I wouldn't really have believed this if it hadn't happened to me.

Recently, I bought a new Sailor 1911 with a fine-to-medium Naginata Togi nib, filled it with Diamine and went to work. Almost immediately, the pen began to have nib/feed problems - skipping, inability to fill fast vertical lines, poor line saturation et cetera. Sailor UK told me to send it back and they re-nibbed it.

Back it came, I refilled it with Diamine and ... yep, it skipped, couldn't produce verticals et cetera. Sailor UK asked for it back again, with samples of my handwriting, which I sent, using 2 Namikis, 2 Sheaffers, 2 De La Rue Onotos and the Sailor.

At this point, I quietly pointed out that this process was costing me money (postage) and time. Sailor UK promised to return the pen working and with some free Jentle ink to compensate me.

Back the pen came, re-nibbed again. I refilled it with Diamine and ... yep, it skipped and ... Aarrgghh!

This time, I emailed the dealer who sold it to me and asked to part-exchange it for a Pelikan. The offer he made was derisory. I was quite insulted and told him.

So, there I was, with a re-re-nibbed Sailor that wouldn't write.

Out of nothing more than curiosity, I filled it with Jentle. And, yes, you've guessed it, the Sailor now writes like a champ.

So, how can this be?

what's Jentle?

Sailor's own ink.

Some pens prefer certain inks. It has to do with density, surficants, nib/feed engineering, etc. Odds are MOST inks will work well in your Sailor except for that Diamine ink. A different Diamine ink might even write! Or not, as the case may be.

A "new Sailor 1911 with a fine-to-medium Naginata Togi" is entitled to be a bit finicky about what it drinks. No?

Enjoy your pen!

Andy

Can you tell me which Diamine ink you used? I find most of them to be very free-flowing.

Also - did you try the ol' water+detergent trick before you inked the pen?

I'd encourage you to put the same Diamine in it again at some point just to see what happens - after you've had it a while and know what to expect from it. If it balks again, you know you have an ink-pen incompatibility with no other issues. If it doesn't...

As Andy said, it doesn't mean all Diamine inks will be a problem. Apparently different dyes require different formulations and different formulations can result in different behaviors within a brand.

Glad it's working now. If only Jentle ink wasn't so ho hum. The blue-black is kinda nice though.

You should be able to use any mainstream ink, not just Sailor's own brand. Keep trying to obtain a refund or an exchange for a new Sailor 1911. This just isn't right. The other option would be to send it to John Mottishaw in the US for treatment---until he adjusted my Sailor 1911, I couldn't understand why everyone was so excited about this pen.

I have to agree with you. I have a 1911 with a Togi Emperor nib. It performed no better than my other pens.

Sounds very, very odd. Diamine inks are, imho, among the best and most trouble-free.

I fill my Sailor 1911 with fine nib regularly with Diamine inks (i.e. sapphire blue and WES blue). It always would perform flawless. Your story is truly exceptional and weird...
Well, at least it works now!

This is most baffling. Could it be that you may have a bottle of contaminated ink? Modern ink should work with most most pen. At worst the flow may differ between the different make of ink but not to the extend of serious skipping.

Or could it be your bottle of ink has had evaporation and is now too saturiated to work correctly in your Sailor...hmmmm.

I have had similar problems with Diamine Blue/Black and Diamine Indigo in my Cross Townsend and Rotring Lava with skipping, yet I dont get this with other inks.

Very strange.

Have to ask.

Did you do the recommended pre-cleaning of the nib with dishwashing liquid prior to writing with the pen.

This has solved the issue of skipping with many pens I was about to toss against the wall until I read this indispensible advice from the masters here on the FPN.

Try it.

I have a bottle of Lamy ink (black) and I have used it in almost every pen I have (no, I haven't delved in to the ink obsession yet) and to this day, absolutely zero problems. It has been used in both vintage and new pens, with a nib range of Fine to Medium to Italic. I do want to try another ink but I will for sure get more Lamy ink.

I concur. The majority of my new nib troubles are resolved by filling a cup with cold water and adding a drop or two or three of dish washing liquid. Fill the pen and flush it until you enter a trance like meditative state, then repeat with just plain cold water. I like to give it some time to dry after this, then fill and use. I do this for the same reason I wet and vacuum clean new vinyl LPs: to get rid of any factory gunk or oils.

If you really want to use the Diamine ink in your Sailor 1911, try this: dip the end of a toothpick in liquid dish soap, let any excess fall off, then stir the Diamine with the toothpick. You only want a tiny amount of soap added to your ink. The soap is essentially a surfactant that will lower the surface tension of the liquid - which is why we do the soap in the ink converter trick - and should serve to make your ink flow better. Be warned that if you get too much soap in the ink, it may flow way too freely and also you will change the flow properties in other pens as well. You do need to approach the process cautiously and remember it's easier to add a bit more than remove what you've added - actually, it's impossible to remove what you've added.

I've done this with several inks in the past (including Diamine Quartz Black) and it's worked for me. YMMV

Good luck.

I use Diamine Indigo quite a bit (also Diamine Sapphire Blue) and have used it in all sorts of pens vintage and modern and have yet to find one it has problems with. Haven't tried it in my Lava or my Cross Centuries, but have used it in my Solo with no problems.

Andy

[quote name='Johnson' date='Sep 21 2007, 07:43 AM' post='375689']
[quote name='Fenris Wulf' post='375663' date='Sep 21 2007, 09:01 AM']Have to ask.

Did you do the recommended pre-cleaning of the nib with dishwashing liquid prior to writing with the pen.

This has solved the issue of skipping with many pens I was about to toss against the wall until I read this indispensible advice from the masters here on the FPN.
---
I'm a new FPN poster but half-century fountain pen (and Esterbrook 444 desk-pen) user. 'Hope this post works...

PEN-FRIENDLY INK MODIFICATION:

My new pens get a detergent/water cleaning in an ultrasonic cleaner, followed by thorough flushing with clean water, then blotting & blow drying (with a squeeze-bulb camera dusting tool -- but an ear syringe also works).

(OIL --from manufacturing processes and handling-- AND INK DON'T MIX!!)

With all due respect to the ink alchemists (Noodler's Nathan Tardiff, in particular), when an ink seems to be superior in nearly all respects (colour, feathering, permanence & waterproofness, drying time, etc.) but fails in flow in a particular instrument, you might try what has worked for me:

Adding three drops of liquid dish detergent (a surfactant!) to a 3 oz. bottle of ink (Noodler's Black, in my case) made a significant difference in reducing surface-tension of the ink, hence greatly-improved nib-wetting and flow.

Don't "trash" a whole bottle of ink: For starters, try dipping the end of a toothpick in the liquid detergent and then stirring that miniscule quantity into a few ml of ink. Dip, stir, repeat as necessary to boost the miniscule detergent content. If that fails, you've lost only a small amount of ink in the trial. If it succeeds, you've gained an ally for a new pen-friendly pen/ink combination.

(Lest Nathan be cursing my revelation, "altered" Noodler's Black still withstands the hot running tap-water permanence test with no detectable change in side-by-side comparison to un-altered Black writing samples).