Ink For Fountain Pens With Flexible Nibs

[Inky.Fingers]

Any recommendation of a black, black, black ink for use in a fountain pen with a flexible nib?

 

I have been railing alot with regular ink. Have anyone use arabic gum or something else with Pelikan 4001 or Parker Quink? And what is the maintenance concerns to avoid with piston fillers?

 

Other alternative? Grandma recipes? Add sugar, coke, not cinnamon...

[ac12]

Do NOT put any thickening agent like gum arabic into any ink going into a fountain pen.

If you do, you risk gumming up the works and clogging the feed.

 

Try these inks for BLACK

• Aurora Black
• Pelikan Black (I see that you already use this one)
• Sailor nano-pigment Black (You will have to regularly clean the pen with this ink)
• Platinum carbon black ink. This is made for some of the Japanese pens, which have a wider ink channel specifically for this ink. (You take your chances with this ink in other than the pens which are made for this ink.)

If you really want BLACK ink, you will have to switch to using a dip pen. Then you can use inks that will clog up and ruin a fountain pen.

 

quote "I have been railing alot with regular ink."

If you mean that the pen is railroading, then couple of options to look at and try.

• Do not flex the nib as wide as you are. You may be going beyond the limits of the pen and the ink.
• Write slower, so that the ink flow can keep up with the draw from the nib.

[Inky.Fingers]

I am an office writer. Writing and running around alot during the day. No chance for dip pens.

 

My pens allows for greater flex , 2 to 3mm line variations. Say...I love the Roundhand effect with a spiff of Spencerian.

 

Writing slow helps -- I have been doing it daily. It does help, but not as much. I primed my pen (turning the piston while looking at the nib for signs of ink) until the feed is wet.

When primed, no railroading but ever so often a blob. So I tuned my priming so that it writes just right.

 

I will try Platinum and Sailor -- A MB149 is pretty forgiving and wet but a M1000 or M800 is wetter. Time to switch bodies....

 

Thanks AC12 (alternating current 12V?)

[fireant]

I just tried some of the Pelikan Edelstein onyx. I was very impressed with the depth (like a coal mine at midnight). I will try it in the flex nib and let you know. If you want a sample let me know, I have some left over from the hub and will happily send you one.

[ac12]

I am an office writer. Writing and running around alot during the day. No chance for dip pens.

 

My pens allows for greater flex , 2 to 3mm line variations. Say...I love the Roundhand effect with a spiff of Spencerian.

 

Thanks AC12 (alternating current 12V?)

 

This is another option, where the pen uses a dip pen nib, for greater flexibility.

http://www.desideratapens.com/

 

I don't know what pen/nib you have, but just because the nib can spread to 3mm does not mean you should do it regularly. That 3mm may be beyond what the nib was designed to do. And the problem is, the designers are all long gone, so we can't ask them.

 

AC12 = Articulated Consolidation, model 12. aka Southern Pacific cab forward steam locomotive.

Edited October 6, 2015 by ac12

[Intellidepth]

As a person who has experimented a lot with xanthan in my fp's (VERY different properties to scary arabic), adding a 'thickener' to ink won't solve the problem of feed capacity, feed-nib setup, and speed. AC12 has it right.

 

Adding a 'thickener' like xanthan in exactly the right proportions to reduce railroading will actually slow down your writing even more. There's a long thread here on fpn if you want details. (I use 'thickener' loosely as xanthan has shear thinning properties.)

 

Re railroading, I find there's a sweet spot for nib/feed location on my flex pens. I don't have the pens you mentioned but will suggest my typical setup for wet flexes/wetter pens. I actually set the nib further forward - away from the pen - than normal by a few millimetres. Keep the feed inserted in its usual place in comparison. It may seem counter-intuitive but has worked well for me on several different brands and nib setups.

 

Of course, then there's still the issue of whether the feed can keep up at the speed you flex anyway with the new nib setup. (Going out on a limb: you have any experimental pens in which this nib will fit, why not try playing around with a homemade overfeed system? Or getting adventurous, the feed itself if you have access to spares? I haven't needed to try out either of these but would if I had a nib I loved that needed liquid nourishment.)

Edited October 16, 2015 by Intellidepth