Can someone tell me if this sounds like mold/SITB?

[Avalona]

So I was refilling my Metropolitan today with J. Herbin's Lie de The, and encountered a problem. The syringe caught on something... gooey. I pulled it out, flicked it onto something in the trash and tried again. Another gooey blob. This made me worried, so I went to rinse out the converter. I found more blobs coming from the converter and the syringe when I rinsed everything, though they dissolved once there was enough water.

I just smelled my bottle of ink and it reminds me of bread mold, though my bottle of Poussiere de Lune (both bought around the same time, and both bottles are probably around four years old) doesn't smell like anything. I don't have any pictures, because I didn't think to take a picture at the time. I usually fill by syringe and it's possible I could have accidentally contaminated the bottle some time ago.

I need your advice - dump the ink before it gets worse, yes/no?

[sgtstretch]

Yep. I'd also clean out your Metro well to prevent it from contaminating bottles in the future.

[migo984]

Dump it. Recently had the same thing happen with a bottle of Diamine Sargasso Sea. Thick, gloopy lumps & very smelly. It went straight down the sink as there was no way that was going in a pen.

[KrazyIvan]

Do disinfect your pen and converter with a 10:1 water bleach solution or it will spread.

[Avalona]

Thanks, everyone, for telling me! I'll be emptying out the bottle and disinfecting it soon (no reason to get rid of a perfectly good glass bottle when I could use it for an inkwell). I've already given my Metropolitan a very good cleaning with both a bit of dish detergent and the 10:1 water/bleach solution (uh, not at the same time, though) and several rinses in water, so fingers crossed that it's going to be fine. Going to have to get a new golden brown ink when the weather warms up, I guess. :D

[KKay]

I would definitely get rid of that ink. Disinfect the pen asap. I would throw the syringe out. You do not want to forget and use it then get the mold in other inks, or pens by cross contamination.

[mhosea]

I cringe a little at the thought of using bleach in pens, though enough people do it. Ron Zorn recommends Shaklee Basic G for disinfecting pens (quaternary ammonium salts instead of bleach). Amazon has it. Bit pricey but ONLY because the bottle is highly concentrated and makes many gallons of cleaner/disinfectant. You can use it for many household cleaning/disinfecting purposes.

[FredRydr]

Can someone tell me if this sounds like mold/SITB?

I'd dump it. What does mold sound like, anyway?

Fred

[KrazyIvan]

I cringe a little at the thought of using bleach in pens, though enough people do it. Ron Zorn recommends Shaklee Basic G for disinfecting pens (quaternary ammonium salts instead of bleach). Amazon has it. Bit pricey but ONLY because the bottle is highly concentrated and makes many gallons of cleaner/disinfectant. You can use it for many household cleaning/disinfecting purposes.

With it being a Pilot Metropolitan, no worries. If it were something like a vintage 1920's celluloid this or that, definitely no bleach.