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Thread: Diamine pH? Are any of their inks too alkaline for use in a vintage celluloid pen?

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    Question Diamine pH? Are any of their inks too alkaline for use in a vintage celluloid pen?

    Parker vacumatic celluloid fp (30's) is on the way to me and I would like to fill it with one of the many Diamine inks I already own. I have read that alkaline ink are not a good mix with celluloid and as wondering if anyone knew of ay Diamine inks which would be a problem in this type of a pen? Also, would a sheening ink be a problem?

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    Default Re: Diamine pH? Are any of their inks too alkaline for use in a vintage celluloid pen

    Sadly you've posted this in the wrong forum. This is the Ink Review Forum: Forum:
    Ink Reviews
    Only reviews of inks should be posted here. Everything else regarding ink should go in General Inky Goodness.


    Please can I suggest you try reposting it in the Inky Goodness forum where you might receive some responses. I don't know if you can Delete it as a post but you could try that in Edit Post
    Regards, Chrissy | My Review Blog: inkyfountainpens

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    Default Re: Diamine pH? Are any of their inks too alkaline for use in a vintage celluloid pen

    Thank you! I will repost in the correct forum.

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    Default Re: Diamine pH? Are any of their inks too alkaline for use in a vintage celluloid pen

    It is more the rubber sac instead of the celluloid.

    Sac/lever pens should avoid at all costs any supersaturated ink.......and Diamine must make well over 200 inks, so some could be supersaturated.

    Noodler is a well known supersaturated ink maker.

    Old time rubber sac's lasted 30-40 up to 60 years. I had one mush out at 62-64 years in the lever of the Esterbrook DJ was from 1948-52.

    Now one is lucky to get 10 years out of them.

    Supersaturated inks can eat a sac in days or a couple weeks. Reputable repairmen do not warrant their sac work if the user insists on using supersaturated inks.
    Use classic inks, Pelikan, Lamy, Herbin, or Diamine shading inks ...........if an ink shades it can not be supersaturated.
    (MB is too expensive...a real rip off. I watched them go from E-13 in the new bigger bottle up to E-15 and that was OK, then a 3-4 years ago they jumped to E-19 and the very next year to E23 and that was long before Inflation hit us. )
    The Japanese inks in Germany were going for E25, GvFC and Cd'A inks were going for @ E-30 so MB decided to keep up with the Jones.
    R&K makes very good inks.....

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    Default Re: Diamine pH? Are any of their inks too alkaline for use in a vintage celluloid pen

    Quote Originally Posted by BoBo Olson View Post
    if an ink shades it can not be supersaturated.
    Just because you keep repeating this crap it doesn't make it true.

    I've had very few inks that couldn't have shading coaxed out of them with the right pen and paper combination, and yes that includes Penman Sapphire, OS Nitrogen, and other over-the-top saturated inks.

    (also, not all Noodlers inks are super saturated-some are specifically meant to shade or at least shade in certain ways...)

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    Default Re: Diamine pH? Are any of their inks too alkaline for use in a vintage celluloid pen

    This was originally posted in the wrong forum (it isn't an ink review) then corrected by the OP and reposted into the Inky Thoughts forum.
    @BoBo Olsen if you wish to respond to the OP then rather than resurrecting this thread you might resurrect the other one that was posted.
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    Default Re: Diamine pH? Are any of their inks too alkaline for use in a vintage celluloid pen

    Quote Originally Posted by bunnspecial View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by BoBo Olson View Post
    if an ink shades it can not be supersaturated.
    Just because you keep repeating this crap it doesn't make it true.

    I've had very few inks that couldn't have shading coaxed out of them with the right pen and paper combination, and yes that includes Penman Sapphire, OS Nitrogen, and other over-the-top saturated inks.

    (also, not all Noodlers inks are super saturated-some are specifically meant to shade or at least shade in certain ways...)
    Also ink saturation has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with alkalinity or acidity so the ill placed and off topic resurrection post that you quoted is also inaccurate on that aspect.
    Last edited by Chrissy; September 8th, 2022 at 12:29 AM.
    Regards, Chrissy | My Review Blog: inkyfountainpens

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    Default Re: Diamine pH? Are any of their inks too alkaline for use in a vintage celluloid pen

    Quote Originally Posted by Chrissy View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by bunnspecial View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by BoBo Olson View Post
    if an ink shades it can not be supersaturated.
    Just because you keep repeating this crap it doesn't make it true.

    I've had very few inks that couldn't have shading coaxed out of them with the right pen and paper combination, and yes that includes Penman Sapphire, OS Nitrogen, and other over-the-top saturated inks.

