Drying Out

[lurcho]

Have you found drying out to be worse in Noodlers or Jinhaos?

 

I use JoWo nibs in both these makes, and because I often apostasise to mechanical perncils for weeks or months I come back to tardy pens.

 

I once thought that Noodlers ran dry quickly, but on reflection that judgement may be unfair, given the time that I leave them unused.

 

Ditto Jinhao 159s (the Montblanc ripoffs) and the 750s.

 

I'm interested in others' experiences.

[pajaro]

My Jinhao x450 dries out pretty quickly, in a few hours. With pens like this I just had to concede that wetting the nib or even a refill would be necessary to start the pen. In fact, most modern pens made since about the 1980s seem to me to be likely to be dried out when I go to use them if the time is overnight or longer. Mainly I have left off using most of them, but I have come to accept the need to wet the nib and feed or to do a refill to get the pen to write. Usually I just do a refill automatically if I want to use one of these pens.

 

Older pens came with other inconveniences, so I just work with the C/C pens if I want to use one.

Edited October 20, 2016 by pajaro

[ac12]

Except for a few pens, if I leave a pen for more than a few days, odds are that the feed will have dried out; either drained back into the cartridge, or evaporated.

And cost of the pen has no relation to the pen drying out or not.

I keep an ink well filled with water, to dip these pens into, to get them going again.

 

The only pens that do NOT dry out are my desk pens. Stored nib down, the ink cannot drain out of the feed. If the ink evaporates from the feed, it is replenished, just as it would when I am writing with it.

 

So USE your pens.

[jar]

There is really no excuse for leaving a pen filled and unused for more than a few days. If you are not going to use the pen empty it, flush it and put it away.

[Arkanabar]

My early series Noodler's Konrad is the worst pen ever for drying out, period. After capping it and laying it down on the desk for a few hours, it required dunking in water to get it to write again. My wife has three Nib Creapers, and two of them dry out fairly quickly as well.

The only pens I own that tend to stay wet after weeks and months unused are my Pelikans and my Platinums. Platinum justly touts their pens' ability to write on the first stroke after up to a year of neglect -- it's one reason so many people have so much love for the humble Preppy. I haven't ever left my Pilot Prera neglected long enough to test.

[Bo Bo Olson]

In I often make the mistake of going to Inky Thoughts, there are times when I have 17 pens inked, so some are going to dry out.

I have a German Postal stamp pad...a sponge in a rubber cup...damp, dunk and go.

Can be done with a shot glass if water for them living where stamps are no longer licked.

Edited October 20, 2016 by Bo Bo Olson

[Sasha Royale]

Assuming that the "drying" is not in the ink reservoir, but in the nib and feed. It is desirable for ink to dry, eventually. Days of neglect usually results in the ink in the nib and feed drying. Certain after weeks. Larger nibs and larger feeds expose more surface, so there is quicker drying.

 

After a few days, a drop of water, into the nib and feed, will usually liquefy the dried ink. If a fountain pen is to be left idle for WEEKS, I recommend draining and flushing the pen.

[effika]

My Jinhao x750 dries out very fast. I can use it every day and evaporation will still claim it before the ink should have run out!

 

Other than that it's a pretty good pen. I may look into modifying the cap to be more air tight at some point.

 

Edit to add: my screw-cap pens dry out MUCH slower than the click-cap pens. My Nemosine Singularity doesn't have an inner cap, but the evaporation is still slowed considerably by the better seal created by the threads.

 

My Pilot Custom 74 has never had a problem coming back to life-- no tricks needed after weeks of being dormant! (Oops!)

Edited October 20, 2016 by effika

[eawtan]

My noodler's ahah dries out very quickly (both nib and reservior) . It's a pen that I should not leave un-used for more than 2 days.

I have 2x Jinhao 750 inked up and they don't try out even after several days, no problems starting and hardly any ink has evaporated.

[bizhe]

Same with my pilots 74, 742, 912- several weeks is no problem. Uncapped, they are fine for taking notes while reading. I'd guess 10 min? Haven't timed them. Pilot ink.