Sheaffer Skrip Black woes

[azkid]

** solved — see end of post **

I bought a vintage Skripsert pen early on and then got some Skrip Black cartridges from Staples nearby.

I've had the worst experience with this ink. The pen wrote way too wet resulting in feathering on even good quality paper such as Clairefontaine papier velouté. Dry times were in the minutes.

I have been able to adjust the nib to reduce flow considerably. With very light pressure the pen barely lays down any ink. (Below top: almost no pressure; bottom: my normal writing pressure).

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180911/2c5a3c3279af77572407c07a2d7035b2.jpg

The feathering is gone but tiny ink pools take over a minute to dry (!)

I expected Skrip Black to behave way better than what I am seeing.

Is it possible I got a bad/stale batch of cartridges?

Has anyone else had this experience?

** May 29, 2019 — solved **

The nib on this pen is extremely difficult to tune for flow but I was finally able to get it working properly with the Skrip Black cartridges. My experience tuning other nibs was a big help.

I know I've got it tuned right because the ink dries quickly and I don't see feathering, both indicating it isn't flowing too much. At the same time, the nib feels lubricated and the line color isn't too faint indicating it isn't flowing too dry either.

I'm very happy to finally have this pen working with its native ink!

[KKay]

No, I did not have that problem with a couple of those cartridges at all. You could try to get your money back. Talk to the store about it.

[azkid]

Thanks. That's a good thought.

It might be the pen but cannot presently eliminate that possiblity as I have no other Skrip pens to test with and no converter or syringe to try different ink brands.

Maybe I will try picking up a cheap modern Sheaffer and/or converter ... Cuz, not enough pens yet. *rolls eyes* :D

[Sailor Kenshin]

Can you show a picture of your Skripsert?

[Chrissy]

I tend to not use black inks so have never tried any Sheaffer black.

Are the cartridges new or old stock? If they look less than full, they could be older, in which case, you could try adding a little water into them using a syringe. :)

Were all Skripsert pens C/C pens to start with?

[azkid]

Can you show a picture of your Skripsert?https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180913/86b4d396d4d1ebfe6d96401b8f54a4a0.jpg

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180913/00be973f55f9ac9ff5e8a64c32e385a7.jpg

[Sailor Kenshin]

Thanks. Have you used the pen with other inks, and if so, what was the result? (I think I have a Skripsert, too).

[azkid]

Thanks, SK -- I don't have a converter yet. I will get one later.

I have only tried Skrip black so far. I'll buy some Skrip blue to try, too.

I ordered another Sheaffer cartridge pen (different model) to try out as well.

[Sailor Kenshin]

That looks brand-new; great find.

I guess you flushed the Skripsert first, and checked the tines? Be aware that I HAVE used standard international carts in my Sheaffer pens, and they stay on. If you have a standard international converter, maybe try that (if it fits inside the Skripsert body) with an ink you know works well?

[carlos.q]

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180913/86b4d396d4d1ebfe6d96401b8f54a4a0.jpg

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180913/00be973f55f9ac9ff5e8a64c32e385a7.jpg

Amazing coincidence! Last week I bought a pen just like this one, including box, instructions and two dried up cartridges. I still haven't put the nib in the ultrasound but it looks like it was never used.

[azkid]

It is definitely lightly used, but not unused. When I got it, the feed and nib were gunked up with dried ink but all that cleared up in the ultrasonic cleaner and some flushing.

I'll try one of my international converters and see how it goes.

[azkid]

My "new" Sheaffer arrived and it is working just fine with the store bought Skrip cartridges.

That suggests the problem lies with the first pen writing way too wet for whatever reason.

[Sailor Kenshin]

If you have any desert-dry inks, now's their big chance.

[azkid]

Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Black is once again the cure. My syringe arrived and I filled an empty cartridge. Flow is reduced to a usable degree with much faster dry times and no feathering.

The pen is really nice to write with now. I guess I will keep it around after all.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180925/f09ce6cc31e326a3f08ac41c65711597.jpg

[azkid]

Being stubborn and obsessive I have since done some additional nib tuning, aligning and smoothing on the pen over the last couple of days. I wanted the option to use Skrip ink cartridges, gosh darnit!

After some effort I achieved medium-dry flow with the Skrip ink. Yet it still feathered on my Clairefontaine bullet journal paper, 90gsm Vélin Velouté as you can see below.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20181031/9ce0fd8f44a28d371ac071dba80e555b.jpg

I like the size, cost, ruling and layout of the journal. The paper? Not so much. All my pens feel draggy on it, like rolling a ball on carpet, this Sheaffer being the worst of them all. Adding to the misery, the paper is overly absorbent, too; my XF nibs write F or FM. And some inks, like Pilot Black and Quink Black, tend to feather if too much ink is laid down.

Why they couldn't use the same, spectacular Velouté as found in all my other Clairefontaine notebooks I shall never comprehend.

