There are several myths, legends and beliefs (mistaken or otherwise), about the love of my life; the fountain pen. Here, I will try to answer or debunk some of these assumptions and confusions.
1. Fountain pens leak.
No they don’t. No good fountain pen will ever leak. I can understand where people get this impression from – fountain pens are delicate instruments filled with water-based ink. They HAVE to leak, right!? Well…no, they don’t, actually. You see, in the earliest days of fountain pen invention, yes, leakages were very common. This caused pen-manufacturers around the world to refine, alter and improve the fountain pen to such a level that it doesn’t leak at all. The very design of the pen was so that it would not leak. As a result, no functional, good-quality fountain pen will leak.
“But I can see ink on the nib!” you might say.
Yes, you might see this. But this is not classified as leaking. A real, leaking pen will have great drops or smudges of ink dribbling out of it. Ink on the nib is called ‘nib-creep’ (yes, that is the actual term for it). Nib-creep is caused by minute imperfections in the cutting of the nib-tines, and by various brands of fountain pen inks. As I explained in “Natural, Inky Goodness”, fountain pens work by gravity and capillary action. If the slit in the pen-nib is cut poorly, and there are rough spots in it, ink is liable to seek out these spots and seep out of the slit and go all over the nib. This does not damage the pen, nor is it a sign of a poorly functioning pen, it just means that the slit of your pen needs smoothing to prevent this. If you can’t be bothered sending your pen away to a repairman to do this, then I suggest trying a different brand of ink.
2. Fountain pens can’t be used on airplanes.
There is a “Yes” and “No” kind of answer. The concern here is that the pen will leak while you’re up in the air, due to pressure-differences (remember how I said air-pressure regulates inkflow?). So…Does a fountain pen leak in an airplane? Yes, if it’s not cared for properly. Can you safely use a fountain pen in an airplane? Yes, provided you take a couple of very simple precautions.
“What are they?” you ask.
The answer is suprisingly simple. To prevent the pen from leaking during ascent or descent of the aircraft, you must keep the pen in a nib-up position. This means capping the pen and keeping it point-facing-upwards during takeoff and landing. This is best-done by keeping the pen clipped to your shirt-pocket or keeping it vertically inside your coat-pocket during these times. Doing this keeps ink away from the nib and prevents leakage. It allows free-flow of AIR during the pressure-changes, without the chance of ink dribbling out of the nib.
Once airborne and safely at cruising altitude, it is perfectly safe to take out your fountain pen and fill in the crossword on that long, 18-hour flight from London to Singapore. Just remember to keep the pen capped, and nib-up when not in use. Also, ignore people who tell you that fountain pens DO NOT leak on planes. Believe me, they do. It’s happened to me, but only because I was stupid. The tip about keeping the pen nib-up when it is not in use is a failsafe technique for preventing this kind of catastrophe.
3. Gold nibs are better than steel nibs.
Yes and no. This myth surfaced back in the old days, probably during WWII. During the war, steel was an important metal in the American and British war-efforts, so fountain pen nibs were all made of gold. In Japan, gold was seen as an important war-material (why, I don’t know), but it caused Japanese pen-manufacturers to make their nibs out of steel. Unfortunately, stainless-steel had not been fully developed at that time, which caused the steel nibs on Japanese pens to rust. Gold, being a largely unresponsive metal, doesn’t rust in contact with the water-based ink of fountain pens, so it was naturally the better metal to make nibs from. In this respect, yes, gold is better than steel. Or at least, it was true back then. Now in the 21st century, there really is no difference, since stainless steel doesn’t rust like its WWII predecessor did.
“But is there any difference in writing feel or quality?” you might ask.
Some say ‘yes’, some say ‘no’. Certainly, gold looks a hell of a lot nicer, but does it really affect the writing-quality? No. In this respect, a gold nib is just as good as a steel nib. The ONLY place where this might make a difference, is when you have a fountain pen with a flexible nib. Gold, being a softer metal, flexes and bends more comfortably and smoothly than a steel nib, which is more rigid and firm.
