The biggest problem with having so many fountain pens is that when I endeavour to test a combination it takes literally months for me to work through. I reviewed the J. Herbin Stormy Grey a while back and promised to keep you updated on the impact of those shiny gold flakes with regards to what it will do to a feed. I have dutifully been using the Penmanship sporadically. I have not cleaned it out or done anything to “aid” in its lubricity and here we are with an update (finally).
J. Herbin 1670 Stormy Grey Gold Flake Fountain Pen Ink – Amazon / eBay
So, first things first- it’s shockingly resilient to clogging up. I say resilient because after having been left in a drawer for 2 weeks, the feed doesn’t want to play nice, but this is expected taking into account the aesthetically pleasing debris contain therein. Frankly, I expected a lot worse.
Pilot Penmanship Clear Body Demonstrator Fountain Pen – Amazon / eBay
The gold flakes have a propensity to collate towards the nib side of things. The formulation does dissociate very easily, so if you want to have an even spread of glittery goodness, then I suggest lightly shaking/moving the pen around. Interestingly, the gold dust navigates the feed with nary a whimper, and I can’t say it handles any differently from a highly pigmented ink. Make of that what you will.
The only real difference is the burping I encountered as the reservoir started to empty. I ended up getting globs of ink pooling on the end of the nib. The end result isn’t jarring in terms of visuals, but it does mean that the spread of gold will fluctuate.
Easy mode solution was to blot the nib for a solid 10 seconds with absorbent paper/tissue and the nib was back to operating to its customary potential. Prior to doing this it did visibly skip a smidgen and the ink flow was sporadic (dancing between extremes of too much and not enough).
I predict that by the time I run out of ink and do an autopsy of the feed, very little gold will remain and what is left will be trivial to flush away. I don’t want to outright state that you can ignore the J. Herbin warnings about leaving the 1670 ink for prolonged periods of time (unused), but… you can totally do that. I would imagine a significant reason why the Pilot Penmanship handles this ink so well is due to the nature of the materials used during manufacturing. All plastic feed and body seems to play nice with textured inks.
I have a feeling that if you tried this stunt in an ebonite body and feed, the results would differ somewhat due to the texture being more prone to collect “stuff” as opposed to plastic. This is just a guess, however.
I reckon if I put down my other pens (I know, it’s a terrible thing to say), that I can finish up this project in a week or so, and finally really ascertain what this fad of shiny inks do to our scribbling utensils.
PS – I did a final update to this article; you can check it out here.
I have/had a 3 ml sample of Sailor Sei-Boku. I had that for two days only in a Pelikan M300 [EF], a Pilot E95s [F] and a vintage KaWeCo Sport V16 [B]. These pens wrote nicely but then I noticed that I could not get the dried ink off of the M300’s nib. Ugh, panic! I had some problems to remove the ink from the ink windows, the catridge in the E95s was heavily stained, too.
I cleaned these pens but did not give up. I eyedroppered a Platinum Preppy that was a very reliable pen before with the rest of my sample. Since I like drawing with my Preppies (I once bought a set of 6 or 7 different colours) and since these have the extra inner cap I thought it was safe. But somehow the Preppie got clogged, I could not get it to write. It remained clogged even after cleaning. Grrrr!
But, since I wanted to use this ink and because I am a helpless optimist my next idea was to use it in two really beaten up Pilot Petit-1 [F] (my children [7, 9] had used these at school last year). These also have an extra inner cap, and, lo & behold, in those Sei-Boku behaves nicely, looks great, writes well, does not smear, is waterproof. Hmm, still I am suspicious …
Platinum Carbon Black I do use, mainly for drawing, but so far only in a Platinum Carbon Desk Pen [EF]. In there it is a magic ink: I did use it a lot, but still the ink in the standard Platinum cartridge lasted for almost a year. The pen never clogged, ink flow was perfect from the start to the last drop of the cartridge. That ugly crappy looking cap on the Desk Pen seems to do a very good job. Towards the end the ink started to smell a bit funny, I would say sour, acidic, which did not influence its usability. In that combination I would definitely recommend it. Ana once did a great review and I can second everything she writes. (www.wellappointeddesk.com/2015/06/review-platinum-carbon-pen)
Wow, you don’t give up Julie. 😉 4/5 failure rate with that ink- now I am really curious to give it a shot…although not in one of my nicer pens!
Interesting that you brought up those experiences with the Platinum Desk Pen- I have had exactly the same ones. To this day I still have that same Carbon Black Cartridge inside after over 1 year. Runs perfect although no smell (yet). I still can’t believe it works so flawlessly- I do wonder if its the ink or the pen, I think I will do a similar test in a Twsbi or something else I can stomach losing.
Wow, thanks for your commitment! 😉
To answer the question about the ebonite feed: I have J. Herbin 1670 Stormy Grey in my Ahab, a yellowish “Honey Demonstrator”, so I can see the feed through the grip section, since May. It appears to be a bit clogged on the outside, and yes, the ink flow is not as generous as it was when I filled the pen, but it still writes. I use it daily for some lines here and there and I did put one of those little balls from Pilot cartridges into the piston-cartridge thingy to help activating the glimmer particles.
Everything is fine.
I did have Diamine Golden Sands, Night Sky and Shimmering Seas in this pen before as well as J. Herbin 1670 Emerald of Chivor, also for weeks, if not months each, followed by non-glitter/shimmering inks, and sure, it is probably impossible to clean out all the shimmer particles out of the feed at once so the following inks will have a bit of shimmer, but these particles never clogged my pen to a degree where it would not write anymore. It is probably a good idea to reserve a pen for shimmering adventures because you will have notice some glitter here and there for quite a while but after using shimmer inks for about 18 months now I think these are safe for your pens as long as you can clean them well.
I did use these inks (except Emerald of Chivor) in a Pelikan M200 Clear Demonstrator, which has a nib unit you can take out for cleaning, as well and also never had problems with it.
I did have serious issues with Sailor Sei-Boku, a nano pigment ink, though, so my respect for that ink is much bigger than for the harmless watersoluble shimmer stuff.
I have yet to try out the Diamine Shimmer inks, interesting to note that the shimmer likes to linger in the feed. I reckon your suggestion to keep a dedicated pen just for the sparkly stuff is a solid idea.
Surprised that the Sailor Sei-Boku was so aggressive- The jetpens sample pics don’t show extreme saturation like I would have expected- have you tried the Platinum Carbon Black, if so, how does it compare?
Thanks for dropping by Julie, much appreciated!