The dreaded S.I.T.B.

[FredRydr]

After well over two decades of pens and ink, it was my turn to face the dreaded S.I.T.B. (Slime In The Bottle), or snot. I believe Richard Binder bestowed that name upon it. http://www.richardspens.com/ref/care/inks.htm and http://www.richardspens.com/ref/ttp/ick.htm

That's ink that acts more like slime than ink. I started to write a letter with my BCHR Conklin 40 crescent-filler, but the Aurora black ink just sort of gushed out of the feed at its own pace and direction. I had a Conklin 4NL partially filled with the same ink from the same bottle, but it was worse, with ink like thin black snot - strands stretching from nib to paper as I lifted the pen. I keep a list of which ink is in what pen (16 inked), and found that my Sheaffer Valiant Vac-Fill was also filled with the same ink. <sigh!>

I called an expert for advice, and was told to buy and throughly flush all with Shacklee Basic G Germacide. That's been ordered.

Meanwhile, I completely disassembled the two Conklins. I separately washed all their parts in flush solution and separately rinsed. I could see black clumps swimming in the bottom of the flushing solution. Then I separately flushed and rinsed the Valiant and I saw no clumps! I dried and placed the three pens in the sunthe two Conklins in parts. Alas, I binned the two recently installed sacs.

The suspect bottle was almost full of Aurora black, but a couple weeks ago I added about 10ml of Aurora black from a plastic bottle I found in a drawer. That was the same time that I filled the two Conklins. The Valiant had been filled at least a month before, perhaps even longer (those Vac-Fills hold a lot of ink). So I believe that 10ml of Aurora black was to blame for contaminating the Conklins.

When the Basic G arrives, all three pens will get the treatment. And yes, the full bottle of Aurora black was binned as well.