Ranting And Raving (Sort Of Disappointed With Pens)

[pajaro]

I also have the sort of drying out issue you have, including sometimes with my Dad's Parker "51" (which deserves more use than it gets). My solution is simple: momentarily dip the tip of the pen in water, say to about 5mm/0.25". If ink isn't getting to the feed, I'll drop the pen about 1" onto a pad of paper or folded washcloth, more than once if need be. I suppose there could be pens heavy enough and nibs delicate enough for this to be a very bad idea, but none in my collection.

 

 

My Parker IMs dry out at th edrop of a hat. I've had better results with my Sonnet. Arkanabar's solution works well for me too. A quick dunk, just enough to wet the feed (and not soak dilute the ink) works well.

 

I don't see this problem with my more expensive pens - but I've had it with the Pelikan Stola III and Parker IM and (disappointingly) wit a Waterman Perspective - filled with Waterman's own ink - so yes, I share your frustration at times. Ballpoints just write, without any fuss - and you can shove them in a pocket for months and they'll still do so.

 

Yes, you can go through the wetting drill or you can run it through the filling drill. I found this issue with so many of my pens that I felt overwhelmed by it. I went back to pens which I had used without these problems. There are pens out there which will write well when you uncap them, and write without hard starts. There's no need to give up, but someone new to fountain pens might well go through a lot of money finding them. The new user will probably not be aware of their existence, and so will possibly think drying up, hard starting and skipping are just situation normal blankety blankety blank.

[max dog]

Cross are reliable writers. I've never had an issue with their converters (green and yellow type) and ink getting stuck due to surface tension. Maybe it's due to the shape. BTW Cross pens don't come with a converter so you have to purchase one seperately.

 

For your Parker you can get a converter with an agitator in it. That'll break up the surface tension and keep the ink flowing in your Parker. It is the slide lever action type converter instead of the standard screw type. I think all the new Parker converters are this type with the agitator.

Edited July 17, 2016 by max dog

[Ink Stained Wretch]

Ballpoints just write, without any fuss - and you can shove them in a pocket for months and they'll still do so.

 

In my experience I have had a lot of ballpoint pens stop writing entirely if left alone for too long a while. And leaving one unused for a day or two usually requires that I get it started. The first inch or two of attempted writing with a ballpoint left unused for a day or two is full of skips and uninked gullies in the paper.

 

And those ballpoint refills can be a pain too .

[estie1948]

The frustration you feel is not new and not limited to you. That does not help, I know. For many years, fountain pen manufacturers used proven methods for getting ink to the nib and on to the paper. As in all other areas, the manufactures kept searching for some new gimmick to garner attention to their brand and away from other manufacturers. Very few stayed with what was tried and true. Most of those that did, eventually fell by the wayside because they were not being "innovative" enough. Ballpoints became popular because one did not "refill" them in the same sense as one "refilled" a fountain pen. In the early years, people did buy "refills" for them, but it soon became easier to throw away a ballpoint pen rather than search for a refill for it. Today, most ballpoint pens are sold as "disposable" pens. Use them for a while and throw them away so that they can fill a landfill somewhere and pollute ground water, and lock up resources in the body of the ballpoint pen for the next several centuries.

 

You could buy an Esterbrook lever-filler (or any of the many other brands that made lever-filler fountain pens) and realize your dream of using any ink with any fountain pen. You do have to forsake the desire to spend large sums of money on fountain pens with proud and expensive names. You do have to give up fountain pens that employ "new" filling methods over the old, tried-and-true methods.You do have to be willing to make these sacrifices and have more money to spend on inks and papers. Not everyone can do it. In fact, most people can't and they resort to using ballpoint pens.

 

I am sorry for you if you are one of those who must resort to using inferior ballpoint pens. I wish the best of luck with that route. If you, on the other hand, are willing to go a less expensive route with a lever-fill fountain pen, then I would encourage you and be willing to help you find the perfect fountain pen for you.

 

All the best,

-David (Estie).

