My Fountain Pen Is Skipping. It Is The Ink? Help

[potatoarvn]

Hi I'm a beginner when it comes to fountain pens and I first a bought platinum preppy (pretty cheap) but sometimes when I write with this pen the ink is skipping and it kind of frustrates me.

 

 

It is the cartridge? People is recommending that preppy should convert to eyedropper. So it is legit?

Is there a sweet spot for this pen?

Or this is already the problem when it comes to this preppy pen?

[View from the Loft]

Before we can suggest answers, we need to know more.

 

When does the skipping occur? Even,y spread throughout the page? Not at the top of a pve, but in the lower two thirds of a page?

 

Certain letters? If so which? Where about on those letters?

 

Horizontal strokes or vertical strokes?

 

A photograph showing the problem will help?

Edited July 30, 2016 by View from the Loft

[bluemagic]

I had the skipping experience for Parker Sonnet before I changed the ink to Diamine and Sailor.

[inkstainedruth]

It could be the ink, it could be the nib. It could even be the paper you're using. What nib do you have on the pen, and what ink are you using?

I had problems with the B nib on my first Pelikan Café Crème, no matter what ink went in it, and it turned out that I needed to have the nib tuned. After that it was great -- until I lost the pen....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Runnin_Ute]

Sometimes oils from your hand can get on the paper and cause a pen to skip. Especially some of the fp friendly papers like Rhodia.You can put a sheet of paper or something under your hand and it will cure it.

[Runnin_Ute]

Oops

Edited August 4, 2016 by Runnin_Ute

[virgilio]

First soak the pen overnight in some warm tap water, or until the water runs clear. That will clear up most skipping. If that doesn't work, change to Quink ink, preferably with a few drops of Ivory Dish Detergent added to the bottle and perhaps a little added distilled water. If that doesn't help, try gently pushing down on the nib to very slightly splay the tines a little more.If none of this helps, you've probably got a bad feed or a bad nib in need of professional attention.

[virgilio]

You can also pull the nib and soak it is aswell. Sometimes that helps. Cartridge pens tend to get clogged feeds a lot more than piston fillers, because there is no suction to loosen stray particles. However, you can always remove the cartridge and suck up some water into your mouth to clean the feed, if you don't mind a black tongue.

[Octo]

New pens often require internal cleaning to remove oils left behind during manufacturing. The process is easy.

 

Remove the cartridge from the "section" (the part you hold that includes the nib) and run water around and through the section. Then mix a couple of drops of dish washing liquid detergent such as Dawn, Fairy liquid, Ivory, etc. (never soap) into a cup of water. Use a bulb to squirt the sudsy water through the middle of the section for a few minutes. Put the bulb over the prong that protrudes from the back of the section to be sure the fluid goes through. Next, use the bulb to squirt plain water through the section to rinse thoroughly. Then gently put the section with the tip down onto a folded piece of paper towel to wick out the extra water so the section and feed will dry. When you re-install the cartridge, the flow of ink should be much improved.

 

If you don't have a bulb you can buy one from a drug store. Ask for an ear syringe or one used to remove mucus from baby noses.

 

Enjoy your new pen.

 

P.S. If you add dish washing detergent to ink, use only a small sample of ink in a separate container. It's easy to add too much detergent.

[estie1948]

New pens often require internal cleaning to remove oils left behind during manufacturing. The process is easy.

 

Remove the cartridge from the "section" (the part you hold that includes the nib) and run water around and through the section. Then mix a couple of drops of dish washing liquid detergent such as Dawn, Fairy liquid, Ivory, etc. (never soap) into a cup of water. Use a bulb to squirt the sudsy water through the middle of the section for a few minutes. Put the bulb over the prong that protrudes from the back of the section to be sure the fluid goes through. Next, use the bulb to squirt plain water through the section to rinse thoroughly. Then gently put the section with the tip down onto a folded piece of paper towel to wick out the extra water so the section and feed will dry. When you re-install the cartridge, the flow of ink should be much improved.

 

If you don't have a bulb you can buy one from a drug store. Ask for an ear syringe or one used to remove mucus from baby noses.

 

Enjoy your new pen.

 

P.S. If you add dish washing detergent to ink, use only a small sample of ink in a separate container. It's easy to add too much detergent.

+1. Great advice. It seems to me that there is less effort on the part of the manufacturers to be sure the new pen is clean of oils now days. This is especially true when the nib is made in one place, stored, transported to another assembly point, and assembled in the pen. This is true because, like nibs for dip pens, they are often lightly coated with a very light oil to prevent the start of rust or corrosion before use. Ink (which is primarily water) does not mix with even the tiniest, lightest oil.

It is great advice to, when one gets a new c/c fountain pen, go through this cleaning process as Octo has set out.

 

-David (Estie).

[Bristol24]

All of the advice given is quite good. I would make one recommendation, however, and that would be to visit Richard Binder's website (www.richardspens.com) and give all of the "how" and "how to" pages a read through. It will really help you to understand how your pen works. There are numerous mentions regarding skipping on Richard's site. Here is one that might have application: http://www.richardspens.com/?page=coll/col_25.htm You will have to scroll down as it is the third subject on that particular page. I have found that oftentimes even a brand new pen can have nib tine alignment issues. Reading Richard's site and investing in a 10X loupe can help in at least confirming if misalignment is the problem.

 

Cliff