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Cloudy Ig Residue In Piston Filler


majolo

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Wow, it really appears to be scratches.

Fountain pens are my preferred COLOR DELIVERY SYSTEM (in part because crayons melt in Las Vegas).

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Well, this happens so far only with some TWSBI Eco pens, and some of our inks. For last few months we were experimenting with solution to this issue.



So far as we know that not all Eco pens are prone to this kind of interaction with our ink - this means that if you ink two Eco pens from the same bottle, one can be completely fine, and the other will not work.


Two Eco pens were sacrificed and cut into small pieces to obtain more material for compatibility testing between Eco pens and substances we use. And we didn't find any direct correlation between substances we use in making of ink (at concentrations similar to those which are present in ink) and interaction between material that Eco pen is made.


We came out with hypothesis what the source of this problem might be, but we would like that TWSBI would confirm that for us. There was also a rumor that material from which Eco pens are made was changed at some time - we bought new Eco pen to check if we are going to get the same result on this one. After that we will consult our hypothesis with TWSBI and we hope to work out this problem together.


We will keep you updated.


I have a lot of tape - and I won't hesitate to use it!

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Thanks very much for investigating. If it helps at all, the pen in my second incident was a lime green eco purchased November 6, 2016. (I should also say TWSBI's customer service is being helpful in email.) As a fan of both your inks and TWSBI pens I hope the issue will be solved!

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Now had fogging in my Pel demo from a standard ink - Azure #4. Two fills and under a week of the ink ink the pen. Prior the Pel was cleaned & in storage for close to a year. I'll try for pics tomorrow when there's daylight.

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Now had fogging in my Pel demo from a standard ink - Azure #4. Two fills and under a week of the ink ink the pen. Prior the Pel was cleaned & in storage for close to a year. I'll try for pics tomorrow when there's daylight.

OOOOO, that I can fix. I've done that before. With standard #12. Run a few fills of Rattler Red through it, or some vintage Sheaffer. Or Sailor Do you. You'll be back to clear in no time.

Fountain pens are my preferred COLOR DELIVERY SYSTEM (in part because crayons melt in Las Vegas).

Create a Ghostly Avatar and I'll send you a letter. Check out some Ink comparisons: The Great PPS Comparison 

Don't know where to start?  Look at the Inky Topics O'day.  Then, see inks sorted by color: Blue Purple Brown Red Green Dark Green Orange Black Pinks Yellows Blue-Blacks Grey/Gray UVInks Turquoise/Teal MURKY

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Think I've got the Sailor. Whew! I've never had it go fogged where the piston moves. Clear fog, if that makes any sense, not ink residue.

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It will clear fog, but not scratches. Also the Pelikans are more susceptible than the TWSBIs.

Fountain pens are my preferred COLOR DELIVERY SYSTEM (in part because crayons melt in Las Vegas).

Create a Ghostly Avatar and I'll send you a letter. Check out some Ink comparisons: The Great PPS Comparison 

Don't know where to start?  Look at the Inky Topics O'day.  Then, see inks sorted by color: Blue Purple Brown Red Green Dark Green Orange Black Pinks Yellows Blue-Blacks Grey/Gray UVInks Turquoise/Teal MURKY

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Good to know. I'll keep my KWZ away from the demos. Just in time, too, as I was about to tank up my Visconti Ripples!

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Good to know. I'll keep my KWZ away from the demos. Just in time, too, as I was about to tank up my Visconti Ripples!

EEEK

Fountain pens are my preferred COLOR DELIVERY SYSTEM (in part because crayons melt in Las Vegas).

Create a Ghostly Avatar and I'll send you a letter. Check out some Ink comparisons: The Great PPS Comparison 

Don't know where to start?  Look at the Inky Topics O'day.  Then, see inks sorted by color: Blue Purple Brown Red Green Dark Green Orange Black Pinks Yellows Blue-Blacks Grey/Gray UVInks Turquoise/Teal MURKY

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Use these two in your Eco.

 

Parker Quink Blue

Parker Quink Washable Black

 

Let me know if you see an improvement.

