Greetings!

Been a fountain pen user most all my longish life. Been an active collector for a few years. It's easy to get wrapped up in pens. I'm beginning to appreciate how much a pen's performance can be altered by the ink. It seems like each pen is seriously happier with a particular ink.

I've been writing off and on with a '45 Parker Vacumatic for for a couple of years. It's always been OK but not one that I insist must be always inked. Saw a lot drawer time. It was wet, perhaps a bit too wet for my tastes, it just didn't feel right. I tried some of the FPN Noodlers Tulip in it and it seems like a different pen, flipping from OK to wonderful. I can't figure out why as it still lays down a wet line, just different. Same with my Sheaffer Balance. Several Waterman inks, typically among my favorites, were OK, but I just tried some Caran D'Ache Amazon Green....from OK to Great!

I'm seeing these pen and ink relationships more with my vintage pens than my newer pens. Is that just me or are others seeing that as well? Just curious. Obviously I'll now have to explore a wider variety of inks. This is good as they are lots less expensive than pens.

Cheers,

Bill J.

I definatley see things like that, inks that just do not work well in some pens.

Also, I love CdA Amazone.

-Nkk

I understand the freshness of your discovery. In the 1950's and 60's, I had pens but I was limited to the inks that were readily available. Those inks were generally Parker Quink in black, blue and blue-black. Sometimes, a Sheaffer in might be available, in the same colors, of course. If a pen did not write well wth the ink available, it was a bad pen.

It was not until the 1980's that I found more brands of ink and many more colors than I had seen as a youth. I also began to discover that pens I did not like because they could not "handle ink" could suddenly become viable because there was an ink that could "go with the pen."

I have now spent nearly 30 years matching pens with ink. It is amazing how many pens can be great writers - with the "right" ink.

Hi there! That is a very good thought but also easy to comment on, too (if I may). See also: http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/in...showtopic=28241
I have always seen (and felt) this myself. To emphasize this, it's even funny (sometimes) but can also cost some time and effort as regards protocols etc: some of my pens love ANY ink I have, some DON'T like any ink I have (so I guess I need a new ink or a new pen or nib). BUT... I love the fact that we (me the pen and the ink) can all get along nicely together. We just have to be a little picky here and there.

Real people are like that too!

Mike <-- today, Charleston's drooling of Herbin's ECLAT DE SAPHIR

That is what I have experienced as well.

Some pens do have their favourite ink. Others are not so picky.
Vintage pens seem to be on the picky side and can be wonderful writers with the matching ink!

I agree totally. I'm wondering if there is some sort of continuous spectrum of ink characteristics, from watery to chunky/oily/syrupy, that is at play. I have seen an old Belmont drip and spit horribly on Skrip Blue, then work beautifully on Quink Green. A Majestic with 14k nib hates "normal" inks but is a beautiful writer with Lamy B/B iron gall - it seems to get better by the day. Legal Lapis clogs up one of my Parker 51's, but flows perfectly thru an Aurora Ipsilon.

It's all empirical, a big science project. Try each pen with each ink for a week, and see what happens.

I just got a few new pens and spent quite a while matching them to the inks I have. Not to say that what they have is perfect, but it's amazing what inks will cause nib creep on some and not on others. (As a side note, my hands were absolutely covered in ink by day's end.) One pen I got (supposed XF nib) would barely write with Noodler's HOD, but slopped down a nice line with montblanc.

Funny this topic should pop up. I travel professionally and wandered into an antique mall close to my current gig and picked up a late 50's Parker "51" and an early 40's Eversharp Skyliner for change over two figures. Eager to give them a try I picked up 50 ml of Mont Blanc Black (they were out of the blue black legal stuff I've used in the past) at a Mont Blanc Boutique, telling listed as jewelry retailer on the directory at a well heeled mall. Back at the hotel, locked and loaded, it was hard to believe it was the same ink in the two pens!

