Lamy Aion nib adjustment

[Azulado]

On 8/17/2022 at 6:18 AM, spiro2903 said:

Hi,

I just purchased Lamy Aion with a medium nib. The pen is very good, and I like the nib, but it is bugging me. I am new to fountain pens so it is hard to explain, but there might be an issue with the nib. When I am writing the nib top is angled straight to the paper, but then the nib sometimes skips and is not so smooth.

If you look at the contact surface of the Lamy nib, it is a little more rounded than other brands. There are times when the outer edges have some burrs (which you can only see with a microscope or a magnifying glass at very high magnification), which is why it feels a bit rough when you tilt the fountain pen.
I have a Z50 F that had that happen to it. I did some smoothing using Binder's method, i.e. I passed the nib from side to side, tilting it a lot so as not to leave the contact surface flat. In very few passes, the nib was perfect.
I think the blue Lamy ink is very good, but the one that has worked best on the Z50 nibs is the blue Kaweco ink, a very problematic ink on other nibs. Kaweco ink radically transforms the nib, making it very smooth and juicy. It is curious, as this ink has a reputation for being dry.
I have an Ambition M, perhaps my best nib. But I also love writing with Lamy nibs, they have different characteristics, it's all about having different experiences, as long as they are enjoyable it's worth it.

There is another issue that has already been mentioned, ink and paper. Even with the burr, the Z50 will feel soft on some papers. The ink will further enhance the experience.

https://www.minabeko.com/mainarticles/gqezlbxk0pd7nk2v9o9ndr06qni7f5

http://www.richardspens.com/pdf/workshop_notes.pdf

[Azulado]

In my opinion, it is that green part that needs smoothing. The less you touch the contact surface, the better. Avoid flattening it. Also avoid going overboard with the polishing, otherwise it will lose all the feedback and it will no longer be a genuine Lamy nib.

[Sailor Kenshin]

I accidentally posted this before in the wrong thread, but….

 

No one talked me out of buying one, so I got a second-hand red Aion, and I'm glad I did.  Cap posts fine.  M nib writes as it should.  I'm using an empty cartridge with my own mix of gray inks, but maybe I will get (or amend) a converter for my Aion.

[DrDebG]

Good luck with your Lamy Aion!  I am going to bow out of this conversation now.  

 

[spiro2903]

Let me first reflect to this thread on quality of products and price. I think in general the price is your vote. What I mean by that is that consumers (on average) will compare the price with what they are getting (quality, prestige, etc) and choose to buy or not some product. If there are products with higher quality/price ratio they will, in most cases, buy those company products. They will "vote" for that company, and that company has more chance for success. Think of it as an evolution of the fittest. Or in this case "capitalism"? There are of course exceptions, and quality is not always the thing that the consumers want but in most cases it is close to the top. As for the industry standards the "average" consumer IS the one that determines the standard. Because they bought it frequently they made it the standard. That is what they want and that is what they order/vote with their wallets for companies to build. That is not to say that on average the consumer isn't "wrong" but if everyone wants a defective product companies will surely make it, and if they make a superior product that no one wants, no one will buy it and the companies fail. I am not advocating here for capitalism, just pointing out that this is the world we live in weather we like it or not. But this is for another thread, somehow this thread split into 2 topics

So let's get back to the original one. My Lamy nib.

When I first started looking into fountain pens I saw a few videos about them and among those some calligraphy videos. My wife liked those so I bought her a Pilot parallel pen and some dip pen with a very flexible nib. She tried calligraphy for a week or two but ultimately wasn't her thing and those pens got put aside in a drawer, and with the pens some ink we ordered as well. I completely forgot about that. I have found some 20 ink samples of various companies Some unlabeled and just 3-4 ml each, but enough to try other inks. So instead of doing which I said I will do and swap only one thing at a time, I decided to find the most watery(?) ink, or the one that flows the easiest out of all those samples. I used my wife's dip pen. I finally settled on iroshizuku yu yake. Red/sepia ink which is VERY watery. I also checked my mail box, and the postman stuffed my Lamy converters into the mailbox. Must have been there for days before I noticed. So, I cleaned the pen, flushed the old ink and filled the converter with Iroshizuku and the pen now writes beautifully. No skips and no sweet spots. The ink flows very freely, and dries very quickly. I don't know how better to describe it but watery and thin. What I have noticed is that now you feel the paper a bit and is not as smooth as previous Lamy ink, but not by much. Maybe the Lamy ink was too old, or maybe me cleaning the pen and flushing everything helped, or maybe the nib prefers thinner inks. I don't know, but I am happy with how it writes now. I have about 2-3 converters worth of this Yu Yake ink so after this one I will try another ink, maybe thicker, but certainly some shade of blue. I prefer to write just in shades of blue. Also by that time the nib will also "settle down" so that might improve the nib as well.

Anyway, thanks for the help and advice.