I've been very happy with the Jinhao fountain pens I have in my pen collection. Working on them and with them I've collected some information that's useful to me and put it in a blog post.
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@shuttersparks Do you not have the problem with rusting? When i first got into flex writing i got a jinhao thinking it would save me a fortune. The thing rusted and i couldnt use it after the first use.
@freemo Rusting? Hmm. No. I don't think I've ever encountered rusting with any nib in 60 years. (One of my sub-hobbies is restoring school pens from the 1950s)
All the Jinhao nibs I have are stainless steel or gold plated stainless.
There are corrosive inks like iron gall type inks that you should never even get near a fountain pen. Nor should you use any ink with pigment like India ink. Dip pens only for such inks. I have a set of Speedballs I use for India type ink and calligraphy. (Speaking of India ink, I greatly prefer Japanese Sumi ink over India ink.)
I'm puzzled. I've never seen rust on a fountain pen.
Its very possible I used Iron Gall ink. I used that in most of my fountain pens at the time.
For the record assuming it is the iron gall ink, it has never ruined a single one of my fountain pens other than the jinhao before. It would definately have been the steel nib that made it rust because it is the only steel nib pen i ever used, since then i moved to precious metal nibs only.
@freemo Well, there's your problem. That's considered an absolute no-no with FPs. You can only use inks made with dyes like aniline, and inks carefully balanced for proper surface tension, pH, and that contain an effective biocide. Fountain pens are very picky about ink and its characteristics.
Of course, nothing can stop you from trying but there's your problem.
Why not buy a nice set of Speedballs? They're cheap, fun to use, and work great. Also glass dip pens are cool and work pretty well too but not so much for calligraphy where you want a stub nib. Speedball also has some cool nibs for drawing wide lines. There's a reason that all cartoonists and manga artists use them.
@shuttersparks I've used iron gall inks in my fountain pens for decades without an issue.. but yes I suspect that could be what caused an issue here simply due to the steel nib, and I think its fair to say with a reactive metal like steel you should be more cautious about the more aggressive inks that would be fine in a FP made with mor passive materials.
Speedballs are nice if you want dip pen. Not particularly helpful for a pen on the go though. Plus I prefer the convience of a FP as I can write anywhere in my home including on the couch or in bed.
Glass dip pens are nice but useless for most forms of calligraphy.
@freemo Hmm, well, that makes you unique. I've never run into anyone that used iron gall ink in a fountain pen.
Why would you? The performance of good fountain pen ink is vastly superior to iron gall. If you want permanence, use Noodlers cellulose-reactive bulletproof ink. You can't get more permanent than that and it doesn't corrode the paper like iron gall does.
@freemo Interesting. I messed with iron gall years ago, but I wouldn't get it anywhere near my FPs. I'll stick with what they were designed for and enjoy the marvels of modern chemistry, like bulletproof ink.
Each to his own. Part of the fun of fountain pens is doing your own thing. But I think you've found the answer to the rust problem. Gold should solve that.
@shuttersparks there really isnt a huge need to use iron gall unless you really need something specific. For example some papers just work better with it.
that said, like i said iron gall, modern day iron gall, is formulated specifically for FP, they **are** meant for it. There is a guy on youtube that abuse tested this by filling pens with iron gall and letting them dry out then cleaning them. The pens were fine.
In fact they are probably safer for your pen than pigment inks and bulletproof inks.. Once those settle in your pen you will probably have a much harder time cleaning them out. I know when i use a pen with my carbon ink there is a perminant coating that effects future fills and discolors future ink.
@shuttersparks I know of plenty of people who use it, in fact there are rather popular brands of iron gall advertised specifically for FP, so it must be a rather popular choice.
The main reason to use iron gall is it is perminant with good writing characteristics. Since it is safe in a pen with gold nib there is really no reason not to use it honestly.
That said I have since moved over to pigment and carbon based ink. The carbon inks have better writing characteristics i find. The main disadvantage to pigments is that they tend to stain clear demonstrators where iron gall does not.