Valuable Lesson Learned

[Dalimar]

I had a field trip today to Laywine's in Toronto for some new pens and ink.

 

I bought a Lamy Studio Stainless EF and a Lamy Al-Star Sea-Foam Green EF. I also picked up 2 bottles of ink. When I get home I opened my Factory Sealed (at least I thought/think they were. They both had a sticker sealing the box) and eagerly proceeded to ink my brand new pens. I place the first pen, the Al-Star, into the bottle, draw up some ink, pump back into the bottle to release any air for the second draw and scream in shock as my beautiful amber ink turns an ugly green. My sealed new pen had blue ink in the feed. Now my amber ink is ruined. Glad is was only $13.00 CAD and not my $35 dollar bottle of Iroshizuku Yu-yake!

 

I have done some research. Lamy factory tests every pen. I did not know this. I do now!

 

Valuable Lesson Learned. Flush each and every new pen, always!!!

 

Namaste,

Dalimar

Edited June 27, 2014 by Dalimar

[SujiCorp12345]

Yeah, both my Safari's had Lamy Blue in them when I bought them.

[NevynM]

Yeah, both my Safari's had Lamy Blue in them when I bought them.

 

Both of my safari's had a blue cartridge in them, but the seal had not been broken, and it had a small cardboard ring in place to make sure of that. I'm pretty sure there was no ink in the pen...

[The Blue Knight]

Ouch! I should be careful after hearing this as I rarely bother flushing before too.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Yep, at the Lamy factory, I watched 8 safari sections being tested at once** by writing on a rotating drum, by sound. When one don't sound right, it's kicked out to a human tuner.

 

There are others companies that test live.

Then there are those pens tested in the shop.

 

Flushing a new pen is good, in some still have manufacturing oil in them.

 

** I think Lamy makes 600,000 pens a year, so has to be very efficient or it moves to China.

[Pira]

Ouch.

 

I have 6 Lamy pens and each and every one had blue ink residue in them from factory testing. Luckily for me, I was forewarned by a Goulet Pens review about them. The upside is that it taught me the habit of just flushing 'every' pen new to me before it goes near an ink bottle.

[saskia_madding]

In general, it is always a good idea to be 100% sure a pen is clean before you stick it into a new ink, especially if the new ink is a light colour! I feel your pain - it is a lesson I learned at the expense of a bottle of ink too.

[alexander_k]

 

Flushing a new pen is good, in some still have manufacturing oil in them.

 

Quite right: never trust the cleanliness of a pen, new or old. A bit of hand soap and water may reveal a lot.

[alexander_k]

... and scream in shock as my beautiful amber ink turns an ugly green.

 

Any chance of a sample of the ink. I'm curious.

[inkstainedruth]

Wow. I recall reading on FPN that you should always flush out a new pens in case there are residual manufacturing oils and such. Did NOT occur to me that there would also be ink (as opposed to used pens, where I just *assume* there is likely to be dried ink).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Algester]

the safari I bought is personally dip tested... so when I got home I had to clean it Yes EVEN OUR SAFARI can be dip tested it goes to show that even the lowest pen of Lamy is a "premium" product in my country... affordable but is considered as such infact it was a Vista

Edited June 27, 2014 by Algester

[highlander1307]

Suggest always perform the "new pen cleansing ritual" documented in these forums and when changing inks. Tend to dedicate a pen to an ink.

[lapis]

Logical... Any brand new pen can be checked and guaranteed by the manufacturer and/or store but who knows that that pen has never been tried out for a minute or two by any customer before you? The ink offered for that check is almost always blue....

[Masque]

Huh. The lesson I would take from this is... NEVER EXPEL ANYTHING INTO AN INK BOTTLE. You risk adding any number of yucky things into there. Not the least of which is ink that the new ink has awakened and reactivated.

 

Expelling air is best done by inverting the pen, so that it is tip-up, and then actuating the converter until ink just starts to peek out of the filler hole, drawing it back until that ink vanishes, swaddling the numb/feed in a paper towel, then putting the back in and drawing more ink up.

 

Still, new pens... always disassemble as much as possible and clean. You never know what kind of ghastly manufacturing process the manufacturers use, and what chemicals it might leave behind.

 

But this from someone who probably values some of his inks much more highly than most of his pens.

Edited June 30, 2014 by Masque

[Dalimar]

 

Any chance of a sample of the ink. I'm curious.

 

Unfortunately, no. In my disgust and annoyance I flushed the bottle down the drain and tossed it. In retrospect this was stupid of me. I likely could have experimented in making my own shade. :0) It was a long day and this incident was the final straw and I reacted in frustration.

 

Namaste,

Dalimar

[amberleadavis]

I feel for you. I've done it too.

[FayeV]

All of my Lamy Safari/Al-Star/Vista pens -- and I have 7 of them -- had blue ink in them when I cleaned them. FPN rocks! I learned these 2 important lessons from reading old forum posts during the past few months here. Now I've gotten into the good habit of cleaning new (and old) pens before using them.

 

 

[Algester]

as for me I'm insured that the pens are clean since its not "sealed" or does it even come in a sealed container as our Lamy pens all come in a display case similar to what I think is provided with Lamy 2000 in the other countries

 

our Lamy ABC also comes in like that... everywhere infact ohh yeah the Lamy 2000 needed to be tuned :X it didnt wrote or it was too dry so I had a friend open the tines a bit since I'm not confident...

Edited July 7, 2014 by Algester