Ink for Frankln Cristoph LE?

I was able to get a Franklin Christoph B&B LE pen and I'm having a bit of trouble with ink. I have a bottle of Noodlers 5 o'clock shadow that I've been using in it and I've hit a snag. I carry this pen in my uniform for work and after not using it for the weekend, I almost always have to turn the dial in the converter to start the ink flowing before it will write. Is this normal or is it a problem with my ink? I had a Lamy Safari with a converter and didn't have this much trouble with Noodler's ink.

You might want to try another ink and see what happens, there are certain combinations that are sometimes troublesome. I had a certain bottle of Pelikan 4001 that did that with a couple pens -- I know how annoying it is to pull out your nice pen and then it's a no go!

+1 on another ink, in all honesty I have never had much luck with Noodlers ink.

My essential is also a hard starter but I agree that noodlers isn't the best ink around. I'm addicted to Akkerman at the moment. I've also had great success with Private Reserve

Thanks for the input, gentlemen. I'm glad it's not just me having trouble with it.

I had a hard time starting my "Glenmont" LE with Noodler's black and 5 O'clock Shadow, with my "F" nib. I got an Edison 1.1mm stub from Goulet for my second LE ("Herald Grande"? I forget the name ... Big Blue) and it works fine.

If you haven't already, clean out the pen with soapy water &c, and see if that improves things. If not, try different inks. You can also get different nibs from the Goulets ... and the LE can be eyedroppered, which can give a stub nib a lot of ink to play around with.


... oops, you were talking about the OTHER pen ... the Franklin Christoph "Essential". I just saw "LE" and went to town.

I e-mailed Franklin Christoph and they suggested I flush the pen nib really well (same as Doc4). I followed their advice and it worked like a charm. I filled the converter again and twisted it just enough to begin to see a little ink run down the back of the nib (much less than I normally twist to start it) and it's been writing consistently with the same ink as before and it has been writing for five days (with a two and a half day break in between). I'm ashamed that I ever doubted this beautiful pen.

I have the Essential with a Masuyama stub nib. I had some initial problems with flow using Iroshizuku ink. I flushed it well, and haven't had any problems since, using both De Atrementis and Diamine inks.

I have been using a lot of Diamine ink lately.. I am especially enamored with Sargasso Sea.

I have several FC pens, none of them are a big fan of Noodlers. Really the only pens I have that write well with Noodlers are the vintage parkers. De Atrementis flows like a dream through all of my models of FC pens.

Whenever buying a new, and specially a used pen. you really need to flush it out like nobodies business. If it was used, and even if the person who owned it last flushed it, there may be that one troublesome drop that just stuck somewhere in the feed and dried itself into stubberness

Glad to see it all worked out in the end for you without to much trouble though

Enjoy the pen