How To Get The Most Of My Shaeffer...?

February 6, 2018

Bought this pen a long time ago, unfortunately never really bonded with it, and gave it away a few years ago. Then I forgot about all about it. Yesterday it found its way back to me. I immediately cleaned it, brought it back into shape and used it for a while at work today. It's got a 585 14k nib.

_Any_ kind of downward pressure will make this nib very scratchy. When I ease up on it, it writes quite nicely except on smooth paper, on which it has severe skipping issues. This made the pen unusable with my Foray notebook. On less-smooth paper and when handled with a feather-light touch, it writes beautifully (though compared to all my other pens, the nib produces significantly more sound). It's quite a wet nib, so I might have to resort to a somewhat drier ink. Perhaps some experimentation with different inks will also reduce the skipping issue on coated paper.

This pen is better than I remember it to be, which is a pleasant surprise. I'd like to use it more.

Any tips regarding the skipping issue on smoother paper?

February 10, 2018

Close up pics of the nib tip will help to see if there is misalignment it tines, and also if there is babys bottom. Also close up of the nib slit will allow us to see how far apart the tines are from each other.

If the tines are aligned, and if the pen is super wet as you say, then Id suspect the skipping to be from the fact that the gap between tines is too large causing the feed to starve of ink

February 10, 2018

Beautiful Sheaffer Targa you have got there. You have been given good advice by siamackz. I would also suggest good soaking for a few hours of the nib section in lukewarm water mixed with a few drops of liquid dishwasher. Targas are pens that wouldn't fail giving best performance if kept good care of.

February 10, 2018

Thanks, mitto and siamackz! I've soaked the nib overnight and changed the ink to Graf von Faber-Castell's Garnet Red (a beautiful colour). The pen's performance inproved a lot because of this! I've studied the nib with a loupe and it seems to be perfect: no baby bottom, no misalignment, a perflectly even slit. My conclusion is that it needed a good cleaning and good ink. And since this is my only gold-nibbed pen and the nib is much more flexable than all my other nibs, I just need to learn to ease up when writing this pen! No downward pressure is needed, just put the nib to the paper.

Much better pen than I remember it to be. Nice!

Edited February 10, 2018 by TheDutchGuy