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Carene performance on varying paper


FlexRequired

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Hello friends! 👋


So very recently I picked up a Waterman Carene medium nib, which is a gorgeous pen and for the most part I am pretty happy with it!


However I have observed some strange behaviour from it when using on different paper types. From what I have seen, the Carene seems to have various reports / reviews of skipping or hard starting being an issue. I observed this when writing on some Clairfontaine paper in a notebook, the page started looking quite messy with missing parts of letters or me having to write over existing letters to fill them in.


I then tried the exact same pen with the same ink(Edelstein Aventurine) not 5 minutes later on some Tomoe River paper in another notebook and I experienced not a single skip nor any hard start when writing for roughly the same amount of time. Is this something others have experienced and is it an actual problem with the pen or with the paper? Tomoe River and Clairfontaine is pretty good quality paper I am to understand, so I am curioius as to what others think.

 

Does this pen need the touch of a nibmeister and if so, who could people recommend for such a service?

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I think you have a case of baby bottom............I have experience with various Clarefontaines, but none with Tomoe.

 

I find the below ink to feather or have woolly line; more the latter. My other 10-12 Edelsteins do not have that problem.

I like the color but am AR/OCD on woolly lines.:(

Have big honking magnifying glass and my very own standards to Woolly Lines....if you have less to do, one can develop standards for nearly anything.

 

So try another ink.

4 hours ago, SmoothNib said:

(Edelstein Aventurine)

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

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It is the paper - not the pen. Your Carane is not the only pen that does this. I've had problems with other brands with Clairefontaine and other papers.

 

My Visconti hates Atoma, my Parker hates Clairefontaine. I have a small list of pens with likes and dislikes, which probably measn I have too many pens.

 

This is the best explaination I've come up with.

 

Clairfontaine, unlike Tomoe, has a form of coating. For a nib to work well with the paper, the nib needs to scratch through the coating to make a line. If the nib can't get through the coating, then it is not going to make a consistent line and skip. Waterman pens tend to have broader nibs than most, so I think this might be the problem. Also, the scraped off coating can also stop inkflow like paper fibres - which means you start well, but by the time you get to page 2 - the nib is blocked. 

 

Having a nib expert sharpen the nib could work (I have a tuned Visconti that writes on paper that other Visconti's won't) but the cheapest option is to find a paper that suits the pen and stick with that. If the pen is new, using it for a few weeks might sort the issue out too - I've had new pens that clogged and skipped for the first couple of weeks and then the problem ironed itself out.

 

Unfortunately it is one of the complications of fountain pens - they are like thoroughbreds. Not only do you have to choose the right pen, you've got to feed it right and make sure it stays on the right surface to get the optimum performance. Without that, you've got a thoroughbred that will be worse than a cart horse. 

 

 

 

 

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8 minutes ago, sandy101 said:

It is the paper - not the pen. Your Carane is not the only pen that does this. I've had problems with other brands with Clairefontaine and other papers.

 

My Visconti hates Atoma, my Parker hates Clairefontaine. I have a small list of pens with likes and dislikes, which probably measn I have too many pens.

Interesting I had to go back and feel the two papers again, Clairefontaine certainly does have that kind of gloss/glass feeling to the touch.

 

That would certainly track with what I have seen the past day or so. I have alternated between the two papers, even swapped out the ink to Iroshizuku Syo-Ro which is a pretty wet ink and whilst it improved on Clairefontaine, it still had the occassional issue, with the Tomoe River...nothing but consistent lines and good inkflow. So I reckon I will keep the Carene away from Clairefontaine for now and see how it goes after a few weeks of consistent use!

 

P.S - You can never have too many pens ;)

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IMO the Golden Age of Fountain Pens, died @ 1970.

The Golden Age of Paper died unnoticed in the 1980's.

 

I have a part of a pad of cheap paper I'd bought in the late '70's early  '80's that got stuck in the bond paper too good for a daisy-wheel printer, when I as a ball point barbarian spent money on beer and not paper. Even then I knew there was good paper and run of the mill.

I'd not known the mystery paper was good paper until 4 decades later when it popped out of the middle of a ream of bond paper. And I ran into it with a fountain pen in hand. :notworthy1::thumbup: cubed.

 

It is the very best paper I have. :crybaby:No watermark so I can't trace the paper. It's coated well................once all paper was coated, when fountain pen use was still a factor.

Typewriter paper is only coated on one side. And I've found that to be good to write on....on the front side only.

