Editing The Pen Addict 574/transcript (section)

== Addressing Pen Cartridge and Ink Issues ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Jeff writes in with two questions. First is, I've noticed that if I leave a cartridge in a pen for a while, say for a week, the ink starts to get a bit viscous. It takes on an almost oily texture and will smudge no matter how long I leave it dry. And it's not just leftover ink in the feed. I tried drawing out ink with tissue paper and it seems the rest of the cartridge is all tainted. This is more severe with black ink than blue and Lamy black seems to be the worst. Is this normal?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No. What is going on here, Brad? It is not normal. The first thing I thought of is like, well, maybe, and Jeff answered the question. Well, maybe it's just. So a lot of times when you leave a fountain pen for even a day, much less a week or so, you pick up the pen and you start writing with it. It writes darker, right? Because ink's been left in the feed and that ink is more exposed to the elements than what's left in the cartridge, right? So you sometimes your first few lines will be darker than the true color that you get as you go. That's normal. So what Jeff's describing is not normal and that it only leads to more questions. Like, is this the same pen every time that you're experiencing this? Or is this only the inks? Where do you live? What are the atmospheric conditions? Like, like I live in a high humid humidity area. So I would like question sometimes how my inks perform, but mostly I would take if it's a singular pen that's giving you the problem, I almost think you're not getting a good, a good enough seal somewhere along the lines and that you need to disassemble and clean and reassemble whatever pen you're using. But if it's multiple pens, that's probably not the problem. But if it's singular pen, I'm thinking that you have an air gap in there somewhere that's causing a problem because that should, this should not be happening whatsoever under any circumstances unless you were at like some really weird atmospheric conditions. Like leaving the, like if you leave the fountain pen like in the sun, right? Yeah. For a couple of days, like it's going to, the temperature is going to affect the ink and it's going to make it worse or whatever, whatever. But if it's just standard conditions, if it's a singular pen, I'd be disassembling that pen and looking for an issue.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because I was like, oh, it must be the ink than just like use different inks. It's like, oh, well, I have no idea then. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. What's going on with that?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' If it's a lot of pens and if it's like all the pens and yeah, I would, I would, I would probably try some different inks too. Maybe there's like. Maybe your ink got contaminated somehow. Maybe you left the ink out in the sun. I don't know. It could be a lot of little things.

'''Myke Hurley:''' If there's an environmental factor at play.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's what I'm saying. Yeah. It could be. It could be a storage issue where you're storing this stuff. So the short answer is this is definitely not normal. And I think there's some, some things you need can specifically look at and feel free to email me back once you do.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Jeff also asked, I guess this is me, any chance of a theme system journal in a traveler's tour format? I've never considered this. I've never considered the theme system. Well, I haven't considered the theme system journal as you currently exists in any of a format. Like it just doesn't really make sense to me, but this is an interesting thought. Like I will take it under advisement. But that's not really a product that I'm trying to tinker with in that way at the moment. But it's a good, good suggestion.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Lewis writes in and says, I'm having a weird issue with some of my metal pens that I'm not sure what to do about. So I thought I'd write in the barrels of a number of my metal pens seem to be shrinking with time. What is going on today? Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I did this on purpose.

'''Myke Hurley:''' My Karas retract, maybe it's retracting, Parker and Right Choice Painting Company pens are all machined from solid metal. They all take Pilot G2 refills and work fine at first. Over the past few months, I've had a hard time getting the nib of the refill through the hole in the end of the barrel. It's as though the barrel has shrunk or the cartridge has expanded. I can force it through, but then to retract the nib, I have to press down into the paper, physically pushing the nib back into the pen. Have you ever heard of something like this?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Absolutely not. What is going on? So I put this in here just to get other people's opinions about metals, but I don't see any way that your metal is expanding and contracting. Like I don't think there's any, I don't think there's a metal issue, which leads me into a refill issue. So your refills, most of the front ends that are passing through aside from the tip are plastic. So those actually do have a little bit of variance, not just in atmospheric conditions could change those things, but they could be manufacturing tolerances. As someone who builds pens that require refills, sometimes refills don't all have the same tolerances. Um, so that's something you got to consider. And in a very far fetched conspiracy theory, uh, aspect of this, I wonder if you bought authentic G2 refills, like consider where you bought the G2 refills last. If you're buying just refills, could they have possibly been counterfeit? Because this is the most popular refill in the world. Um, and I would start trying, I would get like a fresh batch of refills and try them. I really don't think this is a pin. I don't see how this could be a metal pin problem, but I could see it being a refill problem of somehow. And even if they're actually completely like you're convinced they're like completely it's don't get me wrong. Like having like knockoff refills is not like a common thing. Like we don't run into this very much, but it's something to consider for the most popular refill in the world and the sourcing, you know, where you're buying. And if you're not buying it from like a legitimate source, who knows? But even if you are buying the absolute authentic G2 refills, there are size variances and refills, uh, sometimes. So maybe you just got a batch that was like, you know, one thousandth of a millimeter difference. And that makes a difference when you're trying to go through those metal barrel pens. I don't think it's anything to do with your metal pens. I think it's a refill, especially if you're telling me three different pens are having the problem there. There's no chance. It's, it's the pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Try and get refills from somewhere else.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Or just get a fresh batch of refills and try that. Yeah. Or, or, or again, like how are you storing the refills? Right. Like, are they expanding and contracting when they shouldn't be right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's like, I actually, I had someone similarly write to me recently that they were struggling with their Mark one, their cortex Mark one. And they said that they were going through refills like crazy, replacing them monthly and the pens doesn't get used that much. And it's like, I have no idea what is going on. Right. It's just like, I was like, this is not normal. It's like, maybe it's leaking. Like sometimes I feel like there are like environmental factors at play that I don't understand that can affect these things because they're all, they're all chemistry at the end of the day. Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And sometimes that could be from the manufacturing side before you even get it, there could just be an error in the refill and there's like a metal, a metal contained refill that you can't see the ink levels in or the issues with, or even harder to troubleshoot.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Maybe it would be a bad batch or whatever.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Like bad batches happen on refills. I've seen that before. So yeah, the first thing you got to do is replace your stuff.

'''Myke Hurley:''' If you would like to get an answer about your mystifying pen question that really we may just go, I don't know, you can go to penaddictfeedback.com and submit your questions there for us to answer on a future episode. You can also send in your Muji Field reports if you have them there as well. We'll take them. If you want to find Brad online, go to penaddict.com. Brad streams three times a week at twitch.tv slash penaddict. You can find them as at penaddict on threads and Instagram and Mastodon. You can also find Brad's products over at spokedesign.com. I am at cortexbrand.com and at iMike, I-M-Y-K-E on threads and Mastodon. Thank you so much to our sponsors for this week's episode, The Fine Folk over at Squarespace, Factor, and Pen Chalet. And we'll be back next week. Until then, say goodbye, Brad.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Goodbye, Brad.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]