Sorry for late reply, only now I had time to return to this pen. I used Parker Quink Blue as you suggested (thank you) even since. Unfortunately it didn't help. The problem was much more serious than simple stains. I also had scratches on it or something similar. However, I was able to solve the problem very easy with some polish paper. In about 10-15 minute, using some very fine polishing paper and a little water, followed by a quick silicone grease treatment and the piston is smoother than on the other 2 Eco's I have. Yes, I bought 2 other Eco's. Although I said I will not use IG Turquoise in any of them until I will not figure what cause the issue with the first one, I filled a second Eco with IG Turquoise. So far no problems with the second one.

 

And a picture with the pen before fixing the problem with polish paper. Sorry, I forget to take a picture after I fixed it...

 

fpn_1481928865__eco.jpg

Edited by algabone
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  • 2 weeks later...

Those are serious scratches. I look forward to seeing his finished work.

Fountain pens are my preferred COLOR DELIVERY SYSTEM (in part because crayons melt in Las Vegas).

Create a Ghostly Avatar and I'll send you a letter. Check out some Ink comparisons: The Great PPS Comparison 

Don't know where to start?  Look at the Inky Topics O'day.  Then, see inks sorted by color: Blue Purple Brown Red Green Dark Green Orange Black Pinks Yellows Blue-Blacks Grey/Gray UVInks Turquoise/Teal MURKY

 

 

 

 

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

So, as far as I can tell, we have heard nothing from Konrad since December 16th. This problem still exists and is getting a lot of attention right now on r/fountainpens (Reddit). People are reporting the exact same problems with KWZ ink destroying their ECO's.

 

I feel like this needs more attention than it is getting....

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/fountainpens/comments/5o4tqo/yeah_i_was_wrong_dont_put_kwz_inks_in_your_twsbi/

Edited by unigami

Sometimes life is merely a matter of coffee and whatever intimacy a cup of coffee affords. - Richard Brautigan

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Okay.

I do know that most of you would like that getting information a lot earlier.

We all had many theories about what is causing the problem. My first guess was that it was some interaction between silicone grease, ink and material that the barrel of Eco is made of. I was leaning to this explanation at beginning because I did checked compatibility of our inks with almost any plastic that could be used in making a fountain pen.

In August I was able to obtain barrels from Eco pens that were etched. We did run tests on it, and than we found out what was probably interacting with the barrel of Eco. It was not a single ingredient that was interacting with surface of Eco, but a mixture of one of components ink with surfactants that are used in preparing the ink. There were other issues with this component, is it only a one faulty batch of this component or is it something different. Since September we replaced the component with a different one, which was not causing the problem.

As this problem was connected with surfactants I made a theory that the cause of etching might be extracting of plasticizer from the plastic by surfactant. If this would be happening than it would lead to changes that are visible on barrel of some Eco pens. Like in this post: https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/307808-cloudy-ig-residue-in-piston-filler/page-2?do=findComment&comment=3745118

In December we were finally able to contact with TWSBI representative. And after exchanging few emails with them we all came to conclusion that the ink is interacting with surface coating that is specific to TWSBI Eco.

Ink is not reacting with material that barrel is made of. It is removing anti-scratch coating from inside of the barrel - there is no dissolving of the surface coating. Rather than that one of the components of the ink was lowering the adhesion between the surface coating and the material of the barrel. When piston starts moving it peel off the surface coating - and this is why etching is almost seen only in place where piston moving.

We do not know exactly what kind of surface coating TWSBI is using in Eco pens, they are not going to tell that to anybody. And we find it to expensive to determine this on our own. Also the source of the problem might not be the coating itself but method of putting it on the pen or similar. But we were informed by TWSBI that they other pens use different type of surface coating.

To demonstrate that ink is reacting only with surface I made a small experiment. It can be also informative in case of someone would like to polish their barrel on their own (not only Eco).

I took one of Eco barrels that was etched, before it looked like this:

http://kwzink.com/fpngallery/20161125_172009.jpg

I than started polishing the barrel with polishing paste, here is effect after about 30 seconds.

http://kwzink.com/fpngallery/20170117_205259.jpg

The barrel is damaged on this picture because earlier I cut off one point of the barrel, and break off a piece at another point - I needed more material for testing.

And here it is after around 1 minute of polishing:

http://kwzink.com/fpngallery/20170117_205245.jpg

To speed up the thing a bit, I put a lot of polishing paste inside the barrel and rotated the paper inside the barrel using cordless screwdriver.