But I digress. Where were we? Ah. Feathering. If I tuned the flow of this nib any drier, the pen was intolerable: ink came out light grey and the pen felt even more bogged down than ever.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20181031/f80d0e4ba84f5826d99cc9984fa8c0f4.jpg

I further aligned and polished the nib hoping this would reduce drag and it did. The pen was now tolerable to use with Skrip on this paper.

Meanwhile it was a true joy to use on all my other notebooks. This firm fine nib, for whatever reason, allows me to write more quickly than with other pens, tidies up my ugly penmanship, and produces some pleasing line variation and flow rates within a small range of natural writing pressures.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20181031/2e36a0bff7821b0a3330e3e6ed28ea6a.jpg

I once again experimented with Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Black. Despite better lubrication, it now came out grey, as expected. One more experiment remained.

I filled an empty cartridge with Iroshizuku Take-sumi and, as with other dry, unlubricated pens, the the nib became pleasant to use on this accursed notebook.

I now have a converter on the way.

[azkid]

I updated the first post to say that I finally got this Skripsert working with the Skrip Black cartridges. Yay!

Since the post above I've had a few more nib tuning sessions, tried a few other inks.

Ultimately I just had to be a bit more persistent and adjust more gradually to get the flow dialed in perfectly for Skrip Black.

[awa54]

I have several of these small conical nibbed cartridge only Sheaffers and they are by far the least reliable of any Sheaffer pens I've owned... I have one in sage green (*great* looking pen!!) that has an extra fine nib and it barely writes, unless the ink in use is very wet writing. My black one has a fat medium nib and works moderately well, though inkflow stops the second there is any tine flex, the red one is a bit better, but still fussy compared to literally *any* other model of Sheaffer I own (more than fifty pens?) and all suffer from so-so cap sealing, which means dried out nibs after just a day or two... for reference I have a Compact II from that same time period that started and wrote perfectly after being inked and forgotten for almost two *years* !

I kinda take the "literally any Sheaffer" comment back... I have one of the mini-nib Imperial I cartridge pens from that period (looks like a cross between a Pilot 2a and a Montblanc 32) and it also has very mediocre ink flow characteristics.

This all may be bad luck on my part though, as I have several Imperial II touchdown fillers that appear to feature the same small conical nib and feed as your cartridge pen and they all write very well.


How did you adjust your pen? to really get any tine movement without risking feed damage you ought to remove the nib from the section (threads on/off of course) or remove the feed from the section... I think all of mine can trace their "issues" to poor feed interface, which might require altering the feed to allow it to seat into the section a whisker deeper (heat conformation seemed like an invitation to disaster, despite being possible, since the feeds are BHR). In any case, I never pursued an in-depth tuning on any but the green pen, which being essentially a needlepoint had no flow and terrible scratchiness if the tines were gapped any wider than snugly together.

[azkid]

I adjusted it with the typical techniques. Side pressure on the tines to close, or down pressure to open.

Very little adjustment is needed to change the flow significantly, making tuning tedious and frustrating.

Mine has fortunately been very reliable. But the more I write with Skrip Black the more I hate it. It is the worst ink I have ever used by a large margin.

It will actually feather on the best fountain pen papers I have unless I tune the pen so dry that the nib drags unpleasantly across the page. I've tried smoothing the nib further and it doesn't help enough. It simply needs a better ink.

The pen has worked nicely with other, better inks but it is a pain to have to syringe fill cartridges. I do like the nib with a good ink and proper flow. So I am going to see about getting a Crest or something else with the Triumph nib and see if that works out better.

[awa54]

I adjusted it with the typical techniques. Side pressure on the tines to close, or down pressure to open.

Very little adjustment is needed to change the flow significantly, making tuning tedious and frustrating.

Mine has fortunately been very reliable. But the more I write with Skrip Black the more I hate it. It is the worst ink I have ever used by a large margin.

It will actually feather on the best fountain pen papers I have unless I tune the pen so dry that the nib drags unpleasantly across the page. I've tried smoothing the nib further and it doesn't help enough. It simply needs a better ink.

The pen has worked nicely with other, better inks but it is a pain to have to syringe fill cartridges. I do like the nib with a good ink and proper flow. So I am going to see about getting a Crest or something else with the Triumph nib and see if that works out better.


Interesting... I hardly ever use straight up black and haven't tried the newer Sheaffer black, but pre-Slovenia Sheaffer black was trouble free in my memory. The other thing that I find odd is that you had to polish the nib to get smooth writing performance, even dry my misbehaving relatives of your pen had typical Sheaffer smoothness.

I soured on Sheaffer inks when they changed origin, not because of poor performance, but because I was used to the old color palette and it made me grumpy to lose those colors, especially since the brown, blue and blue-black replacements were not to my taste. The good news is that the new cartridges stay well sealed to the pen for many more refill cycles than the old US made carts, so refilling them is a fairly satisfying solution, at least for me...