Dry Parker 61 Revived with Levenger Cobalt Blue

I bought a Parker 61 capillary filler fountain pen and pencil set that looked like new. (I wrote a brief post about this back in June 2014.) Even the silicone coating on the filler system is perfect with no flakes or scratches. However,  I couldn't keep it writing; the flow was so dry. 

No doubt it needed to be cleaned well, but I'm not willing to risk taking it apart after reading how easy it is to break them. So, I've flushed it out with a bulb syringe several times and refilled with different inks to try to improve the flow. This has only been partially successful and has improved marginally by using increasingly wetter inks. Until recently the best ink combination for this Death Valley dry writing 61 was Waterman Serenity Blue. But even that was not a great solution - no pun intended.  Obviously there must be some residue blocking the flow that I haven't been able to clear out and I was about ready to give up on it. 

However, recently I was reading about intense blue inks and ran across a review of Levenger Cobalt Blue in which it was noted that one of the problems with this ink is that it bleeds and feathers so badly because it is such a wet ink. Since I have a bottle of Levenger Cobalt Blue, I knew this to be true and was the reason why I stopped using it even though I love the color. Then it dawned on me that Cobalt Blue might be wet enough to flow through my Parker 61. So, I cleaned it thoroughly with the bulb syringe and after expelling all of the water,  I dunked the Parker 61 filler into the Cobalt Blue ink. 

Afterwards, I tried writing with it and there was no ink flow at all. Out of frustration I put the empty syringe on the end of the filler to see if any ink was in the pen, because I then wondered if the capillary system wasn't picking up any ink. I squeezed it and ink came out of the nib. So, I dipped the filler back into the ink bottle and then reassembled it to try it out. Amazingly,  it wrote the best it ever has so far. It still is a dry writer and feels a bit like writing with a soft pencil,  but not as dry as it had been in the past. The next morning I took the cap off to try it again thinking it will surely have stopped flowing or skip as it has in the past. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to find it still wrote just as well. The next day it is still writing easily with no skips, drag or false starts. 

While this doesn't completely solve the partial clogging, it at least has the pen working at an agreeable and very usable flow. It is funny that an ink and a pen - both of which I had given up on - have turned out to be the perfect combination!

Ink Flow and Pen Cleaning

Some new pens are stubborn to get started, especially using an ink cartridge for the first time. New pens may have residue from manufacturing that make them difficult to start. So, washing the nib with mild soap and water can help them flow better. Dipping pens and filling them with bottled ink primes the feed. If you only have cartridge ink, try tapping the pen nib GENTLY on a paper towel or rag to start the flow. You might also need to gently squeeze the ink cartridge JUST A LITTLE to start the flow. If you squeeze too hard you'll have a mess. Once you do this the first time and have ink running through the pen from cartridge to tip, you shouldn't have to do it again, especially if you use the pen on a regular basis. If the pen and cartridge run dry and are left sitting for a while, you may have problems again. If you still have problems, try a different brand of ink. My favorite ink for pens with a stubborn flow is Waterman's Serenity Blue. Serenity Blue flows well. It doesn't dry in your nib as quickly as other inks, and it has a beautiful bright blue color.

If your pen has had ink for awhile and clogged, a syringe is really helpful to clean out your pen quickly. Flushing the pen several times with lukewarm water nearly always brings your pen back to write-like-new condition. When I flush a pen, I stand at a sink with a glass full of clean water, drawing the water out with the syringe. Hold the syringe firmly into the pen nib assembly and force the water through, pointing the nib down toward the drain so the inky water is less likely to splatter on you or counter top. Even if you hold them together tightly be prepared to get sprayed.

The nib should be flushed several times until you see clear water coming through the nib. After the nib is clean, use the syringe (empty) to blow air through the nib assembly to help it dry faster. The nib will need to dry - usually overnight - if you want the ink to be full strength. If the nib still has water in it when you re-assemble it, and fill it with ink, the ink will be diluted. Surprisingly, even the tiniest bit of moisture will dilute the ink noticeably.

