I have just found a decades old, never used Parker fountain pen, with the squeeze to fill type bladder system. Of course I don't have ink for it, but I do have lots of black ink refill kits for inkjet printers, so I tried that and it seems to work OK.
Any comments welcome please. Will the bladder dissolve the nib choke up, or might it be OK long term?
Judging by the way it stained everything when I was into refilling inkjet carts, it may be less washable than the Quink so-called washable variety which was more or less compulsory when I was at school. Don't let the XYL catch you using it in her best room.
As you've had no problems in making it flow, and given ink that can go through a printer head should present no problems to a nib, possibly all the caveats on here -
its too thin - basically the delivery machanism is so different that it simply wouldn't flow [ although it seemms it does }- but would instead clog.
are all mistaken. Dunno.
Given that you've just found it and are maybe using it out of novelty for occasional use, maybe if you flushed it out after every use this might prevent any lasting damage.
Otherwise Quink is still available from Rymans at ?6.99 a pop
- 60ml for both blue and black both permanent and "new improved" water soluble. Although they seem to have changed the label as well.
michael adams
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Impossible to say in advance, without knowing the chemistry of the ink.
Some inkjet inks are water based, which should not be a problem. Some are oil based, which may not be compatible with the bladder.
The colour may, in common with most fountain pen inks, be a dye or it may be a pigment, which can clog pens. The price may be a guide, as pigmented ink is more expensive than dye based ink.
Thanks, it seems to be water based - I can smudge it with a wet finger and it was just a cheap refill, bought years ago, when I used inkjets..
Even cheaper from Ebuyer. Oh, I see turquoise* is still available in some places too...
*I went to the type of school that mandated the use of a "fountain pen", but didn't mandate the colour of ink. Little victories :) :)
As an aside I started using an American ink that Noodles make which reacts with the cellulose in paper making it archival,(virtually waterproof)because I had a notebook which got damp, the ink bled and was unreadable and I lost valuable records..
Indeed, having checked its only ?5.49 on Amazon P&P. and it does look like a glass bottle as well. I'd be very wary of buying ink by mail order myself, for the mess it could make. Never mind the ag of actually getting the money back, sending photos of the mess etc. Apart from click and collect (up to 5 -7 days ) Rymans do actually stock a lot of this legacy stuff in their stores although finding it can be a different matter. Sickening though it is, to have pay one penny more than is absolutely necessary.
The school tie also offered a lot of scope for improvisation as well ISTR. You could get interesting effects by tying the knot as near to the short or the wide end as possible. Not me though, I was always a bit of a scruff myself.
I was just wondering about the waterproof/permanent thing. I'm sure that in my day there wasn't a choice just Quink or Stephens in one or two, or maybe three colours. But then, as you could buy it from the local newsagents, maybe they only stocked the one sort.
michael adams
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A lot probably depends on how long you want to keep stuff for. Since the introduction of wood pulp paper in the 1850's and the need for acid, there's no doubt that paper from that era is now brittle and falling apart. However this is a process that may take 100 years. And while the paper in books printed during WW2 has a distinct "East German" look to it - rough, brown specks - and is browning a bit, its still holding up after 70 years. So whether its worth forking out extra for archival acid free paper or not depends on circumstances As to inks I'd imagine their biggest enemy is sunlight or UV generally. And that any notebook kept closed in a boxfile or drawer for most of its life should stay legible for centuries. Assuming the paper hasn't crumbled away in the meantime, that is.
michael adams
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Sorry I totally misread this. It was "after" the notebook got damp and the ink bled, that you subsequently bought the archival ink. The problem being presumably that many other waterproof inks are also prone to clogging.
Is the browning due to the paper oxidising (and so presumably a process that could continue until you're left with ash) or is it a chemical process with the acid meaning it'll brown up to a point and be stable thereafter.
And water.
Not sure about the cause - apart from the acid attacking the cellulose but its certainly never stable. It becomes increasing brittle rather than flexible and can be easily torn . The folds in each sheet where the book is bound are also stressed and the pages start to fall out. Acidity is irreversible the best that can be achieved is for the process to be halted and the material treated with kid gloves.
michael adams
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It is interesting to contrast the "colour fastness", or rather lack of after a number of years, of a print from a horse show photographer, (presumably inkjet) with adjacent and contemporary prints from my Canon Selphy dye-sub printer.
When inkjets where new things >20 years ago the office got one. Printed out the technical requirements for an Outside Broadcast, it rained, ended up with completely blank sheets of paper!
Totally different now,you can get archival inks even edible inks,for inkjet.
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