    (also, not all Noodlers inks are super saturated-some are specifically meant to shade or at least shade in certain ways...)
    Also ink saturation has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with alkalinity or acidity so the ill placed and off topic resurrection post that you quoted is also inaccurate on that aspect.
    Never actually count on BoBo for anything more than incoherent rambling...but ink chemistry is a lot more complicated than the one size fits all that too many people ascribe to it.

    I'm not convinced that pH alone is indicative of any sort of compatibility, especially as there's no reason(chemically) that any particular pH outside extremes is harmful to latex rubber or any type of plastic.

    Inks end up at the pH they do for a variety of reasons. The classic washable blue is very acidic because the color of the dye used(acid blue #93) is strongest at low pH. Many times solubility of certain substances is pH dependent. High pHs impart some useful characteristics to ink, including feather resistance and making them feel lubricated.

    Japanese inks often have high pHs and are sometimes villified in sac failure. We can't attribute it to high dye loading necessarily as some Japanese inks are very saturated and some not at all. I suspect that the failures are related to certain components that just happen to often be used in Japanese inks(and could certainly turn up in others) but I have no idea specifically what those components are.

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    Default Re: Diamine pH? Are any of their inks too alkaline for use in a vintage celluloid pen

    Reputable repairmen do not warrant their sac work if the user insists on using supersaturated inks.
    I've seen that before, but don't know anyone that is doing that. Not that they don't but I'm not. But, because I can't control the materials that are used in the sacs (though the Pen Sac Co, who's sacs I've used for over 30 years, and they're very good sacs), nor the ink that the customer chooses to put in their pen, I warranty the sacs for 90 days. The rest of the work is 1 year.

    To the above post. The problem is what is used to make the color, i.e. as you say "Certain components." Copper has been mentioned. I've found a pattern of red inks or inks that contain red causing like purple or brown, causing premature sac failure. One client used Omas red, and it killed the sacs in his snorkel in about a month. The warranty repair went back with the warning not to use that ink again, because I wouldn't keep replacing sacs because they did!

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    Default Re: Diamine pH? Are any of their inks too alkaline for use in a vintage celluloid pen

    Thank you Ron,
    To the above post. The problem is what is used to make the color, i.e. as you say "Certain components." Copper has been mentioned. I've found a pattern of red inks or inks that contain red causing like purple or brown, causing premature sac failure. One client used Omas red, and it killed the sacs in his snorkel in about a month. The warranty repair went back with the warning not to use that ink again, because I wouldn't keep replacing sacs because they did! """"

    A long time ago, I read what I said...said by others, on the other com.

    Bunn knows his pocket watches..............

    I only have 90-95 inks, 40 papers and 70 (of 90 or so) working pens. I'm not going to waste my time inking and cleaning pens, to show him, regular flex obliques don't give as much line variation as semi-flex obliques. That is why he pot shots me any time he can. He believes.............perhaps he has a very light hand.

    I don't, sort of medium/medium-light, so I get more line variation out of semi-flex than regular flex.

    I have Bunn on my ignore list on the other com...I'll have to find out how to do that here.
    Last edited by BoBo Olson; September 9th, 2022 at 04:45 PM.

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    Default Re: Diamine pH? Are any of their inks too alkaline for use in a vintage celluloid pen

    Quote Originally Posted by BoBo Olson View Post
    Thank you Ron,
    To the above post. The problem is what is used to make the color, i.e. as you say "Certain components." Copper has been mentioned. I've found a pattern of red inks or inks that contain red causing like purple or brown, causing premature sac failure. One client used Omas red, and it killed the sacs in his snorkel in about a month. The warranty repair went back with the warning not to use that ink again, because I wouldn't keep replacing sacs because they did! """"

    A long time ago, I read what I said...said by others, on the other com.

    Bunn knows his pocket watches..............

    I only have 90-95 inks, 40 papers and 70 (of 90 or so) working pens. I'm not going to waste my time inking and cleaning pens, to show him, regular flex obliques don't give as much line variation as semi-flex obliques. That is why he pot shots me any time he can. He believes.............perhaps he has a very light hand.

    I don't, sort of medium/medium-light, so I get more line variation out of semi-flex than regular flex.

    I have Bunn on my ignore list on the other com...I'll have to find out how to do that here.
    Wow, so much here, and it's a shame that you resort to the ignore list rather than daring have your opinions challenged.

    For the record too, I take what you call "pot shots" when I see you post complete nonsense, which you do on regular occasions.

