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Ink Evaporating/noodler Pens


EverythingButt

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i haven't ventured too much with noodler fountain pens since when i was starting out, they had the reputation for being not always easy to use and may need to be tinkered with.

 

fast forward, i bought i think an ahab flex and i also got one of the free pens with an ink purchase.

 

i enjoy using both. however, i have noticed the ink tends to evaporate in both. no leakage. i think it's related to the resin used in the ahab piston and the free pen's resin barrel. it must be pretty porous. annoying since the ink is "lost" to the point i don't want to keep them inked. with other pens the cartridge/converter ink takes a long time before it dries up.

 

anyone with a similar experience? any remedies worth trying?

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Noodler's pens have ebonite feeds (in fact these are Kanwrite nib & feeds) which make them rather wet writers. I also noticed how the pen uses up ink pretty quickly, and also it seems like the ink evaporates quite a bit from the nib & feed while I'm using the pen, making the ink darker. But I doubt that the ink evaporates from inside the barrel when you are not using the pen.

 

The way I see it, ink is cheap. Even with a very wet pen like the Ahab, it'll take me a couple of years to use up a £5 bottle of Diamine ink. So why worry?

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Yep. As The Mandalorians say, "This is the way" :)

I keep a nib creeper inked up in my pocket, have done for a looong time now. All other Noodler's pens I own, Ahabs, Nib Creepers, Konrad, Charlie and Tinker Flex, are inked upon demand.

I read somewhere on these haloed pages that filling an Ahab's barrel with water before inserting the remains of the pen would help with evaporation. Made no difference here :unsure:.

Enjoy them but keep an eye on them. Some of my favourite pens. :wub:

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Same here. I gave up on my Ahabs and gave them away (at a pen club meet so the people who took them knew what they were getting into!).

 

My homemade pen storage has 4 drawers which neatly divides my pens into groups: top drawer, second tier, the cheapy but good and, at the bottom, the Naughty Drawer - that's where all those who dry out too easily to trust go to live. They come out to play for a day or two, then cleaned and put back. It's current inhabitants include: Duke 209, Jinhao 886, X750 and 599, Pilot Metropolitan, Prera, Kakuno, Lamy Safari and Al-star. I like them enough to baby them. The Ahabs didn't even get that.

Will work for pens... :unsure:

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They do evaporate a lot. It's because there is no cap liner to make a better seal around the nib and feed. My Noodler's pens evaporate more than any other pens that I own.

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I do think they evaporate through the barrel itself due to the kind of plastic used.

 

Actually, what I did... was...

 

I was one day applying clear sealant paint (or varnish?) to a terrasse floor to waterproof it when I though, why not? So I used this transparent, clear ,"invisible" sealant to paint the outside of barrels of several Charlie pens. That was almost one year ago. What I've seen since is that where they would evaporate a full load of ink over a couple weeks-one month, they can now hold the ink without large loss for many months easily.

 

So, it suggests that it may rather be the material used for the body of the pens that is causing the evaporation.

 

Nice thing is that the sealant I used left a very thin, transparent, colorless coat, so you do not notice any difference in coloring, texture, thickness or tact. Of course you should ensure it is non-toxic, but there are hydrofuge sealants of all kinds out these. I just can't remember the make or brand of the one I used, it was so long ago.

If you are to be ephemeral, leave a good scent.

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The same vegetal resin is used in several FPR pens -- Jaipur v1, Indus, Muft, the ink reservoirs of v1 and v2 Himalayas. Indore, Guru, and the externals of the Darjeeling (which uses standard international converters). I have a Jaipur I've been using a lot lately, and it does seem to go through the ink pretty quickly, and can get cloggy after a few fills. Since it's my bête noire of ink, Noodler's Bad Black Moccasin, I don't fret about that.

 

But at least it writes, unlike the Konrad I gave up on, which could dry out in four hours of idleness -- while capped, laying sideways on my desk

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But at least it writes, unlike the Konrad I gave up on, which could dry out in four hours of idleness -- while capped, laying sideways on my desk

Aye. My Konrad doesn't get out much :(

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name="txomsy" post="4337844" timestamp="1593765602"]I do think they evaporate through the barrel itself due to the kind of plastic used.

 

Actually, what I did... was...

 

I was one day applying clear sealant paint (or varnish?) to a terrasse floor to waterproof it when I though, why not? So I used this transparent, clear ,"invisible" sealant to paint the outside of barrels of several Charlie pens. That was almost one year ago. What I've seen since is that where they would evaporate a full load of ink over a couple weeks-one month, they can now hold the ink without large loss for many months easily.

 

So, it suggests that it may rather be the material used for the body of the pens that is causing the evaporation.

 

Nice thing is that the sealant I used left a very thin, transparent, colorless coat, so you do not notice any difference in coloring, texture, thickness or tact. Of course you should ensure it is non-toxic, but there are hydrofuge sealants of all kinds out these. I just can't remember the make or brand of the one I used, it was so long ago.[/quote

I have done the same thing using transparent nail varnish on the ink pump of my ahabs and Himalayas. It works

Edited by Zinonas
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great replies. glad i'm not the only one...

 

i think the pens smell ok. i can't get my daughter to sniff the pens at all. it must be the vegetal resin.

 

the shellacking of the plastic by txomsy is interesting and proves that proof in concept of evaporation through the resin?

 

it's too much work since there are so many great pens to use. i think i shall also triage my pens like amandaw.

