Acidic Ink For A Vintage Pen - Is It Safe ?

[kavanagh]

Dear Colleagues,

 

I have a vintage Diplomat Classic Fountain Pen ( picture attached ).

I have bought Waterman's Mysterious Blue Ink for it but have read that it has a pH value of 3.0 (which is acidic ).

I am not sure if the ink feed inside the Diplomat is rubber / plastic or ebonite and if it will be affected by the ink or if I should stay on the safe side and only use Waterman Havana ( which is pH 7 - neutral ).

Any advice would be appreciated.

Also, can someone recommend an ink for a vintage fountain pen that is safe, won't clog it or corrode it if the pen is not used for a couple of weeks ?.

Thanks

 

 

 

Edited June 14, 2019 by kavanagh

[mke]

Your pen looks already heavily corroded, which means that highly acidic/basic liquids can access the unprotected steel easily. Not good.

Look around on the internet and you see that Baystate Blue has a pH of 4.53 and it is considered very damaging to pens. I never heard such stories about the Waterman ink (which you said) is more acidic.

 

Conclusion: this pen will not last forever, as it is already damaged. Therefore, use it regularly and don't let it sit too long.

Edited June 15, 2019 by mke

[Noihvo]

 

[mke]

@Noihvo

Did you read the method of measuring pH, described on the page I referred to: http://www.indy-pen-dance.com/Inks-Report-on-the-pH-of-More-than-60-Inks.html

Is there something doubtful or unscientific with it, than tell us where the problem is - but please don't do generalized rejections. Generalization is as bad as bad measurements.

[Noihvo]

 

[inkstainedruth]

I don't know whether Waterman Mysterious Blue is acidic, basic or neutral pH. But what I DO know is that I used it for over 3 years in a Parker Vacumatic Red Shadow Wave (which, as a lower tier model than the Pearl colors, didn't have the same level of warranty). And AFAIK, the only ill effects is that the ink may have dried out; but up until recently, the pen was never flushed, the nib was never flossed, and the ink seemed to work perfectly well in that pen (in fact, the person who checked the pen out for me after I bought it, Mike Kennedy of Indy-Pen-Dance -- after assuring me that the pen, which had been bought in "as is" condition -- didn't need any sort of repairs or overhaul, and then handed me a bottle of WMB for its inaugural fill under my stewardship.

Good enough for me....

AND it looks great coming out of that nib, too....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[eharriett]

Where did you read Waterman ink is acidic? My understanding is Waterman, Sheaffer, Parker, and Pelikan are so safe they're almost universally used as test ink by the pros.

[Uncial]

There was a thread posted here a little while ago in which many ph values for inks of many brands and colours were provided. The results of many of the Waterman inks were extremely surprising.

[mke]

> Where did you read Waterman ink is acidic?

I checked the Japanese pen magazine "Shumi-no-bungubako" and it also says that the Serenity blue is acidic.

Their data: Mystery Blue 7.6, Serenity Blue 2.9, Inspired Blue 3.3, Green 3.7, Red 5.1, Purple 2.9, Brown 6.5, Black 3.1

 

The linked page only has 2 Waterman inks listed: Purple 2.69 and Brown 4.5.

 

Everything around neutral is actually difficult to measure because water dissolves carbon dioxide - even if the ink is neutral, it will show a pH around 5.x due to the dissolved carbon dioxide.

To avoid such an influence, one usually has to bubble nitrogen or argon through the solution and measure in a controlled atmosphere.

 

As long as one doesn't know the exact measurement the Japanese used, it is difficult to say if their pH of the brown is correct or not.

 

Nevertheless, carbon dioxide does not change a neutral ink to pH 2.7. It is clear that Waterman Serenity Blue is very acidic, similar to Lemon Juice which is between 2 and 3.

[Intensity]

I thought Richard Binder-quoted pH list put together by John Smith is fairly common knowledge now, as linked above:

http://www.indy-pen-dance.com/Inks-Report-on-the-pH-of-More-than-60-Inks.html

 

Waterman inks are quite acidic and are still considered to be excellent for pen safety. Baystate Blue is less acidic than some perfectly inocuous inks, and yet it's a known trouble ink. Clearly pH is not the whole story. Not to mention vintage blue-black generally contained iron gall (even for Waterman) and thus was also acidic, so the pens of the time were developed with acidic inks in mind (with the exception of Parker 51 targeting its alkaline and corrosive superchrome ink).

 

What's surprising to me is that people tend to say things like "very alkaline" for something that has pH of, say, 8-9-something. That's not as far from neutral (7) as an ink with pH of 2.6-3.6. The scale goes from 0 to 14. An ink with pH of 2.7 is highly acidic (7-2.7 = -4.3 from neutral point), and an ink with pH of 8.6 is slightly alkaline.

 

The things to keep in mind are:

- filling mechanism:

if it's a sac filler, avoid highly saturated inks and probably alkaline inks

if it's a piston filler, stay with inks toward neutral pH if there are any non-gold piston parts in contact with the ink, such as the breather tube.

 

- pen body: celluloid material doesn't like alkaline inks, apparently

 

- nib: vintage gold nibs should be fine with pretty much any usual modern fountain pen inks. Modern stainless steel nibs do fine with mild iron-gall content inks too (like Platinum Classic line or KWZ IG line) but can corrode with strong IG inks like ESSRI or Organics Studio.

Edited June 17, 2019 by Intensity

[DonM]

Your pen looks already heavily corroded, which means that highly acidic/basic liquids can access the unprotected steel easily. Not good.

Look around on the internet and you see that Baystate Blue has a pH of 4.53 and it is considered very damaging to pens. I never heard such stories about the Waterman ink (which you said) is more acidic.

 

Conclusion: this pen will not last forever, as it is already damaged. Therefore, use it regularly and don't let it sit too long.

I have also seen BSB tested at a pH of 8.something. So either there is a large variation (intentional or not) in the formulation or one of these measurements is way off.

[eharriett]

I think the major complaint, and even though I am a fan of Noodlers, I believe this is justified, is Noodlers stains pens. It isn’t the pH so much as it is the staining.

 

Regardless, I don’t think there was much thought given to the relative pH level of ink until well after the heyday of fountain pens were past, and the vintage ones held up just fine. It’s an interesting discussion, but I care more about staining.

 

Then again, my pens don’t keep ink in them for very long and I always flush them thoroughly afterwards, so don’t pay any attention to me