Pelikan M1000 Nib Out Of Whack

[coleb87]

So, I got my first "grail pen" about 2 weeks ago. That is, my new Pelikan M1000 in Fine.

When I received it:

• The pen wrote ever-so-slighty than my TWSBI 580 Fine, which I am fine with.
• The pen wrote wetter than all my other pens (Sailor, TWSBI, etc.)
• While it wrote wetter than all my other pens, it did not write excessively wet. I really liked how the stock flow was.
• However, it had a sweet spot. It wrote like absolute perfection, buttery smooth, no possible feed back at all, and it was nice and springy. As long as the pen was rotated to the left a little.

Needless to say, the last point bugged me to no end. So I took it under my lens, to find that the nib tines were misaligned, the Right being lower than the left.

So I figured I could easily fix this, having done so in the past with other pens.

 

After doing my "not so effective" work:

• The tines are closer in alignment with each other- The sweet spot has largely gone.
• the nib writes noticebly wetter, too much for my liking
• the nib is not nearly buttery smooth as it once was.
• the nib sings, and at times feels toothy.
• 

So, I think we can agree that my first attempt at tuning this nib is not a very great one; however, what can I do? Is there anything else I can do (preferably), or is it best that the pen go to a nibmeister? I simply want the pen to write as it did when I got it, just without the sweet spot.

 

[LukeSkyliner]

Sorry about your Titans, but I think your nib problems are not so bad.

 

I have experience with these excellent Pelikan nibs, and my experience has been that they are very forgiving for modern, relatively dry nibs. Make sure the nib is tight against the feed in the section, and polish the nib with some micro-mesh ala Goulet's instruction here:

 

 

Good luck!

[MercianScribe]

With respect to the previous poster, I most seriously hope you wouldn't dream of taking micromesh to a $500 pen for an alignment issue! If I were you, I'd talk to your dealer about it, and send it back to them if necessary.

[LukeSkyliner]

I selected Goulet's tutorial largely because of his warnings about careful and conservative use of micromesh, especially on expensive pens. I've used very fine (as he recommends) mesh on high end pens, once, as you say, there is no alignment issue. But I read the problem as saying that he's realigned his nib himself and got the tines to match well - didn't see it as an alignment problem per se. Maybe coleb87 is new at this, but the tutorial may show him that it is within or not within his skill set (as these videos do for me all the time). Just being a rookie is no reason not to undertake a careful try - as he did with his realignment - after all, "the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense."

[jmnav]

So, I got my first "grail pen" about 2 weeks ago. That is, my new Pelikan M1000 in Fine.

When I received it:

• The pen wrote ever-so-slighty than my TWSBI 580 Fine, which I am fine with.
• The pen wrote wetter than all my other pens (Sailor, TWSBI, etc.)
• While it wrote wetter than all my other pens, it did not write excessively wet. I really liked how the stock flow was.
• However, it had a sweet spot. It wrote like absolute perfection, buttery smooth, no possible feed back at all, and it was nice and springy. As long as the pen was rotated to the left a little.

Needless to say, the last point bugged me to no end. So I took it under my lens, to find that the nib tines were misaligned, the Right being lower than the left.

So I figured I could easily fix this, having done so in the past with other pens.

 

After doing my "not so effective" work:

• The tines are closer in alignment with each other- The sweet spot has largely gone.
• the nib writes noticebly wetter, too much for my liking
• the nib is not nearly buttery smooth as it once was.
• the nib sings, and at times feels toothy.
• 

So, I think we can agree that my first attempt at tuning this nib is not a very great one; however, what can I do? Is there anything else I can do (preferably), or is it best that the pen go to a nibmeister? I simply want the pen to write as it did when I got it, just without the sweet spot.

 

 

 

I think you made two mistakes:

1) You bought a new, quite expensive pen and found something wrong (a tine misalignment): you should have take it back to the vendor, express your claim and ask for a corrective measure.

2) You were overly impatient: even if the tines were perfectly aligned, I wouldn't expect a new pen to be up to my tastes but after I used day-in day-out for about three months so the nib adjusts to my hand (note that since a failure was detected, point one above prevails, but you could have got a perfect pen and still it wouldn't be "perfect for your hand" but after a while, and absoulty perfect only after years of constant use).