[sd10521]

The difficult thing is for certain brands you are stuck with THEIR converter, since I have not been able to find non-Brand converters for these pens. I have not been able to open a Parker, Sheaffer or Waterman converter, so I am unable to put a stainless steel ball into them. But for several others, the converters are easily opened. Then there is the Lamy converter. Easily opened, but the SS ball when it fall forward, will SEAL the opening and prevent ink from exiting the converter. The Lamy converter needs a different solution. So dealing with surface tension in converters is an ongoing problem.

 

And switching to a piston pen is not a guarantee of avoiding the problem. I have a Reform 1745 which has the same surface tension problem that the converters do. The ink gets stuck in the back of the pen, until I tap the pen to break the surface tension.

 

It could happen in a sac pen as well, but I can't see into the sac on any of my sac pens, so I have no idea if surface tension affects them. Interestingly I have a Parker Duofold with an aerometric filler that has a very thin rod in the sac. I was told that the rod was to break the surface tension.

 

My feeling is if the diameter of the converter, piston cylinder or ink sac is larger than a certain size, X, surface tension will not be able to hold the ink in the back of the pen. So the problem is not filler specific but diameter specific. It just happens that all the converters are below that size, so are vulnerable to the surface tension problem. And so would the smaller piston and ink sac pens.

 

Very good points here. I would like to add to this the diameter of the feed and the feed itself could be part of the problem. As ink is used air has to be able to work it's way back into the converter to displace the used ink, other wise it will get stuck in a vacuum.

 

I have two pens that are giving me issues, one I keep struggling with and the other just sits in the drawer.

 

On the other hand I have a few that stay inked and sometimes not used for a month ahd they lay down ink the instant they touch the paper. One is a very old telescoping piston filler, and the other is an eyedropper pocket pen.

 

I wish you luck on finding a solution or the right pen.

[jmccarty3]

The only converters that have given me consistent problems are the S.T. Dupont ones. They are made from a non-clear plastic that just seems to want to hold onto the ink. Fortunately, Parker converters can be used in place of them.

 

Pilot has come out with a new converter that has small ball bearings. It holds a very small amount of ink, but I have no problem with that, since I don't have the opportunity to write very much, and I like to change inks frequently. It does seem silly to use such a small converter in a large pen like a Namiki Yukari Royale.

 

A combination that has never given me any trouble is Pilot ink (regular or Iroshizuku) in a Pilot 823. Holds plenty of ink, and always writes. It's a real workhorse, although it's not the most elegant looking pen around.

[Cassotto]

I' ve popped back here for a moment to let you know that I've read every word you've written and that I do thank you for taking the time to discuss this and provide your ideas and expertise. I will think this over. I told you I had decided to wait until after summer to decide what to do, but I've also chosen to take a few days' break with the forum, too, simply because when I last wrote here I was not in the right mood.

 

What's funny (or not) is that I'm the sort of person that -without being too skilful- likes to tinker with things. I do like to (try to) be able to adjust things and to fix them when they break or malfunction. But, for some reason, I feel unhappy at being forced to do so when something doesn't work when it's new. I like the idea, for example, of learning to make a pen wetter than it is, because I think that's a matter of personal taste and has nothing to do with the pen not working when I buy it. It works properly, only it doesn't suit my taste. That's OK for me. But the fact that a pen doesn't write when I haven't used it for less than one day makes me angry.

 

Today, after this hiatus, I've written with a pen I use at work (an Ohto Tasche FF-10T with a cartridge). My holidays started on 1st July, so I hadn't used this pen for three weeks. Of course, it hasn't written from the start. I've made four lines on a paper with the pen, and on the fifth one the ink has started to flow. This is great! I mean, I've really felt happy on seeing how easily it has started to work after this relatively long period of inactivity. This is very different from my writing with a pen today, and its not writing tomorrow. And, with the Parker IM (I'd say that's the most extreme case I've got) it's not a matter of four or five lines. Yesterday I stored the pen with the nib downwards. Today I've been making lines on a paper for one minute (at a rate of between two and four lines per second). Not a single drop of ink has come out of the pen. I haven't tried to wet the nib with water (which, even if it may work, doesn't seem the perfect solution, since you cannot always have access to a tap). So far, the only solution that works for me is to move the piston so as to push ink into the feeder (hoping a drop won't come out and splash on the paper or the table). Honestly, I don't believe this is a fault with myself for not being adventurous enough to find the fun in having to adjust the pen, which proves I'm not fit for the world of pen users. This is a fault with the pen, and that's all there is to it.

