Why did my LAMY start bleeding through paper?

[InkyKitten]

Hello!

My first time posting, but I have been into fountain pens for a few years.

I have loved LAMY for a while now, and would always use EF steel nibs.

I would use good paper, like Rhodia or Tomoe River.

Recently I bought three new LAMY pens, the normal ones (like safari/alstar/luxe). 

The pens referred to here are a "pink" LX and "blue" Al-star. 

I decided to use my pink LAMY with black LAMY ink to write an exam in university, because normal pens would make my hands hurt.

Everything went well, the ink did not feather or bleed through the cheap paper.

Due to this, I bought another LAMY pen (al-star). This one I call the blue one. I bought a black EF nib with it.

I went home and switched the ink cartridge from the pink pen (the one I sucessfully wrote the exam with) to the new blue one.

But the new one was so much thicker, even though I was writing on the same paper.

I tried washing the nib, taking it on and off, and finally I put on my orignal EF nib (not black) on the new blue pen, but it didn't help.

It's so wet, and bleeds like crazy.

I need to use it on cheap awful paper (no choice), but it bleeds even on decent paper, and on rhodia it is super wet and thick.

What do I do to fix this?

Should I try switching the feed with one of my other LAMY?

Should I switch the ink?

Can Ink become "old" in a pen? Because I have been switching this catridge among many LAMY pens for a long time, maybe that is the issue.

I can try to wash it out and fill with another ink. I will post a list of all my black inks when I get home, so maybe someone can tell me what ink is the driest.

TLDR: Wrote on cheap paper sucessfully with LAMY, bought new one and used the old ones ink cartidge and nib, but its super thick and bleeds through paper.

[Karmachanic]

Return it for exchange.

[LizEF]

IMO, we don't have enough info to know for sure what's going on - too many potential causes.  Do you have converters for these pens?  Or at least new cartridges of the same ink?  I would stick with original equipment on each pen, and not go swapping things around (could hinder your ability to return the pen for exchange, which may be needed).

 

If the new pen, with all its original equipment, doesn't write to your satisfaction with a converter or a new (never-before-used) cartridge, then an exchange is probably your best option - perhaps working with the vendor regarding the nib, since Lamy nibs are famous for having such a large size tolerance.

 

Responses to individual bits of your post, written as I read, whereas the above was written after reading your entire post:

1 hour ago, InkyKitten said:

But the new one was so much thicker, even though I was writing on the same paper.

Lamy are famous for their nib sizes having a large range / tolerance¹, and considerable overlap between sizes (a large EF can be larger than a fine fine).

 

1 hour ago, InkyKitten said:

put on my orignal EF nib (not black) on the new blue pen, but it didn't help.

It's so wet, and bleeds like crazy.

OK, now this is odd.  The old nib writes larger on the new pen?  This suggests the new feed is writing wetter than the old feed (or the new feed is not so snug in its section as the old feed is in its section).

 

1 hour ago, InkyKitten said:

Because I have been switching this catridge among many LAMY pens for a long time, maybe that is the issue.

In theory, yes.  I've found that the Lamy cartridge gets pretty loose after removing and re-inserting.  This looseness can allow the air-ink exchange to happen faster, I believe, making the new pen wetter.

 

¹Just in case you weren't aware: fountain pen nib sizes are not made to precise specifications like, say, the ball in a ballpoint / gel / rollerball pen (where precision is necessary to function).  Rather, nib sizes are made to some target size with a tolerance (n width ±x tolerance).  The values involved, the range, and the overlap between sizes can vary significantly from manufacturer to manufacturer, and even with the nib model.

[InkyKitten]

I'm going to dispose of the old ink, and put new one in.

Here's a list of all the black ink I have, could someone tell me which one is the most resistant to feathering/bleedthrough on cheap paper?

 

• Lamy black in cartridges
• Noodlers:
  • Black Eel
  • Bad Black Mocassin
  • Noodler's Black
  • Heart of Darkness
• De Atramentis Archive Ink
• De Atramentis Document Black
• Platinum Carbon Black
• Pilot Take-Sumi
• J.Herbin Perle Noire

Thank you in advance.

[jburchett]

Lamy pens are great workhorses. I put several through their paces during my university years. However, their nibs (especially the Safari/Al-Star/LX) are not the most consistent in their grading. My first Lamy, and one of my first fountain pens ever, was a charcoal black Safari with a fine nib. Perfect pen for undergrad and the nib was just fine enough and smooth. Later, I bought an Al-Star with an extra fine, thinking it would be finer than the Safari fine. Such was not the case. The EF writes more like a Medium; it is broader than the fine. Which, unfortunately, I don't think is uncommon for Lamy's nibs.

