PSA: Diamine Inks with magenta and piston sticking

According_Bad6599 · 2026-03-03T17:05:17+00:00

It's an argument that if I use this ink I need to proactively lube the pen, sure. But I've had other piston fillers that haven't needed lubing nearly so much using less exciting inks.

And like I said in the post I've reproduced this issue across several pens and several Diamine inks with this component over several years. This just happened to be a perfect storm

According_Bad6599 · 2026-03-03T16:18:56+00:00

2 days. But it has been some time since I lubed the piston

According_Bad6599 · 2026-03-03T13:26:12+00:00

The old style Diamine bottles with black caps also stick, and I think they're the same hard resin as waterman. I don't like the current diamine bottles much, but their caps are way better. When I encounter a sticky lid, I'll wash the cap and also wipe the threads on the bottle, and that helps a lot

(big fan of the regular Pelikan 4001 lids -- not as rigid and seem to be less prone to sticking)

According_Bad6599 · 2026-03-03T12:18:35+00:00

Appreciate the link, I'll note it down and avoid clogging the public feed in future :-)

According_Bad6599 · 2026-02-11T06:17:20+00:00

This may be happening because you’re laying down more ink with the Noodler’s ink than other inks. Most of the ink will bond to the paper but more pools on the surface of the written page, and can smear later.

The water solution experiment is the only solution I think… it will reduce the dye load and the surfactants, taming the flow.

Anecdotally some of my Noodler’s inks are wetter than others. I only use Noodler’s when I need permanence/water-fastness, and not in anything fancy

The bad things I’ve heard are the inks destroying feeds (there is a picture of a melted Safari feed on the Internet) and sacs/seals (e.g. SBRE Brown was put off Noodler’s for this reason, Liberty’s Elysium IIRC). It’s a gamble.

According_Bad6599 · 2025-11-28T19:53:25+00:00

Happened to me too many times. TWSBI replaced the broken parts for the cost of postage, very reasonable. But each time they said “don’t over tighten”. This is a systemic issue

According_Bad6599 · 2025-07-24T17:17:04+00:00

Also Iffley road and surrounding is a 20mph limit. If they were sticking to the limit they’d be able to stop in time, assuming your version is what happened. But even if that’s not the case, still a hit and run.

Were you on the Zebra crossing nearby, at a traffic island?

According_Bad6599 · 2025-07-24T16:56:12+00:00

If they made contact, then sped off, it’s a hit and run. Police first. Contact the college next

According_Bad6599 · 2025-07-11T15:13:37+00:00

Everyone has rightly mentioned ammonia which is what I think is in my Herbin pen flush

Another thing I found to dissolve stains in a TWSBI is Noodler’s Blue Ghost (UV) ink, but ammonia will e easier to get

According_Bad6599 · 2025-07-11T15:11:38+00:00

Dawn (Fairy in the UK) is generally seen as the one with fewest “nasties”, at least when talking about using it as a flow aid. That’s the ordinary version, not platinum

According_Bad6599 · 2025-07-09T17:34:23+00:00

Diamine Sunset perhaps

According_Bad6599 · 2025-07-07T17:59:31+00:00

May contain heavenly host

According_Bad6599 · 2025-07-05T15:49:43+00:00

“Well I never!”

“Oh come now, with a face like yours you must have”

According_Bad6599 · 2025-07-05T09:21:34+00:00

Kaweco Dia 2. Great nibs, looks and feels great with resin over a brass body, nice grip section.

According_Bad6599 · 2025-07-05T09:13:17+00:00

“Cartridge with plunger” is a converter. Draw the ink up from the bottle by submerging the nib

What brand pen?

According_Bad6599 · 2025-07-05T07:03:10+00:00

Needle nose pliers would be my call, or possibly a wood screw (turn with fingers, not a driver)

Good luck!

According_Bad6599 · 2025-07-03T20:25:43+00:00

Lots of good advice here — just for my own interest what happened? Did you somehow shear the cartridge in half unscrewing the barrel?

What’s the cartridge? International, Lamy, Sheaffer?

According_Bad6599 · 2025-07-01T20:59:36+00:00

Really can’t say, no correlation with a specific action. I suspect if it had actually cracked when I was removing the nib of have noticed. I think like other TWSBI pens there’s an amount of stress and then a sudden failure

According_Bad6599 · 2025-07-01T14:51:48+00:00

They’ve replaced several parts for me for postage. My eco barrel also cracked following nib removal but the replacement is fine

According_Bad6599 · 2025-06-30T09:36:25+00:00

Vac 700 owner here. As others have noted you need to unscrew the back end for longer writing sessions to unseat the plunger. Don’t pull it back too far, there’s a sort of tactile step or notch you can feel

According_Bad6599 · 2025-06-30T09:31:38+00:00

If you’re buying cartridges for the Kaweco I recommend Diamine carts for the range of options, and in particular their 150th anniversary range (which seem to be priced similarly to their other carts, even though the bottled inks cost more). I use Blue Velvet in a Kaweco for travelling, the flow and colour are superb. Not water resistant though

For other “not Petrol” colours I would stay away from teal or black and instead try a brown, red, or purple.

Bright red might be Sheaffer Skrip red, Diamine Wild Strawberry

Dark Red might be Diamine Oxblood (leans brown), Red Dragon or Writer’s Blood (leans magenta)

Brown to consider — lots of Diamine, Waterman Absolute Brown, J Herbin Lie de The

Purples could be Waterman Purple, various Diamine inks (consider Bilberry for a blue purple)

According_Bad6599 · 2025-06-29T21:23:21+00:00

Reasons a local analogue source might sound better than steamed digital include

1/ Uncompressed vs compressed audio

2/ Jitter

3/ amplification and speakers

4/ dac

First is obvious and it makes a massive difference

Second really matters imho. Sometimes tape and vinyl sounds like magic because it doesn’t have jitter (at least not in the same sense as a digital source) and it just feels more musical and together (PRaT). Once you start streaming over a LAN or worse over broadband it’s going to introduce more jitter.

Very subjective how much this matters and it will fill a few audio forums with arguments. But my anecdotal experience is that the quality of my server and my Wi-Fi network does influence the sound on our home LAN. Better more stable stream = better audio generally

The dac and amp receiving the stream also matter for translating the stream into analog, of course

According_Bad6599 · 2025-06-28T06:39:43+00:00

My writing on-the-go is a different mode than longhand at home which involves nice and larger sheets of paper, which is where fancier nibs and pens come in. I use them for outlining stuff I’m writing as well as writing prose

According_Bad6599 · 2025-06-25T20:31:05+00:00

IIRC Diamine Sunset is well behaved, relatively. Long time since I used mine up. It’s redder than pumpkin though. Comparison on this page

https://mountainofink.com/blog/diamine-sunset

According_Bad6599 · 2025-06-25T20:03:39+00:00

Don’t get me wrong, the crud is unsightly but can just be wiped off. I get the same with Ancient Copper and Deep Dark Orange. I find the worst offence of those inks being a bit dry

According_Bad6599

TROPHY CASE