Urban Not Smooth

June 11, 2017

My £3 platinum preppy feels MUCH smoother than my newly bought £45 parker urban, it does not feel scratchy but just feels quite a bit rougher than my cheapest pen. Is it just meant to be drier and feel like this? or is there a problem with it? either way is there anything I can do about it. The preppy is using sheaffer skrip blue ink and the urban is using the cartridge it came in, does this change anything?

June 11, 2017

A Urban would write like an Urban. The preppy is a Japan made pen while the Urban is a Chinese made one.

Edited June 11, 2017 by mitto

June 11, 2017

It doesn't matter where and by whom a pen has been made, it does never excuse bad quality.

The Preppy is Japanese made and the Urban who knows, maybe it's one of those that's been made in Europe.

All my modern Parkers are smooth writers, at all price points. Ink can play a role, but in this case it definitely is not the ink. I'm not the greatest nib/ pen fiddler, so I can't help much, but I suspect the tines might be out of alignment (and maybe too close together), which you can check with a loupe by holding the nib up and looking at it from the side. Google it best, there's loads to be found here and on other sites and drawn manuals which show how to check!

Good luck!

You should also consider having it exchanged if you can and don't want to fiddle with your pen.

Edited June 11, 2017 by Olya

June 12, 2017

A Urban would write like an Urban. The preppy is a Japan made pen while the Urban is a Chinese made one.

Ok maybe that's a bad example which distracts my main point that I would like it to be smoother and was wondering if there is a problem with it.

June 12, 2017

It doesn't matter where and by whom a pen has been made, it does never excuse bad quality.
The Preppy is Japanese made and the Urban who knows, maybe it's one of those that's been made in Europe.

All my modern Parkers are smooth writers, at all price points. Ink can play a role, but in this case it definitely is not the ink. I'm not the greatest nib/ pen fiddler, so I can't help much, but I suspect the tines might be out of alignment (and maybe too close together), which you can check with a loupe by holding the nib up and looking at it from the side. Google it best, there's loads to be found here and on other sites and drawn manuals which show how to check!
Good luck!

You should also consider having it exchanged if you can and don't want to fiddle with your pen.

here is a picture if it is any help?

June 13, 2017

Hi, One thing you can do that will cause no damage is give the pen a flush through, overnight, with some water with a drop of dish washing detergent mixed in. This can make a great deal of difference.

Use a small plastic or glass beaker, put in one drop of detergent, almost fill with water. Drop in the entire nib/grip section, minus cartridge, 'as is', and leave overnight. Then flush through with tap water, stand the nib on a paper towel for 20 mins, shake out any water from inside, replace cartridge and try again.

This design of nib has a very narrow tine gap, and seems to work better with some inks than others, at least that's what I have found.

I've found that Waterman or Cross inks work well, but you must use the Parker cartridges or converters, nothing else will fit.

Edited June 13, 2017 by Mike 59

June 13, 2017

Cleaning the pen might help if the flow is restricted and we want the pen to be wetter. But if that increase of flow isn't helping smooth the pen out, I'd check for tine alignment (I guess you can use a loupe, but I find doing slow figure eights on cheap copy paper tells me all I need to know), and if they are aligned, I would get some Mylar sheets and polish the nib slowly until it feels the way you want.

Edited June 13, 2017 by sirgilbert357