Too Much Ink Coming Out Of Flexible Nibs?

[UphillGil]

Often times when I see wet noodle wahl's (or any wet noodles for that matter) they lay down too much ink to where when not flexed the toppling amounts of ink make any color of ink just look black and you get no shading/color variation. I heard somewhere that this is because the ink demand for wet noodle's is so much since they flex so easily they are flexed like 40-50% of the time so it needs a lot of ink burping out to keep up with that feed. This is why when you fully flex a wet noodle and write in big letters the ink looks perfectly fine, but once you begin normal writing without flex, since the letters are so small compared to how the wet noodles should be used, the is too much ink being gushed out. And if you try to reduce the amount of ink coming out of the pen to make the normal writing not too inky, the ink flow while flexing is hindered and you get railroading whenever you try to fully flex. Is this true? Ex. https://youtu.be/JsV5Gc8IcQo?t=6m16s

[Goudy]

Ultimately it's the nib that regulates the delivery of ink onto the page. You can have wet noodle dip nibs with no feed at all, and they can write with hairlines or broad wet strokes depending on the pressure you apply to spread the tines.

 

In a fountain pen with a flex nib, the basic idea is the same. The feed acts as a sort of ink buffer, keeping ink available to the nib, but it's the user controlling the spread of the nib who decides how much of that ink gets to the page.

 

Of course, things can go wrong. Almost all my vintage eyedroppers have a tendency to gush when I start using them, due to the air in the barrel heating up, expanding, and forcing too much ink down into the feed so that it overflows. Another problem, as you can see in the video, is that if you constantly flex the nib to its limit you get railroading (gaps in the broad strokes), so you have to stop and wait for the ink to accumulate in the feed again. Railroading shouldn't be a problem if you flex with restraint. Constant overflexing will also eventually cause the nib to deform away from the feed, interfering with the capillary action and causing flow problems.

[KBeezie]

I also think that the feeds in a pen meant to flex has to be able to provide enough wetness so that the nib does not railroad when it's flexed, but also I wonder if there's a viscosity difference in modern fountain pen inks compared to the kind of ink that would have been used back when the pens were made. Plus paper seems cheaper made since there's not much mishap to be shown with a ballpoint pen just because the paper cannot handle liquid inks well (so a matter of 'too much' could be attributed to absorbency). I also noticed that if I have a much lighter hand, I can keep that 'unflexed' line dryer looking, since an ever so slightly heavier hand would darken it more as I just allowed a bit more ink to run out.

 

It's generally why I also like to use a dryer ink with any vintage nib I have that have a gushing feed ample enough to provide flow for flex.