Here is barrel after some polishing, and cleaning in ultrasonic cleaner:

http://kwzink.com/fpngallery/20170117_210505.jpg

Because barrel is still wet and there is a bit of wax from polishing paste on it, it actually looks that it polished better than in reality. But still the improvement from starting point was clearly seen. Before putting ink in the barrel, the water and wax from the inside of the barrel were wiped out with paper towel.

After that barrel was stopped at one point, and than filled with ink, almost to the top and left for few hours.

http://kwzink.com/fpngallery/20170117_214431.jpg
After those 4 hours of waiting, flushing with water and wiping with paper towel th the barrel looked like this:
http://kwzink.com/fpngallery/20170118_011012c.jpg
The part in green rectangle was not polished - it was left that way on purpose, to have a reference on one part. We can see on above picture that polished part of the barrel was not affected by the ink. And only the place where the surface coating was still present on barrel was affected by the ink.
Since September we took those actions regarding to Eco situation:
  • We naturally stopped distributing inks that had the highest concentration of mentioned earlier ingredient that was main cause of the problem - those inks were causing most problem with Eco problem.
  • All our inks manufactured since September no longer have the ingredient that was main cause of the problem.
  • As TWSBI started to charge for replacement barrels for Eco pens, we started refunding cost of the barrel, sending replacement barrel or repairing damaged barrel of Eco fountain pen.

What is also known:

  • The problem is restricted specifically to TWSBI Eco.
  • some Eco are more robust than others, but still if you have one of our inks manufactured between March/April and September of 2016 do not use it with TWSBI Eco fountain pens.

 

This is very hard time for us, as we put a lot of hard work in developing and manufacturing of our inks. What is also very sad for us is substantial loss of trust in our products, which will be very hard to gain again. What is frustrating, is that despite our best efforts it was impossible to predict that TWSBI will use this anti-scratch coating in one of their pens.

 

Best Regards,

Konrad

I have a lot of tape - and I won't hesitate to use it!

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[...]

 

 

 

Thank you Konrad for the clarification. As I understand, this is a rather rare and unexpected case, albeit an undesirable one. I hope this incident will not discourage you from continuing making these wonderful inks. You are still my favourite ink maker!

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Okay.

 

I do know that most of you would like that getting information a lot earlier.

 

We all had many theories about what is causing the problem. My first guess was that it was some interaction between silicone grease, ink and material that the barrel of Eco is made of. I was leaning to this explanation at beginning because I did checked compatibility of our inks with almost any plastic that could be used in making a fountain pen.

 

(...)

 

This is very hard time for us, as we put a lot of hard work in developing and manufacturing of our inks. What is also very sad for us is substantial loss of trust in our products, which will be very hard to gain again. What is frustrating, is that despite our best efforts it was impossible to predict that TWSBI will use this anti-scratch coating in one of their pens.

 

Best Regards,

Konrad

 

Thank you for the information, Konrad. I don't own an Eco, so I wasn't directly affected by this, but I really appreciate your putting this much effort into finding out what's going on. This is a really unfortunate situation, not only for those whose pens were affected, but for you as well. I can tell you that for my part, there's been no loss of trust in your wonderful inks at all. Edited by gylyf
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Thank you Konrad.

My confidence and appreciation for KWZ inks remains strong. Just bought a bottle of KWZ IG Red #3, liking it a lot.

Pens: Conid Kingsize ebonite (x2)
Inks: 
  KWZ Dark Brown / KWZ IG Orange / Diamine Chocolate / Diamine Burnt Sienna / Diamine Ochre / Monteverde Scotch Brown



      

 


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Thank you for the update, Konrad. It's good to know that you found only the Eco model is affected. I was wondering if you have any date code on your packaging, for the benefit of those who might have ordered KWZ ink from retailers and want to know if it's the new formulation?

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Thank you for the update, Konrad. It's good to know that you found only the Eco model is affected. I was wondering if you have any date code on your packaging, for the benefit of those who might have ordered KWZ ink from retailers and want to know if it's the new formulation?

 

I believe the batch code on the box is the production date, in dd/mm/yy order.

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