Safe Inks For Pelikan Plastic

[ekfritz]

Diamine Twilight stained the piston seal on my M200, but not the ink window itself. And the best part, it stained pink! I was annoyed at first, then realized the piston is never in view unless I'm filling it, so whatever.

[ink-syringe]

Very mild staining from Sailor Sky High on my 400nn. Miraculous and complete un-staining with a fill of Sailor Do Yoo.

 

So you could say Sailor Do Yoo is safe for the pen. Though wet and, well, Pelikan ...

[invisuu]

 

This is reassuring. I just bought a Pelikan M200 anthricite demonstrator, and I had intended to use Montblanc violet or Lamy dark lilac in it. Then I red the thread condemning red ink and reddish inks like violet. I think I'll use the violet. Next in my mind was Montblanc burgundy red. I like the Pelikans better when the color is all the same, but not black. I was attracted to the demonstrator for that reason. I think I'll use the violet in the anthricite and see if the thin silicone layer helps.

 

Not sure about Lamy Dark Lilac, but Diamine Pansy (basically same colour) stains like all hell. I've been using Montblanc inks (Toffee Brown, Corn Poppy Red, Irish Green, Lavender) - no problems.

 

If you put it in a sample vial, Pansy will stain it in minutes and takes very, very long time to set down from the walls to the bottom. Montblanc inks, on the other hand, fall down to the bottom in seconds and will leave walls completely uninked. I think this has mostly to do with lubrication, but I'm not sure.

 

Either way, I'm limiting myself to Montblanc and Iroshizuku inks for my Pelikans. Not that I mind, I find these inks have best writing properties anyway and prefer them any day of the week versus Diamine, etc.

[pen2paper]

Not finding any current ink suggestions or those best to avoid, specific to Pelikan piston filler.

So resurrecting the above as a starting point.

 

I see it's best to avoid red, & super saturated. I'd like to use a true blue. Have Diamine Majestic & Bilberry. Also Aurora Black if that's more inert or flows best in fine point?

 

Also wondering how long certain types of ink can linger in a piston filler? (first piston pen, being cautious).

 

Thanks Lam1 for PelikanPerch info :-) I'm truly a newbie in this area.

[Lam1]

Unless it is a demonstrator, I wouldn't worry about the choice of ink for a Pelikan - the only inks I don't use in them are Noodlers. I use reds and browns all the time (again, not on demonstrators) and never had a problem, although some are more difficult to clean than others.

 

On demonstrators I am more careful and stick to blues (not saturated) and greens. But, as Sargetalon mentions above, there are no absolutes: Edelstein Topaz, generally considered safe, stained a demonstrator of mine (which was subsequently cleaned by Edelstein Tanzanite).

[pen2paper]

Thanks again Lam1 for helping a new Pelikan owner begin its journey set up for success.

 

Side note, 20ish years ago I visited a brick & mortar fully intending to purchase a recommended Pelikan & found the foregrip just not right, (fingers sliding onto nib), & didn't try sizes up due to cost. But found now the 400 was just that little extra made it right. Dawned on me, wait silly, I've been using fountain pens for 1/2 century But never paid attention to piston fill basics. Wrecking it on first fill isn't a good option. Thanks! :-)

[inkstainedruth]

Pelikans tend to write on the wet side. So a drier ink would work better in them.

I don't use Autumn Oak (or pretty much any other orange ink), but my 1990s M400 Brown Tortoise has had a steady diet of brown inks since I bought it . And the M120 Iconic Blue I bought at the Commonwealth Pen Show in September has been running MB Beatles Psychedelic Purple since I bought it. And if it stains the window some? Shrug. If I wanted a pristine pen I wouldn't have inked it up in the first place -- and the only pens I DON'T use are ones that need repairs....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Bo Bo Olson]

The wet writing Pelikan was designed so, because they make a dry ink (high viscosity=dry, lower viscosity=wet.

Then there is lubrication....sadly, over the last couple of weeks I find I know less about inks than I once thought.

 

"""If you put it in a sample vial,""""" that seems a very good thing to do to see how the ink acts.

 

I want shading, so want a dryer ink.....so normally use traditional inks, Herbin, Pelikan, MB, Lamy (no never ever Lamy green) R&K, DA inks that I bought often because some shade.

M&F are good for shading......EF even western is IMO too narrow for shading inks.

 

There are Japaneses and Noodler inks that shade....how I don't know, nor do I know how wet those are. In Germany both are expensive imported inks..........and there was only a couple of Noodler inks I had wanted.

Don't touch my mustache is all the Japanese I can remember.....and many Japanese inks are wet, so wet or supersaturated inks are not what I buy. (Outside a very few....in case I have a real dry nib.)

[PJohnP]

I purchased a couple of "user" level Pelikans years back, call them "beaters" if you will, but they actually polished up well. The intent of getting those pens was specifically to have pens where I could play with infamous inks like BSB without large consequence. The latter ink actually went into a blue demonstrator M200 on the premise of, "Hey, if it stains blue in the chamber, how bad is that?" *

 

As noted by several other people, reds and purples tend to be the ones that require more tenacious cleaning. If you research the various cleaning solutions - commercial and home-made - you can likely find one that would work reasonably well, both as a cleaner and to provide peace-of-mind for you as a pen owner. It's fair to comment that I've occasionally had to make a fair number of flushes to remove purples, but if I've been patient, it's all come right with that approach. There's a solid reason for the expression used around FPN, "pen hygiene".

 

In trying inks, the worst thing that could happen is for the piston to bind on the inside of the chamber, in my opinion, so I've been thoughtful to lubricate that walls of the chambers of my new-to-me Pelikans with a tiny daub of high-purity silicone. I generally haven't had to go back and re-lubricate with the exception of one that had a hideous ink I was given as a sample, and the very slight sheen of the lubricant was contaminated to make the chamber look awful. Repeated washings did nothing, so I removed the nib assembly, swabbed to carefully with Q-tips lightly dipped in some alcohols, washed it several times with fresh, and re-lubricated. Smooth as could be !