In the Skyliner the the MB is free flowing, jet black and incredibly expressive. It may even be a hair too wet. I love this pen. It is probably a medium nib and after only a little evening noodling I'm ready to start my search for a fine.

In the "51" the MB is surprisingly dry. The jet black is replaced by a dark grey. Visually, you are very conscious of the texture of the paper under the ink. Tactily, the writing experience is far less fluid (not entirely a synonym for dry). In part because of the firmer nib, the lines are less expressive. [For any audio geeks out there, the Skyliner is tubes and the "51" is solid state... and its all good].

Interesting to see the same ink behave so differently in two different pens. An ideal ink for the Skyliner might flow just an iota less freely and for the "51" would flow wetter and darker.

Please comment and suggest how you might tune ink choices for these pens.

Cheers...TG

My experience is that new pens, as well as vintage pens often seem to need "just the right ink" to perform like they're supposed to. I just got two currently made, brand new pens and have spent a good chunk of time today trying out inks to find one for each pen that didn't make the F nib write like an M nib. I made some progress, but am still looking to find a better "fit." This isn't the first time I've needed to do this with new pens (or vintage pens, for that matter.) It's more like once in awhile I get a pen that isn't picky!

Best, Ann

How true this is.

I used fountain pens (cheap, cheap Sheaffers) in high school, exclusively with Sheaffer Burgundy ink. Several years ago, I decided to get back into fountain pens and bought myself quite a nice Cross pen. I loved the color, the weight, everything. Well, that pen never did write well! It skipped, seemed to grab and scratch at the paper (any paper), dried up ridiculously quickly, you name it. I even wrote Cross a letter with the pen to complain. It soured me on fountain pens for awhile.

Long story short, I've gotten back into them again, and still love Sheaffers the best. However I recently decided what the heck, I'll try the Cross again, even though multiple cleanings and trying different inks, cartridges and piston converters, all still resulted in poor results. Well, I tried some J. Herbin ink in it the other day. And I've had no problems with it since! It's unbelievable. Doesn't even seem like the same pen!

To each pen an ink, indeed!

My pens do not find their inks. It's actually a problem, I never know what ink is where. There are two pens that are pretty consistent, but the others are always changing.

Agreed. Inks can make or break a particular nib and paper combo.

A long unused Parker "51" can be quite stingy with ink flow because there is quite a bit of ink dried out in the collector and feed system. This will slowly dissolve and raise the viscosity of any ink you put in it enough to cause the pen to write dry. Add to that the fact that many a "51" user (and 61 for that matter) had the pen adjusted to write dry in the first place to reduce ink usage and you end up with a dry, scratchy pen.

If the symptoms are due to dried ink inside, likely you will see a great improvement in flow over a week or so -- I've had the ink change color quite a bit with a "found in the wild" "51" on it's first fill. I prefer to use washable blue or Noodler's Navajo Turquoise or some similar light colored ink for the first fill to check on this -- most often the ink inside is darker and I can tell if it is dissolving and going away. If it stays black for the first few words and then fades to whatever color you put in it for more than half the fill, it needs to be taken apart and cleaned properly as the collector is full of old nasty dried ink.

Old dried ink can also plug the breather tube, especailly if the pen is an Aerometric filler -- in that case, a corroded breather tube will shed flakes of corrosion and dried ink into the feed system, and it will neither fill correctly nor deliver ink properly until it's cleaned up and the breather tube is replaced. Vac fills may have a breather filled with ink, causesing the same problems, but usually the ink will re-dissolve soon. Unless it's dried out Superchrome -- then it's tear down time!

Peter

I agree with what a lot of folks say- to each pen, an ink for sure. I've had pens that were very nice, but that I couldn't find the right ink for- which basically means I won't ever use the pen, and should sell it. Or, sometimes, I'll have that right ink, but it might not be something I find myself using often- which is darn shame, sometimes.

The big exception, for me, is my Lamy 2000- I change inks in it quite a bit. It's a bit of a polymath, polyink, or something like that.