Red Ink, Guilty Again

[SandPiper]

I mean you can get hit by a car crossing the street too. You want to spend your whole life on one side of the block?

 

In a world filled with nuclear weapons and global warming, I think maybe I'll chance a little Sky High or Skrip Red ink in my pen. heh.

 

WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE SOON. INK UP THOSE PENS.

 

The ultimate statistic...10 out of 10 people die.

 

Nonetheless, I'm not a fan of red ink anyway. Too many memories of having essays returned where it appeared the professor had butchered a calf on my paper....

Edited February 17, 2017 by SandPiper

[Manalto]

I mean you can get hit by a car crossing the street too. You want to spend your whole life on one side of the block?

 

 

No, but cross at the intersection, not mid-block, at 2 a.m. on New Year's morning.

 

It's wise to be cautious when you've been warned about a danger. The only place I can think of where staining would be a problem is demonstrators or pens with ink windows. I can't imagine caring what color an unseen sac is, but I don't want it to dissolve after a couple of months.

Edited February 17, 2017 by Manalto

[pajaro]

Years ago I read that pigments and particulates couldn't be used in pens, because they would clog the feed. Has something changed with pigments and particulate containing inks?

 

This thread has explained something I never understood. When I first went into the Air Force in 1970 I used Sanford red ink in my Parker 51 to write letters to my girlfriend. For a long, long time afterward I would see traces of red ink whenever I flushed the pen. For personal reasons I never minded seeing that red ink, though.

Edited February 17, 2017 by pajaro

[ink-syringe]

Has something changed with pigments and particulate containing inks?

 

 

Yes. As someone who used Carbon inks in the 1990s I would say that the carbon/partical/pigment inks of today are much much much better. Better formulations and much smaller particles.

 

One of my sorry jobs as an apprentice back in the day was to clean the carbon inks out of the pens weekly. That stuff was gooey and clogged like crazy. Black as night, and reproduced well but a pain to keep flowing. Sailor Carbon Black ink is way more free flowing and problem free.

[pajaro]

I have had no trouble using red ink, specifically red black by Noodler's and Montblanc burgundy red. No issues with these two. Generally I don't like the gossamer inks, but sometimes I just have to have something more than blue black. I have mixed MB black and MB violet to get a dark shade and other subtle colors with black, using same brand inks together.

 

Repair experts can rail at the fun colors like red, but a lot of people are surely going to use them. I liked nothing beyond blue black for many years, but after retiring I felt the need for something more. This is a hobby, and people just want to have fun. If you destroy a few pens along the way, what of it?

 

It's amusing that some people feel every pen must be preserved, saved for posterity? Others feel you must write with every pen, no pen is to be preserved uninked. I like to mess around with the pens, and I have had some savage amusement with them, breaking not a few in the process. I save the parts I can to fix the next one I break or ruin.

[sidthecat]

A pen repairman told me a long time ago that latex sacs decay much faster in Los Angeles than any other city, because of the air pollution. A gynecologist told me virtually the same thing about the diaphragm method of birth control.

[Flippy]

Your shelf should be fine. Just don't put it in a pen.

One of my Sonnets is loaded into that. Luckily, it's converter-action.

[Flippy]

 

Sailor inks generally are safe and well behaved. I have had dozens of Sailor inks over the last, what 20 years? (I live in Asia) and Sky High is literally the only one that gave any issue and those issues were exceedingly minor. Yes Sky High will stain. I am 100% convinced that is why Souten is formulated to be slightly more mild with less saturation and sheen than Sky High. I have/had 7 bottles of Sky High and its brother Summer Sky. Have put it in, I would guess 20-30 pens? If you use it relentlessly (as I do) it will indeed stain a pen. But a fill of Do Yoo instantly unstained the Sky High filled pens. heh. I have no idea what is in Do Yoo but that ink is magic.

I think this binary idea of Safe or Not Safe needs to go. There are degrees of safe and I think Sailor actually does a rocking great job of making inks for the modern tastes (more flow more saturation more fruity colors) and still having the inks be very well behaved.

As for plyglass, that stuff is insanely stain prone. I have a dozen or so 51s. All but one are stained. EVERYTHING, or almost, stains plyglass. If you don't want your plyglass sac to stain either don't ever use the pen or just fill it with Aurora Black. It seems patently unfair to criticism an ink for staining plyglass if you ask me.

I think some mild staining does not a bad ink make. Does the ink clog? Does it rot your feed or sack? Does it grow SITB? That makes a bad ink. Mildly tinting my plastic demonstrator a subtle blue for me, personally, doesn’t count as ‘bad’ ink for me. YMMV

Have you heard bout' this site? It's good for buying inks.

http://www.bestpen.co.kr/

Edited February 19, 2017 by FlippyThePen

[ink-syringe]

I have been there dozens times over the years. Probably half the inks on my shelf came from there. I usually just go in person but there is a new place walking distance to my house (long walk but I need the exercise) that is also very good and getting better quickly. That is where I got to get Diamine ink.

 

My new place is: http://blueblack.co.kr

 

Good people. Now stocking Iroshizuku, Sailor, Robert Oster and many others. They have an "ink wall" with all the inks carded up with writing samples and swabs so you can shop not just by looking at the boxes by the actual ink itself. Very nice people. Trying their best in a fountain pen hostile country.

 

 

 

Have you heard bout' this site? It's good for buying inks.

http://www.bestpen.co.kr/

[Ron Z]

 

 

This is a hobby, and people just want to have fun. If you destroy a few pens along the way, what of it?

