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There's nothing like a fountain pen

My journaling stuttered when my trusty fountain pen suddenly ceased to leave a mark, then ink flooded over my thumb and index finger, taking me back to elementary school days when such mishaps were a daily occurrence. This was like having your 2011 SUV leaking oil in the driveway.

My journaling stuttered when my trusty fountain pen suddenly ceased to leave a mark, then ink flooded over my thumb and index finger, taking me back to elementary school days when such mishaps were a daily occurrence. This was like having your 2011 SUV leaking oil in the driveway.

I had settled on this $50 Waterman six years ago after trying almost a dozen pens, from a $1 made-in-China disposable, up through $15 Shaeffers to a $200 Waterman. This pen fit my grip without sliding away, the nib was fine enough, and its green mottle invited me to express my thoughts with it, mundane as they might be.

This unsettling mess persisted though each morning I unscrewed the pen into its three sections, rinsed all  under the tap, dried them with a tissue, and before fitting them back together checked the cartridge for any split or defect. Nothing was visible under 3X magnification. Still ink oozed around the edges of the nib. And each time I unscrewed the barrel from the nib section, ink drizzled along the cartridge wetting the inside the barrel.

The cost of ink in cartridges adds up. A $1 cartridge lasts me on average two weeks. An $8 bottle of ink will refill cartridges for two years or more. Thus I had gotten into the routine of refilling one cartridge at a time from the bottle using a 30 cent drugstore syringe. (A common practice, says Margo at the Vancouver Pen Shop.)

I like truly black ink. But when I bought a bottle five years ago, it was more grey than black. I complained to the U.S. supplier who  sent me two replacement bottles, darker, but far from coal black. I filed one bottle to use later.

Two weeks before my pen began to leak, “later” arrived. I refilled a cartridge from the five year old bottle and ordered a bottle of ink and two packages or 16 ink cartridges from Vancouver.

The order clerk said they would be reluctant to ship while B.C. was in the midst of a deep freeze; the ink could be damaged in transit. I asked them to hold my order until they felt the weather was safe enough to ship. After all, I had a whole new bottle to use in the meantime. Or so I thought.

Confounded by the persistent leak despite all my ministrations, I phoned Margo for advice. She suggested I soak the nib section in warm water until it rinsed clean, then blow through it to make sure ink passage was unobstructed.

To a small bowl of warm water I added a liberal dose of full strength Econo Clean, (a non-WHMIS- controlled solvent for removing everything from tar on tires to glue on fabrics). At first a wisp of ink rose from the nib like smoke from Sam McGee’s cabin. Soon all traces of ink were gone. I was able to blow air freely through the nib section producing a fine clear spray with a single central jet.

In case a damaged cartridge had contributed to the leak, though I could detect no damage, I shoved in a new,  Florida Blue cartridge.

Harmony had been restored to journaling. My pen no longer leaked.

For  a day or two.  Then more mess, only beautiful blue instead of black. Within hours my fresh cartridge had drained dry.

This time the syringe refused to suck ink from the bottle. When I lifted the syringe from the bottle, a long blob of swamp ooze clung to the needle’s tip.

So there was half my problem.   Pen manufacturers warn against using ink more than two years old.  Even stored in a dark file drawer, in a sealed bottle, sediment had formed. And if sediment could clog the syringe, it could surely clog the cartridge and the nib.

The other half of my problem proved to be an invisible hole in the nib section; a brushstroke of clear nail polish sealed it.