Waternan Hemisphere Problems

"BL" writes:

To me, bad and wrong mean the ink is of poor quality, e.g., it's prone
to grow mold, or crud precipitates out of it, or it fails to dry
quickly enough on the paper and therefore smudges, or it tends to
feather, or it bleeds through, etc.

Mold, gunks, feathering and other such stuff are those things
practically all fountain pen users hate, but outlook of ink is mostly a
matter of taste, of course.

I have tried some Parker Quink -inks. Black is not totally black; it
has those blue and grey undertones.

I think one has to try the inks in their own pens. I'm using Quink
Black in a 51 Vac Demi with an EF nib and the result is a very, very
black line.

Oh boy! That pen must be very wet and have firehose-like flow! I have
tried Parker Quink Black in my wettest fountain pen and even then it
showed some grey undertones. I can not remember how my Parker Vector
behaved with Parker Quink Black. But that bottle of Parker Quink Black
is empty now.

I have for example Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Black and it shows grey
undertones only when used in driest pens. My Pelikan Fount India, Aurora
Black and Noodler's Ink Black show no undertones at all. I have some
cartridges of Sheaffer Skrip Black (both from the USA and Slovenia) and
it is good: It is just black with no undertones.

Red looks nice, but in my BIC Select Turn & Up it creates some red
powder to underside of nib, but cap of that pen "breathes" very much.

Red powder doesn't sound good. Do you flush the pen once in a while?

It happens only in that certain pen. Maybe I should flush it some day.

BTW, Pelikan has reformulated Royal Blue. I haven't seen it yet, but I
hear it's a more pleasing color. -- B

I have bought those Pelikan 4001 Royal Blue cartridges in new package
and I think those cartridges had that re-formulated ink. It was still
washed-out. Maybe I should try it again few years later just in order to
be sure I have tried re-formulated ink.


--
Juhapekka "naula" Tolvanen * http colon slash slash iki dot fi slash juhtolv
"Yhtälailla säälittävä olen niin kuin muutkin, yksinäinen jos et tuu ja jos
sä sitten tuutkin, olen sulle kohtelias, mutta vain sen verran, että saan
sut sänkyyni tämän yhden kerran. Tilaa jo se taksi." Zen Café

Juhapekka Tolvanen wrote:
Mold, gunks, feathering and other such stuff are those things
practically all fountain pen users hate, but outlook of ink is mostly a
matter of taste, of course.

I have
tried Parker Quink Black in my wettest fountain pen and even then it
showed some grey undertones.

I've never bought black Quink, even though it seems like I "should", since
it's a classic. Every bottle I've looked at has had a weird, uneven,
GREENish-grey tone, and little flecks of crud in it.

My Pelikan Fount India, Aurora
Black and Noodler's Ink Black show no undertones at all.

Fount India is carbon-pigmented India ink, so it's just black. Aurora black
actually has purple in it, but I can't see it on paper -- just in the
diluted stream when I wash it out.

Brian
--

Brian Ketterling wrote:

I've never bought black Quink, even though it seems
like I "should", since it's a classic. Every bottle
I've looked at has had a weird, uneven, GREENish-
grey tone, and little flecks of crud in it.

This is the first I've ever heard criticism like this against Quink.
Where did you see these bad bottles of ink? Same vendor? This is
really strange (I've purchased *cases* of Quink and have never seen
anything like this.) -- B

Brian Ketterling wrote:

I've never bought black Quink, even though it seems
like I "should", since it's a classic. Every bottle
I've looked at has had a weird, uneven, GREENish-
grey tone, and little flecks of crud in it.

I just dug into part of my ink stash and opened a bottle of Black
Quink. Looking at the paper seal inside the cap where ink soaks in, I
see reddish-purple tones. The bladders of Aero 51s filled with black
Quink will start taking on a pinkish tint. I've never ever seen
anything even remotely green looking in a bottle of black Quink. This
is very peculiar. And I've never *ever* seen flecks of anything in a
bottle of Quink, and I have dozens of bottles from the 40s, 70s, 90s,
and more current iterations. If the Zoss archives were still
accessible, I bet you could go back to the beginning (10+ years) and
never see mention of flecks or crud in Quink. Same with the acpp
archives. Yours is a very unusual report. Makes me wonder where this
"Quink" is coming from. A friend of mine (Bruce H.) bought some
bottles of Parker Penman Sapphire that turned out to be Penman bottles
refilled with some insipid blue-black ink. Weird. -- B

On Fri, 19 Jan 2007 03:50:03 +0200, Juhapekka Tolvanen
wrote:


Mold, gunks, feathering and other such stuff are those things
practically all fountain pen users hate, but outlook of ink is mostly a
matter of taste, of course.

Its also very much a combination of pen, ink and paper. I have some
paper from Levenger that tends to make many pens bad writers and most
inks look bad - even though they touted it for fountain pens and sold
a pen next to it in the catalog. I think if I had purchased the
combination as my first fountain pen attempt, I would be writing
mostly with ball point pens and roller balls today.

Fortunately, I have a range of papers to try before I give up on
either pen or ink - and make a point of doing so before I label a pen
or ink as incorrigible.

This weekend I'll finally have time to take the Levenger pen from
Christmas down to Pen Haven and see if it can be turned into a
fountain pen, or whether it simply becomes a silver and black
sculpture on my desk top...

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...
Still like their pocket jotters though.