 

I'm considering an intermediate possibility between trying to make all my pens work and going back to ballpoint pens. What I liked most about using fountain pens was the possibility to use different in colours (and, next, that writing with a fountain pen feels more comfortable, and that, even with the same colour as a ballpoint pen, it looks much more beautiful on the page). Apart from keeping my three Parker Vectors, I might just use ONE pen that works well for all the remaining colours.

 

Do you think this might be a good idea? It doesn't sound too practical, since it would involve emptying and cleaning the pen each time I use it (whereas having different pens allows you to start writing with the chosen colour any time you like, without preparation). But perhaps it's the only sound thing to do.

 

Anyway, as I told you, I need more time to digest all I've read here today, which is a lot. Thanks once again for it.

[drjmb]

At what elevation do you live and what's the relative humidity generally? I'm at sea level in high humidity, store my pens inked and on their sides, and haven't had the problems you described except for a small minority of new pens. Clean and flush. If that doesn't work, replace the converter or switch to cartridges. You might also try a next level pen or a vintage pen. If it's a feed or nib problem, it's easily remedied. Good luck. My problem is that I like too many pens too much!

[Cassotto]

Might that have something to do? I live at an altitude of 1,000 m in a dry climate.

[pajaro]

Cross are reliable writers. I've never had an issue with their converters (green and yellow type) and ink getting stuck due to surface tension. Maybe it's due to the shape. BTW Cross pens don't come with a converter so you have to purchase one seperately.

 

For your Parker you can get a converter with an agitator in it. That'll break up the surface tension and keep the ink flowing in your Parker. It is the slide lever action type converter instead of the standard screw type. I think all the new Parker converters are this type with the agitator.

 

The surface tension in the converter is not the entire problem. The deficiencies in caps, air gaps due to broken inner caps or lack of an inner cap, are another part of it.

[BillPorter]

I can relate to the OP of this thread. I used fountain pens occasionally during my working years, but never relied on them for my writing. A few years after I retired I dug out the two fountain pens I had stored away (a Parker Vector and a Waterman Expert II), cleaned them up, and started doing a bit of writing with them. I sent off a Sheaffer snorkel pen that had belonged to my dad to be put back into shape. I got on the Internet and started reading the forums. I bought a bunch of Chinese pens and a few more expensive pens as well. Maybe I was unusually unlucky, but I found very few pens to work to my satisfaction "out of the box." You all know the problems....poor ink flow, misaligned tines, scratchy, hard starts, skips, At first it was kind of fun to try to correct the problems. I watched countless YouTube videos and prowled the forums for solutions. After a year or so, I tired of the pen hobby and stored almost all of the pens I had purchased (about 30 or so).

 

Recently, I have started using a fountain pen to write in a journal. As I read the posts in this thread, it occurred to me that I have only a few pens that have been trouble-free right from the start. Those few include the Waterman Expert II and a Waterman Phileas, but I have 3 other Watermans with one problem or another. Two other trouble-free pens are my Pilot Metropolitan and a Platinum 3776. But if someone held a gun to my head and told me that if the pen I picked up didn't right from the first stroke they were going to shoot me, I'd not hesitate to reach for a Pilot Varsity, even if I hadn't used it for months.

 

So the ideal of being able to buy any pen and use any ink and having it be a joy to write with seems far, far from likely to me. If you just want a fountain pen that writes every time you pick it up, from my experience, get a Pilot Varsity or Metropolitan. Oh, I forgot to mention the Parker Vector that I don't use because it is a bit too thin for my hand. The Vector writes every time.

Edited July 24, 2016 by BillPorter

[dadbar]

I keep a Parker Vector on my desk. For a cheap pen it is an amazing write. When it has trouble starting from a week of non use, I just crak down the piston a scootch and its good to go. Same is true with all my C/C pens.