If your pen still has ink flow problems after cleaning, then you'll need to take apart the nib assembly, remove the feed, and clean the nib and feed with soap and water. When you do this, examine the channel in the feed for ink residue. Use a toothbrush or toothpick to clean out the channel, being careful not to damage the feed. The feed must be clean and the channel open in order for your pen to write well. Some of the better pen and ink dealers sell small copper sheets that can be used to clear the feed channel, even when the pen is fully assembled.

International Ink Cartridges

[PHOTO - left to right: International Short, Jinhao International, Waterman International Long cartridge.

Most of my fountain pens are filled from bottles of ink.  However, when I am away from home or office and not certain my pen will last through the day without a refill, I use a pen with a cartridge. Ideally, that will be a Waterman long international, which fits in my Waterman Carene, Levenger Truewriter and Jinhao 159/x750, among others. Most pens that will hold a long international cartridge will also hold two shorts - one installed and one in reserve. Frustratingly, this is not always the case.

What drives me crazy is the number of pens that are only a few millimeters shy of holding two shorts or a long international cartridge! Dear fountain pen makers: Does it never occur to you to test that before you put them into production? Way back when I first began collecting fountain pens, I was impressed by how smart that was that you could always have a spare cartridge in reserve inside your pen. But the more pens I collected the more I was surprised that was not the case. That irritation faded into the background the more I used piston-fillers, pneumatics, bladders, capillaries and converters.

[PHOTO - left to right: Taccia Portuguese, Levenger Truewriter, Waterman Carene, JinHao x750]

One of my favorite pens - a Taccia Portuguese is about the length of a pocket pen and writes perfectly, never drying or clogging, and no false starts. That makes it a perfect candidate for carrying around all day.  Except that it is too short for an average length converter. One short international converter is all that it will hold. Until now I have used a plunger style micro-converter, which probably holds less ink than even an international short cartridge. And since the Portuguese is a wet writer, it doesn't write long before needing a refill. The metal band at the bottom of the body prevents it from being converted to an eyedropper fill. So, it has always stayed home in spite of its portability. Until today, when an order from China arrived that I had forgotten about: 5 packages of JinHao cartridges (25 cartridges) for less than three dollars and FREE shipping!  The price was great, but even greater was the realization that they were medium length cartridges - a length between short and long international cartridges. This is a cartridge volume that appears to compare to that of proprietary cartridges like those of Lamy and Pilot. Unfortunately, I don't know the actual volume by comparison. But really, I don't care - I'm just thrilled to have an international cartridge that will last longer in those pens too short for long cartridges. Especially, my Taccia Portuguese, which can now become the awesome pocket pen it always was meant to be.

Black and White

I realized, once again, how stuck I am on black and white, or silver and black pens.  This photo is actually several years old and I have added a number of pens since then, most of which are black and white or black and silver.  Recently, I was about to purchase another pen, which was black carbon fiber and silver.  I paused and wondered why I would buy another pen of the same color combo as most of my others?  The answer was simple, I still like that color (less) combo!  (Although, I did not buy that pen due to marginal reviews.) No surprise, my favorite ink is basic black - though I note that they are not all equal.  For example, Pearl Noire from J. Herbin is the blackest of blacks, I love that ink.  My pens seem to like Pilot black the best:" it doesn't clog or dry out very easily.  While I would never wear a tuxedo that is not basic black, I do have some pens in other colors, which I enjoy and use often.  But in the end my first choice is always basic black.  By the way, one of the best and most affordable basic black fountain pens is the Levenger Truewriter Obsidian.  It is one of my basic work pens, filled with Noodler's Polar Bulletproof black.  The TW Obsidian is always ready to write, even if I've not used it for several days.  No matter how beautiful a pen is, knowing that it will write the moment you touch it to paper is the best feature of any fountain pen.

