Cartridge Issue Or Ink Issue? (Lamy Safari: Suddenly Drying Feed)

[Intensity]

Odd thing happened: I went back to my Lamy Safari pen a bit ago after fitting it with a brand new Petrol cartridge yesterday, and to my great surprise, the feed seems to have dried a bit. The pen is writing a bit scratchy, and the line of ink that comes out is uneven and dry. This is the first time I'm using a Lamy cartridge: I used a Lamy converter with a non-Lamy ink before and never had any hard starts or drying.

 

Checklist:

- super thorough long wash from the previous ink (squeaky clean inside and out)

- checked that the cartridge still contains a lot of ink (it does, just started it yesterday)

- checked that the cartridge is popped in and seated firmly

- checked that the cap clicks on well

- checked that the pen is assembled tightly

- (P.S.: this is a genuine Lamy pen, purchased from an authorized USA vendor)

 

It was writing super smoothly in a nice juicy line just yesterday morning with a different ink. In fact I could leave the pen with ink sitting in it for up to a week or two, and it would always write smoothly with no hard starts. It started out very well with the Petrol cartridge, and I wrote with it for a couple of hours yesterday testing out the new [to me] color. Did not expect to find the feed drying out a day later.

 

What do you think might be the issue and how can I check that it should not recur?

Edited October 4, 2017 by Intensity

[farazqamar]

maybe the ink is stuck to the top of the cartridge...this can happen due to surface tension and hampers ink flow.

[ErrantSmudge]

maybe the ink is stuck to the top of the cartridge...this can happen due to surface tension and hampers ink flow.

 

This happens to me from time to time with the Z24 converters, ink gets stuck easily on the walls of the converter chamber.

 

I just got the new Z28 along with a new Pacific Al-Star. The ink (Lamy Turquoise) coats the walls of the converter rather than sticking, but I also ran into the problem with the drying feed. Giving the feed section a tap with my finger resolves the problem - perhaps it is air bubbles in the feed?

 

But I can't recall seeing this issue happen with cartridges.

[Anne-Sophie]

 

I think priming the feed resolve the issue.

 

Fill the converter then reverse the turn until you see, in the square opening on the reverse side of the nib, a tiny bubble of ink.

 

The easiest feed to see primed is the Vista and the All Stars.

Edited October 13, 2017 by Anne-Sophie

[Intensity]

This was not a brand new pen, however: I had already been using it with different ink via converter. Though it was my first time using a Lamy cartridge. The feed was well primed with cartridge ink the first day, as I wrote with it for a while. It was on the second day and on that the pen began writing dry. Interestingly it has not deteriorated from there but continues writing very dry.

 

I think I'm going to carefully remove the cartridge, give the feed a good soak, and try the cartridge again afterwards.

Edited October 13, 2017 by Intensity

[Anne-Sophie]

I apologize, I was answering post #3 of your thread, not your original post.

 

The thorough cleaning means that your pen has to be re-primed, pop the cartridge back in and leave the pen nib down, either with the cap or on top of a paper towel at the bottom of a jar or a pen cup.

 

Gravity will do the feed priming.

Edited October 14, 2017 by Anne-Sophie

[ErrantSmudge]

I apologize, I was answering post #3 of your thread, not your original post.

 

Thank you for the answer, even it it is slightly off-topic.

 

Also, sometimes if you store the pen nib-up, you will get a dry feed. This has happened to my Safaris on occasion.

[senzen]

I would take apart the feed and clean it, it's made of two parts; worked great even with the worst inks.

[Sasha Royale]

 

- super thorough long wash from the previous ink (squeaky clean inside and out)

Thoroughly washed ? Did you flush through the ink feel path before storage ? Dried ink inside the feed path can restrict ink flow. What is a "Petrol" cartridge ?

[Intensity]

Thoroughly washed ? Did you flush through the ink feel path before storage ? Dried ink inside the feed path can restrict ink flow. What is a "Petrol" cartridge ?

Super thoroughly, yes. With soapy water and soaked for quite a while. I own a lot of fountain pens with different filling mechanisms and I'm always very careful about flushing them very well between different inks.

 

"Petrol" cartridge (since I posted posted in the Lamy section, I assumed it's clear) is a Lamy ink cartridge filled with Lamy "Petrol" limited edition ink.

