Parker Vector writes like a dream, but rude awakening when neglected.

[T.D. Rabbit]

Apologies for the cryptic title. I wanted to make it funny. 

 

Not sure where to post this exactly, but my problem probably has something to do with the nib, so.

Okay, so I have a Parker Vector, bought in India- To be sold in India and Nepal only- and while I had issues starting out with it (It was my first fountain pen in years, and indeed, my first good fountain pen) and left it for a year or two (Edit: I cleaned it out before storing it away, and cleaned it again, thoroughly, before starting to use it more recently. So, probably not a dry ink issue.)... It started writing pretty well recently after I followed some recommendations I found around here and other places on the great wide internet:

- Lightly pressing down the pen nib to... open up the tines somewhat, maybe? It was being too dry, hence. But I did this only once with this pen, compared to the relative torture I inflicted on my platinum preppy- That's another story!

-Strokes from side to side. This really helped, somehow.

-Using better paper- Okay, that one was on me. I was using paper smoother than my brain, and pretty thin. Once I moved on to using only the paper that 'felt good', my experience was bettered considerably.

 

However. Recently, I've been having a problem. I write with the pen, and it writes very well, but then I have to leave it open for maybe half a minute  listening to a professor, and when I get back to writing, I have to run it about a bit before it starts writing again (It gets dry-ish.)- Not ideal in fast-paced classes! I love this pen, and I want to keep using it, but I might have to keep this aside for when I have longer, personal writing sessions... And I don't want to do that.

 

TL;DR: Parker vector writes well, but when left open for even 30 seconds, has a dry start. A very dry start. 

 

I have attached pictures of my nib.

Further, this may have something to do with my, I suspect somewhat diseased, convertor? It's very old, it's very cheap, and the ink doesn't really stay above the piston all the time- There's always a thin layer left below it. Have also attached a picture of the convertor.

Further, there are often bubbles above the ink when the convertor is partially filled, giving it the appearance of being fully filled. I fill the converter through the nib, dipping it in the inkpot.

As for the ink I use, Parker Quink Black, to be sold in India and Nepal only, 100rs or 1.2 dollars for 30 ml.

 

The pen lays down a (as per me, though I'm certainly no authority) decently wet line- I love watching how it dries. Time slows down.

 

That's about it. Thank you for reading through my slightly convoluted style of writing!

 

[PAKMAN]

Since it was left for a long time with out use there might still be some dried up ink in the feed. I would soak the section/nib in cool water for a period of time to clean it out. Also forcing water through it with a bulb may help.

 

[T.D. Rabbit]

12 minutes ago, PAKMAN said:

Since it was left for a long time with out use there might still be some dried up ink in the feed. I would soak the section/nib in cool water for a period of time to clean it out. Also forcing water through it with a bulb may help.

 

Ah, I should have specified, when I left it without use, I did it after cleaning it. Also, I started using it again after a proper, thorough clean where I opened it up (I was terrified, and it chipped a bit right below the 'F', but it worked out well!)

I'll just edit the post.

 

Also, thank you so much for replying!

[Penguincollector]

  Funny, I just had a Luxor made Vector in my pocket for set up day at the pen show - we were moving stuff around so I didn’t want anything too dear in my pocket. It started to act similarly, the italic fine nib drying out really quickly. I think I may be able to fix mine by using a Monteverde ink that stays wetter longer. Is there another ink option in your area that may be known as a wetter ink in Indian FP circles? Like maybe Camlin, Bril, Krishna, etc. have something? You can also try adding a tiny, tiny, drop of dish soap to the Quink and see if it makes it a little wetter. I find both French and Indian made Quink Black inks a bit difficult to work with, even in the pens that they were made for. The old US Quink is better, but even that one can be problematic. I do love the Luxor blue, look at the wonderful outline when it dries! 

