Sheaffer Skrip Blue Black Hard to Start?

January 19, 2021

This is probably a stupid question. Skrip is a pretty sound fountain pen ink. That said, was surprised when I loaded a new blue black cartridge in a fine nib school pen, and it didn't want to write. I had previously cleaned the nibs before putting them away, so it wasn't a case of dried ink. A brief soak only removed the blue black ink I'd just tried. Moved to a second nib with the same results. Went back to the first, ran water back and forth through it with a bulb until it ran clear, and tried that nib again. It's a little better, but still mighty pale.

This brought to mind times in high school when the fountain pens would just stop writing. More than once I'd run water over the nib in a restroom sink between classes. My ink then was blue, and I just chalked it up to the nibs needing cleaning.

When I dug out the same school pens I used long ago and used Sheaffer's Skrip Black cartridges, I didn't run into this issue, and gave it no thought until today with the blue black cartridge.

Has anyone run into this, or is it an isolated oddity?

January 20, 2021

Guess it's an isolated oddity.

Not satisfied with the density (saturation?) of the ink, but that's a personal preference.

January 20, 2021

I haven't seen anything that would suggest this with my own bottle, so I can't say what could be causing the issue for you.

ETA: The only thing that I could possibly imagine is that you have maybe still left some water in the feed system, and that has caused the ink to dilute, which is why it is so pale right now. After a good cleaning, the flow should be fixed up, but you might have to find a way to effectively dry the pen without getting the nib clogged with fibers or the like again in order to ensure that you get both the highest levels of saturation possible from the ink as well as avoiding the clogging.

January 21, 2021

This is a cartridge. I'd wondered about residual water in the nib, so this evening I switched it with a medium nib, capped it, and both shook it and pressed the nib onto a dampened bit of facial tissue until it started writing.

The ink in this cartridge is definitely not saturated. But the oddest thing was that it wanted to puddle in the letters as I wrote. Not enough to blot, but it was noticeable as I wrote.

Reinstalled the fine nib, and the ink in the feed had dried just enough that it was a nice saturated color until the ink started flowing again.

January 21, 2021

Hrm...how much puddling? Shading inks on ink resistant paper do "puddle", or are you talking about something more than the typical ink spread and puddling that you see in a shading ink?

Is this an older cartridge? Has the ink evaporated such that it no longer spreads nicely and is globbing up? That would account for reduced flow of the ink and "pooling" on the page more than typical. But if that were the case, then I would expect the pools of ink to be highly saturated, not less saturated. It might have less saturation in the non-pooled areas, though. Do you have some photos? I can compare against my bottle of blue black.

January 22, 2021

No photos. Currently have the fine nib in. It showed up more with the medium. In the fine point, it shows up more where I have an up and down stroke, as in a "t." It's not shading; you can see a shimmer of excess ink before it dries. In writing numerals, it shows up more at the bottom of a 2 and a 3. Very odd. I don't see this in the Skrip Black cartridges I've used.

The cartridge is supposed to be new. It fits tight in the barrel like the newer cartridges, and has "Made in Sklovenia" on the pack, but not the cartridge. The graphics on the package is identical to that of Sheaffer Skrip Black cartridges I bought just a few years ago. It also has a copyright symbol, 2015, and A.T. Cross Company on the back of the pack. OTOH, the Sheaffer Skrip Black Cartridges I bought at the same time have a different style graphic. Unlike the original style with the flat ends, these have the plugs at one end and a slight indention at the other.

Since I have no photos, keep in mind that this might be normal, in which it's just an issue of personal taste. Still, how the ink sort of puddles along the letters struck me as odd.

Hmm...I just paid closer attention to a black cartridge with a fine point nib, and it sort of puddles, too. The difference is that the saturation is much heavier, and you have to hold the page at an angle to see it until it dries.

January 22, 2021

What you're describing sounds exactly like shading to me. For clarity, this is what I mean by shading:

What Is Fountain Pen Ink Shading? - Fountain Pen Love

Not to belabor the point, but any fountain pen that is laying down a sufficiently wet line will be dragging a "bead" of ink along with it along the paper as one writes a stroke. At the end of a stroke, when the pen is lifted, that bead of ink will remain near the end of the stroke, though with some inks it will "backfill" the stroke a little bit. Because this bead is a heavier application of ink, the ink, depending on the saturation, will show darker and lighter depending on this beading.

Because of the heavier line and wetter nibs, broader nibs tend to show more shading than finer nibs, which also coincides with what you say above. Here's a good video that shows typical ink pooling behaviors:

(1) Oddly Satisfying Writing with Pelikan Broad Nib Fountain Pens - YouTube

This is entirely normal, and represents the typical amount of ink a fountain pen lays down (though Pelikan's are usually considered on the wet side). That's what it means to be writing with a water-based ink compared to an oil-based ink in a ballpoint pen. Here you can see a more traditional effect from a broad edge nib with color:

If you're seeing something *other* than the above, then that's probably strange, but you would need to show some photos at that point.

January 23, 2021

That's a pretty good description of what I'm seeing, especially since it's also evident in Skrip Black, just not as noticeable. I may just be used to the high saturation of black inks.

January 23, 2021

2 hours ago, BigBlot said:

That's a pretty good description of what I'm seeing, especially since it's also evident in Skrip Black, just not as noticeable. I may just be used to the high saturation of black inks.

That's very possible. Black inks don't shade very much unless they have been intentionally designed for that purpose, it seems to me, whereas other inks have to be oversaturated in order to avoid shading, it seems.

Of course, that's one thing that people love about the fountain pen experience. A lot of people prefer those shading inks because it screams out, "I use a fountain pen," more than some of the other inks do. And, as one vendor says, "nothing says fountain pen like blue black ink."