The Tale Of The Skipping Verona

[rwilsonedn]

Recently the Levenger Outlet had a great price on a few Verona II pens. These are really beautiful plastic pens with rather modern sculptured styling. Originally, they were marketed as Verona by Stipula, I believe, but the Verona II drops the Stipula reference. It also has a Levenger-style screw-in nib unit rather than the friction-fit Stipula nib, so I suspect that there has been a change in manufacturing.

Before leaping I did some research on FPN, and was troubled to see that a lot of people had skipping and feed problems with the original Verona. But it was a beautiful pen, great price. And the II might mean they fixed the problem. Did I mention beautiful, red ... Anyway, I finally decided the price was low enough to risk, and if the pen did arrive with problems I might learn something from the experience.

So a week or so ago the pen arrived. In true Levenger fashion, it is even more beautiful than the photos suggested. Inked it up, and it wrote beautifully. For a while. Once the nib was no longer saturated from the filling process, it began to skip--viciously. First, the dot on i or j. Then the cross on t. Then, the first stroke of almost every letter. Finally, sometimes an entire letter. Sigh. About that learning-something part ...

Under the trusty loupe, I saw that while the nib slit is nice and square on the very end of the pen, down in the sweet spot where I actually write, it has been given a rather dramatic baby bottom. Further, after reading some material in this forum and Pen Repair, I observe that the tines are actually pressing against each other at the tip. Richard Binder suggests that manufacturers do this on purpose for some reason. Maybe it's that most buyers of mid-range modern pens press hard--or so the manufacturers think--so they tune the nib to write smoothly when abused. And in fact if I use ballpoint-style pressure, the pen writes smoothly and consistently. But that won't do.

To end an over-long story quickly, I followed the advice I read here. First, regap the tines so that my shim stock slides easily between them. Second--this is the experiment part--regrind the nib. I wanted to take just enough off under the sweet spot to grind away the curve of that baby bottom, but not to alter the overall shape of the foot of the nib. With care and gentleness, I got something that looked right under the magnifier. Just a few soft strokes on the nail buffer. Not a bunch, a few!

Flossed the nib, refilled the pen, and tried it out. Not surprisingly, the M nib is now a western M, not the F-M it was before regapping. And with that smooth inward curve gone, the nib now has just a trace of tooth. But to my delight, it now begins writing at the first touch of nib to paper, and writes flawlessly with no pressure beyond the small weight of the pen itself. Unless the problem returns later, it looks like this Verona is headed for the regular rotation.

ron

[Fountainpenlover]

Have the same problem you met with, as regards my levenger Verona! I have been trying to adjust the nib and it is a bit better, but still skips from time to time. As you have indicated, it does seem to have a baby bottom when viewed under a loop, and I will be performing what you have suggested, hoping to have it in rotation. Many thanks! Not to boast, but I tend to collect mostly sterling silver fountainpens, but I do not normally take those when working outside of my home, for fear of loosing them, and make use of other pens, such as an Aurora Talentum (great pen!), a Cross Townsend (not the silver one which I keep at home), a Pilot 1911, a Twisbi 530, a Waterman Charleston Ivory, a Parker International, and recently a Monteverde Impressa (not in any order of preference, but only according to whim), and I would like to include the Levenger Verona within my favourite pens to take with me when at work, so long as I may rely on its dependability.

[Fountainpenlover]

Update. As occasionally, my Levenger Verona had still ink flow problems after my previous post,, I tried to reason why this problem should be still resolved. Realised that the pen would normally write well, but then unexpectedly stop the ink flow in normal writing. Then I realised that when I wrote in reverse nib position it always wrote, but not when writing always in normal orientation. So I tried to bend the nib further to the feed by gently pressing the nib in reverse position. With some testing again and again, I can finally report that it is now working perfectly normally with a good ink flow (quite superb flow actually, nearly gushing) in nib. So my problem has been definitely been resolved, as I have been using for about a week without any flow problems, and have now started to make use of it.