BL wrote:
Brian Ketterling wrote:

I've never bought black Quink, even though it seems
like I "should", since it's a classic. Every bottle
I've looked at has had a weird, uneven, GREENish-
grey tone, and little flecks of crud in it.

This is the first I've ever heard criticism like this against Quink.
Where did you see these bad bottles of ink? Same vendor?

Yup -- my local Staples. When I first looked at their Quink, I checked a
couple of bottles and both were the same. However, it occurred to me that
it might be a bad batch, so over a period of months, as their stock turned
over, I kept checking. It was always the same. Maybe a bad "big" batch?

Yours is a very unusual report.

That's good -- I haven't written off Quink entirely.

Makes me wonder where this "Quink" is coming from.

China? Or old stock, poorly warehoused? I can't check it at that store
anymore, because recently they almost entirely cleared out their fountain
pen area. I think the only things they still carry are black, medium
Phileases and cartridges of Waterman black and Florida Blue.

Brian
--

Parker told me that Quink has a 2 year shelf life.

I expect that you know that, but I didn't.

Brian Ketterling wrote:
BL wrote:
Brian Ketterling wrote:

I've never bought black Quink, even though it seems
like I "should", since it's a classic. Every bottle
I've looked at has had a weird, uneven, GREENish-
grey tone, and little flecks of crud in it.

This is the first I've ever heard criticism like this against Quink.
Where did you see these bad bottles of ink? Same vendor?

Yup -- my local Staples. When I first looked at their Quink, I checked a
couple of bottles and both were the same. However, it occurred to me that
it might be a bad batch, so over a period of months, as their stock turned
over, I kept checking. It was always the same. Maybe a bad "big" batch?

Yours is a very unusual report.

That's good -- I haven't written off Quink entirely.

Makes me wonder where this "Quink" is coming from.

China? Or old stock, poorly warehoused? I can't check it at that store
anymore, because recently they almost entirely cleared out their fountain
pen area. I think the only things they still carry are black, medium
Phileases and cartridges of Waterman black and Florida Blue.

Brian
--

AndyH wrote:

Parker told me that Quink has a 2 year shelf life.

I expect that you know that, but I didn't.

Hi Andy...

I have Quink here from 1940 (Washable Blue, Blue-Black, and Royal
Blue) that I'm still using. I just bought 48 bottles from the 70s that
also are in perfect shape. I have some of the more recent post-Solv-x
stuff that I've had around for 4-5 years, and it's still as perfect as
the day I bought it. I have bottles of ink (various makes) lying
around that have been opened for years and are still usable. This
nonsense about the supposed shelf-life of bottled ink is something
manufacturers spout to get people to buy more ink. What Brian said
about that ink at Staples is very perplexing. If you have an unopened
bottle of black Quink there, hold it up to the light and see if you
can seen anything *in* it. Hold it up to the light and look at the
film of ink that covers the sides of the bottle when you tilt or
rotate it. The film is a violet color, not green. In fact, if you have
a modern Pelikan there with a black cap, hold it up to a light and
notice that it's not actually black, it's a very, very deep violet.
That's the color of Quink black. The glass of the Quink bottle is so
thick and the ink is so opaque you'd be hard pressed to see a fairly
good-sized goober suspended in the ink, let alone fleck of anything.
From Brian's description, it sounds like Staples had themselves a
whole lot of bogus Quink. -- B

BL wrote:
The glass of the Quink bottle is so
thick and the ink is so opaque you'd be hard pressed to see a fairly
good-sized goober suspended in the ink, let alone fleck of anything.
From Brian's description, it sounds like Staples had themselves a
whole lot of bogus Quink. -- B

I see that I didn't mention in my other posts that I was a "naughty"
customer. I didn't look at the ink through the bottle -- I took the bottles
out of their boxes and opened them, tipped ink onto the inside of the necks
and looked at it there, looked at the drops and film on the cap liner, and
used one scrap of paper (from a pocket notebook) to spread ink onto another
scrap of paper. I was basically trying to discern what the ink, rather than
the lake of ink in the bottle, really looked like.

Brian
--

Brian Ketterling wrote:

I see that I didn't mention in my other posts that I
was a "naughty" customer. I didn't look at the ink
through the bottle -- I took the bottles out of
their boxes and opened them, tipped ink onto the
inside of the necks and looked at it there, looked
at the drops and film on the cap liner, and used one
scrap of paper (from a pocket notebook) to spread
ink onto another scrap of paper. I was basically
trying to discern what the ink, rather than the lake
of ink in the bottle, really looked like.

And the ink had a GREENish tone with flecks of crud in it? Again
Brian... As someone who has owned literally cases of the stuff and has
read probably hundreds of ink-related posts on various pen newsgroups
and listservs over the past tens years and has never heard anything
like this about Quink, I have to believe that what you saw at Staples
was bogus Quink. Maybe your neighborhood Staples ordered it from the
same guy who sent my friend Bruce a bottle of washed out blue-black
Penman Sapphire. To your knowledge has anyone else posted anything
about greenish-grey, crud infested Quink Black? The reason I ask is
because when there's a bad batch of ink, reports about it are bound to
pop up on the various pen newsgroups and listservs. This certainly
happened with the shipment of Pelikan Black about 10 years ago, the
bad batch of Pelikan Green a few years ago, various bad runs of PR
ink, and more recently with a moldy run Noodlers. -- B (P.S. Your
local Staples must be really poorly manned or you must be one slick
customer 'cause if I were to do what you did at my local Staples a
clerk would surely ask me what the h*ll I was up to).