I just received one of Kullock's "Fantasy 51" pens (my first "51" style, and my first vacumatic), and I'm struggling a bit. Perhaps someone can clue me in:

After rinsing and filling, I was left with quite a bit of ink under the hood (it's a demonstrator model, so the Swisher North Sea Blue is easy to spot). I wiped the pen down and started writing. Every few lines, a major drip of the trapped ink travels down the nib, blotting out a whole word.

I've tried passing a sheet of blotting paper between the nib and hood, but I can't easily get it far enough in to do much good.

Things appear to be good otherwise, leading me to believe the problem lies with the user, not the pen. Any suggestions?

It takes a bit of flushing to clean out the collector of any 51....
I would recommend flushing with a 10% ammonia solution in cool water until all it clear followed by another flushing or two of pure clear water... then set the pen nib down on some paper towels to wick all the remaining water out of the collector....

You filled it incorrectly is my first guess. When you saw that there were no more bubbles coming out of the nib in the ink bottle, did you hold down the filler lunger and raise the nib out of the ink before releasing the plunger?

If you did not draw up some air the collector will be completely saturated with ink and will blot like you have described. I would empty the pen, read the filling instructions on Richard Binders site (as they are more succinct than I have been here) and retry filling it. A god vac 51 will not do what you have described when filled correctly.

There should not be any need for a prolonged ammonia soak. Especially if you are using the same ink.

If you have filled it correctly, then the diaphragm is leaking.

Cheers,
SG

Thank you, gentlemen. I'll re-read Richard's instructions and give it another go. When I posted the topic, I didn't think I was getting excess ink leaking from the oversaturated collector, but the pen has been unused on my desk for over an hour and the cap has quite a bit of ink in it. So a filling error is likely. At least the full demonstrator permitted me to easily identify the problem.

Thanks!

Re-reading your original thread, I obviously misunderstood what you meant...
Sean is right....
Just another case of the coffee not taking affect yet when I read and answered you.... DUH!!!!!!!!!

Hold the pen nib down for a while -- if the ink forms a drop hanging on the nib or feed, likely something is leaking (I suppose a badly cracked collector could do this as well as a diaphram). Not drawing the ink up on the last pump of the filler will only cause a drop or two to blot, after than the collector isn't full any more. Ink in the cap makes me think the filler diaphram is leaking.

Peter