Cleaning Vacuum Filled Pens?

May 31, 2019

Never use Noodlers nor Quick in a vac filled pen. I often use Private Reserve or Montblanc inks in my vac filled pens.I use the same PR Daphne Blue ink in my Conklin Nozac Demo with zero troubles since 4 years in a row. All depends of the quality of inks you use. I avoid Noodlers, Parker as well as some Waterman inks.

Unless you have some hard evidence, please don't throw out baseless anecdotes. Single point anecdotal evidence is poison to reasoned discussion.

What have waterman, quink, and noodlers inks done to your pens. What specific inks were used? What circumstances were the pens used in? how long were they left inked and unused? What materials was the pen made from? What was the weather like? How old were the bottles of ink? Were the ink bottles possibly inoculated with mold? what was the problem you encountered? Did you see the problem only once, or in multiple pens? Is there any other possibility for the cause of your problems? All of these questions are CRITICALLY important.

PR is actually one of the harder inks to clean and more prone to scum than others. but I wouldn't even call it a dangerous ink brand either.

Quink in particular is famously reliable. People tend to not love the washed out colors, but that's part of what makes it so staggeringly easy to flush. If your pen was destroyed with quink in it, you did something wrong, not the quink.

And waterman, while usually quite wet, is also stupidly reliable and famously trusted. There's even a saying that if a pen won't write properly with waterman blue, the problem is with the pen.

Red inks in general are facing a growing amount of evidence that they aren't healthy for sacs or rubber seals in long-term use, but there is zero presented evidence that general noodlers, parker, or waterman inks damage pens. Noodlers baystate blue/concord grape being a bit of an exception, but we know exactly why it's an odd duck and what to avoid with it.

Noodlers inks are extremely saturated so they can be hard to clean if used as-is from the bottle, but they are nearly all intended to be diluted up to 50% with distilled water, per nathan tardiff. Nathan's been restoring pens for decades and knows more than arguably anyone on this forum about fountain pens, the dude doesn't make dangerous ink. The baystate line is kind of an odd duck, but even he admits it's only for a very niche group of people.

Edited May 31, 2019 by Honeybadgers

May 31, 2019

Noodlers inks are extremely saturated so they can be hard to clean if used as-is from the bottle, but they are nearly all intended to be diluted up to 50% with distilled water, per nathan tardiff.

Well, that's the first time I've heard that nugget of knowledge. Lol. I've been using Liberty's Elysium for several years without diluting it at all. Oh well! It works fine as is for me...

June 1, 2019

I use most of them undiulted as well, but Nathan has specifically said he oversaturates them so they can be diluted up to 50% and still be quite vibrant.

June 1, 2019

And waterman, while usually quite wet, is also stupidly reliable and famously trusted. There's even a saying that if a pen won't write properly with waterman blue, the problem is with the pen.

In years past Waterman has been accused of being slightly acidic and sometimes causing corrosion to metal parts.

On the other hand, I don't think there's a single ink brand that I've never heard about somebody, somewhere, having some kind of problem with.

Noodlers inks are extremely saturated so they can be hard to clean if used as-is from the bottle, but they are nearly all intended to be diluted up to 50% with distilled water, per nathan tardiff.

This is the first time I've ever heard that. Noodler's ink is pretty saturated, but I've never really found that I needed to dilute it to make it work well, nor do I find it more heavily saturated than a lot of other inks on the market today — like Diamine or Mont Blanc or Monteverde. They're similar.

In my experience Private Reserve has been the most saturated, to the point where I routinely diluted it with 1 part water per 2 parts ink just to get it to flow and behave properly. That might have been OK if that was the only thing, but I had so many other problems with PR that I eventually swore it off completely. PR caused me more headaches than all other brands put together.

I recently got bottles of Monteverde Horizon blue and Graf von Faber-Castell Moss Green, both of which are more heavily saturated than your typical Noodler's, and both of them I felt compelled to dilute. (And then the diluted Monteverde developed mold. )

Nathan's been restoring pens for decades and knows more than arguably anyone on this forum about fountain pens, the dude doesn't make dangerous ink.

Nathan isn't the only guy in the world who knows pens. Ron Zorn and Brian Gray have both insisted, from their experience, that Noodler's can melt latex sacs.

I myself have had enough experience with melted latex that I don't use many sac-based pens anymore, and when I do I only fill with particularly low-maintenance or vintage-style inks. Herbin, maybe.

June 1, 2019

In years past Waterman has been accused of being slightly acidic and sometimes causing corrosion to metal parts.

On the other hand, I don't think there's a single ink brand that I've never heard about somebody, somewhere, having some kind of problem with.

This is the first time I've ever heard that. Noodler's ink is pretty saturated, but I've never really found that I needed to dilute it to make it work well, nor do I find it more heavily saturated than a lot of other inks on the market today — like Diamine or Mont Blanc or Monteverde. They're similar.

In my experience Private Reserve has been the most saturated, to the point where I routinely diluted it with 1 part water per 2 parts ink just to get it to flow and behave properly. That might have been OK if that was the only thing, but I had so many other problems with PR that I eventually swore it off completely. PR caused me more headaches than all other brands put together.

I recently got bottles of Monteverde Horizon blue and Graf von Faber-Castell Moss Green, both of which are more heavily saturated than your typical Noodler's, and both of them I felt compelled to dilute. (And then the diluted Monteverde developed mold. )

Nathan isn't the only guy in the world who knows pens. Ron Zorn and Brian Gray have both insisted, from their experience, that Noodler's can melt latex sacs.

