (I should have seen the signs).

 

I own neither a 338 nor a 317. I thought about buying more Baoers just to see if they are all not so good out of the box or whether I just had bad luck, but there are so many other nice pens I'd rather get instead.

 

Anyway, back to the topic! I suspect that every Baoer is able to write well, but it might take a lot of work. The 8 Horses I wrote the review with is too dry, but it was like that out of the box and I haven't done anything about that yet.

However, I've put a ridiculous amount of work into tuning the two other Baoers that didn't write at all at the beginning.

I think you should do what you would do with every pen that gives you that kind of trouble, but do more of it:

1. Flush the pen, like a gazillion times. With my two bad Baoers, flushing them twice wasn't enough by far. 10 bulb syringes full of water sounds like a good start.

2. Take them apart. The nibs are usually friction fit - just pull the nib and feed out and clean both extensively.

3. While the feeds are out, have a look at the channels. Compare the different feeds - are the grooves on one feed obviously shorter then on the other? If yes, consider making it longer. (You might also make it wider, but I'd try other things, first.)

4. Take your loupe or buy one, if you don't have one yet (a Belomo 10x or 12x would be nice, but the cheap ones from ebay work too). Take a look at the nib tip. Is there a baby bottom? Those seem to be common on Baoer pens. Use Micromesh to get rid of it.

5. Hold the nib against the light. Is there a small slit between the tines that lets a bit of light come through? If not, you could either widen the slit by carefully pulling the tines apart - there are videos on how to do this on youtube - or you might floss the nib - I do it with a very inexpensive 0.05mm brass sheet.

6. If all that didn't work, start from 1.

 

Notes:

- The groove on the feed might not lead to the tip of the nib. This looks horrible, but actually it doesn't make much of a difference.

- The tines dividing slit might not be in the exact center of the tip. It doesn't matter, this should not be the cause of the problem.

- Next time, buy a Jinhao instead

 

Good luck!

Edited March 26, 2013 by TLab3000

[amberleadavis]

@Pter - Very nice samples - thank you!!! Though I thought tanzanite is "pretty" not "pity" ... giggle ... though I found PR Tanzanite to be an ink that was prone to clogging.

[Pterodactylus]

@Pter - Very nice samples - thank you!!! Though I thought tanzanite is "pretty" not "pity" ... giggle ... though I found PR Tanzanite to be an ink that was prone to clogging.

 

Hi Amber,

I meant the Poky Blue not Tanzanite.

 

You are right Tanzanite looks quite pretty.

I like the strong golden sheen, but I agree with you it tends to clogging and additionally it dry very slow and smear (especially in wet pens or big nibs as this OBB I used above) a very very long time, sometimes days (especially on very smooth papers like the Clairefontaine I used above).

The using of blotting paper is almost mandatory but even with that it is difficult as the wet spots stick on the paper like honey.

So I would not categorize PR Tanzanite as a well behaved ink, but it looks quite pretty

Edited March 27, 2013 by Pterodactylus

[Colors]

@Pterodactylus: Wow, thank you very much! That's a very welcome, useful and nice response.

 

@Colors: Two of my Baors write very well now, two are okay.

I love Chinese pens and the Baoers were the only ones I had difficulties with, apart from a Hero 616 that lost its feed while I was writing (I should have seen the signs).

 

I own neither a 338 nor a 317. I thought about buying more Baoers just to see if they are all not so good out of the box or whether I just had bad luck, but there are so many other nice pens I'd rather get instead.

 

Anyway, back to the topic! I suspect that every Baoer is able to write well, but it might take a lot of work. The 8 Horses I wrote the review with is too dry, but it was like that out of the box and I haven't done anything about that yet.

However, I've put a ridiculous amount of work into tuning the two other Baoers that didn't write at all at the beginning.

I think you should do what you would do with every pen that gives you that kind of trouble, but do more of it:

1. Flush the pen, like a gazillion times. With my two bad Baoers, flushing them twice wasn't enough by far. 10 bulb syringes full of water sounds like a good start.

2. Take them apart. The nibs are usually friction fit - just pull the nib and feed out and clean both extensively.

3. While the feeds are out, have a look at the channels. Compare the different feeds - are the grooves on one feed obviously shorter then on the other? If yes, consider making it longer. (You might also make it wider, but I'd try other things, first.)

4. Take your loupe or buy one, if you don't have one yet (a Belomo 10x or 12x would be nice, but the cheap ones from ebay work too). Take a look at the nib tip. Is there a baby bottom? Those seem to be common on Baoer pens. Use Micromesh to get rid of it.

5. Hold the nib against the light. Is there a small slit between the tines that lets a bit of light come through? If not, you could either widen the slit by carefully pulling the tines apart - there are videos on how to do this on youtube - or you might floss the nib - I do it with a very inexpensive 0.05mm brass sheet.

6. If all that didn't work, start from 1.

 

Notes:

- The groove on the feed might not lead to the tip of the nib. This looks horrible, but actually it doesn't make much of a difference.

- The tines dividing slit might not be in the exact center of the tip. It doesn't matter, this should not be the cause of the problem.

- Next time, buy a Jinhao instead

 

Good luck!

 

 

Ok, thanks. Will try to take them apart and give them a good cleaning. I actually have some Jinhao's also which I like better than the Baoers, but they can be finicky also depending on the ink.

[saskia_madding]

What other name does this ink go by?