    Now to your statement quoted above-you claim on the other site that modern obliques don't show line variation. You don't say anything about semi-maxi-pad-flex(with wings!) or whatever the heck something is on your incomprehensible scale of flex. Unlike your strategy of posting 100 photos of other people's work, I have actually shown real writing samples from my own pens to show that what you're saying is wrong.

    Incidentally too you're wrong about a lot of things. If you'd actually bother trying this stuff for yourself you'd see that shading doesn't "require" a certain weight paper as you like to claim, or that an ink can in fact both sheen and shade or all of this other stuff you like to claim that's just not true.

    By the way, I guess I do have a light hand or defective pens as I don't perceive most of the pens you claim should be flexible or whatever the heck term you use them as being all that flexible. Even the pens I've bought as "wet noodles" I have no trouble using unflexed. Very rare have I found a pen I couldn't use for sustained periods unflexed...

    In more general terms, though, you have a nasty habit of being insulting to anyone who doesn't see things exactly as you do or who doesn't have the same preference toward pens as you do. Anyone who says anything good about stiff nibs must be a "ball point barbarian." Anyone who doesn't buy pens by waiting them out on Ebay auctions is an "idiot." Thank goodness at least one moderator over there saw through your crap enough to actually address it.

    So yeah, block me, but I think you'll also pretty quickly find you'll end of blocking most of the people on this site. Unlike over there, people can AND WILL call people out on the kind of nonsense you post regularly.
    Last edited by bunnspecial; September 9th, 2022 at 07:24 PM.

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    Default Re: Diamine pH? Are any of their inks too alkaline for use in a vintage celluloid pen

    Thank you bunnspecial - I'm sure I'm also one of the damned ignored, which is fine by me. I think it's the forum equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and singing la la la very loudly rather than trying to have an intelligent conversation, but that's the sort of playground behaviour that some never quite manage to get past.

    I genuinely tried to understand some of the gibberish about nibs, but I'm over it. I never even got started on the ink rants - they're so nonsensical as to be not just bewildering but almost funny, and I've got better things to do than deal with that level of intransigence.

    If anyone can ever manage to translate any of it, I'm happy to listen.

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    Default Re: Diamine pH? Are any of their inks too alkaline for use in a vintage celluloid pen

    Sorry to generalize, but the concentration of dye is rather high in many Diamine inks which makes it not the best choice for vintage pens imho - either with or without sacs.
    That said I love Diamine inks. But for vintage pens Pelikan Royal Blue (my top choice), Waterman (Serenity, Mysterious, Black) and eventually some GvFC or some of R&K are my preferred choice.

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    Default Re: Diamine pH? Are any of their inks too alkaline for use in a vintage celluloid pen

    Quote Originally Posted by aurore View Post
    Sorry to generalize, but the concentration of dye is rather high in many Diamine inks which makes it not the best choice for vintage pens imho - either with or without sacs.
    That said I love Diamine inks. But for vintage pens Pelikan Royal Blue (my top choice), Waterman (Serenity, Mysterious, Black) and eventually some GvFC or some of R&K are my preferred choice.

    Classic inks can’t go wrong with it.

    Personally I give nothing about the ph value of an ink, imho it does not matter.
    I think Noodler’s started this “PH neutral” marketing gag, and in my eyes exactly this is it, a marketing gag.
    Inks in the past also were far off neutral in both directions in the past, worked just fine in any pen.

    E.g. trusted Pelikan 4001 Royal Blue has a ph of 2.75, nobody would claim that one as an dangerous ink.
    Pelikan 4001 Black has e.g. 8.5 to name a ink above neutral.

    I use all inks in all of my vintage pens, not a single one took damage from it.
    Some inks can be nasty to clean out, especially highly saturated ones, but I don’t think that they would harm a pen substantially.

    And actually there is no proof at all that an ink which is sold as suitable for fountain pens would reproducible damage a pen.
    An ink company would be in really deep trouble if there would be a proof that one of their inks harm a pen (not talking about staining).
    The product reliability claims and further reputation loss would seriously damage such an ink company.

    With sac pens the thing might be a little bit different, I definitely can imagine that some inks do not harmonize with specific sacs.

    But to be honest, I’m not too concerned about premature sac fails, I have only a couple of sac pens, and one fails I just replace it, no big deal.

    Ron, I think your policy would not work if you would be located in the EU.
    Here you have to warrant for 2 years for your work, in the first 6 month itˋs even more strict, you as seller have to proof that the the customer did something wrong which causes the failure if you want decline warranty, and I doubt claiming the customer used a in your eyes wrong fountain pen ink would be an valid argument.
    In general this means in the first 6 months the seller has almost no chance to decline warranty if the customer didn’t do something really obvious stupid.

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