 

i like to give out pens at work to stimulate interest. i would be frustrated to get a noodler since the drying out etc would be a nonstarter. i have gifted plasirs, metros, safaris, conklins, multiple chinese brands for comparison.

 

happy 4th.

 

 

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Some pens are designed to withstand ink evaporation much better than others. For example adding an inner cap to seal the nib and feed better. On the budget, there are highly wallet-friendly Platinum Preppy pens that withstand ink evaporation really well. On more expensive side, there are Sailor fountain pens, Platinum 3776 models. My Pelikan pens are really good at sealing. Others have had varying experience, but my specific Conklin Duragraph is excellent at keeping ink fresh for months.

“I admit it, I'm surprised that fountain pens are a hobby. ... it's a bit like stumbling into a fork convention - when you've used a fork all your life.” 

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that's where all those who dry out too easily to trust go to live. They come out to play for a day or two, then cleaned and put back. It's current inhabitants include: Duke 209, Jinhao 886, X750 and 599, Pilot Metropolitan, Prera, Kakuno, Lamy Safari and Al-star.

Hmmm. Sad to hear that about the Pilot Prera; I have three brand new ones that I bought with the expectation of transplanting Penmanship EF and Plumix italic M (and now also Plumix F and B) nibs into them, but just did not get around to unboxing the Prera pens and pulling them out to play. I don't use the five Pilot MR any more, except maybe for testing, because they don't seal well against ink evaporation (no better than the 78G) and also because of that annoying step-down between barrel and gripping section, and almost completely ruin a pen model with such great construction.

 

If Sailor can make a cheap (screw-capped) pen in the Profit Junior that seals well, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect Pilot Prera and Platinum Balance pens to be as effective in that regard. I don't believe that it is an inherent problem with snap-caps, either. My Rotring 400 and Aurora Ipsilon pens all have snap-caps, and prevent ink evaporation astoundingly well.

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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My Prera and my Platinum Balance, when in use, are inked for weeks at a time, and I do not have problems with ink drying up in the pen.

 

I should note that, in both cases, I have the opaque models, not the transparent ones. Also, when a pen is inked, I use it at least a little bit every day. My Balance is inked now; maybe, as an experiment, I will let it sit for a week unused and see whether I observe dryout or evaporation after that time.

 

I realize that this is even further off the topic of the thread, but about two weeks ago I remembered that my former housemate left two Shaeffer school pens (from the 1950s or 1960s) in a drawer in my house. Neither pen had been used for three or four years, and one still had a black cartridge in it. I retrieved the full one, put it to paper, and found that it wrote as if it had been used the day before.

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In previous threads on this topic it became clear that location had everything to do with whether pens were prone to drying out. If you live somewhere more humid or even just plain nice you probably wonder what all the fuss is about! Someone in Sydney, for example, has many advantages, climate for pens can be added to the list. After all, they sell millions of Lamys so there can't be much wrong with them. It's a location thing, here I would not recommend one as a starter pen. I'd give them a Plaisir instead.

 

Hot dry climates like mine in wheatbelt Western Australia are an obvious tough situation. I was surprised to learn that some places are cold and dry and have similar issues. Air-conditioning can can be drying too..Our air-con is the evaporative kind which should raise the humidity and it does, but not enough to keep dry-prone pens inked.

 

My trouble pens behave better in winter when the humidity is higher. Like right now: it is play time for many of the Naughty Drawer inhabitants! The Lamys are all inked and the 750x has had a fude nib installed as well - lots of fun. They do hard start some days, but at least there's still ink in their cartridge or converter. In summer it would be dust in there. I value my inks too highly to waste it.

 

I have other Pilot pens that are no trouble at all - metal Falcon, 92 and 74.

 

Other dry-resistant pens for me are: Platinum Plaisir, #3776, Carbon Desk Pen and Preppy. Wing Sung 308, 698 and 699. TWSBI Eco and 580. PenBBS 308, 309 and 323. Jinhao 992. Rotring Artpen. There will be others, these are just what I have and have a enough years experience with to trust. I think the green plastic Sailor fude de mannen is going to be good too, but I've only had it here for a few months so wouldn't promise - I am confident enough to have ordered another and a blue one...

 

These are just my experience. YMMV. I'm not throwing much away (except the Ahabs which were given away). I have pen management strategies to cope: the Naughty Drawer, safe inking practices and an ultrasonic cleaner (affectionately known here as the buzz-pot).

Will work for pens... :unsure:

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've noticed that Kanwrite evaporate massively.... Though I'm sure it's from the convertor... As the convertor is not really good... I wish Ahab's Refillabel Ink Cartridges were compatible....I might want to dare and turn it into an eye dropper and see if the problem persists... Thought I Prefer smaller ink capacity in general :)

I also noticed the same with Jinhao 450s. I use the side sliding convertors and while they are practical to clean, I often find ink behind the "plunger" (I hope it's the right term," I might use the Jinhao cartridges to see if they get any better :)

 

None of my few vintage pens (A waterman V2) and Conway Stewart evaporate....

The ink in TWSBI go also evaporate, albeit after 4 months...

 

I have to admit a Sheaffer Calligraphy pen from my student years behaves will, so does Jinhao 992.....

 

Anyone any experience with Kawecos?

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The slip and seal arrangement of the 3776 tempts me for this reason, but so far I have not been able to persuade myself to spend that kind of money when I already have the Preppy and Plaisir. I know they're not at all the same pens, but I already have a Custom 74, and I usually only get one pen in any category/price range (for >$50) because....why?

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