Hello,

After some research on this web site and some excellent answers to my questions, I purchased a Lamy Al-Star medium from Swisher last week. It arrived last Thursday.

I have been experimenting with it. The pen came with a blue cartridge and I had also purchased a 5-pack of black cartridges.

I tried the pen with various pieces of paper that I could lay my hands on. These are the types of paper that I write on most often.

The pen with the blue cartridge had difficulty with quite a few types of paper. It wrote well on one or two envelopes. It had difficulty with some note book papers. It did not write with one particular note book.

By difficulty, I mean that the pen had difficulty laying down a line. The pen would move on the paper but there would be no ink.

With the black cartridge, things were slightly better. It was able to write on a few more types of paper. But it still has difficulty in getting the ink to flow smoothly. Often times, half the letter would form and the other half would have no ink on it. I would have to write over that section again to get the ink.

In general, the pen is unable to draw a straight line. In most cases, most of the straight line would have no ink.

Having to repeatedly go back to the sections where the pen laid no ink and rewrite is tiring on the hand and slows down my writing considerably.

I tried my trusty roller ball on each type of paper that the Lamy had difficulty with. There were no problems at all.

(The Lamy is smooth on most paper surfaces. The line seems thicker than my 0.7 mm roller ball.)

I wanted to use this pen as a replacement for my roller ball. However, with it having difficulty with a lot of the regular paper I use on a daily basis, I am not able to trust the pen.

Is there something wrong with the pen? Should I purchase a bottle of ink and try with that (perhaps the cartridges are old and have developed some dry spots)? Or is there a problem with the pen? Or is it that this pen doesn't write on normal regular use paper?

I'm confused and a bit disappointed .

Any pointers would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Ajit

It sounds like the nib needs some fine tuning. You might want to head over to the repair Q&A section and read up about it -- and look carefully at the end of your nib with a loupe (or the best magnifying glass you have).

perhaps just pull the nib and feeder/grip unit apart.
Give it a nice thorough washing through some cold water... and reassemble.
should take between 3-10 minutes.

Barring the L2000, all Lamy fountain pens (that have come past my hands.. ) have had blue ink cartridges as standard.

The ink should flow without having to flick or dip the pen into some ink.

The rollerball functions in a different manner, however.

Take thermal paper (as an extreme example)
Some rollerballs have issues writing on it, and some fountain pens have issues writing on it.
Some fountain pens write differently on some forms of paper.

Have a go with some standard .. ermm photocopying paper? and see how that goes.
Perhaps some crummy layout paper too.

My Safari has had some issues with layout paper at times, yet a Swift will 'devour' the paper with ease.