 

I share this because I think we've had similar experiences. My recommendation (which should be taken with a grain of salt) would be to try different inks to find which agrees with your combination of circumstances (paper, nib, ink). I used X-Feather throughout university and it performed well on the cheap paper in all of my Lamy nibs. YMMV. But look around for some inks that might behave in the way you're looking for.

 

[InkyKitten]

Hello, Thank you for such an informative post. I am going to reply to it, sorry if I'm doing it wrong.

10 minutes ago, LizEF said:

Lamy are famous for their nib sizes having a large range / tolerance¹, and considerable overlap between sizes (a large EF can be larger than a fine fine).

I didn't know this, thank you for letting me know. I think this might be the case here.

 

OK, now this is odd.  The old nib writes larger on the new pen?  This suggests the new feed is writing wetter than the old feed (or the new feed is not so snug in its section as the old feed is in its section).

Yes, I think the feed could the issue. I will try putting the old feed into the new pen to check.

 

In theory, yes.  I've found that the Lamy cartridge gets pretty loose after removing and re-inserting.  This looseness can allow the air-ink exchange to happen faster, I believe, making the new pen wetter.

This is also another probable cause. I have swapped that cartridge around too much. I will open a new one now and dispose of the other one.

 

¹Just in case you weren't aware: fountain pen nib sizes are not made to precise specifications like, say, the ball in a ballpoint / gel / rollerball pen (where precision is necessary to function).  Rather, nib sizes are made to some target size with a tolerance (n width ±x tolerance).  The values involved, the range, and the overlap between sizes can vary significantly from manufacturer to manufacturer, and even with the nib model.

I didn't really know this, somehow. For some reason I thought it was as precise as ballpoint or gel pens (i always checked the goulet pens nib reference tool).

 

Thank you for your advice, I will first test the feed and then the cartridge thing.

 

[InkyKitten]

4 minutes ago, jburchett said:

Lamy pens are great workhorses. I put several through their paces during my university years. However, their nibs (especially the Safari/Al-Star/LX) are not the most consistent in their grading. My first Lamy, and one of my first fountain pens ever, was a charcoal black Safari with a fine nib. Perfect pen for undergrad and the nib was just fine enough and smooth. Later, I bought an Al-Star with an extra fine, thinking it would be finer than the Safari fine. Such was not the case. The EF writes more like a Medium; it is broader than the fine. Which, unfortunately, I don't think is uncommon for Lamy's nibs.

 

I share this because I think we've had similar experiences. My recommendation (which should be taken with a grain of salt) would be to try different inks to find which agrees with your combination of circumstances (paper, nib, ink). I used X-Feather throughout university and it performed well on the cheap paper in all of my Lamy nibs. YMMV. But look around for some inks that might behave in the way you're looking for.

 

Hello. Thank you for your comment. I agree, LAMY are great workhorse pens, and I use them a lot. My first LAMY was a LAMY vista (clear). Another person already mentioned the nib size variance.

This could be the case here. This is of course unfortunate, because if I bought an EF nib, it means I want an EF not a Medium. Oh well. At least they are not expensive, and this incident is not like the time I bought a Visconti EF that writes like a broad. Thousands down the drain and I can't use the pen. Good thing that LAMY are very affordable.

 

Thank you for your reccomendation. I don't have X-Feather right now, but I have some different inks, and I'm going to try some, maybe I'll get a better result.

[LizEF]

14 minutes ago, InkyKitten said:

the time I bought a Visconti EF that writes like a broad. Thousands down the drain and I can't use the pen.

A pen that cost that much is surely worth the relatively inexpensive cost of a nib meister to tune the nib to write closer to how you like.   Ask around for nib meisters who do good EF work.  The wait will be long, but if the pen is just sitting idle anyway, that shouldn't be a problem.

[LizEF]

27 minutes ago, InkyKitten said:

I'm going to dispose of the old ink, and put new one in.

Here's a list of all the black ink I have, could someone tell me which one is the most resistant to feathering/bleedthrough on cheap paper?

 

• Lamy black in cartridges
• Noodlers:
  • Black Eel
  • Bad Black Mocassin
  • Noodler's Black
  • Heart of Darkness
• De Atramentis Archive Ink
• De Atramentis Document Black
• Platinum Carbon Black
• Pilot Take-Sumi
• J.Herbin Perle Noire

Thank you in advance.

