What could be wrong (or dirty or clogging) a nib? Or the space between tines? The pen won't write but ink comes out readily from the sides and vent hole

[nutellacrepe]

What could be wrong with (or dirty or clogging) a nib? I have had two Preppies and one "disposable" Zebra with what I thought was a similar problem. I see plenty of ink and if I wipe the sides or back vent hole with a damp paper towel, ink immediately wicks out. But when I wrote, nothing came out. With the Zebra, I pulled the nib out and noticed with some magnifier help that there seem to be a teenie bit of dried ink between the tines. I scrubbed it with a cotton swab with some rubbing alcohol and sure enough some ink-color staining on the swab. I "deform" the nib a little bit to expose the inner-edges to the alcohol. I put the Zebra back together, and all is fine.

 

I did the same with a Preppy, but it's still not writing. I recall now this is the same problem I encountered about 8 years ago and is why I gave away my Preppys. However, I want to try again. I should note that this is clogging on BayStateBlue. The cloggy Preppy is better with the included cartridge. The other non-clogging Preppy is filled with Monteverde. These Preppys are all newer models, not the ones with the painted colors on the nib-backs. (Too bad, they are cute.)

 

Or maybe BSB is like any drier ink and I should "do something" to the space between tines? Or "deform" it a bit to be farther away from the black part? 

 

Thanks for any tips!

 

Btw, I refilled a "disposable" blue Zebra with BSBlue and it writes terrifically -- thin lines, thinner than the Preppy 03 but maybe a little wider line than the Preppy 02. No hard starts and good cap-off time. Is anybody using Preppy+BSBlue?

 

[rickap]

If you switch from any other ink to a Baystate ink you need to thoroughly clean the pen of all traces of the non-Baystate ink. Baystate inks do not mix well with other inks and Noodler's warns of that on their web site.

 

Welcome to FPN!

 

Thanks,

  Rick

[nutellacrepe]

Thanks! I used BayStateBlue only in a new Preppy and after a few weeks it's not writing well. So I don't think the ink -change- could be a culprit in this case. The ink also flows from the nib sides and the vent hole. Maybe the nib/tines?