4. You can use any kind of liquid ink in a fountain pen.
Absolutely not! ONLY…and…ONLY fountain pen ink should be put into a fountain pen. Do not try Indian ink, powdered ink, Chinese ink or iron-gall ink (especially not IGI, because it has shellac and other nasty things inside it, which will destroy your pen entirely) in your fountain pen. Fountain pen ink is about 99% water, with specially-developed pigments inside it, to give it whatever special and distinctive colour it has. This is the only thing you should put into your pen (that, or water). Ink from manufacturers such as Parker (Quink), Sheaffer (Skrip), Waterman, Montblanc, Lamy, Visconti, Private Reserve or Noodlers is generally safe to use (steer away from Montblanc blue/black, though; that has shellac in it and it may not be 100% advisable to use this ink).
5. Fountain pens can shoot ink incredible distances!
A staple of slapstick cartoon comedy since the 1930s, is the scene where a character grabs a fountain pen (usually a lever-filler), and opens the lever in the pen-barrel, to eject a stream of ink into his adversary’s face, drenching him in blue liquid. Or maybe you watched “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” and saw Sean Connery squirt his enemy with a pen full of black ink. Can a fountain pen do this in real life?
Yes, and no. Can a fountain pen squirt ink? Yes, depending on the type of filling-system. Squeeze-fillers and some lever-fillers can actually do this rather effectively. Can fountain pens squirt ink considerable distances? No. The ‘range’ of ink-squirtage is actually rather pathetic if you care to try it in real life. You’d be lucky to get a couple of feet, or even twelve inches, if you were really lucky.
6. If someone else takes your fountain pen and writes with it, it’ll permanently damage it and you won’t be able to use it anymore.
You’d be surprised how many people still believe this. It is FALSE. The fear here, is that if you have a fountain pen, and a friend borrows it, even for two micro-seconds, to jot down a phone-number, the nib will be irrepairably shaped to his hand and that this’ll somehow damage the nib. Or alternatively, you can’t let someone use your fountain pen because the nib has grown ‘used to’ your hand and that anyone else using the pen will damage the nib.
100% bupkiss.
YES, a fountain pen’s nib WILL wear down as you write with it. YES, a fountain pen MIGHT ‘mould’ itself to your hand and your particular style of writing. But NO, this doesn’t mean you can’t let someone use your pen and fear that he’ll alter its writing characteristics. It takes DECADES of DAILY, INTENSE WRITING to wear down a fountain pen nib. A five-second jaunt in someone else’s hand is unlikely to damage it, unless they press the nib into the paper like a ballpoint pen (which will cause the nib to break!) or if they slam it into the paper, causing the tines to bow and break.
Feel free to post questions and pester me with other fountain pen myths or legends that you might be interested in, and I’ll try and answer them.
Always an interesting insight into the workings and intricasies of the fountain pen! Well done Shahan.
what do you do if your not sure how to fill your pen and your not sure if it is a cartrige or not?
That depends on the age of the pen. Cartridge-filled pens started being made in large numbers starting in the 1960s and 70s. If the pen is older than that, then it probably has an inbuilt filling-mechanism. If it’s built after that, then it’s most likely a cartridge-filler. Not sure if this answer helps you or not. I’d need to know more about the pen itself.
Modern pens can usually be either cartridge or bottle filled. If you open it by twisting off the body from the nib section you will either find a cartridge in the back of the nib section which you can replace or a convertor or it will be empty. If it is empty you can either buy some cartridges in the colour you want or order and convertor and a bottle of ink. The convertor is just a cartridge that is like a syringe that you can fill by dipping in the bottle of ink and then either squeezing or turning a knob depending on how it works. You must make sure you get the cartridge or converter that matches you make and model of pen. To see what a converter for Lamy pens looks like to to this page and scroll down to the bottom. (I use Lamy pens – hence the link)
http://www.lamy.com/content/products/accessories/refills_and_inks/index_eng.html
I have a question and this seems like a good place to ask. Someone with a heavy hand used my new pen over a couple of weeks of daily writing. Now the ink seems to run out faster and the lines seem not to be as fine. Can that be normal break in or is it damage to the nib?
What’s happened is that the other guy’s put too much pressure on the pen-nib (“the right amount of pressure is none at all”). As a result, he’s spread the tines. This has the effect of increasing wetness (rate of inkflow) and width of lines/strokes.
