OK, this Waterman Liaison Brown Ebonite (MED) is not having the best vertical lines compared to my other pens. It skips quite a bit.

So I was thinking of sending it back to Waterman for a nib exchange since it is still under warranty.

In the process of cleaning, I found that the nib and feed can unscrew from the section.



So the non-engineer in me said "Go for it, check the feed channel under the loupe and try to understand how this thing will make it skip"

Very very bad voices in my head ....

So I found under my 20x loupe:
1. the tines are fine and separated with the proper width (wide to narrow towards the iridium
2. the feed channels are way too shallow and narrow

So with the fine motor skills of a dental surgeon, I "operated" on the feed channel.
I used a fine detal tar-tar remover ( from my dental friends) to gently trace the line of the feed channel (just on the surface).

The channels look of a tad widened.

I reinstalled (as in screw it back in with my fine motor skills) the nib unit and it is flowing very well (not like Niagara) but more like any normal pens now.

Initial recovery process indicate that the pen has not skipped a beat in curves, amphersand, vertical and horizontal lines.

Next test will be with a converter and see if the flow is in any way hampered.

So I thought this is going to take up the entire 7/4 weekend of tinkering, now it's done in less than 5 minutes.

Oh the joy of this hobby includes the freedom and courage to fail and it's not just a USA thing, it's global = )

As for breaking the rules, I guess technically, I voided the warranty with this tampering

Beautiful. It is a kick to see what is under the hood of FPs
Thanks for posting.

Well done! A brave and effective piece of surgery.

Wow, excellent job. I was too much of a chicken to try to do something like that to my new pen. But I learned from my experience that even a new pen might have a feed channel not big enough and from your experience that you *can* enlarge the feed channels. Plus I got to read Wim's nib smoothing guide in my thread.

So, all in all, it's been a pretty good learning day. If I ever get a pen (not under warranty or without the excellent service Kevin did at Danitrio), I'll keep these nuggets in the back of my mind to try out myself.

Thanks for the post.

Ceci

WOW! Courage - voiding the warranty and operating. Nicely done. Congrats.

Yay! Wow!

Nicely done, Kitty! And very brave too! :bunny1: :bunny1:

Warm regards, Wim

i was thinking of performing similar surgery on one of my pens. I know I can get a new feed for it (for a price of course) if need be but it is driving me batty and I've looked at the feed channels and believe they are the problem. Well, one of them is - it doesn't extend the entire length of the feed. I think I'd rather try this and see if it helps and if not, admit defeat and contact the seller who has the feeds. otherwise I'll be writing a year after he had to fix the feed when it got crudded up with read ink. it hasn't gotten much use in the last year so I've just tolerated (barely) the skipping and slow starting.

I'm gonna be brave like KC! well, maybe not quite as brave but at least I'll look at it.

OK, forgot to post the AFTER photo here.
The channels are widened as a result of tracing the the channels = | > starting from the area after the fins towards the blunted feed edge where it points to the iridium.

You have bolstered the courage level in us all. Good show and thanks!

KCkc

I wish I had my camera with me, but I will try to describe my question best as I can.

Looking at your pictures, the brass tube that is threaded at one end has a black plastic piece on the other end. When I took mine apart, that black plastic collar stayed on the finned thingy (I am also an engineer, so I will use the proper technical terminology) instead of staying on the brass tube like in your pictures. How do I separate the black collar from the finned thingy so I can get this down to the component level like you did?

If I am not describing this properly, just let me know and I will post a pic this weekend.

Thanks.