[Moshe ben David]

Its already been pointed out, but I will also say that expecting to use any ink with any pen on any paper at any time is an ideal rarely if ever seen. Flat out too many variables at play.

 

My pens include a few in which I still use cartridges; most using piston type converters; and a few straight out piston fillers.

 

Some pens I store horizontal when inked just to ensure the feed remains saturated. Some if left idle for a couple of days do require wetting to get the ink flowing again.

 

Most often I have to admit it is my Parker Duofolds (modern ones) that seem to need the wetting treatment.

 

My piston fillers are several different Pelikan models as well as a Lamy 2000, and 2 Auroras. None of these seem to dry up even if stored nib up when inked.

 

My Pilots (mostly VP, but also an MU-90) never seem to dry up. Some I use a piston converter. The MU-90 I use Namiki cartridges. One interesting point on the Pilot converters: they don't have a ball inserted but rather a small open tube. Breaks up surface tension without blocking the feed. Or so I'm told.

 

Several Parker 51's, 45's, a 75. None of these ever seem to dry up or require wetting.

 

I'm not listing everything; these are what spring to mind.

 

Also as has been mentioned, the ink makes a difference. Which ink(s) is the OP using? I think many of us recognize that Waterman, Diamine, and Sheaffer Skrip bottled ink are pretty reliable; for me they are my go-to inks. Lamy, Pilot/Namiki, and Pelikan inks I've also had good results with; I doubt I am the only one!

 

Best of luck

 

L'chaim!

[Buzz_130]

Your experience with fountain pens is unfortunate and disappointing. If you look around the forums, you will find others who have frustrations with the money they spent and the problems they received from these pens.

 

Most of the recommendations require you to spend more money to solve problems you shouldn't have. More pens, more modifications, and more work.

 

You must decide if your passion for writing is worth the additional expenditure of time and resources.

 

We could recommend you send your pens off to a good nibmeister to check the ink flow and tine alignment. I've bought numerous pens off eBay that required a cleaning and wrote perfectly. Vintage pens can be amazing writers. You could buy a restored pen from a reputable dealer who will ensure the pen works "out of the box."

 

But you need to decide if the fountain pen is the right tool for your work (or play). For me, the passion is also an obsession, and I love working with my fountain pens at home and the office. I have a collection of excellent vintage pens from the 40s and 50s that will last another 50 years. But I'm also aware they take work, patience, and time.

 

Good luck with your journey.

 

Buzz

[Cassotto]

Hello!

It's been twenty months since my last post here. For those of you who don't want to read all the thread and want to know what it was about in just a few words, I'll say that I was so disappointed at having more pens that didn't work than pens that did that I decided to have a break before deciding whether forgetting about fountain pens and going back to ballpoint pens.

The answer is I haven't. In fact, I've got more pens and inks now than twenty months ago.

Just in case someone's interested in the vicissitudes of my spiritual trip, here they go.

I stopped using the fountain pens in the summer of 2016. When the time arrived to go back to work in September and I had to pick something to write with, I looked at my desk... And grabbed my Ohto Taschen. For several months I used only that and my three Parker Vectors. That is, those which had always worked the best. Little by little, I started using the rest again.

I said goodbye to the Jinhao 500. Apart from the surface tension problems, it was rather heavy and it didn't write as smoothly as I'd like, and any possible attempt at fixing this was forgotten when the lacquer started to get chipped without my mistreating it.

My three Parker Vectors are still the apple of my eye. I can forgive them how thin they are (which is not their fault anyway, my poor lambs), which doesn't make them too comfortable for my hand size, because they write smoothly, with a wet, generous M point which I like, and because they never get dry. I use them daily, except when I'm away for a week or ten days on some trip, and when I come back they write from the vey beginning.

I also use my Ohto Tasche FF-10T almost on a daily basis; I carry it in my pocket at work, where I write very frequent short notes. I have two-month holidays in summer, and after those eight weeks I just put the nib under the tap water and there we go again.

