Hi Dear Folk,
After struggling with several fountain pens to make them work, the light bulb went off, maybe it's the ink and sure enough I was using a romantically named bottle of ink called Bombay Ink, in a beautiful magenta colour. An absolute no no to use India Ink in a fountain pen, it is not water soluble and is only to be used with a dip pen. This I found out after the fact.
How in all these years of using a fountain pen, did I not know that. Fortunately I did not mess up my thirty year old Waterman, nor my fifty year old Parker pen. But I did have a couple of other pens, that may or may not work now. One is the fountain pen my sister gave me, but I think I was able to flush that out, because there was not too much in there and it had recently been used. Two other pens I had to try and pick all the gunky sediment out with a needle.
I did Google what is the best ink for a fountain pen and Waterman Ink was suggested, being a slightly thinner ink. This is now on order in Mysterious Blue and I hope I can get the three pens that really matter to me, to work again.
I cleaned out my two old pens with warm water and put in the cartridges I've had for years and got both of them flowing beautifully, so will use and enjoy them.
I do also have a lovely old dip pen, that came in an old leather travel writing case, will use that with the Bombay India Ink. Lesson learned. Live and Learn.
Christine
PS: For the first time in almost two months I was able to breath through my nose today. I have been suffering from terrible allergies, someone said leaf mold was very bad this year. It's not like I don't always get ragweed allergies every year that last for at least six weeks and I probably have other allergies which are a constant, but this year has been bad. I do take Claritin but that only somewhat helps. Do you know how good it feels to take a breath and not feel ones body is under constant attack.
After struggling with several fountain pens to make them work, the light bulb went off, maybe it's the ink and sure enough I was using a romantically named bottle of ink called Bombay Ink, in a beautiful magenta colour. An absolute no no to use India Ink in a fountain pen, it is not water soluble and is only to be used with a dip pen. This I found out after the fact.
How in all these years of using a fountain pen, did I not know that. Fortunately I did not mess up my thirty year old Waterman, nor my fifty year old Parker pen. But I did have a couple of other pens, that may or may not work now. One is the fountain pen my sister gave me, but I think I was able to flush that out, because there was not too much in there and it had recently been used. Two other pens I had to try and pick all the gunky sediment out with a needle.
I did Google what is the best ink for a fountain pen and Waterman Ink was suggested, being a slightly thinner ink. This is now on order in Mysterious Blue and I hope I can get the three pens that really matter to me, to work again.
I cleaned out my two old pens with warm water and put in the cartridges I've had for years and got both of them flowing beautifully, so will use and enjoy them.
I do also have a lovely old dip pen, that came in an old leather travel writing case, will use that with the Bombay India Ink. Lesson learned. Live and Learn.
Christine
PS: For the first time in almost two months I was able to breath through my nose today. I have been suffering from terrible allergies, someone said leaf mold was very bad this year. It's not like I don't always get ragweed allergies every year that last for at least six weeks and I probably have other allergies which are a constant, but this year has been bad. I do take Claritin but that only somewhat helps. Do you know how good it feels to take a breath and not feel ones body is under constant attack.
I had no idea about the ink. I bought Rick a fountain pen for Christmas -- fortunately, not India ink but I'll remember to tell him.
ReplyDeleteI have learnt something new too, I had no idea about the ink. Glad to hear you can finally breathe through your nose again. I can only imagine the difficulties.
ReplyDeleteI haven't used a fountain pen in years. I remember going from writing in pencil to fountain pens (but the ones with the cartridges). I wasn't very tidy! I remember not getting to use one for a long time as my writing in pencil was so bad. Thankfully my handwriting has improved!
ReplyDeleteFountain pens are one of the best stationery products to be used, the only thing was to fill fountain pen ink
ReplyDelete