 

Strangely enough, of those from your list that I've tried, De Atramentis Document Black, and Lamy Black do best on absorbent paper.  If DAD Black works well in your pen, give it a shot.

 

Platinum Carbon Black spreads pretty badly.  Heart of Darkness has long dry times for me and fuzzes a bit on copy paper.

 

I haven't used the others.

[LizEF]

27 minutes ago, InkyKitten said:

Hello, Thank you for such an informative post. I am going to reply to it, sorry if I'm doing it wrong.

Your testing wherein you swapped the nib and found the old nib writes wider on the new pen sort of rules out the nib as being the problem (or at least, as being the only problem).

 

28 minutes ago, InkyKitten said:

I will try putting the old feed into the new pen to check.

Just be aware that the more of this sort of thing you do, the more likely it is that you won't be able to return / exchange the pen!

 

29 minutes ago, InkyKitten said:

Thank you for your advice, I will first test the feed and then the cartridge thing.

You're welcome!  Good luck!

[InkyKitten]

Hey everyone, thanks for the advice!
I eventually swapped the nib, cartridge and feed between the pens. Even though all these elements should be the exact same, they were obviously not. Swapping them removes the issue. I have tried swapping the nib separately, and it’s obviously a major contributor to the issue. 

I have attached two photos, one is on Rhodia dot notepad, you can see the obvious difference in the pens. There I have already swapped the parts. See the bottom of the paper, what a crazy difference!!

 

Also see the other image, on printer paper. While swapping the pens helped with the size, both pens feather really badly, even with new LAMY black cartridges. I might empty them and fill them with De Atramentis Document Black.

I consider the issue resolved apart from the feathering. 
   

[LizEF]

FWIW, while I can spot the feathering on the copy paper, I don't see feathering on the Rhodia image, even opened separately and zoomed in (on a computer, not a phone).  IMO, feathering on Rhodia is caused by:

• A flaw in the paper
• A really bad ink
• Writing with excess pressure - as this is subconscious, you might want to experiment to see if your pens will work with even less pressure than you currently use, and if so, try to lighten your hand even more - as this can make a huge difference with poor paper.
• A sharp edge on the nib where one shouldn't be (as opposed to where one should be, but which is only exposed by excess pressure).

[InkyKitten]

6 hours ago, LizEF said:

FWIW, while I can spot the feathering on the copy paper, I don't see feathering on the Rhodia image, even opened separately and zoomed in (on a computer, not a phone).  IMO, feathering on Rhodia is caused by:

• A flaw in the paper
• A really bad ink
• Writing with excess pressure - as this is subconscious, you might want to experiment to see if your pens will work with even less pressure than you currently use, and if so, try to lighten your hand even more - as this can make a huge difference with poor paper.
• A sharp edge on the nib where one shouldn't be (as opposed to where one should be, but which is only exposed by excess pressure).

Thank you for all your help. I can't change the awful paper but I am going to try writing with a lighter pressure in the future, I hope that this helps.

[LizEF]

47 minutes ago, InkyKitten said:

Thank you for all your help. I can't change the awful paper but I am going to try writing with a lighter pressure in the future, I hope that this helps.

If your pen will write with less pressure, it will definitely help.  You can play a game with yourself, trying to write without letting the pen touch the paper.  Obviously, the pen will have to touch the paper, but the more absorbent the paper and the wetter the nib and ink, the less it will have to touch.  It can be an interesting experiment / exercise that will show you just how little pressure it takes, which can help when then relaxing your grip and writing with less pressure.   Best wishes!

[A Smug Dill]

Welcome to FPN. Glad you can join us.

 

10 hours ago, InkyKitten said:

I need to use it on cheap awful paper (no choice), but it bleeds even on decent paper, and on rhodia it is super wet and thick.

What do I do to fix this?

 

I bought dozens of Paperblanks Flexis softcover notebooks — on account of their beautiful covers, surprisingly low prices at which they are offered from time to time by Amazon Australia, and the good performance of the 120gsm paper in Paperblanks hardcover journals my wife favours — and had intended to use the stash as my primary supply of books for journalling. Too late I discovered that the 100gsm paper used in the Flexis are very apt to exhibit bleed-through when used with fountain pens, even though feathering and show-through (to the extent that the shapes of entire words or marks can be made out just by looking at the reverse side of the sheet) is rare. The use of some particular inks result in less bleed-through; but, out of dozens of inks and pens I tested, most are not problem-free as long as the pen is moderately wet.