I have a Rotring ArtPen 1.5 I bought when I started calligraphy "lessons" (I use the inverted commas because two days after my first lesson I got a new job that has since prevented me from attending more, so it should be "lesson", actually). I scribble with it periodically to keep it going, and use it sporadically, which usually brings lots of admiration and praise to me. I must have profited a lot from that single lesson! But this is one of the pens I feel more comfortable with, though I wouldn't try to write with it if I were in a hurry.

The Parker IM which caused more problems twenty months ago is no longer with me, but not because I decided it. I took it to one of the best shops in Madrid, and they said they'd fix the problem. That was in February 2017. When I got it back, it worked exactly the same... That is, it didn't work. I took it back to the shop in March 2017, and I particularly requested that they tested it with the converter (which I supplied), not with cartridges. I picked it for the second time, but nothing had changed. I took it back to the shop in May. They phoned in a week and told me I was right, and that they would send it to France (?). I phoned in October, surprised at not having heard from them again, and I was told the pen was still being checked. In early February (2018) they called to say they hadn't been sent the fountain pen, but a replacement. I picked it, missed sorely the converter that hadn't come back with it, bought a new one, tried it at home, and the fact that I was able to laugh and not cry on seeing the ink sticking to the wrong side of the converter, like in the original pen, proves that I've overcome my disappointment and can look at things humourously again. The most interesting thing about this is that I've discovered they've redesigned the Parker IM. It looked unfamiliar from the beginning, so it must have something in the outside that's different. Maybe the clip. I cannot compare it with the old one. But what's definitley different is the nib. The new one's wider, and I like it better. Anyway, I sent an email to the shop telling them that the pen doesn't work, and that I'd forget about it. They've encouraged me to take it back to them, since it's under warranty, but I don't know what I'll do. It's not easy for me to go there, and I'm sort of bored with it all.

Just before Christmas we played this game at work in which you get a present, but don't know who it comes from (what's its name in English?). And guess what? I got a fountain pen. It was a Parker, so my first thought was, will it be like the Vectors, or like the IM? It turned out to be like the IM, with the same surface tension issues. But, besides, the first (and only) time I filled and used it I found lots of ink inside the cap when I removed it. So it leaks, or something. I don't think I'll waste my time with this one, unless someone tells me it's a great classic pen (some googling told me it's a Jotter). I didn't want to tell the person who gave it to me that it didn't work well and asking her the purchase receipt to prove it's still under warranty, so I'd have to pay for the repair myself, and I'm not very inclined to do so, seeing as I've seen that that doesn't guarantee anything. We'll be playing this game again for Book Day, and, sad as it may sound, I'm almost glad I know for sure I won't be getting another pen!

I've got two Scripto pens, unkown models, which seem to be from the fifties. They write well (especially one of them), though I don't like the sac filling system, which doesn't allow seeing how much ink there is left. All of this (except its being from the fifties) is also true of a Pilot 78G with a Bb nib.

The demonstration Waterman Kultur with surface tension issues was also taken to the repair shop the first time I took the Parker IM. I wouldn't say they fixed the problem, though it's slightly less noticable now (the pen will get dry overnight, but not during the same day).

I've also got a Lamy Safary with a 1.5 italic nib (which I bought when I got a bottle of Diamine Shimmer Golden Sands for which I wanted a dedicated pen, to make sure I wouldn't end up getting particles all over my pens), and a Pelikan M205 Duo which I use to highlight texts.

So these are my pens:

 

https://ibb.co/f8sDC7

And these are the inks I use them with:

https://ibb.co/kBCDC7

I fill each pen with the same ink most of the times:

Parker Vectors - always Waterman ink (red, blue and green)
Ohto Taschen - blue cartridges
Rotring ArtPen - Rotring ArtPen cartridges
Parker IM - Montblack Oyster Grey
Parker Jotter - I had intended to use black Parker Quink, though, as I've said, I don't think I'll use this pen again
Orange Scripto (it's orange, not red) - Diamine Autumn Oak
Blue Scripto - Diamine Eau de Nil
Pilot 78G - I use this with any ink except Diamine Shimmer and Pelikan M205 Duo when I want to use an italic nib
Waterman Kultur - I use this with any ink except Diamine Shimmer and Pelikan M205 Duo when I want to use a normal nib
Lamy Safari - Diamine Shimmer Golden Sands
Pelikan M205 Duo - Pelikan M205 Duo ink

Apart from all this, loath as I was to start refilling cartridges, I've bought a syringe to start doing exactly that.

