Inks that are less prone to evaporation?

[Licue]

Hello,

I have a few fountain pens that unfortunately tend to dry up and out quite quickly (Parker Sonnet, Parker 25, Waterman Kultur, and some others).

While in general I share the opinion that a fountain pen that can't keep its ink fresh for at the very least a few weeks (capped of course) is a bad fountain pen, I already bonded with my pens - so getting rid of them is not an option. I also rather not do modifications (glue, wax, tape, etc.) on the pens.

 

So far my "solution" to this problem is to stick to a no-list for these pens (NO waterproof inks, NO pigmented inks, NO iron gall inks. Also no inks with shimmer, no strongly saturated inks and no inks that tend build growths on the nib. And for the Kultur also no staining inks).

And to (re-)apply water (on the nib and/or in the cartrigde) whenever necessary.

However, I'd really prefer to have to do this re-watering less often...

 

Are there any inks that could help with that? Inks that do not evaporate from a pen so fast?

Does a longer dry time on the paper or on the (uncapped) nib correlate with a slower evaporation from the pen?

 

 

Edited December 27, 2020 by Licue

[Karmachanic]

It's the pen, not the ink. Do your inks evaporate from the bottle? Possibly, but imperceptibly so. Pelikans, for example, are famous in their ability to write instantly, despite having been unused for many months, because the cap effectively seals the pen.

 

For those pens that do not seal effectively, better to write through the fill before it evaporates completely. Perhaps even a partial fill. And/or keep less pens inked.

 

I find it beneficial to listen to what my pens tell me.

[carlos.q]

1 hour ago, Karmachanic said:

It's the pen, not the ink.

I agree with this and it is the reason I retired my Waterman Kultur. 

[yazeh]

I have to agree 100% with Karmachanic.

The solutions suggested are spot on. 

If you liked as many pens inked as possible, you'd have to go for Platinum Slip & Seal Cap pens, or you get a pack of cheap Pilot varsities  and fill them with the inks you like but don't use regularly.... I've done it with some inks and it's works fine (all waterproof) 

The other solution is to cover the cap with a thin layer of transparent nail polish. This could stop evaporation.

Obviously I wouldn't do that with an expensive pen. But, I've done it with Ahab. The jury is still out on this experiment.

 

 

 

[Licue]

Thanks for the answers.

 

Yes, of course it's the fault of the pens, I'm aware of that.

But as I said: I want to keep them (and keep using them) (and not modify them), so I have to tackle the problem from the pen-habits and/or ink-selection side.

 

As far as pen habits are concerned, I see these options:

- Re-watering: I already do that (but would like to do it less often)

- Store the (filled) pens (somewhat) airtight: Tried. I kept the pens in a ziplocked plastic bag, but did not notice that much difference tbh

- Write more/only with that(/these) pen(s): Not really realistic. I have too many other pens that I want to use as well 🙃

- Only fill(/partially fill) these pens right before usage and clean them immediately after: Not realistic at all. Most of my writing is short(ish) notes, not long writing sessions. I would waste way too much time and ink with cleaning that way

 

So that leaves ink selection...

My train of thought was kinda like that: 

All inks dry on paper eventually, but some inks faster and some inks slower

So why not also:

All inks evaporate from the pen eventually, but some inks faster and some inks slower - I need to find the inks that evaporate more slowly.

 

Is that unreasonable thinking?

 

 

 

 

Edited December 27, 2020 by Licue

[yazeh]

I am not sure if drying time on paper is related to evaporation.... there are two many variables...

I've had fast drying inks evaporate in my pens too.  

But you can give it a go. 

I have a list somewhere, of fast drying inks but they are all from the bulletproof family. 

You might want to give this thread a look:

 

[silverlifter]

3 hours ago, Licue said:

Is that unreasonable thinking?

 

Not unreasonable, but certainly fanciful.

 

As everyone else has pointed out, the issue is with the pens. Inks don't evaporate at a certain rate, the only variable is what they leave behind. Stick to the blandest, safest inks and you'll have less to deal with when it comes time to clean out the residue.

[Karmachanic]

13 minutes ago, silverlifter said:

 

Not unreasonable, but certainly fanciful.

 

 

I suggest the OP learn to accommodate him/herself to each of their pens' characteristics. And in future purchase better made pens, which doesn't necessarily correlate to cost. I have an inexpensive ASA Maya that I can leave inked for weeks on end with no appreciable evaporation.

[silverlifter]

8 minutes ago, Karmachanic said:

which doesn't necessarily correlate to cost.

 

Indeed. A Smug Dill has posted a number of times about leaving inexpensive pens (Plaisirs, from memory) inked with pigment inks for months at a time and experiencing no issues.

[Licue]

7 minutes ago, Karmachanic said:

 

 

I suggest the OP learn to accommodate him/herself to each of their pens' characteristics. And in future purchase better made pens, which doesn't necessarily correlate to cost. I have an inexpensive ASA Maya that I can leave inked for weeks on end with no appreciable evaporation.