I myself have had enough experience with melted latex that I don't use many sac-based pens anymore, and when I do I only fill with particularly low-maintenance or vintage-style inks. Herbin, maybe.

Well, I mean WATER is probably the most damaging part of modern waterman ink (also remember that older steel components were made from older steel. Not exactly modern, hyper pure stuff with precision amounts of chromium. Old steel corrodes faster than new stuff because the chemistry has come a hell of a long way. New cars don't rust like old ones did.)

Water's a hell of a polar solvent all by its lonesome. something being an acid or a base actually has very little to do with corrosion. Contentrated nitric acid and hydrochloric acid will do basically nothing to pure gold on their own, but mix the two and you suddenly have clerci's solution, a gold eating machine.

There is strong, growing evidence surrounding all red inks eating latex rubber. That much is starting to become indisputable. I don't know much about why, so I won't speculate, but I think that some "dangerous" inks across the spectrum may have some of the chemical compounds found in red inks in their dye mixture. It wouldn't surprise me if lots of browns and purples had a hit of red in them.

Nathan's said in his videos that he intends most of them to be diluted. It's out there, in the world. His words, straight from his mouth (and if you've ever watched his videos, it makes a ton of sense. The dude is practicality/frugality incarnate)

Some noodlers inks are more saturated than others. Not all of them are. I agree, PR tends to be hypersaturated. As does organics studio.

Don't dilute ink in the bottle. You're diluting the dye, but you're also diluting the antimicrobials in them. Diluting a bottle is just begging for mold. Dilute them in sample vials and as-needed.

I've seen a few complaints about noodlers melting latex sacs. I've been running noodlers black in a latex sac american pencil co. Venus for two years straight now. I rarely use it, so the ink mostly just sits in it and I just flush it once a month and refill, just to see if there's any validity.

Thusfar, nothing. The sac is as-new.

Like I said though, I've seen pictures, hard evidence of a vanishing point that was left long-term with BSB in it and that feed was melted. BSB is really just a niche ink that we all know to be careful around. Nathan himself has also said he knows it's a janky ass ink that is not for everyone.

Other than that, all I hear is anecdotes. Just "this pen used X and now it has no sac" with no indication as to the usage circumstances, if the pen EXCLUSIVELY used that ink, for how long, how the pen was left, used, the age of the sac itself (just because it's "new" doesn't mean it didn't sit in a musty old drawer for 25 years before being put on the pen) and any other potentially confounding factors. It all just screams "scapegoat" to me. Nathan's a polarizing man, and while I don't agree with most of his politics, I have yet to see any hard evidence supporting any of his inks other than the baystate line (which he's admitted to their harsh nature) causing damage to pens that could not also possibly be explained by a hundred other factors.

I'm only a fledgling chemistry student (my major is biochemistry) so I am totally open to being dead wrong on any/all of this (apart from Nathan saying most of his inks are meant to be diluted, I've heard him say it out loud ) but as soon as I have access to more lab equipment and as my organic chemistry knowledge grows, I've got a hell of a lot of different FP related tests I'm going to be badgering my professors to run

Edited June 1, 2019 by Honeybadgers

June 2, 2019

Nathan's said in his videos that he intends most of them to be diluted. It's out there, in the world. His words, straight from his mouth (and if you've ever watched his videos, it makes a ton of sense. The dude is practicality/frugality incarnate)

In my experience, Nathan says a lot of things.

Some noodlers inks are more saturated than others. Not all of them are. I agree, PR tends to be hypersaturated. As does organics studio.

I don't have much experience with OS, except to say that I'm a fan of Accident Blue (Oops!). It's truly unique stuff, a pure and attractive blue that's waterproof, it's a shading monster, and it handles crummy paper better than any other ink I've yet seen. (Yes, better than Noodler's Black!) It's also rather high-maintenance, but there are ways to deal with that.

Don't dilute ink in the bottle. You're diluting the dye, but you're also diluting the antimicrobials in them. Diluting a bottle is just begging for mold. Dilute them in sample vials and as-needed.

That's the conclusion I reached too. The bottle containing dilute ink grew mold, but the original bottle which still contained pure ink was just fine. Now I'm getting into eyedropper pens, so it's easier to just squirt some ink into the pen, then some water.

June 2, 2019

In my experience, Nathan says a lot of things.

I don't have much experience with OS, except to say that I'm a fan of Accident Blue (Oops!). It's truly unique stuff, a pure and attractive blue that's waterproof, it's a shading monster, and it handles crummy paper better than any other ink I've yet seen. (Yes, better than Noodler's Black!) It's also rather high-maintenance, but there are ways to deal with that.

That's the conclusion I reached too. The bottle containing dilute ink grew mold, but the original bottle which still contained pure ink was just fine. Now I'm getting into eyedropper pens, so it's easier to just squirt some ink into the pen, then some water.

God help anyone trying to clean OS nitrogen out of a pen. That stuff sheens like nothing else (and doesn't even smear!) but good lord is it so saturated it takes days to flush.

June 3, 2019

God help anyone trying to clean OS nitrogen out of a pen. That stuff sheens like nothing else (and doesn't even smear!) but good lord is it so saturated it takes days to flush.

That's odd.. I've been using it in my Conid and have not had issues flushing it clean each time.