Blotting Cycles On Jinhao 159

[sodul]

I received a JinHao 159 Broad which I filled with Thornton's Black ink. At first the pen seemed to work well and we played with the flexing of the steel nib a bit to experiment. I don't know if that's the cause of the issue but after a while the pen started blotting then got. Now there is a very annoying cycle of super wet to the point of blotting and then the pen getting drier to the point of no ink visible between the nib (can see through between the nibs. When the pen is super wet holding it vertically down the ink will pool between the feeder and the tines. When dry the ink is not coming back easily.

 

I replaced the converter with the one from my JinHao 250 and this did not help with the issue.

 

I took the pen apart to clean it and used a .001 brass sheet and found out that the nib cut does not go completely all the way through the breather hole: the edge of the hole is still there. Considering this hole is mostly for aesthetics nowadays I don't think it is related but I though it was worth mentioning. The nib on the 250 is clear. At the very least it shows that JinHao's quality control is not on par with more expensive brands.

 

This is a broad nib and I'm getting Nemosine Fine and Extra Fine nibs in 5 days. I also have an other 159 Medium arriving today so I'll be able to compare.

 

Here the pen is dry:

[richila]

Have you tried other inks? I had a horrid time with Thornton, but my 159 handles Diamine Ancient Copper with no problem.

[sodul]

I'll try the Thornton Blue and the JinHao Blue cartridge when I get home tonight. That's the only inks I have at the moment.

[sodul]

I put in a JinHao Blue cartridge and while there is no more dry spell the wetness is crazy with ink pooling under the nib, after the feed, making it unusable for more than a couple of lines of writing. While cleaning and flushing the pen with water and a bulb syringe I noticed that water is escaping from the edge of the holding plastic, see picture. I'm wondering if this could be causing the ink to run so much. There is no ink coming out from there during normal use, just water when flushing with pressure.

 

 

[sodul]

I did some more cleaning, and switched to the Thornton's Blue Ink since the JinHao ink was such a disaster in the 159. All 3 inks perform well with my wife's JinHao 250.

 

The Thornton's Blue seems to perform much better here. The flow still varies a bit but between 'quite wet' to 'nice wet' but overall quite useable. I'll switch back to black ink after I receive my Nemosine Fine and Extra Fine nibs.

[k3eax]

Sodul, the source of your problem is too much air entering the the ink reservoir. I call yours the "glug-glug" syndrome; this from the sound made when a full bottle of fluid is quickly emptied. My approach at remedy would be to disassemble and clean the feed and nib. You might find a manufacturing defect like cracked breather channel, a minute particle of debris, or a wrongly inserted feed/nib.

[sodul]

Thank you all for the advices. The ink flow is quite excellent now with the Thornton's Blue ink. The nib is much more scratchy than it was but I'll wait for my loupe to arrive before attempting any more fiddling with it. I'll try to go back to the black ink since I've ordered a blue 159 for blue ink use.