Pelikan Twist, which cartridge?

[Beechwood]

I found a Twist that I had forgotten about and thought I would ink it up. It has been used in the past.

 

I assumed that the International cartridge would fit but it wouldn't fit on at all, tried every other cartridge that I own, apart from the squared end Sheaffer, including converters and only the Lamy would latch on.

 

I must be missing something.

 

 

[A Smug Dill]

30 minutes ago, Beechwood said:

I assumed that the International cartridge would fit but it wouldn't fit on at all,

 

There is a so-called “standard international” ink cartridge, with Pelikan in shallow relief on the exterior of its injection moulded plastic shell, in my Pelikan Twist right. now.

Edited April 21, 2024 by A Smug Dill

[Beechwood]

Hmm. I havent tried those Pelikan cartridges, nor the Pelikan supplied double length cartridge but I have tried all the international cartridges that I have and they do not fit on easily although I could use more force.

 

The Lamy cartridge didn't fit, it just gripped the sides of the section, fooling me.

 

I have given up now and put the pen back in its box, pity because it was unusual being all matt black.

 

Thank you for your thoughts.

[Beechwood]

Cartridge is now sorted with the memory from a few years ago that was posted on here and the suggestion that two cartridges needed to be installed, back to back. There is no grip on the nipple otherwise.  An international cartridge is in place, I hope that the poor fit doesnt mean that it might leak into the barrel

 

 

[Mercian]

If you ever buy a converter for the pen, I advise you to take care when tightening the barrel. The barrel may well be intended to hold the converter in place on the feed nipple, and the tolerances are tight.

 

I bought a Pelikan converter to use in my transparent P480 Pelikano, but I once absent-mindedly over-tightened its barrel onto the converter, and in doing so I cracked the back end of the barrel of my pen 

[Beechwood]

11 minutes ago, Mercian said:

If you ever buy a converter for the pen, I advise you to take care when tightening the barrel. The barrel may well be intended to hold the converter in place on the feed nipple, and the tolerances are tight.

 

I bought a Pelikan converter to use in my transparent P480 Pelikano, but I once absent-mindedly over-tightened its barrel onto the converter, and in doing so I cracked the back end of the barrel of my pen 

 

 

Thanks for the tip.

 

You are right, the barrel seems to act as a clamp to hold the cartridge in place.

 

The cartridge has been in place for an hour now and still no ink flow, pen is vertical nib down.

 

Patience is wearing a bit thin when my daily driver is trouble free.

[mhguda]

I'm not 100% sure, but I think I fitted Schmidt converters in mine (I have two). The converters are, as far as I can make out, unmarked and did not fit very tightly. I wrapped a little teflon tape around the end (where it sits in the section) and it worked fine after that. Took up ink, wrote, never leaked. Those same converters fit in a ton of other pens, that take standard cartridges also.

Good luck, and I hope you don't give up on the Twist. It's a cool pen and a nice writer.

[Beechwood]

Thanks. Ink is flowing now and all is good. When using cartridges the trick is to fit the cartridges back to back as in ][ in order to hold the cartridge in place.

 

BTW it took two hours for the ink to flow, a long time for an uncomplicated feed.

 

The Twist is an odd ball pen, I think the target market is children judging by its bright colours but I get the benefit from the twist going through the section which corrects how I hold a pen, square on to the line instead of my usual slap dash style of turning the pen on the page.

[Mercian]

2 hours ago, Beechwood said:

The cartridge has been in place for an hour now and still no ink flow, pen is vertical nib down.

 

Patience is wearing a bit thin when my daily driver is trouble free.

My experience with trying to start a new cartridge in a pen that I had previously cleaned-out thoroughly has been that it takes ages for the ink to work its way through all the buffering-fins on the feed.

 

Cartridges are designed to be inserted one-after-another, so that each one gets connected to a feed that already/still has ink in it, and so the ongoing capillary action can ‘drag’ ink out of the new cartridge and down to the nib.

When putting a new cartridge into a pen with a completely clean - i.e. dry - feed, I have found it helpful to cap the pen, hold it nib-/cap-downwards, and to then repeatedly bounce it on the top of the table (by letting it fall from a height of, say, one or two cm) in order to encourage the ink to flow all the way through the feed and down to the nib.

 

When I have relied solely on gravity to do this, I have sometimes had to leave my pen(s) standing nib-downwards overnight at least.

 

Edited April 21, 2024 by Mercian
Edited for clarification

[Cjtamu]

I have a Pelikan Pura P40 FP and it’s a similar story. I believe all their cartridge/converter pens utilize the same setup. Either two standard international cartridges or one of the long Pelikan cartridges so that the barrel can keep everything in place. And the Pelikan or Schmidt converters are the only ones I’m aware of that are long enough to work properly. A little disconcerting at first but I’ve had zero issues with mine. 

[arcfide]

I have a Pelikan Twist and it's quite a nice pen for the price, and quite fun. 

[AceNinja]

https://thepelikansperch.com/2015/07/13/pelikan-cartridge-converter-fit/

as quoted here at pelikan's perch, in some pelikan's cartridge pen, the design is: " It is by design as the back of the barrel will hold the cartridge or converter snugly in place and prevent any leakage of ink. "

 

Ie the cartridge will fit loosely when inserted into the section, only when the barrel is reinstalled, the cartridge is the pressed by the barrel onto the feed securely.

 

perhaps this was the case for Pelikan Twist?

[Beechwood]

1 hour ago, AceNinja said:

https://thepelikansperch.com/2015/07/13/pelikan-cartridge-converter-fit/

as quoted here at pelikan's perch, in some pelikan's cartridge pen, the design is: " It is by design as the back of the barrel will hold the cartridge or converter snugly in place and prevent any leakage of ink. "

 

Ie the cartridge will fit loosely when inserted into the section, only when the barrel is reinstalled, the cartridge is the pressed by the barrel onto the feed securely.

 

perhaps this was the case for Pelikan Twist?

 

Thats righttwo cartridges are needed to seat the cartridge. You don't feel any grip on the cartridge when inserted ,just feels loose, this system might be unique to Pelikan, possibly to have a built in spare for a school day.

[A Smug Dill]

I only have the one short cartridge in my Pelikan Twist at the moment. (Actually, I have never put two of them back-to-back inside the barrel.) With the barrel removed, it does seem as if the (in my case, reused) cartridge is not sitting securely, and that neither the ‘nipple’ connector nor the interior wall at the rear of the grip section is providing any/sufficient contact and friction to hold the plastic shell of the cartridge firmly in place; but I have not observed any leakage, or unduly high ink flow due air getting into the cartridge's cavity other than through the feed's air channel.

[Penguincollector]

  I have an ooold Pelikan Twist that I exclusively use long cartridges in. I tried using the short cartridges but it needs the extra weight, and I always balk at using 2 because I have accidentally put the backup in backwards in my 144 long ago and had to get it out with a deck screw. I now have an irrational fear of repeating the same mistake. 

[Nyanzilla]

I assume fountain pens are not very common in American schools, therefore the ink cartridges are not so easy and cheap to obtain like in Germany.

When I went to school I always had a glass like this for about 5$:

[Runnin_Ute]

Just saw a note on the pelikan-collectibles.com site that mentioned the longer cartridges or two of the shorts. I don't recall what I did the last time I used mine.