 

Some folks say buy any and all old paper one can find on Ebay....I take that as pre'mid '80's.

We are though now, living in The Golden Age of Inks.

 

I've not had any problems on Clairefontaine, or Rhoda, but I don't chase butter smooth nibs. I like the level under the old fashioned 'good and smooth' of yesteryear. Such a nib is smooth enough, with just a slight tad of feel.

 

Butter smooth nibs have a history of being slippery on slick papers like Clairefontaine, or Rhoda.

 

 

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

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On 8/4/2022 at 2:55 AM, sandy101 said:

It is the paper - not the pen. Your Carane is not the only pen that does this. I've had problems with other brands with Clairefontaine and other papers.

 

My Visconti hates Atoma, my Parker hates Clairefontaine. I have a small list of pens with likes and dislikes, which probably measn I have too many pens.

 

This is the best explaination I've come up with.

 

Clairfontaine, unlike Tomoe, has a form of coating. For a nib to work well with the paper, the nib needs to scratch through the coating to make a line. If the nib can't get through the coating, then it is not going to make a consistent line and skip. Waterman pens tend to have broader nibs than most, so I think this might be the problem. Also, the scraped off coating can also stop inkflow like paper fibres - which means you start well, but by the time you get to page 2 - the nib is blocked. 

 

Having a nib expert sharpen the nib could work (I have a tuned Visconti that writes on paper that other Visconti's won't) but the cheapest option is to find a paper that suits the pen and stick with that. If the pen is new, using it for a few weeks might sort the issue out too - I've had new pens that clogged and skipped for the first couple of weeks and then the problem ironed itself out.

 

Unfortunately it is one of the complications of fountain pens - they are like thoroughbreds. Not only do you have to choose the right pen, you've got to feed it right and make sure it stays on the right surface to get the optimum performance. Without that, you've got a thoroughbred that will be worse than a cart horse. 

 

 

 

 

This ^^^

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Well after two days of use with only Tomoe river, the pen has had the odd hard start, less than I can count on one hand in 48 hours. So yeah, I think the medium nib on the Carene is too smooth for Clairefontaine!

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Try some 80g printer paper, butter smooth has a rep of working well on such paper.

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

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I think the problem is mostly the paper but also to a certain degree the nib. Clairfontaine is known and appreciated for producing super smooth “vellum” paper, which has a very slick and rather hard surface. And no, the nib doesn’t “scratch” the surface hopefully but glides over it. This paper works nicely if the nib has perfect wetting properties and tip geometry. That means that there is a constant ink film on the surface of the tip that touches the paper. If a tip is overly polished or the slit suffers from baby’s bottom, the ink film easily breaks down and the nib skips. Due to the hard coating of the Clairfontaine paper, it is rather unforgiving in that case, while softer surfaces of other papers might compensate this nib issue by getting better contact to the ink in the slit. Rather stiff nibs are more prone to this problem than more flexible/springy ones and I think the modern Waterman nibs are pretty much nails. So, if the problem remains after a few weeks of constant use of the pen, you basically have two options: Avoid Clairfontaine and similar paper or improve the nib properties (e.g. by removing potential baby’s bottom or roughening the surface a tiny bit for better wetting).

I do have some newer pens that have problems with Clairfontaine but basically all my older vintage pens write perfectly on it. I think that’s to a large degree due to the much higher flexibility of those older nibs plus the absence of baby’s bottom.

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The problem is neither the pen (respectively its nib) nor the paper, but the combination of these.

 

Some nibs maybe bordering on being hard starters, but due to the paper used, when it is a more "pulling" paper with a rougher, more porous surface, then you'd never notice it. Other papers maybe more coated to the point where they're almost repelling ink, and with these papers your "almost hard starting/hesitating to give ink"-nib will not work. 

 

Some pens always write amazingly great, no matter whether you use coated paper, copy paper, whatnot, but most nibs (and the human behind it) will have their sweet spot. This is not a fault of paper or pen/nib per se, but a matter of finding your favourite, and as such it is an often overlooked part of the hobby.

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10 hours ago, OMASsimo said:

. Rather stiff nibs are more prone to this problem than more flexible/springy ones and I think the modern Waterman nibs are pretty much nails.

The whole post was great.

 

I have mostly semi-flex and regular flex (soft) nibbed pens so now know why I don't have problems with slick papers.

 

The very few nails I have, I don't use.

 

Nor do I often use my semi-nails....P-75 or a modern medium large Pelikan 600, though that one has been stubbed which got rid of the baby bottom it had.

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

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