[T.D. Rabbit]

1 hour ago, Penguincollector said:

  Funny, I just had a Luxor made Vector in my pocket for set up day at the pen show - we were moving stuff around so I didn’t want anything too dear in my pocket. It started to act similarly, the italic fine nib drying out really quickly. I think I may be able to fix mine by using a Monteverde ink that stays wetter longer. Is there another ink option in your area that may be known as a wetter ink in Indian FP circles? Like maybe Camlin, Bril, Krishna, etc. have something? You can also try adding a tiny, tiny, drop of dish soap to the Quink and see if it makes it a little wetter. I find both French and Indian made Quink Black inks a bit difficult to work with, even in the pens that they were made for. The old US Quink is better, but even that one can be problematic. I do love the Luxor blue, look at the wonderful outline when it dries! 

This is the first fountain pen forum I've joined, unfortunately, and very few of my friends- Only one, in fact- shares my love of fps. However, I did talk to a stationer at a shop I frequent- Helpful place with a separate area for what I suppose classify as 'Luxury' products, mostly inks, fps, keyboards and headsets (No idea how the former two go together with the latter, maybe they didn't have space?). This stationer is in charge of that area, had a talk with him about inks and mixing inks. I made really nice blue-black ink! 2-3 ml black+30 ml blue. Perfect stuff, though it tends to be darker when you start a writing session. (Oops, tangent, sorry, rambling.)

The parker Quink is basically the wettest, nicest, darkest ink you can get at a good price in India. Waterman is very similar in consistency, so I can go for those if I want colours other than blue or black- I might just buy something soon! Otherwise, I really don't think anything else is value for price in pigment-based inks.

There are dye-based inks (But the smell! And a sensitive nose to boot.). Camlin for one. Daytone sells one litre (I know!!) of many different colours of ink at prices anyone would love. But again, dye-based. They (Dye-based inks in general)  are good, but they're very flat and they tend to feather in my experience. I'll check out Bril and Krishna, thank you!

 

About Luxor blue (That outline is pretty indeed!), are you referring to the Luxor manufactured Quink, or a different product? If the latter, could you please provide an image/link? I can't find anything, somehow.

 

I'll attempt the soap thing, but I am perpetually afraid of ruining my pen. I have two good fps, and both are very precious, though low-end. Do you have any thoughts on glycerine?

 

gaah inks are expensive around here. or im miserly.

 

Thank you!

[Sailor Kenshin]

You don't want a pigment ink.  They will tend to clog pens.  Dye-based is what you want.

 

Annnnd, Quink Black, though dye-based, is known to be a little problematic.  Not so with Quink Blue, or Blue-Black.

 

(Though India-made ink formulas might be different than those here in the USA.)

 

I had a few Krishna inks.  Very thick, dye-based color.  Some will take forever to dry, meaning smears.  But I love Causal and have had it in a Wality piston pen for years.

 

Hope this helps.

[inkstainedruth]

@The Devil Rabbit -- You might also want to consider getting a twist/piston style converter to replace for the converter you have (I always had a lot of problems with the Parker slide converters).  The ones Parker makes are more expensive than the slide converters -- but IME they work a lot better and I think they also may hold more ink.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Penguincollector]

   I bought a package of both the blue and black Quink from Luxor, made by them, and the photo is of the blue.  Soap won’t hurt your pen, as long as it’s dish soap and not any shampoo or moisturizing body or hand soap. It’s a minuscule amount as well, if you dip the tip of a toothpick in the  soap bottle, and use the sides of the opening to brush off some of the soap until there’s almost nothing on the toothpick, and then dip the toothpick in the converter, that tiny amount  should suffice.  I clean stubborn inks out of pens with dish soap and have been doing so for 40 years now.

[T.D. Rabbit]

14 hours ago, Sailor Kenshin said:

You don't want a pigment ink.  They will tend to clog pens.  Dye-based is what you want.

 

Annnnd, Quink Black, though dye-based, is known to be a little problematic.  Not so with Quink Blue, or Blue-Black.

