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Thread: Fountain Pens Before A/C

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    Default Fountain Pens Before A/C

    Reading that fountain pens can expand and dump ink even from the modest heat of the body has caused me to wonder: as a practical matter, how did people use fountain pens in hot environments without lots of ink blobs?

    I’m in Texas and the southern half of the state is exceptionally hot, especially in summer, but high temps can be found in spring and fall. Summers can be 90+ days over 100° F, with highs of 105-113° F in August. It is often above 85° F in January, if even for a short period. This not a new phenomenon. Contrary to what some may think they know of Texas, this was not a place of cowboys and Indians during the heydays of fountain pens. There were banks, lawyers, politicians, businessmen, universities, etc. What we didn’t have was air conditioning! All the transoms and tall ceilings in the world wouldn’t keep the temperature much below body temperature.

    Even now, I doubt I would be able to carry a fountain pen on my person for most of the year as the temperatures are too hot, especially when commuting from place to place for meetings.

    How did they manage?

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    Default Re: Fountain Pens Before A/C

    Quote Originally Posted by Baisao View Post
    Reading that fountain pens can expand and dump ink even from the modest heat of the body has caused me to wonder: as a practical matter, how did people use fountain pens in hot environments without lots of ink blobs?
    That effect is because of the temperature difference caused by your hand warming up the ink. I'd think the effect would be minimal in a warm climate. I'm sitting in a room that's 10C (50F) right now and that's the kind of situation where my hand will significantly warm up the pen.

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    Default Re: Fountain Pens Before A/C

    By venting both the cap and body to equalize air pressure mostly.

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    Default Re: Fountain Pens Before A/C

    It was 85-90° here yesterday and it’s 44° now. I suppose a 24 hour change in temp would be enough for a pen to adjust (assuming the pen was subjected to those temperature changes rather than being in and out of buildings).

    Also, it’s reassuring that this phenomenon is not because of volatile compounds in ink but air pressure from heating.

    @jar That explains the vents I’ve seen on vintage pens.

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    Default Re: Fountain Pens Before A/C

    Pressure increases as temperature increases. Conversely, it decreases as temperature decreases. I would require a substantial and rapid change in ambient air temperature to affect a fountain pen. More commonly, ink 'burps' occur with pressure changes from rapid decreases in ambient pressure from aircraft altitude changes.

    FYI: https://www.reference.com/science/te...b37da760fa9d12

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    Default Re: Fountain Pens Before A/C

    Quote Originally Posted by jar View Post
    By venting both the cap and body to equalize air pressure mostly.
    Spot on, it is the air pressure acting to push the ink through the feed. The liquid remains constant (does not expand).

    How did they do it before A/C?

    Well, before we stored ink in the body of the pen or stored it in hard reservoirs we used dip pens. Only a very small amount in the quill or on the nib would be used to write, and that would not be subject to air pressure concerns.

    Eyedropper pens did and still do have that concern because what the heat from your hand is warming is both the ink and the air in the body of the pen. This is why there is almost zero problem when an eyedropper filled pen is full or close to full. The volume of air that might expand is either not present, or so small as to make no difference. The ink, which is liquid, does not itself expand (to any degree worth mentioning in this circumstance). That is why one of the solutions to the warming problem with eyedroppers is to keep refilling them. Top them off when you get to the half-way mark or before. If you were to begin writing with a full eyedropper-filled pen, and continue until it was empty, you would not experience burping. The reason is that the air exchange through the feed happens at the proper pace. The air let in is only just enough to allow the ink out, and it comes in warm.

    One trick for using eyedroppers, or at least the ones I've used, is to store them nib up when not in use. When warming, hold them in your hand for thirty seconds nib up to allow the air to escape out the feed as it expands, before you begin your writing session. (There's no help for it if you're stop and go writing though. You're cruising for a blob of ink on the page. Sorry.)

    I'm not sure how it works with vintage pens that use latex sacks. There are ways to allow the sack to collapse, as well as ways to vent the pen that would permit them to avoid being subject to air pressure variance due to heat from the hand.

