Hello everyone! I am a newly signed up user and not yet printing but have a question about filament off gassing reactions and found this forum full of experts to ask.
Here’s the situation. I have a printed fountain pen body that I’ve assembled and not yet inked up. A few days later I uncapped it to find it has some kind of reaction to it. The TiN coated nib, ebonite feed, and acrylic section have a white frost all over it. It’s not a powder but it smudges, I have not yet tried to wipe it with alcohol.
Ok here’s where it gets weirder. So I have a duplicate pen body with a different nib unit installed and it does not exhibit any frosting. BUT I have another pen body printed by my local library and I have installed a nib unit identical to the unaffected one and it is starting to develop minimal frosting, this is within hours. I’m also writing with this set up and the frost is not wiping off when I clean the nib after inking.
Do yalls have any clue what this could be? I wonder if it is harmful to us or corrosive or something. Thank you for taking time and I appreciate any replies.
Sorry, I don’t see an explanation, only a question. I’m also a bit confused how you said you’ve not done any “printing” but you say “I have a printed fountain pen body…” but regardless, I’ve only ever seen that with CA glue and has nothing to do with 3D printing filamants.
Can you list the filaments those pen parts were made from? Would be a good start for searching the Internet for chemical reactions.
All good Doughl, I appreciate you chiming in. I do not print. I have friends that will print for me if I supply the filament. My local library also has a city funded printing program where every card holder gets one print a month but I have no idea what filament they use.
I do have an update. Here’s a picture of the clip. I assumed it was friction fit on there with the little nub but I just got confirmation that it is glued on.
I appreciate anyone taking the time to read my post and I apologize for taking up your time as I jumped the gun on this topic.
A further consideration here is which fountain pen inks you are using and how reactive they are (insert sad noises about lovely Waterman fountain pen I was gifted which I left loaded for too long w/ a decidedly not stable ink).
There are specific adhesives used in pen construction, esp. for sacs, I’d suggest looking up what is recommended in the literature.
The damage was cosmetic, and I never arranged to get the nib reground to the italic shape I prefer, so it’s all washed out and hasn’t changed (aside from getting dusty) in a holder since.
could you please post the exact filament that you used. if I know the brand we can check the chemical constituents and tell you if any of them react in that way. it’s reasonably simple chemistry as most brands use well known components with well recorded properties.
I second the opinion that this doesn’t look like a normal reaction for pla filament. it’s pretty stable and does not normally react this way.
