Capped overnight nib up, and the first stroke is dry for about a centimetre before it flows normally. Happens with a particular blue-black, never with the standard blue in the same pen. Flushed thoroughly with a bulb syringe, no change. Is this the ink, the nib, or how I'm storing it?
The other thing that causes exactly this is dried ink on the underside of the nib where it meets the feed, which a bulb syringe flushes straight past. Soak the section in room temperature water for a few hours then flush. If the water goes faintly coloured after an overnight soak on a clean pen, there's your answer.
One drop of dish soap in the soak water. Not more than a drop, rinse thoroughly afterwards, but it lifts the film that plain water leaves behind.
Worth knowing that some blue-blacks are iron gall or partly so, and those behave differently: drier, and much less tolerant of sitting unused. If yours is one, don't leave it in the pen for weeks at a time.
Check the cap. Inner caps seal well when clean, and a build-up of dried ink in there stops the seal, and then the nib dries out overnight regardless of ink. Cotton bud, warm water, twenty seconds.
@invoice_chaser · 2mo ago · 3 replies
It's the ink and the nib together: a dry-writing, high surface tension ink in a pen with a slightly tight tine gap. That ink is fine in a wetter pen and that pen is fine with a wetter ink, and the combination is what fails.
Three fixes in increasing order of commitment. Store it nib down for a night to confirm the diagnosis. Add one drop of water per 5ml of ink to drop the surface tension. Or gently widen the tine gap with brass shims, which I'd only do after the first two.
Also check the nib is fully seated. A nib pushed slightly out of alignment gives exactly this symptom with dry inks only.
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@vlookup_refugee · 2mo ago
Nib down overnight and it writes immediately. So it's flow rather than a blockage.
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@invoice_chaser · 2mo ago
Then dilute it slightly and you'll probably never think about it again. 10% water is unnoticeable in the colour and makes a real difference to start-up.
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