Lamy Safari M Nib And Cross Adventura M Nib...both Scratchy/dry Now...

[TheDungeonChronicler]

Hello! My name is TheDungeonChronicler, as I have recently been promoted to be the scribe for all DnD campaigns I am participating in, putting my prolific writing habits to good use.

 

I am extremely embarrassed for this to be my first post here, but I think I have managed to break 2 "beginner" level fountain pens within a month of each other...the newest not even being a week old...I am very distressed by this and I want to know what my options are.

 

So, background:

 

I bought my first fountain pen about 2-3 years ago. A yellow Lamy Safari with a Medium sized nib. The Lamy came with a cartridge converter, and I bought a bottle of Lamy ink and some regular disposable Lamy cartridges of ink. I instantly fell in love with it and have used it almost constantly in this time period. About a month ago, I was (foolishly) walking with my Lamy uncapped, and me, being the absolute klutz I am, dropped the damned thing nib first on the laminate floor. I immediately checked the nib to make sure it was not damaged, and as far as I could tell, everything was fine. Yet as soon as I began writing, the ink flow was much drier, and skipped for almost no reason. I am not a problem solver, but I tried looking online to see what I could do to fix it.

 

I rinsed both the nib and the converter out with hot water several times over the next few days, and refilled the converter with ink, and no matter how soon or how late after rinsing/drying the pen, it still was scratchy and dry. I had and still have no idea how to take apart the nib portion of my Lamy, and I have no idea what to look for to see if the feed is damaged or plugged.

 

I live in a fairly large city in British Columbia, but I am minimum two hours away from the same store chain I bought the pen from initially. I don't have that kind of gas money for such a trivial thing overall, and I didn't/still don't know who to ship the pen to or even if I have a warranty to get my Lamy fixed.

 

So I decided to bide my time for a couple months until I take a trip down to Vancouver to get my Lamy looked at and ask questions in person.

 

Now, Part 2 of this epic tale of tragedy, stupidity and woe:

 

I decided while I was waiting, I would get myself another fountain pen of similar quality to keep myself happy between now and my trip. I went to Staples, found a Cross Adventura Pen with a Medium nib, and bought it on the spot. I was disappointed there was no cartridge converter that came with it, but I figured if I got the pen and a disposable pack of Cross Cartidges, I would be okay.

 

My first cartridge ran dry within 2 days of my usually amount of writing. Each package of disposable cartridges only had 6 pieces. I bought 2 more packages of the cartridges within a day to keep myself occupied until I found a solution to how fast I was using up expensive cartridges.

 

Once again, I am not a problem solver. Despite knowing this, I became impatient and reckless. If breaking my Lamy was due to an accident and naïveté, then this was pure idiocy and un-tempered impatience.

 

I tried refilling my disposable Cross cartridges with a fairly old Lamy Black bottled ink, and a completely unmodified dentist mouth-rinsing syringe. The tip of the syringe just fit into the hole of the Cross cartridge, so what could go wrong with leaving the syringe as it was?

 

I am now literally black and blue from my efforts. Ink exploded everywhere as I tried refilling the disposable cartridges with Black Lamy bottled ink and Blue Lamy bottled ink. The 2 colours were in 2 separate cartridges, but I did not rinse out the Cross nib section at all between splattering myself with ink and putting the half-filled cartridges back in the pen to test.

 

I also switched the 2 refilled disposable cartridges with a mostly-emptied original Cross cartridge.

 

During my increasingly desperate attempts at making things more efficient with my Cross Adventura pen, I most likely pressed harder than I should have when the ink was coming out dry/sort of scratchy. When I look at the tines, however, they seem to be all right. The tines are an even distance apart, as I think should be the case, yes?

 

So I gave up on my half-assed attempt at reusing the Cross disposable ink cartridges with my Lamy Bottled ink, and replaced all 3 of the cartridges I was testing with a new, unused one. I rinsed my Cross Adventura out with *cold* water this time (I had heard that hot water was bad for rinsing out fountain pens, so I thought that might have been a contributing factor to my broken Lamy)

 

Now my Cross pen is writing very dry and skipping often, just like my Lamy Safari did at the start of this whole mess.

 

So, yeah. I am basically back at square one, and in the process, I have basically ruined two perfectly good, easy to use fountain pens that I would have preferred to have lasted me at least a decade.

 

TL;DR: Both my new Cross Adventura and my 3-year-old Lamy Safari have terribly scratchy and dry ink flow when they previously wrote very smooth and buttery for me. How they got to this condition differed greatly, and they may even have completely different problems, but I am unable to tell what the problem is, never mind fix either issue I am having with them. Is there any advice/solution you kind folk can offer me, as well as tips and tricks to not destroying perfectly good pens in the future?

 

Thank you very much for you time and your help in the matter. I really appreciate it, and I hope I will someday be able to be helpful in the fountain pen community myself.

 

All due respect,

 

The DungeonChronicler.

[TheRealScubaSteve]

Sounds like the tines are out of alignment. You'll need a loupe. A cheapie will suffice, but a nicer one will do better for clarity. When/if you see the tines misaligned, simple press (and hold lightly, if necessary) the higher tine down with a fingernail until it aligns with the lower one. It's possible the drop also changed the nib's fit to the feed causing the dryness. If that's the case, hold your index finger's pad against the nib at the breather hole and gently press the tines into the page. They'll widen, but don't use tons of pressure or you'll spring them. This is a quick fix for dryness, but you'll probably have to re-align the tines afterwards.