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A Mystifying Problem - About To Give Up In Frustration!


Ciliegia

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Must admit, if I were you, that I would be tempted to say Waterman inks are for use in my Visconti and I will keep the Sherwood Green for everything else.

 

Yes, I'm tempted to do that. I don't normally match my ink colour with the pen but the Michelangelo is such a lovely green that it couldn't resist trying...

 

A good excuse to try out numerous green inks in the market. :) You can't make the pen behave with a particular ink, but surely you can find one out of a hundred or more with which it'll play well enough?

 

Get thee behind me Satan! The last thing my wallet needs is for me to fall down the ink rabbit hole! :lol:

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Yes, I'm tempted to do that. I don't normally match my ink colour with the pen but the Michelangelo is such a lovely green that it couldn't resist trying...

 

 

Get thee behind me Satan! The last thing my wallet needs is for me to fall down the ink rabbit hole! :lol:

You mean, "VADE RETRO SATANA"?

 

You can try some of the very basic coloured ones. Hit Ebay, and search for "5280 fountain pen ink"

 

$7 for the bottle, including shipping. As near as I can tell, it's the same manufacturer as makes Sheaffer. (Slovenia)

Comes from the US, so no worries there. (I've ordered from the seller)

 

Hero also has some 40ml bottles in light green and dark green - $6 including shipping. Diamine, $6.25, and some random other inks. I'm now looking at ordering two or three OASO inks just for fun - at $2.29 per bottle, shipped, it's worth it just for fun. If they're (bleep), they become watercolour inks for my daughter.

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I must admit I haven't read every single post in this thread so this may have already been mentioned. But I have run into a similar problem before. What turned out to be the problem for me was that the channel (gap) between the tines of my pen (a nakaya) was incorrectly tapered. The channel should be wider at the breather hole and narrower at the tip. Mine was the reverse and this led to the capillary action of the nib to be inhibited. It would write when the feed is saturated with ink, but then stop/skip as ink is laid on paper but no further ink is drawn from the reservoir.

 

Easy way to verify if this is problem is looking at the nib under a loupe to see if channel is tapering down properly.

Edited by superglueshoe
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If Waterman Black has solved the problem, my bet is that it would work with Montblanc Irish Green as well. If you are set on green for this pen it might be an option.

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The elephant in the room for me is this: if this is a fine pen (obviously), then why is there no help from the maufacturer for this, your most vexing problem? I sincerely admire your enormous patience and outstandingly dogged determination; so I ask this perhaps naive question, with all due respect.

Brian

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The elephant in the room for me is this: if this is a fine pen (obviously), then why is there no help from the maufacturer for this, your most vexing problem? I sincerely admire your enormous patience and outstandingly dogged determination; so I ask this perhaps naive question, with all due respect.

 

Ah, good question! There are no bricks and mortar Visconti dealers in the city I live, and complex problems are resolved at the Visconti central service centre in Florence. Over the years I've had numerous items go astray between the UK and Italy (even those sent recorded delivery) so I'm a little reluctant to entrust my pen to the vagaries of the UK/Italian postal system. I'm going to Rome for 10 days in December so I guess I could hop a train to Florence on Day 1, drop off the pen and collect it on Day 9...

 

I have taken it to Novelli on two previous trips to Rome but they couldn't dedect any problem with the nib...

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If Waterman Black has solved the problem, my bet is that it would work with Montblanc Irish Green as well. If you are set on green for this pen it might be an option.

 

Ah, that's interesting! A lot of folks here have told me that MB Irish Green is a lovely green green, which is what I like about Sherwood Green. I'll give it a try! Thank you.

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If you can take a close up photograph of the nib, from the top and the underneath and the gap between the feed and the nib there are enough experts on here to give you an idea as to whether the issue is nib adjustment or ink quality, those that dont qualify as experts will still comment so you will have plenty to choose from.

 

This is one of the best how-to guides on nib adjustment that I have seen

 

http://www.solespen.com/?p=2177

Edited by Beechwood
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, those that dont qualify as experts will still comment so you will have plenty to choose from.

 

 

Ah, and therein lies the rub!

 

The pen dealers at Novelli are pretty expert at assessing nib alignment and they couldn't detect a visible problem..all I DO know is that personally I'm NOT an expert so I'm reluctant to do any nib tinkering at all!

 

If it writes well with Waterman black, I'm tempted not to tempt fate with any further tinkering and adjusting...apart from perhaps a little experimenting to see if I can find a well behaving green ink.

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If it writes well with Waterman black, I'm tempted not to tempt fate with any further tinkering and adjusting...apart from perhaps a little experimenting to see if I can find a well behaving green ink.

 

That would be my choice too, if it aint broke..........

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I've bought! I'll try it out tonight...

 

EDITED to add:

 

I've done ten close-written pages of A5 tonight on not-brilliant paper (Paperblanks 120g acid free) - as well as one page of very smooth paper (Clairefontaine 90g 'veloute' satin finish) - with nary a skip nor a stutter - I'd consider that a victory for Montblanc Irish Green!

 

Hopefully pen and ink will have a long, happy and contented union!

Edited by Ciliegia
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You have my hopes and best wishes that your journey has brought you finally to a well-deserved place of peace and green contentment. Thank you for letting us learn with you, along the way.

Brian

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Very good news, congratulations!

 

Thank you!

 

You have my hopes and best wishes that your journey has brought you finally to a well-deserved place of peace and green contentment. Thank you for letting us learn with you, along the way.

 

Thanks for sticking with me while this was resolved!

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That's two pens you've got, that have had trouble which was resolved by putting a different ink into the pen. I've had similar challenges - some pens just don't like certain inks - and sometimes the nibs don't like certain types of paper either. It goes to show that fountain pen usage/ownership can come with frustrations - and perhaps, it is not so surprising that the world moved from fountain pens to biros and ballpoints so quickly.

 

I'm glad your issue is resolved.

 

Maybe we could collate a database of which inks and papers different brands like, or dislike to help other members? I'm not sure what the format would be, but something along the lines of

 

Pen: Parker IM Ink Likes Parker Quink blue, black, blue black Dislikes Pelikan black (hard starts)

Paper: Likes WHSmith, Leuchtturm1917, Moleskine Dislikes Clairefontaine.

 

Of course individual pens might differ - but something along these lines might make an easy reference for those looking for the best pen, paper and ink combinations to get their writing done.

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Ciliegia,

I am pleased that Irish Green did the trick for you. That color is my most empty bottle. I like the color/wetness/lubrication level, and consistency in writing without bleeding.

Edited by Addertooth
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