 

So, my solution is to tune a set of (“Extra Fine”-nibbed, although some have simply been reground by me from some other width grade) fountain pens — specifically, by manipulating their nibs — primarily for journalling use, so that ink flow is relatively dry, but not to the extent of producing broken lines mid-stroke due to ink starvation for long exit strokes or flourishes. Of course, that has the effect of making the ink marks fainter, so the choice of inks are somewhat limited to what would be adequately legible even when laid or spread thinly on paper.

 

At the moment, the black ink I've settled on using for the purpose is Sailor Kiwaguro pigment ink, although I've used Noodler's X-Feather black ink in those Flexis notebooks (and a dry-flowing pen) before and it can work nicely.

 

For blue ink, I use Noodler's X-Feather Blue. Sailor Seiboku pigment ink can also work, but it's slightly more teal-leaning.

 

For (sorta) red, Colorverse Dark Energy. Noodler's Black Swan in English Roses can work, but I have to tune the pen even drier.

 

For brown, Platinum Classic Ink Khaki Black is best in my testing, although right now I'm using Kobe INK Story #52 Shioya Vintage Sepia for that. Pelikan Edelstein Smoky Quartz can work, but again the pen needs to be very dry.

 

For turquoise or teal, KWZ Ink IG (iron-gall) Turquoise.

 

For grey, Pennonia Viharfelhő or Van Dieman's Ink Federation Peak.

 

Many of the iron-gall blue-black inks will work well on this paper without exhibiting bleed-through.

 

[arcfide]

Similar to @A Smug Dill I was going to suggest that you could tune the nibs that are writing too wet for your tastes to write much drier. If you do not intend to send the pen in for exchange, then you can adjust the tines to be much closer together. 

 

My experience with Lamy nibs in their modular nib system is that they vary widely on how spaced the tines are, which I believe to be one of the primary contributors to the wider range of experiences people have. Some Lamy nibs that I have received had their nib tines very tightly touching one another, and others I've had exhibit a pronounced and highly visible gap between the tines. 

 

In your case, if you'd like to try to improve the situation, in addition to the changing of the inks, you can adjust the nib tines to ensure exact alignment and very tight tines, if you feel comfortable with making this adjustment. I recently adjusted my brother's pen after someone abused it, and this is what I did for him. The result is that the line wrote much drier and much more finely, but more reliably and smoothly, as well. You may find it hepls a great deal with your need. Especially if you can tolerate a very tightly pressed together set of tines, the results can be very good on poor paper. 

[InkyKitten]

On 3/16/2022 at 2:31 AM, A Smug Dill said:

So, my solution is to tune a set of (“Extra Fine”-nibbed, although some have simply been reground by me from some other width grade) fountain pens — specifically, by manipulating their nibs — primarily for journalling use, so that ink flow is relatively dry, but not to the extent of producing broken lines mid-stroke due to ink starvation for long exit strokes or flourishes. Of course, that has the effect of making the ink marks fainter, so the choice of inks are somewhat limited to what would be adequately legible even when laid or spread thinly on paper.

 

Hi, thank you for your reccomendations. I think tuning the pens might be a good idea. Can you suggest any resource where I could learn how to do this? If you learnt this through a video or site, could you please give me a link?

 

Also, thanks for the ink suggestions.

[InkyKitten]

On 3/16/2022 at 5:11 AM, arcfide said:

Similar to @A Smug Dill I was going to suggest that you could tune the nibs that are writing too wet for your tastes to write much drier. If you do not intend to send the pen in for exchange, then you can adjust the tines to be much closer together. 

I'm not going to exchange the pen, and I'd like to try to tune it. Do you know any sites or videos that can help me understand how to do this?

On 3/16/2022 at 5:11 AM, arcfide said:

In your case, if you'd like to try to improve the situation, in addition to the changing of the inks, you can adjust the nib tines to ensure exact alignment and very tight tines, if you feel comfortable with making this adjustment.

Yeah, I'd like to try this, but I'm not sure how...

[LizEF]

7 hours ago, InkyKitten said:

Do you know any sites or videos that can help me understand how to do this?

This reddit post has links to some good nib-tuning resources.  (You should be able to read regardless of whether you have a reddit account.)

[jburchett]

7 hours ago, InkyKitten said:

Do you know any sites or videos that can help me understand how to do this?

 

These might help.

 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYrrj6sCOMSfM0LdeCvXjFFNSp6wr4OnR

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYrrj6sCOMSeF_RsJPrpOg-Vp1klqDZId

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuq9tuKRbCY&list=PLYrrj6sCOMSeF_RsJPrpOg-Vp1klqDZId&index=2

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBIMk8KEni_kpkcTlbybb48tSIPX36_TL