 

(Though India-made ink formulas might be different than those here in the USA.)

 

I had a few Krishna inks.  Very thick, dye-based color.  Some will take forever to dry, meaning smears.  But I love Causal and have had it in a Wality piston pen for years.

 

Hope this helps.

Oh! So I've been thinking of inks wrong all this while.

...I feel vaguely embarrassed at my ignorance. Apologies.

So how come some dye-based inks have that nice shiny drying effect (Like Quink) and others (Like camlin) are good, write decent, but feel... Flat? Like when I write with them it feels fine, but it doesn't feel fine? Is it just cause they dry quicker? (Given that it's Qu-Ink though... I would expect it to be the fastest. Oh well.)

 

I'm gonna buy some inks today. Probably Bril, Krishna, and maybe Waterman/sheaffer? I'll ask the stationer for recommendations. He's really good, he gave me a free empty ink bottle once! It was going to be scrapped, but still...

 

And that helped a lot! Thank you so much.

[T.D. Rabbit]

13 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

@The Devil Rabbit -- You might also want to consider getting a twist/piston style converter to replace for the converter you have (I always had a lot of problems with the Parker slide converters).  The ones Parker makes are more expensive than the slide converters -- but IME they work a lot better and I think they also may hold more ink.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

Aah, I know! But when I looked them up, the cost listed was 21 times that of the slide ones (100rs/1.2$ for slide, 2100/25.2$ for twist)! I'll check if the shop sells them for less, but they probably don't stock them :<

 

Thank you for replying!

[T.D. Rabbit]

9 hours ago, Penguincollector said:

   I bought a package of both the blue and black Quink from Luxor, made by them, and the photo is of the blue.  Soap won’t hurt your pen, as long as it’s dish soap and not any shampoo or moisturizing body or hand soap. It’s a minuscule amount as well, if you dip the tip of a toothpick in the  soap bottle, and use the sides of the opening to brush off some of the soap until there’s almost nothing on the toothpick, and then dip the toothpick in the converter, that tiny amount  should suffice.  I clean stubborn inks out of pens with dish soap and have been doing so for 40 years now.

Understood, I'll try that, then. Thank you!

[Sailor Kenshin]

1 hour ago, The Devil Rabbit said:

Oh! So I've been thinking of inks wrong all this while.

...I feel vaguely embarrassed at my ignorance. Apologies.

So how come some dye-based inks have that nice shiny drying effect (Like Quink) and others (Like camlin) are good, write decent, but feel... Flat? Like when I write with them it feels fine, but it doesn't feel fine? Is it just cause they dry quicker? (Given that it's Qu-Ink though... I would expect it to be the fastest. Oh well.)

 

I'm gonna buy some inks today. Probably Bril, Krishna, and maybe Waterman/sheaffer? I'll ask the stationer for recommendations. He's really good, he gave me a free empty ink bottle once! It was going to be scrapped, but still...

 

And that helped a lot! Thank you so much.

@The Devil Rabbit, don't apologize!  When I first joined FPN I didn't even know what Noodler's ink was.

 

The interplay of pen, ink, and paper can get soooo complicated.  One ink plays well with this pen but not on that paper, et cetera ad infinitum.

 

If you have Parker cartridges, you can refill them from bottled ink, with a syringe or pipette.  I do have trouble with those slide converters, too.  

[T.D. Rabbit]

1 hour ago, Sailor Kenshin said:

@The Devil Rabbit, don't apologize!  When I first joined FPN I didn't even know what Noodler's ink was.

 

The interplay of pen, ink, and paper can get soooo complicated.  One ink plays well with this pen but not on that paper, et cetera ad infinitum.

 

If you have Parker cartridges, you can refill them from bottled ink, with a syringe or pipette.  I do have trouble with those slide converters, too.  

I'm just starting to realise why people end up inadvertently pouring money into pens and inks and things. It's a process of trial and error, and it can be expensive. 

