Green ink - bad?

[markporter]

Well, I'm getting myself a shiny new conway stewart silver series for my birthday and not wanting to totally screw the pen up I have a question about green ink...speaking to a friend of mine in Oxford he came up with horror stories of what green ink can do in terms of clogging up pens and generally making a nuisance of itself and I was wondering if these have any basis. I have a bottle of Pelikan Brilliant Green which I'm rather fond of and was wondering if anyone knew what potential issues there might be if any.

[wimg]

Hi Mark,

 

I have never heard of issues with green inks, only with black inks because of the soot particles in it, iron gall ink because of particles and permanency on about any substrate including the feed of a pen, and red and violet dyes in red and violet/purple/pink inks because they react so easily with other inks.

 

Green, no problem.

 

And essentially, if you are careful with a pen, don't let the ink dry out while in the pen, and rinse and flush a pen before filling it with a different ink, you shouldn't have any problems at all with any proper fountain pen ink.

 

HTH, warm regards, Wim

[KCat]

never heard of green inks being any problem at all in general.

 

maybe he had heard about Penman Emerald (unfairly maligned as all the Penman inks are

 

But past that - green is no riskier than any other ink.

 

Now - reds! That's another matter. Red dyes are difficult to handle and they *do* have a strong rep for causing clogging problems. still, i'll echo Wim on this - just about any fountain pen ink out there should be safe as long as you treat the pen with respect and give it the occasional cleaning. given your post is in that vein, i see no reason for you to worry at all. Try what ever *fountain pen* ink that interests you.

[Kelly]

Green is good. I've been using Noodler's Green Marine in a couple of pens and there have been no problems. I think you're pretty safe with Pelikan. I'd say, go for it

[tryphon]

Some green and turquoise inks can give problems if the pen is not flushed regularly, but nowhere near the problems caused by reds and burgundys.

[joeycoleman]

I've had Diamine Umber in a Rotring 600 (fine nib) for a couple of months now with no trouble whatsoever.

 

I imagine that the trouble with green ink your friend had was probably due to the particular ink (perhaps it had gone mouldy without him knowing?).

 

--joey

[markporter]

ok, thanks guys, that's helpful