You can remedy this by squeezing the tines back together with your fingers. The tips of the tines will cross over each other as you do this. Don’t worry. Just flick them apart again later. Do this a few times, test the pen, do another few times, test the pen, until it’s back to the width and dryness that you’re used to. It’s a messy operation, but it works.
Thank you! This is a new hobby to me and I’m still learning, The pen is a cheap pilot but I’d still hate to loose it. I can see why people take great care of and pride in these things.
i found an old pen. i can’t unscrew the cartridge. it has a metal “button” on the end that is revealed when i unscrew the cap. but it only clicks a little and nothing seems to happen. do i ? what do i do? i liked that litigious comment in another answer to a question. (:
Hi Sean. The cap at the bottom of the pen is called the BLIND CAP. What brand is the pen? It’s most likely a button-filler. Button-fillers were very common from the 1910s-1960s/70s.
Most likely, it needs a new ink-sac. Any competent pen-repairer can do this for you.
I loved this information. As a complete and absolute adorer of fountain pens, I loved finding out more about them. You sound charming and I love the word bupkiss! Kind regards, Tara
Hi Tara, glad you liked it! Write on!!
cheers. (: charming i am. one of my habits.
When I was 11 I bought a FP for one pound it was transparent purple and used the little ink cartridges I lost it when I was 16 but it worked unti the day I lost it and probably still works, it got blocked once so I soaked it in warm water over night then left it to dry and it was fine. When I was 17 I bought a parker FP for over ten pounds and it broke within a month leaking ink everywhere and it was meant to use those long quink cartridges that never fitted so I had to use the small ones. I’ve been using dipping pens and ink for the past two years, I’m 19 now and getting a stainless steel one, I really hope this one doesn’t break but really what I really would like to ask is do you think that price effects quality or was I just lucky finding that purple traslucent FP?
Parker pens do not take short cartridges. They might seem to fit, but in fact, the diameter of the short cartridge is larger and deeper, so it will push in easier, but will not be snug. This is likely to have caused the leak. Parker cartridges require a very firm push to be set in place, and i mean very firm. Does price affect quality? Yes, but not as much as you‘d think. There are good cheap pens and bad cheap pens.
Are the Tines intact or are separated by a micro millimeter space. I am asking this because I gave my FP to someone and the person used it to put signatures (with a confidant drag to draw a line below signatures) on paper. It is a doubt in my mind that this has lead to the separation of times and the are slightly out of alignment.
Hi,
Tines are sliced in half from the tip to the breather-hole halfway up the nib. You can realign the tines by bending them slightly with your fingers. This will lead to inky fingers, however, so be careful.
I have a number of old fountain pens that although good in all other respects don’t work because the ink container has perished and it didn’t occur to me that in this day and age there were still people who were prepared to repair them. Next time I go down to the city I will try to get a couple of them fixed. I learned to write with a dip pen in grade three when we started to learn cursive script, and used a fountain pen for many years and I am so pleased to find so many people who also enjoy using a pen. I have enjoyed reading your electronically published work, great stuff.
The myth of a fountain pen wearing into the user has its value. I learned this because I decided to test the myth myself. About 4 days into owning my first fountain pen, I loaned it out to someone who treated it like a cheap hotel ballpoint and threw it WAY out of alignment, far enough that that I was able to make noticeable improvements in the writing quality by adjusting the nib (and as that was the work of a one day old nibmeister, that says just how messed up it was in the first place). The myth is an excellent excuse to not let someone use your pen if you can’t get an opportunity to explain to them first just how little force you have to use and the angle to hold it at.
How do I make the ink flow more loosely so I can make ink blots n paper?
You’d have to open the tines up more to increase ink-flow.
Hi, please help – my beloved Kaigelu 326, which has been a real reliable sturdy workhorse til now has started leaking. Not just slightly, but just keeps seeping until the entire pen is dry. The source of the leak seems to be in the joint between grip and barrel and also from the cap? I tried flushing out ink from all parts of the pen, cap included and dried thoroughly (left it to dry for a few days in fact). Now, it’s less drastic than before but still leaks quite a bit onto my hands, and I can see ink gathering in random parts of the resin near the grip and barrel. A I have kept the pen nib-side up, with cap on. Has never had any problems like this before… the only factor I can think of is that I changed ink recently, and may not have allowed the pen to dry completely after flushing before changing colours. Any idea what might be wrong? Thanks xo