Giant

Here is a recent doodle using a Laban Mento fountain pen (M nib) with Noodler's Kiowa Pecan ink. 

Blue-Black Inks for the Color-blind.

The scan above shows three of my favorite blue-black inks: Diamine's Twilight, Private Reserve's Midnight Blues (Fast Dry) and Blue Suede.  The scan accentuates the colors as it would if we were to look at the paper in the sunlight.  In average indoor light the difference in the colors is not so distinct, especially between Twilight and Midnight Blues.  Blue Suede is obviously more muted in any light. It comes across more grey-green.  Or, so suggests the color-blind guy.  Yes, sad but true.  You cannot trust my evaluation of colors, because I have some red-green colorblindness.  There are two types of partial color-blindness: red-green, or blue-yellow. Red-green colorblindness makes it difficult to see the difference between white and pink, or tan and pink, or olive green and brown, or blue and purple.  But I have no difficulty recognizing primary colors. This type of colorblindness is a genetic disability that is passed from father through daughter to grandson.  My mother's father had the same type of colorblindness.  It wasn't a big deal for him because he was a farmer.  However, for me it was a constant obstacle.  At age nine - before I even knew that I was partially color blind - I decided to be an artist.  That decision at age nine framed every other decision that I made for the next 20 plus years.  As if that wan't difficult enough, I wanted to be a portrait painter. Being a successful portrait painter with normal color vision is difficult enough, but to be one with impaired color vision is nearly impossible.  So, I finally settled on drawing highly detailed pencil portraits.

So, why do I keep buying so many different colors of ink?  Maybe it is just wishful thinking.  However, I do in fact see colors.  Obviously, I don't see them with the same variety of color range that most people do, but I do see them. And, I love bright colors. I also enjoy seeing the different nuances in colors, even if it is a strain.  That means that I have to look at large samples in bright sunlight to be able to see them better. Fortunately, I have studied color theory and have a solid understanding of what colors must be mixed together to produce a complex color, even if I can't see it.  And, I know from reading other ink reviews that some blues may tend toward a green tint or red tint, so that even colors that we call "blue" are tending toward an aqua or violet, both of which are too subtle for me to see.

I first discovered - or I should say my mother first discovered - that I was color-blind one Sunday morning in church when I was about eight or nine years old.  We were just entering the church building when she and my father stopped to talk with someone; my mother motioned me on to go sit behind Mrs Whosits in the pink sweater.  I saw two women in white sweaters and replied that I didn't see anyone wearing a pink sweater.  Because of my grandfather's colorblindness, my mother instantly recognized what this signified.  Maybe I should have recognized what it signified as well, because I failed miserably as an artist and am now an Anglican priest, where colorblindness is a great gift!

Good ink for Moleskin Paper

I tend to leave too many pens inked up at one time. But I am always hoping to be able to use each and every one of them at a moment's notice. Currently, I fear I have nearly 30 pens with ink in them. It is nearly impossible to keep that many flowing well when you are working as many hours as I am now. So, periodically I find myself up until midnight cleaning, purging and refilling several pens in an effort to keep them all flowing smoothly. The more different colors of ink that I get, the more that I want to have each pen able to offer a different color of ink. Trust me - I don't have thirty bottles of ink.

Recently, I have gotten some new bottles of ink which are fantastic: One is Noodler's Black Anti-Feather. It always provides a perfect line, doesn't skip and will stay flowing even after being left for several days. And it writes extremely well on the seemingly ink resistant Moleskin paper. It won't even feather on cheap copy paper - amazing!

The second is Noodler's Burma Road Brown, which is a wonderfully rich dark brown ink. It also wites well on Moleskin paper. It doesn't feather much either.

