I'm getting a bunch o' ink samples, mostly Diamine. It's my first time trying this service of theirs, and I'm pretty excited.
Speaking of inky things, this stuff is pretty awesome for a number of cleaning duties, one of which is getting ink out of the bathroom sink...
However, the lack of the apostrophe in the official name was driving me crazy...so I added one.
Lousy photo of today's fountain pen rotation: Bling (Pelikan M200, Noodler's Air Corp Blue-Black ink), Stealth (Lamy 2000, Noodler's Black), Click (Pilot Vanishing Point, Private Reserve Midnight Blues) and What The...??? (Rotring Core, Noodler's Black Swan in Australian Roses)
11 comments:
Perhaps you misunderstood the usage; "friend" is now a verb. It is a well-known fact that bartenders are a sociable lot. Therefore, given the prevalence of social networking:
Bartenders friend. Noun verb.
Or, "bar keepers" as it were.
They "friend" too, probably.
Not looking at the original post as I was composing.
leave it to you to put the "pen" in penance!
Glad you learned about Bar Keepers Friend (whatever the spelling). It is great stuff. I learned of it from my grandfather.
But shame on you! Not about Typewriter Day but for mentioning the Goulet site. First it was John Neal Booksellers and now this. SIGH! So many temptations, so little time. (But those ink samples look great.)
Jeff the Bear
Its good that your enjoying barkeepers friend to.
Ouch. it hurt to type that.
Pretty cool pen rotation! I see that you too are a fan of the Namiki VP. Very cool pen.
@MT: I think that's even more annoying than the other alternative! Thanks a bunch for planting *that* in my head, to be pondered every time I look at the stuff...
@Jeff: I really like the idea of being able to buy a bit of ink rather than a whole bottle, both because it's nice to be able to try some before committing to a whole bottle and because there are some colors which, if I'm honest with myself, I won't ever use a whole bottle of. The dangerous part is that those little bottles are fairly inexpensive one at a time...so I kept adding one after another to my cart. I'm going to be drowning in bright blues in particular. It's going to be a very inky holiday weekend!
@Speegle: if I didn't know that hurt you as much as it hurt me...
Regarding the VP: yeah, I'm a fan. Mine is a blue carbonesque model I bought used with a fine nib six or seven years back. Honestly, I never got on with the fine nib. And then someone (not me) mangled it slightly, and it never wrote quite right after that. The whole thing sat in a drawer preying on my mind for a long while until, relatively recently, I bought a medium nib for it (it's still pretty fine by Western standards) and now I really like it. It's not the pen I'd pick for steady, on-and-on writing (something about the weight or balance of it is tiring to me in long stretches), but it's my pen of choice for taking notes and such at work, since there's no cap to mess with. And that new nib is smooooth and springy.
But I rather envy you the yellow VP. Love that color. I don't have any yellow pens, and I dunno why.
What do you folks use in your Vanishing Points? I have one from about 20 years ago with a fine nib. It uses the squeeze bulb to get the ink. I can never keep it flowing for more than a day or so. I've tried it with Parker Quink and Pelikan inks.
Would the cartridges maybe work better? Or perhaps a thinner bottled ink? With that fine Japanese nib I would love to use it for editing if I could find a suitable stark red ink.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Jeff the Bear
Jeff the Bear,
Give it a few spins in an ultrasonic cleaner (the kind used to clean jewelry). Repeat until you see no more ink: you may have a minute clot of dry ink.
Or, give it a long soak in coffee mug full of hot (not boiling) water with a drop of liquid dishwashing soap. Repeat until you see no more ink.
You'll have to rinse and refill the pen, but that should help.
LFP: Funny about you experience with the VP; mine was just the opposite.
I received my VP with a medium nib, ans that sucker skipped like it was going out of style, especially on down-strokes. I tried blaming the ink, tried getting away from chemically coated "smooth" paper like Moleskine, but nothing worked. Finally I just took the blasted thing back to Paradise Pen and had them switch out the M nib for an F.
After that? Never worked better. Plus, the weight is pretty good for me, as I am a big ham-handed man-bear.
Btw for Jeff, I've used both cartridges and converters along with Waterman ink, and they all work fine. It just sounds to me like a good deal of the nibs don't come out right.
@Jeff: I'm no expert, but it shouldn't be drying out so quickly. I wonder if maybe the little spring-loaded trap door isn't closing all the way--maybe some dried up ink or something is hampering it? Same thing may be causing an issue with ink flow. I agree with Lisa--a good cleaning would probably help. I really need to get me one of those ultrasonic cleaners one of these days myself... I've also cleaned pens by giving them a bit of a soak in cool water with a smidge of ammonia and a drop of dish soap, and then flushing well with plain water using a bulb syringe (found with baby supplies in any grocery/department store).
Also, you could try different inks. Some are "wetter" than others...Pelikan inks, for example, are notorious for being dry, from what I've read (admittedly, no first hand experience). As Mike mentioned, Waterman inks flow nicely. My only beef with them is their fading issues...but that's not *as* much of a problem in an editing ink (as opposed to a novel writing ink).
And yeah, that little squeeze converter holds almost nothing! My new nib unit came with a piston converter that seems to hold a bit more, but it's still a pretty tiny capacity, especially compared to, say, the super tanker that is the Lamy 2000. I don't think the new piston converters work with the old style Pilot VPs, though, and if yours has been around awhile, I'd guess it has to be the old style. On the bright side, the tiny ink capacity allows for frequent ink color changes, which can be fun!
@Mike: my fine nib actually wasn't toooo bad until it got mangled. It was just so doggone fine! And mine was pretty dry. I didn't experiment with it much before the mangling, so I dunno if maybe it just needed a different ink or hand position or what. The medium is friendlier.
Everyone,
Thanks so much for your help. A good cleaning is in order. I have Waterman bottled ink so I can give that a try as I search for THE red ink. (The Diamine Ruby looks good and suitably dark.)
Some of my problem may be solved with a daily or even twice daily filling. I am completely spoiled by the capacity and reliabilty of my Pelikans (AKA: the finest pens on the planet IMHO) and forgot that the VP may not hold much ink.
Jeff the Bear
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