All of those blue-black drawings on paper on this site are made with one single pen. It is a very trusty, now about ten years old Mont Blanc Meisterstück. I had to service it once, that was after a rather unstable friend snatched it out of my hand and threw it on the floor, about nine years ago... maybe eight.
What happened this time was a very much self induced accident, one that really gave a nice tone to my entire trip to Europe...
I had not paid attention from which one of the ink bottles I filled my "Füller" and so what I thought was the nice blue-black anti-sediment ink I had bought in a little store in Kraków three years ago, turned out to be a rather lethal cocktail of various inks, some of them not water based... a really bad mixture, a killer infusion. I did not notice my grave mistake until I tried to make the next drawing while waiting for my plane to board, at JFK, in the evening, somewhere in the depths of terminal four.
The pen really tried to play along, but it was hopelessly clogged, dried, melted inside, perhaps. I ran to the bathroom and tried to somehow wash out my drawing instrument, over one of those motion activated sinks. How pathetic...
I even thought that I had achieved something when the water kept coming out clear. I really thought that all I now needed to do was to get some ink in Germany and that I could then maybe draw later...
It was not until I tried to refill my drawing instrument in a hotel, later last week that I noticed that the waterproof ink had dried inside of the sensitive capillaries. The pen was pulling in vacuum, it was not taking any ink anymore... it was clogged. And the ink did more damage. It dissolved the very fine rubber layer that used to keep the sensitive front area of the pen air tight. As I moved the front of the pen with a paper napkin, the instrument just came apart, it opened up, I gave up. Inside, in the little ink compartment, was a dark blue spongy thing, a nasty sediment. It is all broken now. I will need to use some other pens for a while. I will have to have my Meisterstück repaired. Probably in Hamburg again. This will take a while. I am sure.
Oh, and the graphic tablet, the one I used for drawing the 360x360 pieces. It is attached to my father's iMac right now. I wanted to inspire him to use Photoshop... hmm... completely forgot that I need this thing to actually make drawings and to do work... hmm... and this is just the beginning...
oh noooooo... your beautiful pen! if only it had happened earlier, you could have nicked into the wee shop for a new one... poor pen.
Posted by: shauny on September 22, 2003 01:33 PMyas, it is quite tragic for me...
I will need to bring it to the mont blanc store later... maybe tonight... maybe tomorrow...
: |
hmm...
wow! m-L-e! these are so excellent!
Thank you soooo muuuuch!
sorry about your pen.
i hope he will get better soon.
wish i could do more.
On the topic of pens that make us happy and sad, I need some help.
I do not trust myself with expensive pens, and have grown to love the Sakura Micron pens (about $4 each). The problem is when I travel (quite a bit of late), the pens can not withstand the pressure changes in the airplane. The slight pressure changes cause them to break a seal and leak profusely, rendering them useless.
Does anyone out there know of a way to protect them from the pressure changes of air travel?
There is nothing sadder than removing the cap of your favorite pen to be splattered with the blood of your now lifeless pen.
Posted by: griff on September 24, 2003 11:25 AMThis Mont Blanc Meisterstück, have you a name for him?
Posted by: Sian on September 24, 2003 04:44 PMOh, Sian, it appears that my world is a very simple one... I call the pen... "the pen"...
hmm...
actually there is an update on the situation. I had some heavy duty pen cleaner usually made for those capilar achitecture pens... I pulled some of that stuff into "the pen" left the chemicals in over night... and this morning "the pen" not only took in ink, but now "the pen" is drawing better than I can remember...
There are a few issues still... the ink flow is a bit too strong, so I will have to find out how to deal with that... (some of the finer drawings are made with the back of the nib anyway...)
and then there is the now missing rubber protector from the inside of the pen, making potential leaks onto my fingers very likely...
We'll see...
Griff, there must be a way to protect some of the pens from pressure fluctuations.
I tend to transport pens in little sandwich zip-locks. If you take two of those and nest them into each other with some air enclosed... could this somehow help to protect the writing instruments?... not sure how this all works...
I just noticed an ad for Fountain Pen Hospital on page 11 of the Sept. 15 New Yorker magazine. Tel. 212-964-0580. Maybe they would have the missing part. (After all your pen isn't an obscure brand!) Good luck.
Posted by: Andrea on September 25, 2003 05:19 PMWow, thank you so much!
: )
I think I will call them... just to see what happens... : )
fountain pen hospital... can you just picture you pen on a tiny stretcher, being loaded onto a tiny ambulance? :)
Posted by: shauny on September 26, 2003 03:52 AM