Heh, I bought waterman serenity blue. I have three inks now, two pens to ink, and one dilemma to boot.

 

Will try that out, thanks!

[arcfide]

Good luck on your journey! The normal solution to your issue in places where you have more availability of inks would simply be to change to a different ink. In your case, because you don't have quite the same type of inks, it's going to be a matter of trial and error. I agree with others that the converter could be making your life more difficult, but you may also need to play with tuning the pen correctly. If the nib isn't tuned perfectly, then slight drying of the ink on the nib can make starting the pen harder than it should be. A well tuned pen will be more resistant to these sorts of problems. That's a relatively advanced skill though, so you may need to find someone who knows what they are doing in your local area if you can. 

 

These are the steps I'd take:

 

1. Make sure the pen seems well tuned (see Richard Binder's pen tuning guide Beginning Nib Tuning • RichardsPens.com)

2. Try to syringe fill an empty Parker cartridge.

3. Try using a different dye-based ink, such as Quink Blue. Do you have Pelikan inks in your area? If you want to find a black ink, if you have Pelikan or Pilot black inks in your area, those are other good inks to try. If you search Youtube you can find some ink comparisons of local Indian brands which might be a good place to start looking. 

 

When adding dishwashing soap (preferably the kind with just pure plain surfactant in it), as others have said, using a small, small, tiny, miniscule amount is the best way to go, and sometimes it makes sense to have a spare bottle of ink in case you mess up. 

[Penguincollector]

  As a rule of thumb, I never add anything to the bottles, just to cartridges or converters, and use an ink miser or a sample vial for self filling pens. That way a whole bottle of ink isn’t affected, as that’s wasteful and expensive. Slide converters are the devil. 😈 I prefer the squeeze from parker or refilling cartridges. I also second watching youTube videos on inks available in India, some inks from Krishna are amazingly beautiful. 

[T.D. Rabbit]

37 minutes ago, Penguincollector said:

  As a rule of thumb, I never add anything to the bottles, just to cartridges or converters, and use an ink miser or a sample vial for self filling pens. That way a whole bottle of ink isn’t affected, as that’s wasteful and expensive. Slide converters are the devil. 😈 I prefer the squeeze from parker or refilling cartridges. I also second watching youTube videos on inks available in India, some inks from Krishna are amazingly beautiful. 

Yup, planning to perform any suspect procedures within the converter/cartridge only. Also, twist converters simply aren't available around here!

.

I looked at Krishna Inks.

I did not expect what I saw. Not at all.

These are beautiful!

 

Imma watch some videos on inks but these or Bril seem like my best bet.

Thank you!

[Penguincollector]

Anytime! Also I think there’s a doodle thread on here somewhere. Try using a site specific google search to find it,  

In your browser search engine enter:   site:fountainpennetwork.com, search term 

 

the search function on the site is wonky and causes the whole site to have problems when used.

[T.D. Rabbit]

13 minutes ago, Penguincollector said:

Anytime! Also I think there’s a doodle thread on here somewhere. Try using a site specific google search to find it,  

In your browser search engine enter:   site:fountainpennetwork.com, search term 

 

the search function on the site is wonky and causes the whole site to have problems when used.

'the search function on the site is wonky and causes the whole site to have problems when used.'

I don't know why, but that is such a cool statement to me. Like, for everyone? Or just for the person using the function?

 

Also, oki, I shall!

 

 

Edit: Found 'FPN's PEN ART GALLERY'! Thanks!

[Sailor Kenshin]

I have a Parker squeeze converter I also never use (because it ruins manicures and I NEED to see my ink supply).

[Penguincollector]

  I tried to fit a squeeze converter into my Luxor Vector, but it didn’t work. I can’t remember if it was the earlier fatter one or the later skinny one.  When I get a chance, I will try again and see if either fits. Watch this space. 
 

😈 Rabbit, it affects the site for everyone. Check out the thread @Doc Dan started about site problems. 
 

  I’m so glad you found the art gallery!