    One of those ways is fairly simple, in fact. Put an air gap between the reservoir and your hand. Enter the cartridge or converter. Neither cartridges nor converters suffer from burping due only to the heat of your hand. This is because the pressure of the air in the body of the pen cannot press in on the converter or cartridge. Hence the pressure variance has no effect on the ink and feed.

    So it wasn't all that hard to use fountain pens before A/C, at least not from a heat standpoint. But humidity, on the other hand. Yikes.
    "The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here..." -- Abraham Lincoln, 1863

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    Default Re: Fountain Pens Before A/C

    SlowMovingTarget, that’s a lot of great information. I never thought about prewarming the pen nib up. Thank you for auch a thorough response to the question.

    Besides materials damage from water, what was the hazard with humidity?

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    Default Re: Fountain Pens Before A/C

    I hadn't thought about pens subjected to broad temperature swings. I have one point of anecdata, from my time as a kid in Germany in the late 1960's: I didn't have any unusual trouble with my fountain pens (all cartridge fillers) even though I tossed them in my satchel and walked to and from school most days. Yes, there were ink spills, but no more than to be expected with a careless kid and the occasional satchel battle (my classmates, okay, probably most of the school, were absolute maniacs, and anything that was in any way insane, chaotic or dangerous was the norm). It's probably good that ink wells were no longer considered normal, nor were our fountain pens lever-filled, because both of those would have provided too much scope for mayhem. Best school I ever attended, btw.

    Anyways--I didn't have any problems with temperature changes causing leakage, even in winter.

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    Default Re: Fountain Pens Before A/C

    Lever filler pens don't suffer from heat expansion because the opening for the lever allows pressure to be released. Button fillers are more tightly sealed but in both cases it's good practice to use a sac that doesn't touch the sides of the barrel, insulating the ink from the heat of your hand.

    Heat can adversely affect pens in another way. When on holiday I went to a Sunday market in Malta looking for old pens. There were plenty, left over from the time when Malta was a British naval base with large offices in Valletta. Many pens were banana-shaped from being left in the hot summer sun. They were still a good source of parts.

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    Default Re: Fountain Pens Before A/C

    Quote Originally Posted by Baisao View Post
    SlowMovingTarget, that’s a lot of great information. I never thought about prewarming the pen nib up. Thank you for such a thorough response to the question.

    Besides materials damage from water, what was the hazard with humidity?
    It's less the nib and more the body of the pen, but yes, nib pointing up so the air can escape.

    Humidity doesn't really pose a hazard. It's more that ambient humidity will do a number of things to the ink on the page that I personally dislike:
    1. The ink takes longer to dry so I'm more likely to smear it by accident (I'm right-handed, so this isn't that big of a deal)
    2. The paper is more moist so the ink feathers into the paper
    3. My hands and wrist sweat so I need to lay something on the paper to avoid priming it for smearing and feathering


    Granted there are vintage pens where the materials should not be submerged in water. Hardened rubber, if I recall correctly, has this issue (not ebonite). EDIT: That last sentence is not accurate, see below. (Ebonite is just a brand of hardened rubber)
    Last edited by SlowMovingTarget; October 27th, 2020 at 11:02 AM.
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    Default Re: Fountain Pens Before A/C

    Quote Originally Posted by SlowMovingTarget View Post
    ...Hardened rubber, if I recall correctly, has this issue (not ebonite).
    How do you distinguish ebonite from hard rubber, other than trade name?

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    Default Re: Fountain Pens Before A/C

    Quote Originally Posted by FredRydr View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by SlowMovingTarget View Post
    ...Hardened rubber, if I recall correctly, has this issue (not ebonite).
    How do you distinguish ebonite from hard rubber, other than trade name?
    I've only read references to dipping hard rubber vintage pens in water being a problem. I honestly don't know why.

    A quick search shows me that Ebonite is indeed a brand name for vulcanized rubber. It seems I was wrong and that Ebonite can also suffer from water on its surface.