Third is J Herbin - Gris Nuage (Grey). This is an interstingly strange ink. When it first hits the paper, it is a very dissatisfying watery black. It looks like black ink does after you have just rinsed your pen and there is still some water on the nib. But once it dries, it becomes a distinctly flat battleship grey. It is remarkable. This ink is a lot of fun to doodle with, particulalry if you combine it with black and use the grey as a sort of highlight, or as medium shadows in a sketch. I haven't used it much yet, but so far I had no feathering, skipping or drying problems. This ink also works well on Moleskin paper.

While it may appear here as though all inks work well on Moleskin, the three inks listed here are the only ones that I have that work very well on Moleskin paper. Waterman Blue/Black works fairly well on Moleskin. Other inks that are adequate on Moleskin are Levenger Cobalt Blue and Levenger Blue Bahama.

True Writer Group Photo

I recently had my digital camera repaired and today is the first day of my vacation. Thus, it seemed like a good time to take stock of my fountain pens. I wasn't sure how many True Writers I had; so I gathered them up for a group photo. Even after I gathered them up I wasn't sure - I have this uneasy feeling that I have left one somewhere. At any rate here they all are - I hope: three demonstrators, one black, one True Blue (translucent), one Kyoto, one Starry Night, one pearl Metallist and one blue Illuminator.

Speaking of the camera repair: three tumbs up to Samsung who repaired my Samsung S85 without hesitation, according to their one year warranty. Customer Service was outstanding and the camera was repaired and returned to me within one week, and they paid the shipping. It did not cost me a penny.

Levenger's True Writers

When I first saw the True Writer fountain pens in Levenger's catalogue many months ago, I scoffed - yes, I scoffed. I did not imagine that these "Johnny-come-lately" fountain pens could be any good. How could they possibly compare to those who only make fountain pens and have been doing so for decades? However, since purchasing my first fireball red demonstrator a couple of months ago, I have become a True Writer sycophant - O.K. that's extreme but once you write with these, it is diffcult to let go of them. Now I have four True Writers featuring all of the different nib sizes that Levenger offers. Everyone of them writes as well as pens that cost two or three times the price. True Writers are very wet writers and their nib size produces a line that is broader than you expect - much like a Cross - the fine writes like a medium and the medium like a broad and the broad nib is like writing with a stub, and all of them are deliciously smooth. Levenger's ink colors are intense and offer you the option to have a pen body that is the same color as the ink it contains - a very nice option once you have more pens that you can easily keep track of. The cobalt blue is particularly brilliant and I was thrilled to discover it before it was discontinued. The luminescent blue is even better in person. Another reason why I like the True Writers is the size: they have fairly wide barrels so the pen is comfortable and balanced to write with even when the cap is not posted. As much as I like my two Pelikans, they are rather small for a man's hand. Surprisingly, the pen that I thought I was really going to enjoy writing with was the Sailor pocket pen with a 14kt white gold nib. However, that pen writes dry. It is just the opposite of the True Writer - I feel like I need to squeeze the ink out of it to get it to write. So, if you like a wet writer, get a True Writer.

Ink Quality

One of the complimentary joys of using a fountain pen is using bottled ink from which to fill the pen. Sure, it is messy, time consuming and frustrating - my fingers always get stained. Today, a drop of black ink even fell into our light beige carpet. Shhh . . . Don't tell my wife! And that is all worth it, if your pen produces the kind of rich line and dark black or deep blue (or whatever color you like) that you expect from a fine pen. All of that is background to my first woeful experience with my Libelle Epic F.P. After the cartridge that was packed with the pen was used up, I installed the converter and filled it with Shaeffer "Skrip" black ink, which a sales person had assured me was quality ink. It worked okay on a yellow legal pad but when I used it in my moleskin journal the ink was grey, rather than black, and it bled badly. Initially, I was disappointed with my new pen until I realized my other pens wrote well on the moleskin paper. So, purchased a bottle of Waterman black ink and filled the Libelle F.P. and it worked great - nice smooth rich black lines - the way it is supposed to be.