What is wrong with this ink? (Details in comments)
Posted Jul 17, 2014, 12:00 PM UTC
1924
Looks like a bottle of blood.
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I went to fill up an Esterbrook LJ this morning with a bottle of Fahrney's Black Cherry (purchased from Fahrney's in DC about two weeks ago). It is my understanding that this ink is actually just rebranded Private Reserve ink. Please feel free to correct me on that if I'm wrong there.
I dipped the pen to fill it and this is what was hanging off the end of the nib when I went to pull it out. It's a strand of something; it almost looked like the consistency of mucus. Phone wouldn't focus on it, but I think you can get the idea.
Is this something wrong with the ink or possible something that had come out of the pen? The ink is kept in a desk drawer. The bottle is only two weeks old. The pen already had this ink in it and had been filled out 7 days prior to today. I had flushed it completely before then.
EDIT: Here is another picture of what was happening.
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You should let Fahrney's know! I visited them when I was in DC and they were great, I think this is something they'd want to know about so they can get rid of all their bad ink.
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I can't explain why it does that, but mine does it too. its very annoying and reminds me of unpleasant things.
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I believe it's a slime or fungus colony that will grow in the inks if the manufacturer doesn't include a fungicide. It can spread to other bottles if you don't clean your pen out.
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yuck. thanks for letting me know. sucks that I can't use the ink :(
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you can use a water/ammonia mix to help flush the pen, but do so quite quickly. You don't want that stuff in your pen very long. Dump the bottle.
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Thank you for your help. I emptied it right away and flushed it until the water ran clear. I'll pick up some ammonia after work. What ratio of water to ammonia should I be using?
After all of that should I worry about this being spread to other bottles of ink?
Is this something that happened after I bought the ink or a problem with the batch? I would like to let the vendor know if it's the latter so they can check them.
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I would use 1 part ammonia to 9 parts water.
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amonia - 1 part to 9 parts water would be sufficient, or a couple teaspoons in a glass, something like that. Just make sure to flush with clear water afterwards.
I wouldn't be worried about spreading to other ink unless you dipped that nib in another bottle, just clean the pen and you'll be ok. It's a problem with the batch, most likely. One could argue it could happen if you left the bottle open in front of an open window and something blew into it, but in reality, something in the batch.
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Looks like a ropey beer I made a few years ago. By accident, although I've heard sometimes it's intentional.
In beer it's caused by pediococcus bacteria, which form an unpleasant slime under anaerobic conditions.
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Looks like fungus grow in your ink bottle. Clean the pen thoroughly as others recommended. Remember to check other ink bottles to be sure. It might spread to other bottles through the fungus infected(?) pen.
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[deleted]
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That's precisely what my thingamajig looked like after laying a girl on her period..
-7
"...And that's how I became spicypenis kids."
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I was going to say it looks like that but you can have all the downvotes.
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The downvotes are completely worth it. I FEEL GLORIOUS!
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It's called SITB (slime in the bottle). No solution to it, you gotta dump the bottle. It's a common problem with Private Reserve inks manufactured before some certain date. I'm on mobile so can't supply links, but should be easy to look up. Usually won't harm your pen immediately, but make sure to clean it very well with ammonia+water based flush.
Edit: don't use inks with SITB.
Edit 2: added words that are now in bold.
A quick search on FPN and Google looks like that's what happened.
This is just what I was looking for. Thank you.
I'm seeing a bunch of instances where this has happened with PR inks.
Edit: Decided to flush it right away to see if there was any slime in the sac or feed. There definitely was along with the remnants of inks I don't remember using. Thanks for your help.
http://imgur.com/u61gUl7
Yes I had to toss a brand new bottle of PR Avacacdo due to this. I think they've resolved the problem now, but old stock lingers. Try contacting the vendor.
When I clean my Esterbrooks, I find that a strip of paper towel tightly twisted is really good at making it all the way back into the sack to clean, but gentle enough to not damage anything. Also be sure to get everything dry before capping it back up or the press bar will rust and the sac will be damaged.
question: what happens if you leave the ink that has slime in a pen? also, does the slime break away into tiny bits - like salt in water - so that all the ink is contaminated?
Generally it's considered to be bad for pens if you leave it in. I think SITB is an umbrella term, so it could simply be a precipitate due to the chemical composition of the ink, or it could be fungal growth, or both.
If it's a precipitate, the worst that can happen is that the pen will be clogged.
If it's fungus, the pen may, depending on the situation, even need professional cleaning/complete disassembly and cleaning with fungicides etc. If you've changed inks without such a treatment, you risk contamination of all your inks.
Generally, it's not recommended to simply filter the slime away. However if you really want to continue using a bottle of ink that had SITB, I recommend you decant the remaining ink into a new container and assign a single cheap pen (that you wouldn't mind fucking up) for that ink. Something like an $10 ED from India or such. However, it's usually cheaper to get a new bottle of ink.
I suggest you don't worry about this for now. Just clean the pen in question with Ammonia and stop using the ink. Keep monitoring the situation, and especially check if there's any fungus on the nib. If you want to use a different ink in it, isolate some ink in a sample vial and fill from there, rather than from a bottle. Basically practice strict pen hygiene for several weeks.
If you've used the pen in other bottles already, you may have contaminated those bottles (if it indeed was a fungus, that is). Easiest thing to do is to stop using those inks and monitor them closely.
I learn from communication and experiences so I'm slow at picking things up since I don't sit down and research everything about new hobbies. <3 so thank you so much for the thorough response!
Happy to help!