    Under the influence of the ultraviolet portion in daylight hard rubber oxidizes and exposure to moisture bonds water with free sulfur on the surface creating sulfates and sulfuric acid at the surface that are very hygroscopic. The sulfates condense water from the air, forming a hydrophilic film with favorable wettability characteristics on the surface.[6] These aging processes will gradually discolor the surface grayish green to brown and cause rapid deterioration of electric surface resistivity.
    -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebonite

    Thank you for the correction.
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    Default Re: Fountain Pens Before A/C

    Quote Originally Posted by SlowMovingTarget View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by FredRydr View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by SlowMovingTarget View Post
    ...Hardened rubber, if I recall correctly, has this issue (not ebonite).
    How do you distinguish ebonite from hard rubber, other than trade name?
    I've only read references to dipping hard rubber vintage pens in water being a problem. I honestly don't know why.

    A quick search shows me that Ebonite is indeed a brand name for vulcanized rubber. It seems I was wrong and that Ebonite can also suffer from water on its surface.

    Under the influence of the ultraviolet portion in daylight hard rubber oxidizes and exposure to moisture bonds water with free sulfur on the surface creating sulfates and sulfuric acid at the surface that are very hygroscopic. The sulfates condense water from the air, forming a hydrophilic film with favorable wettability characteristics on the surface.[6] These aging processes will gradually discolor the surface grayish green to brown and cause rapid deterioration of electric surface resistivity.
    -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebonite

    Thank you for the correction.
    This helps to explain why it’s recommended that hard rubber (ebonite) pens are ideally buffed with carnauba wax for keep moisture off of them. I have also heard of rubbing them with mineral oil, but ew.

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    Default Re: Fountain Pens Before A/C

    Quote Originally Posted by Baisao View Post
    This helps to explain why it’s recommended that hard rubber (ebonite) pens are ideally buffed with carnauba wax for keep moisture off of them. I have also heard of rubbing them with mineral oil, but ew.
    Whatever works?
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    Default Re: Fountain Pens Before A/C

    Carnuba wax may be recommended by some, but not by others. It is very hard, verging on impossible, to remove and may contain chemicals that have an adverse effect over time. I would leave well alone.

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    Default Re: Fountain Pens Before A/C

    Wax was once de rigueur, especially with Renaissance Wax, but has since come into disrepute among collectors on celluloid, while wax on hard rubber remains a mix of opinion. I stopped after waxing only a few pens; I saw no visual benefit. An application of mineral oil to hard rubber is specified as the second to last step (before polishing) of Mark Hoover's de-oxidizer.

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    Default Re: Fountain Pens Before A/C

    Quote Originally Posted by FredRydr View Post
    Wax was once de rigueur, especially with Renaissance Wax, but has since come into disrepute among collectors on celluloid, while wax on hard rubber remains a mix of opinion. I stopped after waxing only a few pens; I saw no visual benefit. An application of mineral oil to hard rubber is specified as the second to last step (before polishing) of Mark Hoover's de-oxidizer.
    I thought the microcrystalline wax was supposed to be inert. I'd be interested in a link to some complaints so I can be educated. I just got a jar and was about to try it on some pens.

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    Default Re: Fountain Pens Before A/C

    I've used Renaissance wax on some of my modern pens.
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    Default Re: Fountain Pens Before A/C

    The questions I have are would natural beeswax work for ebonite; and would it work to protect celluloid pens from moisture?
    Last edited by An old bloke; October 28th, 2020 at 05:11 PM.

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    Default Re: Fountain Pens Before A/C

    Quote Originally Posted by FredRydr View Post
    Wax was once de rigueur, especially with Renaissance Wax, but has since come into disrepute among collectors on celluloid, while wax on hard rubber remains a mix of opinion. I stopped after waxing only a few pens; I saw no visual benefit. An application of mineral oil to hard rubber is specified as the second to last step (before polishing) of Mark Hoover's de-oxidizer.
    Can you elaborate on the issues with Renaissance Wax and Celluloid and what the negative case is for using it with hard rubber?

    I realize we’ve strayed from the topic quite a bit but it was settled and this is very interesting.

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