The only problem is that there are not so many opportunities to write by hand nowadays. I keep some pen pals, but I don't have much time to sit and write. But, yes, after all this time I can say I've still got the fountain pen bug!

 

Glad to be back!

 

[pajaro]

I found this thread in a search for something else. I think I know how you feel. I have many, many pens that work poorly. So I have fallen back on a core of pens I have used from 1970 to about 2000. One of them is a Scripto like yours. It works well. I am starting to sell off my pens. I will keep the core pens. I am using ballpoints more, and I converted a couple of fountain pens to rollerball. I wish you success.

[Cassotto]

I found this thread in a search for something else. I think I know how you feel. I have many, many pens that work poorly. So I have fallen back on a core of pens I have used from 1970 to about 2000. One of them is a Scripto like yours. It works well. I am starting to sell off my pens. I will keep the core pens. I am using ballpoints more, and I converted a couple of fountain pens to rollerball. I wish you success.

 

Yes, the Scripto is one of the pens that work better for me. I'm still sort of frustrated. I repeat to myself all the time what I've learnt here, that not every pen will work well with every ink, but I still believe that one thing is that you cannot get the most of an ink with any pen, and another is that you can't even write. I haven't completely come to grips with that concept yet.

 

Not being able to write smoothly with an italic nib until I get the knack, not seeing any sheen when using certain inks with most pens, those are things I can live with. But no one will ever persuade me that this is normal:

 

 

And this is the only complaint I have about my pens. Three of them have the same problem (and in the photo pen, converter and ink are all the same brand - if that doesn't work what will?).

Edited April 17, 2018 by Cassotto

[OMASsimo]

I understand your frustration and feel very sorry for you. You seem to have a talent for acquiring non-working pens. But I wonder if your Pilot and Pelikan give you as much grieve as the others.

 

In general, there is the risk that cartridge/converter pens may have ink flow issues due to various reasons. I recall that our member Fountainbel started a very informative thread about this some time ago. I personally have little problems with the relatively few c/c pens in my collection. But I have to admit that most of them are top tier pens way above the price range of your pens. But there's still no excuse for any maker to produce such a poor converter as in your picture. It's clear that the surface treatment of the inner walls plus the small diameter cause the issue.

 

I think that many here would agree that most other filling mechanisms yield better ink flow than c/c. In my opinion, piston fillers are the best in this respect and most top tier makers produce them. The Parker 61 had a unique and very interesting system, unfortunately with some drawbacks. The Vacumatic was a cool system also. Sheaffer invented a unique vac-filler system, which, unfortunately, is difficult to restore. And then there are the various systems with ink sacs like lever and button fillers, aeromatics and so on. Ink flow is of the latter is usually great and sometimes too great ("burping").

 

In my opinion, the best chance to get a perfectly working fountain pen is to buy a vintage Pelikan 140 or 400/400NN. There may be better writers or fancier designs but it's hard to top their reliability and thus everyday usability.

[chromantic]

​One alternative for those pens that use standard international C/C, is to re-use the cartridges (by syringe-filling them) as they contain a small plastic bead that's there to help relieve the problem caused by surface tension.

 

It's easy and convenient and retains a converter's ability to use any ink you want. Additionally, if your pen can accommodate the long cartridges (most do), these hold twice as much ink as a converter does.

[biancitwo]

 

In my opinion, the best chance to get a perfectly working fountain pen is to buy a vintage Pelikan 140 or 400/400NN. There may be better writers or fancier designs but it's hard to top their reliability and thus everyday usability.

My new Pelikans all perform beautifully. But, the vintage ones from the 30s - 50s, especially the 140s and 400s, with the 400NN being the best, are extraordinary. I enjoy the varied experience derived from different pens, including a number of other brands, but for utter reliability and enjoyment, my 400NNs are always inked.