 

Even problematic inks like Noodler's El Lawrence or Manjiro Nakahama Whaleman's Sepia, both of which are rather "dense" formulations ** with many slow starts never caused me to have serious problems with my Pelikans beyond repeated flushes to clear them.

 

The damage I've seen by the use of dry inks in pens - speaking in general, and not just Pelikans - has been the tendency of people to bear down much harder on the nib when the pen is slow starting or runs dry. That's not generally a good approach for the problem, but there are worse ways to address it. In one case, I recall someone "flipping" the pen forward to send more ink to the nib, but as they were grasping the posted cap and not the body, this had, ahem, a rather disastrous result. Patience is a key element to this issue. I've surely had pens with inks that proved so dry that I couldn't continue to use the pen at that point, but then, that's why I always have at least two pens in my pocket !

 

 

John P.

 

 

* The demonstrator pen did stain with blue from that ink, and it eventually came clean. Given that I paid a trifle for the pen and that's it's continued in the rotation over the years, well, it's not a bad story !

 

*** The intransigence of these inks, among a few others, was the reason that I started to adulterate inks with colours that I liked, but dryness that I didn't. The ended up with me finding inks that worked beautifully after some experimentation, so that story's not so bad either...

[PJohnP]

I purchased a couple of "user" level Pelikans years back, call them "beaters" if you will, but they actually polished up well. The intent of getting those pens was specifically to have pens where I could play with infamous inks like BSB without large consequence. The latter ink actually went into a blue demonstrator M200 on the premise of, "Hey, if it stains blue in the chamber, how bad is that?" *

 

As noted by several other people, reds and purples tend to be the ones that require more tenacious cleaning. If you research the various cleaning solutions - commercial and home-made - you can likely find one that would work reasonably well, both as a cleaner and to provide peace-of-mind for you as a pen owner. It's fair to comment that I've occasionally had to make a fair number of flushes to remove purples, but if I've been patient, it's all come right with that approach. There's a solid reason for the expression used around FPN, "pen hygiene".

 

In trying inks, the worst thing that could happen is for the piston to bind on the inside of the chamber, in my opinion, so I've been thoughtful to lubricate that walls of the chambers of my new-to-me Pelikans with a tiny daub of high-purity silicone. I generally haven't had to go back and re-lubricate with the exception of a pen holding one hideous ink I was given as a sample, and the very slight sheen of the lubricant was contaminated to make the chamber look awful. Repeated washings did nothing, so I removed the nib assembly, swabbed the chamber carefully with Q-tips lightly dipped in some alcohols, washed it several times with fresh, and re-lubricated. Smooth as could be !

 

Even problematic inks like Noodler's El Lawrence or Manjiro Nakahama Whaleman's Sepia, both of which are rather "dense" formulations ** with many slow starts never caused me to have serious problems with my Pelikans beyond repeated flushes to clear them.

 

The damage I've seen by the use of dry inks in pens - speaking in general, and not just Pelikans - has been the tendency of people to bear down much harder on the nib when the pen is slow starting or runs dry. That's not generally a good approach for the problem, but there are worse ways to address it. In one case, I recall someone "flipping" the pen forward to send more ink to the nib, but as they were grasping the posted cap and not the body, this had, ahem, a rather disastrous result. Patience is a key element to this issue. I've surely had pens with inks that proved so dry that I couldn't continue to use the pen at that point, but then, that's why I always have at least two pens in my pocket !

 

 

John P.

 

 

* The demonstrator pen did stain with blue from that ink, and it eventually came clean. Given that I paid a trifle for the pen and that it's continued in the rotation over the years, well, it's not a bad story !

 

*** The intransigence of these inks, among a few others, was the reason that I started to adulterate inks with colours that I liked, but dryness that I didn't. The ended up with me finding inks that worked beautifully after some experimentation, so that story's not so bad either...

Edited January 2, 2019 by PJohnP

[Driften]

I have not had any issues with red's or purples in my Pelikan demonstrators. I did have to use pen flush to clean out of the section some Pilot Ku-Jaku but a soak in the flush fixed that right up.

[pen2paper]

Couldn't get signed in here yesterday to say Thanks All for your helpful suggestions!

Planning to bring out all my true blue inks Saturday for its official "First Inking Ceremony" :-)

My one & only sends greetings to your Flocks.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Do break out a good paper......90g or plus, laser.

Then one can see more what the ink is and can do.

[Tasmith]

 

Don't touch my mustache is all the Japanese I can remember.....

Used to say that too in Japan!

 

And "alligator knees" for arigato na.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Used to say that too in Japan!

 

And "alligator knees" for arigato na.

Forgot that one.....50 years is a long time, and we were TDY, 3 months, 6 days a week, so one day a week free to wander don't make for learning a language.

With the basic 20 questions/phrases in a language one can get around well, but I probably had only 10.

Funny was watching John Wayne in Japanese.

[ENewton]

I had Waterman Tender Purple ink in my Pelikan 140 for several months and had no problems with staining.

[Tasmith]

Have Rohrer and Klingner Salix in one of me M200's with no problems other than the ink window is stained. Haven't flushed it yet to see if the staining rinses out.

[japinder_888]

Hello,

 

I'm looking for some insight into what inks would be safe from staining the inside of the barrel of Pelikan plastic. I'm thinking about using Diamine Autumn Oak, but I'm guessing this is a big no-go, or? What do you guys use and you know does not stain whatsoever? I have great experience with Iroshizuku line of inks, personally.

Pelikan Royal blue is the safest ink.