 

My problem is not that I have no well made pens. 

I already have multiple pens that do very well with keeping their ink and can easily be left inked for months without any problems. And yeah, most of them weren't expensive at all.

I also already keep a list where I note when pens I might be interested in are reviewed as being particularly good or bad concerning evaporation. And I try to keep future acquisitions to "good" ones (tho I can't make any promises if I should happen to come across some cheaply priced Kultur Reflectis 😋)

 

My problem are the "bad" pens that I already have and want to keep.

 

 

[Karmachanic]

15 minutes ago, Licue said:

My problem are the "bad" pens that I already have and want to keep.

 

 

Make friends with them, learn their idiosyncrasies, and use them as they demand to be used. No problem! 😄

[A Smug Dill]

8 hours ago, Licue said:

Are there any inks that could help with that? Inks that do not evaporate from a pen so fast?

 

Sure. Dye inks are fundamentally colourants dissolved in solvents, and different inks will have different constituents for the latter, so at least some will evaporate relatively more slowly under identical physical conditions.

 

6 hours ago, Licue said:

So why not also:

All inks evaporate from the pen eventually, but some inks faster and some inks slower - I need to find the inks that evaporate more slowly.

 

Is that unreasonable thinking?

 

Not at all. It's only unreasonable if you expect to ‘find’ those inks without putting them to the test in either your problematic pens or appropriate ‘lab’ conditions, and observe / record how they perform. You don't get that information from reading either ink manufacturers' published descriptions (and/or specifications) of their products, or ink reviews shared by other fountain pen users who happen to cover drying time on the page under uncontrolled test conditions.

 

You can test various inks in your pens in the most practical way — fill them serially and use them as you would in the normal course of things — and just observe which combinations of pen and ink yield unacceptable performance, which ones poor performance, and which ones relatively / slightly better performance. That way, it costs you nothing (other than a sheet of paper or a notebook to record your observations), and all it takes is time and patience; you won't get to the information you want or improved satisfaction from the use of those pens in a hurry.

 

If you aren't prepared to do that, because you can (reasonably) expect it to be too frustrating and the personal ‘price’ is too steep, you can always buy a sufficient number of identical ‘spare’ converters (or empty ink cartridges that are perfectly clean and dry) — say, with bore diameter of 3.4mm to match that on Parker-branded converters — and set them up on a rack or in a holder tray in parallel, fill each one with a fixed volume of a different ink, and check / record the remaining ink level in each converter daily. You could even use sample vials, mini test tubes, or some other container with a suitably narrow opening relative to its height, and therefore give a small exposed surface area compared to the volume of ink you put into the container for evaporation testing.

 

Instead of benefitting from work someone else has already done at their cost, thus sparing yourself time, effort, expense and frustration yet get to the desired information quickly, you'll just have to do the hands-on testing and data collection yourself.

 

6 hours ago, Licue said:

Only fill(/partially fill) these pens right before usage and clean them immediately after: Not realistic at all. Most of my writing is short(ish) notes, not long writing sessions. I would waste way too much time and ink with cleaning that way

 

Let me get this straight, and cut to the chase:

• You have some pens that apparently have ineffective caps with unacceptably poor performance at preventing ink evaporation.
• You don't want to stop using those pens.
• You don't want to just learn to tolerate and live with their flaws and consequent poor performance.
• You don't want to ‘fix’ or modify those pens, even though you understand the flaw resides therein.
• You don't want to change your user behaviour to mask the pens' flaws.

So, what are you prepared to do — and spend in terms of time, effort and resources — in trade-off, to get some commensurate increase in your user satisfaction?

 

It's not realistic at all to expect to find a solution simply by harvesting information from ink reviews and comparisons volunteered by fellow hobbyists.

[AmandaW]

I live in a particularly hot dry climate so I know about pens that dry out. My solution is to limit their inking to the cooler/ more humid months of the year when it's not so much of a problem - and I look forward to it.

 

When I made a set of drawers for pen storage I named the bottom drawer the Naughty Drawer and the easy driers live there. The current residents include: Lamy Safari and Al-Star (the ink window is the problem, not the cap), Pilot Metropolitan, Kakuno, Prera and Jinhao 886. Previous inhabitants I remember included Jinhao 750s, 599 and Noodlers Ahabs - all those and others I either gave away (with a warning) or threw out.

[LizEF]

7 hours ago, carlos.q said:

I agree with this and it is the reason I retired my Waterman Kultur. 

It's the reason I mutilated my Kultur.  There is, meanwhile, a whole thread on how to "fix" the Kultur's cap to make it sufficiently air tight, and one of the ways does not require (visible) mutilation....  OK, here are the threads I found on the topic:

Here's the one where I describe what I did (not recommended unless the liquid electrical tape solution doesn't work for you (see below)):

http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/263496-waterman-bleu-serenite-waterman-serenity-blue/#entry3709489

Here's a thread where someone else describes another solution:

http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/318700-waterman-kultur-or-kaweco-student/

Here's one where someone describes a solution which I would try before the above (liquid electrical tape):

http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/330256-waterman-phileas-kulture-very-first-impressions/

And here's a thread where others confirm having the problem, but no specific solutions:

http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/330343-staying-inked-best-and-worst/

FWIW.

