I have a rather strange problem. One of my Pelikan M400s has a piston that stiffens after the pen has sat inked for several hours. As soon as I flush the pen, the piston loosens. The problem occurs with every ink I've tried- including Waterman Florida Blue and Pelikan Brillant Black- except for Quink Washable Blue and Pelikan Royal Blue. I don't use any saturated inks (not my thing), and my colors are confined to blues, blacks, and blue-blacks. It's gotten to the point where I lubricate the piston every couple of flushes, only to have the problem surface again after a few fills. I have several Pelikans, and none of them exhibit this behavior. As a matter of fact, some of these pens were purchased almost ten years ago, long before I knew anything about having to lubricate the seal of a piston filler, and all have had free-moving pistons from the beginning.

I have never seen or heard of this problem before. I know people have had pens with stiff pistons, but nobody, so far as I know, has had to lube the seal every few fills. After trawling the fora for similar experiences, I couldn't any. As it stands I'm considering trying to dismantle the piston mechanism in order to give everything a thorough clean and lube. If anybody has any ideas about what could be causing the problem and any suggestions for correcting it in a less invasive manner, I'd be glad to hear them.

Cheers,

absent_minded

hm. almost sounds like the rubber on the piston is expanding from ink contact. Which would be very strange since I've never heard of modern Pels doing that.

Are you familiar with taking apart a Pelikan piston? If not, I wouldn't attempt it. Don't know how old the pen is or where you are in the world but if it's a modern 400 and you're in the US, then I'd contact Chartpak.

Expanding rubber is what I thought, too, but that doesn't make sense, as it would take prolonged exposure and certain inks (saturated, reds, for example) for this to occur, so far as I know. Also, if the seal were swelling because of ink, it wouldn't free up when coming in contact with water.

I'm familiar with taking apart Pelikan pistons, but only on vintage 100s and 400s. The 400 pistons are pressure fit and require some heat to be removed, but I'm not sure about the modern M400s. When I look at my pen under strong light, I can see what looks like threading in the area of the piston mechanism, so the pistons on M400s may be threaded in, for all I know. As for the age of the pen, it should be about a year and a half or so, as it has the newer, turbulent stripes and the seal with the three flanges. I'm in Canada, so Chartpak is an option, but I am hesitant because the barrel has already been replaced. The original seemed to have pockets of air forming between the binde and inner sleeve, so I had it replaced; but the new one has the same problem, so I figured it was just the way newest pens are coming through now.

Cheers.

yeah, that would be strange to say the least. how bizarre. I doubt ink particles would be big enough to freeze things up either.

well, good luck. I would hesitant to send it in the situation you're in as well. But I can't take apart a Pelikan so I'd probably end up resorting to that. trying to work with a constantly uppity piston would make me nuts.

If it's a relatively modern M400, try sending it to Chartpak. They usually do a good job with this sort of thing and it might simply need the inside parts replaced. Could be any number of things or it could just be a quirk. You might just be that lucky. Hard to say.

Well, I tried dismantling the pen, but failed and managed to deform the piston knob: it would seem modern M400s don't take heat anywhere nearly as well as vintage 400s!

I don't mind very much that this happened... as a matter of fact, I think I'm glad it did. The piston was driving me nuts, and the binde, as mentioned earlier, is of the recent variety that is uneven in color, glittery, and has pockets of air between it and the internal sleeve, creating foggy patches when viewing the pen in light. In short, the pen was giving me problems and I didn't like its appearance, but I was forcing myself to use it, and I have no idea why. I guess I'm slightly satisfied with this mishap because I was subconsciously looking for payback of sorts for the annoyance the pen caused me

Fortunately, I have another M400 body, with the old, bright green binde and clear window and whose piston isn't causing me problems, so that has become the M400 in use. I'll use the problematic M400 body for testing adjusted nibs.

Cheers,

absent_minded