Has anyone experienced issues with montblanc converters?

After three or four years of usage my 145 MB started to starve after 1 or 2 pages (just loaded) and required a twist on the converter to write again (for a few lines). My pen has been kept in the drawer for 6 months, more or less, and at first I thought there was some ink dried up in the feed. So I soaked the nib and feed assembly in water for some days until no more ink came out from it (changed the water several times). The problem didn't go away and I tried to put some dish soap in the ink (i use montblanc black ink). No results again. I strongly believe that the fault comes from the converter.
Thanks for reading.
Gerardo.

Hi Gerardo,

From the description it sounds to me as if the fault might lay with the feed and nib rather than with the converter. Detergent might well shift a lot of the residue of old dried ink in the feed channels and on the underside of the nib but it will not remove all of it. A solution of household ammonia in water does a better job of shifting the crud.

If you fill the converter through the nib unit with the solution and then stand the front end of the pen to just ahead of where the nib and feed meet the section in the same solution and leave for several hours before flushing the nib unit with the contents of the converter, if necessary repeat this several times.

The nib slit needs to be flossed with either a piece of abrasive mylar film or a piece of thin brass shim. The space between the nib and the top of the feed can be cleaned using the same piece of shim if it is slid very carefully under the nib from either side; once done the unit should be flushed again.

This should clear the problem, it might take a couple of cycles. You could perhaps use an ultrasonic cleaner if you have one instead of soaking, I can't give any guidance on times etc you should use on this as I do not use one.

If the fault persists then perhaps you should send the pen to be cleaned and serviced by one of the repaiers you can find on this forum or else back to MB.

Best of luck,

Cheers, John

I think your're right. The fault seems to lay in the nib/feed unit as I bought some cartdriges yesterday and today the pen started to starve again.
I'll try to clean with household ammonia & water (1 part to 10) before sending to MB repair service.
Thank you.
Gerardo.

The converter for the 145 can be a bit stubborn I've found, but I've not yet known for it to cause *flow* issues.

I think the problem lies elsewhere in the feed or nib. Perhaps there's an issue with the tines being too close together, or the pen requring a serious cleaning. I doubt it's a converter problem.

I spread the tines a little with a shimmer and I think they are well spaced, because the pen writes very well (when there is enough ink in the feed to write!). I cleaned with ammonia solution (flushed a couple of times) and now things are slightly better.

Now I'm using cartridges and I noticed that when the pen stops to write if I plug out the cartridge there is a bubble that "closes" the hole. If I break this bubble and insert the cartridge again the pen starts to write. The bubble seems soap-like (has green-violet reflections). Edit: the ink in the cartridge hasn't been mixed with soap.
Gerardo.