After 20 years of no fountain pens I received a new M400 a few days ago. It's beautiful! However, I'm thinking of sending it back for a nib replacement, but before I do that wanted to check if there's anything obvious I'm missing.

The main problem is that no matter what writing angle, what paper, and what pressure level I use, the pen will skip strokes or entire letters, in particular when starting a new word with a downward or "northwest-to-southeast" stroke (like when writing a lowercase 's'). It's a medium M400 nib, I tried Pelikan 4001 and Diamine Registrar's inks with no difference apparent. One thing I noticed is that for a short period after filling, it glides very smoothly with almost no pressure and leaving a consistent wet line.

Does this suggest any specific issue to anyone? I'd be grateful for your comments and suggestions!

- Matthijs

Did you flush it with water? I would pump some water in an out a few times, perhaps there is a little bit of gunk that needs to be blasted out. You also try soaking the nib; even in some water/ammonia mix.

I've also been known to take the nib stick it up to the collar in a length of latex tubing, then I suck water in and out, until it is really clean.

Yup. Been there; done that with the 400. It'll drive you crazy over time. You can try all sort of tricks, including soap in the ink, trying to separate the times with a razor blade, etc. I tried all that, too. However, if you really want to get this issue settled, consider sending it off to someone who can adjust the nib. Then it will write perfectly forever (unless you drop it).

It sounds like the nib writes smoothly when it's getting plenty of ink. I think it might be worth spending some effort washing, flushing, soaking, etc. before giving in and sending it back.

Bill

Great, thanks for the replies. I will get some ammonia and do some flushing and soaking. Is there a recommended water/ammonia ratio?

LINKY

Water:Ammonia - 3:1


Make sure you get pure ammonia, and not some other cleaning product.

I thought it was supposed to be 10:1 water to ammonia?

I would highly recommend flushing your pen and nib thoroughly with water and a trace of dish detergent. (Several drops in a cup of water is plenty.) Rinse throughly with water after the detergent rinse. This treatment removes any manufacturing residue (oils) that may reside in your pen. This residue frequently causes flow problems and skipping and new pens, and is easily fixed if this is the cause. I do this to every new pen.

A properly manufactured or customized Pelikan nib should be pretty wet and wild, with no hint of skipping or balkiness. I have two Pelikans (both fines) and they are utterly reliable. If the ammonia rinse or dish detergent tricks don't do the trick, you should definitely send your nib back for replacement/refurbishing.

Cheers.

The pel nibs suffer from baby bottom, because they are made too round to make them very smooth. A pic from richardspens.com:



A bit of sanding with some very fine abrasive (like micromesh 12000 grit) can fix this easily. Careful, if you overdo it you'll flatten the nib, creating a foot:

http://www.nibs.com/Article6SmoothingAdjusting.htm