Edited October 15, 2017 by Intensity

[Foriam777]

I would try the knib down with the tissue that the other poster said . Did you store it near a heat source at all . When I was in school my mum used to heat my clothes at the stove in the morning before I went to school pun was in my pocket Parker jotter stainless it was she ruined one section and numerous times caused my nibs to sweat which made the ink very thick

[Intensity]

No, nothing like that: the pen has been on my desk at home with temperature around 70F.

 

I have been using other inks via converter in the meantime with no drying out, so I conclude that the fault was with the ink cartridge.

[minddance]

Alt Goldgrun darkened and dried in my Lamy Safari. I quite enjoy that darkened look and then one day it stopped flowing.

[Sasha Royale]

Super thoroughly, yes. With soapy water and soaked for quite a while. I own a lot of fountain pens with different filling mechanisms and I'm always very careful about flushing them very well between different inks.

 

"Petrol" cartridge (since I posted posted in the Lamy section, I assumed it's clear) is a Lamy ink cartridge filled with Lamy "Petrol" limited edition ink.

Thank you. Sorry that I am not much help, but your question, and the following discussion, has taught me.

[Intensity]

I've actually resolved this issue: it was due to the faulty nib unit! See my posts here for reference:

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/328740-sailor-sei-boku-pigmented-nano-ink-mini-review/?p=3942870

 

"I've had some trouble with my Lamy nibs and ink flow (different inks however). What turned out to be the case were debris between nib tines (flossing helped) as well as some very tight spacing between the tines that converged at the tip to have almost no clearance (and thus scraped the paper due to very dry flow, and helped debris to get stuck in the flow channel). I have 3 copies of the 1.1mm nib now, and only one writes well without starving the line of ink: all have the tine spacing greatly diminish to vanishing at the tip, though one is a bit better. On the contrary, my single copy of the 1.5mm nib has nicely parallel tines and has excellent ink flow. I even posted in the Lamy section asking why my pen was super hard-starting and scratchy every time with Lamy Petrol, but worked okay with my most lubricated, super-flowing Organics Studio Walden Pond. It turned out to be the nib: I only had the one bad 1.1mm nib then and no others to compare it to. If you can get your Lamy nibs from a local brick and mortar shop, I highly recommend that option, so you can inspect the tine alighnment against a bright light before selecting one to purchase. "

 

Basically my 1.1mm nibs came to me from an online order from a B&M USA store (huge thanks to them for trying to help out, though ultimately and unluckily, none of the 3 1.1mm nibs I got from them are great). I discovered that it was the nib after I got a nicely aligned 1.5mm nib during my trip to Italy, and when I swapped it at home, the flow was very generous and even. I inspected my 1.1mm nib for differences with the 1.5mm nib, other than the obvious width difference, and what I saw was that the spacing between the tines on the good 1.5mm nib is perfectly parallel, whereas the 1.1mm nib tines converge tightly at the tip, constricting the flow. A very wet highly lubricated ink helped overcome this problem, but when I swapped to a more normal ink (Lamy Petrol), it could not compensate for the bad nib properly. My two replacement 1.1mm nibs are also not well aligned, but thankfully the last one is the best of the three, though still converges at the tip and is slightly scratchy. I've decided to only use the 1.5mm nib at this point and in the future to buy Lamy nibs in person, so I can inspect them.

Edited November 2, 2017 by Intensity

[Intensity]

Another update: I can't believe I didn't realize I could just bend backwards the tines a little to spread them apart. This helped the ink flow a lot and aligned the tines to be parallel with each other. I pressed on the nib's center, around there the two tines meet at the base and pushed the aligned tips of the nib backwards (away from the feed) with a wooden ruler in a springing motion, being careful to not push too hard. After doing this a few times, the tines are now parallel, and the ink flow is higher! I'm working on fixing the scratchiness with a micro-mesh sanding pad.

[tamiya]

I find quite a bit of variance between nibs & feeds from Lamy, usually takes a bit of work to get them flowing juicy as I like. Sometimes that involves scraping wider the channels in the feed, in addition to making sure the nib is seated right and appropriately aligned.

[Mike 59]

Hi, I bought a 1.1mm stub for my Safari Vista, I thought it wrote slightly roughly, so I wrote out the A to Z a couple of times on a fine side of a nail filing block, covered in water, which really worked well.

Generally I find that giving the feed and the underside of the nib a good cleaning with an old toothbrush, using detergent in warm water, makes a difference.