Search the Community

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen of the Fountain Pen Network Not too long ago I bought a marvelous black Sheaffer PFM III. The pen came with an architect nib but was advertised as an extra-fine. Well I bought a new old stock nib unit in extra-fine. Unfortunately my pen writes only for about two pages of normal DIN A4 coppy paper before running dry. I had cleaned it two times which increased the range of my pen from about half a page to two pages. Maybe the change from Pelikan 4001 blue black to Montblanc Mystery Black helped as well. I also used a thinn wire and ran it through the snorkel tube as well. But the wire wasn't thinn enough to be able to clean the slit in the feed of the snorkel. Before continuing with difficult cleaning procedures I wanted to ask how many pages of DIN A4 coppy paper you can approximately write with your PFM's? And if you run dry does your pen still shoot ink out when you operate the filling mechanism like mine does? Best regards and wishes, sincerely, L. B. Hart

Hi, As I was writing today I observed the ink was running lean. Using a loupe I looked at the nib between the tines and before my eyes an air gap between the tines appeared, the ink 'separated'. If you look at the image there is some ink at the tip of the nib, an air gap, then ink near the breather hole (too dark to see). Would anyone know what the cause of this would be ? I've thought of possible reasons such as: feed running dry, nib and feed not mating, problem with nib causing capillary failure. Observing: there is still some moisture/ink between nib and feed, the nib and feed are properly touching (no gap); I'm open to other suggestions. The nib is a generic JoWo #6, feed is common generic plastic, pen is cartridge/converter. Thanks, Fabian