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Several years ago, I'd just started a fountain pen collection when I fell into a long period of depression, which I'm just now getting out of. I finally fished my Diamond 540 with an extra-fine nib out from under the bed (yes, I know), and I disassembled it & cleaned out the ink that had been drying for years inside it. After reassembly, everything works fine (piston better than before, since I re-greased it), and I inked it up with J. Herbin Eclat de Saphir. I have to put just a little more pressure than I remember on the nib to get it to write properly...writing under its own weight, it only makes a faint line and skips. I've tried changing the angle of the nib, but nothing's seemed to work. Have I broken my nib (or something else)? Or am I just overlooking something?

Recently got a Boheme; wondering if Im doing/not doing something properly. The cap flips up, cartridge goes in, twist to bring down nib.....but it is very difficult - nigh on impossible - to get to start at all, let alone consistently. Any words of wisdom? Alex

I just opened a brand new bottle of ink (Private Reserve Avacado). While doing so it sounded like opening a soda bottle; you could hear the pressure escaping. I've never encountered this in the half dozen or so ink bottles I've used before. I've come to ask the fountain pen gurus: Is the ink ok? It writes and smells fine, but could there be something wrong with it (like with too much pressure in a can of soup)? Is this normal? Is it just by chance I've never seen this before? Or is this unique to Private Reserve inks (this is my first PR bottle)?Thank you for sharing your wisdom.

Hello all, I recently read at a Japanese pen-shop website that the Pelikan ink tank is specifically designed to cope with ambient pressure change to prevent leaks. I was shocked because . . . I've been using a Pelikan fountain pen for nearly ten years and I've never ever experienced leak. I take it everywhere I go including my countless air travels. I never take any special care about it before flying; I sometimes even fill up the tank right before leaving. I usually put the pen into the vertical pen-holder of my backpack and place it horizontally under the seat in front of me. That means that the pen is kept horizontally during flight. I've been long wondering about this, because my two previous pens leaked, leaked, leaked, and leaked. Countless times. I've owned only three fountain pens. The first was a very old, cheap Mont Blanc with a builtin ink tank and the second was a Parker Sonnet, which I was using with a converter. The latter leaked especially frequently. Say, I kept it in my breast pocket and maybe I ran and shook the pen; removed the cap and found some leak into the cap. It also leaked into the barrel, presumably because there was some little space between the converter and the barrel. (But, I bought a standard international converter which was supposed to be the right one.) I think I took it for air travels and it leaked as if it were a matter of course. Is Pelikan special? Or have I been just lucky? and was what I read about it just a myth? Are there other makes whose pens are leak-free? I want to find this out, because I'm thinking of buying a non-Pelikan pen, but I don't want to go back to the leak-fest. . . . Cheers, Ryo