[XYZZY]

I do know that I have occasionally seen threads here on FPN about plugging the holes in Sonnet caps so that they aren't as prone to evaporation.  So perhaps for that pen you have a path to improve the pen.  I haven't yet done that with my Sonnet yet, but I'll make an effort of finding one of those threads and attempting a fix before I ink it again.

 

I'm unfamiliar with the Parker 25 and Waterman Kultur.  Is fast evaporation in those expected as it is with the Sonnet?

You might try instead asking in the pen repair forum about how to modify the pens so that this isn't as much of a problem.

 

ETA: @LizEF's reply was posted while I was writing.  I was going to say "great minds think alike", but she's clearly a step ahead of me.

[LizEF]

1 hour ago, XYZZY said:

ETA: @LizEF's reply was posted while I was writing.  I was going to say "great minds think alike", but she's clearly a step ahead of me.

😊  Nah, just limited to the one pen.  Nice to know folks have fixed the others.  And I agree with your statement - fix the pens - at least the ones you can fix without marring them.

[yazeh]

3 hours ago, LizEF said:

It's the reason I mutilated my Kultur.  There is, meanwhile, a whole thread on how to "fix" the Kultur's cap to make it sufficiently air tight, and one of the ways does not require (visible) mutilation....  OK, here are the threads I found on the topic:

 

Liz I read someone using deck varnish to  cover the cap of the Ahab. I used a nail varnish. It seems to be working for now and it's invisible  

 

[LizEF]

1 minute ago, yazeh said:

Liz I read someone using deck varnish to  cover the cap of the Ahab. I used a nail varnish. It seems to be working for now and it's invisible  

Huh.  I would have worried about it melting the plastic, or looking, well, the same as nail polish...  But it's not so much the cap of the Kultur that needs covering - it's the opening where the clip attaches that needs sealing.  Might take many layers of varnish to do that.  I still think the liquid tape solution is the best option - all internal and flexible enough to allow the clip to function.

[yazeh]

4 minutes ago, LizEF said:

Huh.  I would have worried about it melting the plastic, or looking, well, the same as nail polish...  But it's not so much the cap of the Kultur that needs covering - it's the opening where the clip attaches that needs sealing.  Might take many layers of varnish to do that.  I still think the liquid tape solution is the best option - all internal and flexible enough to allow the clip to function.

Fair enough

 

[Licue]

9 hours ago, LizEF said:

It's the reason I mutilated my Kultur.  There is, meanwhile, a whole thread on how to "fix" the Kultur's cap to make it sufficiently air tight, and one of the ways does not require (visible) mutilation....  OK, here are the threads I found on the topic:

Here's the one where I describe what I did (not recommended unless the liquid electrical tape solution doesn't work for you (see below)):

http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/263496-waterman-bleu-serenite-waterman-serenity-blue/#entry3709489

Here's a thread where someone else describes another solution:

http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/318700-waterman-kultur-or-kaweco-student/

Here's one where someone describes a solution which I would try before the above (liquid electrical tape):

http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/330256-waterman-phileas-kulture-very-first-impressions/

And here's a thread where others confirm having the problem, but no specific solutions:

http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/330343-staying-inked-best-and-worst/

FWIW.

Thanks for the links.

I'm still feeling rather reluctant about modifying the pen hardware, but I'll keep it in mind. Maybe (maybe) I'll try it on one of my Kulturs - I actually happen to have 2 of the same (pretty 🥰) color, which makes the risk of (bleep) it up somewhat bearable, I guess. Maybe.

I'll have to see if there's an equivalent to that liquid electric tape stuff available here first tho, I'm not from the US.

 

 

9 hours ago, AmandaW said:

I live in a particularly hot dry climate so I know about pens that dry out. My solution is to limit their inking to the cooler/ more humid months of the year when it's not so much of a problem - and I look forward to it.

 

When I made a set of drawers for pen storage I named the bottom drawer the Naughty Drawer and the easy driers live there. The current residents include: Lamy Safari and Al-Star (the ink window is the problem, not the cap), Pilot Metropolitan, Kakuno, Prera and Jinhao 886. Previous inhabitants I remember included Jinhao 750s, 599 and Noodlers Ahabs - all those and others I either gave away (with a warning) or threw out.

This idea I quite like! 😺 👍

Where I live the climate is not so extreme (tho judging from how the last two summers went maybe that's about to change...), but there's still a least a little bit of difference in humidity between the seasons.

And as I can't use all my pens at the same time and therefor have to rotate them anyway, why not put a seasonal spin too it.