 

That may be fine for you. But not everybody has the ability to repair their pens, and so cost of repair, or risk of damage are factors to consider.

[pajaro]

If you read the threads here, these people write about using just about every color, including reds. My practice is to use blue black (Montblanc or Sheaffer), and Montblanc violet.

 

I have used MB burgundy red in a MB 144. The nib and feed are easily removed for cleaning or replacement. Feeds are available.

 

The consensus here, then, is that all red inks without exception are going to ruin pens?

[Ron Z]

 

The consensus here, then, is that all red inks without exception are going to ruin pens?

 

I haven't said that. What I said is that I have found that sacs tend to fail more often when red ink is used, and that red dye in general tends to stain and be persistent. There are too many reds to be all inclusive, but based on experience across a number of brands, that has been the case. We've found it happen with inks that contain red as well, including purple and brown.

[pajaro]

 

 

 

I haven't said that. What I said is that I have found that sacs tend to fail more often when red ink is used, and that red dye in general tends to stain and be persistent. There are too many reds to be all inclusive, but based on experience across a number of brands, that has been the case. We've found it happen with inks that contain red as well, including purple and brown.

 

Thanks. The purple (and violet) are a concern. I have been using MB violet, a discontinued ink, for a while in my Sheaffers. Maybe I should change back to blue black. I am not worried about the sacs so much as damage in the feed of pens I can't get apart.

[bleair]

Not that our moderator needs more grist for his mill about using red inks in vintage pens, but...

 

is the remains of the diaphragm I just spent the evening carving out of a Vacumatic barrel. The owner says she used Diamine Crimson, Diamine Scarlet, or some combination of those two, in it until it failed. While Diamine is not usually among the perpetrators, I think this data is pretty good. The pen belongs to my wife...

 

Tim

 

 

Wowza. Thanks for posting this Tim.

 

Do you think that the vacumatic's feed was also damaged, or just the sac?

 

Lastly, would most of you repair pros say that Sheaffer red is just as risky as the other red inks? I'm not trying to force anyone to make an absolute statement about inks, but I had the mistaken notion that Sheaffer's red was lower risk among the red inks.

[tmenyc]

No, the feed is fine; takes a lot of pretty ferocious insult to hurt a feed, even a vintage feed. Although, in restoration I've seen many feeds that needed pretty extensive cleaning and dredging of old dried ink.

 

I'm not a pro, but I'll add that Sheaffer is a pretty mild, dye-based ink that certainly fits the test of having been around when most vintage pens were made, although its formula has probably changed in the intervening years. It is not as risky as a pigment-based red; also not as vivid since it doesn't have all the stuff that creates the strong color floating in it. However, you've read Ron's comments above -- red ink, even washable Sheaffer red, stains in time. If you don't want stained pens, don't use red. If you use modern pens that are not clear and/or you don't care if your converter unit gets stained, use red ink! The stains, plus the potential of sac failure in a pen with a sac, are the issues.

 

Thanks for asking.

 

Tim

Edited February 21, 2017 by tmenyc

[white_lotus]

Let us remember that at least with the original post, the problem took 10 YEARS to develop. Sacs and diaphragms are consumable items that will need to be replaced eventually no matter what ink is used.

 

There are very few modern pens using sacs and diaphragms (the Edison Beaumont and Menlo for example). Most cartridge converters can be disassembled and cleaned if necessary. Even translucent barrels can be cleaned if stained, though demonstrators may be more problematic by their nature.

 

I can understand someone with a valuable pen perhaps not wanting to lessen its value. But I'm not sure that having replaced the sac or diaphragm actually does that except with a NOS or mint pen. But then you probably shouldn't be putting ink in it anyway.

[Ron Z]

I've had sacs fail in a matter of months when red ink was used, and I know my source.

 

Delta, Krone, the modern Conway Stewarts, Filcao, and other modern lever or button fillers (names escape me at the moment) use latex sacs. If you can resac a pen, wonderful! If not, consider what you put in the pen.

 

If stained, i.e. the dye has penetrated the material inside the barrel, the stain may not come out.

 

Remember that some of the vintage celluloids, pre-WWII Pelikans specifically come to mind, are especially vulnerable. My experience with a Pelikan 100N in which a boutique ink was used comes to mind. It had crazed, and the damage went far enough below the surface that I could not rehabilitate the barrel, and had to toss it.

 

Note that I am not targeting one brand or one color. I'm not even saying that you should not use them (though I personally don't) - just use good judgement. I understand that using one brand and one color of ink as I do is unimaginable to many. I respect that. But it isn't as one newer ink manufacturer put it, "All about the ink" and not about the pen. The ink is a consumable good. The pen one hopes, is durable.

[pajaro]

I used to use one ink, Sheaffer blue black. Then I added Montblanc blue black. I should have left it at that.

[pajaro]

I have changed the red inks and violet inks to cartridge pens, and I refill the cartridges with red or violet. The cartridges go into Sheaffer school pens or Lamy Safaris. Even though I can change most of the sac pens' sacs, it is an expense and a bother waiting in the mail for sacs, etc.

 

I used Sanford's red ink for a few years in my first Parker 51. That pen is still writing, and with the original sac. Of all the pens I have, this 51 is the only one I feel like I don't want to be without. I hope the pli glas sacs are immune to red ink disease.

[ftnpenfan]

I mean you can get hit by a car crossing the street too. You want to spend your whole life on one side of the block?

 

In a world filled with nuclear weapons and global warming, I think maybe I'll chance a little Sky High or Skrip Red ink in my pen. heh.

 

WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE SOON. INK UP THOSE PENS.

 

Okay. That made my day! Still chuckling...