New To Fountain Pens Having Problems

[PARVEEN-KALRA]

Hello friends

This is my first post here, but i am lurking here for two weeks now.

After reading a few posts my interest in Fountain Pens grew and I ordered a couple of cheap camlin fountain pens.

I now have Camlin 11R, 22R, 36R and 47P.

I filled 22R, 36R and 47P with the camlin royal blue ink.

They write good for the price. 47P is smoothest of all, but others are nice too.

But once left capped for 1-2 hrs all of them get dry if stored nib up and if stored horizontally they take longer to dry but none survived overnight. I stored nib down 36R and found drops of ink in the cap after 15-20 mins. I tried to clean them but could not take the nib out easily.

I have covered the breather whole in 22R, it made a difference but still it gets dry after approx. 3 hrs of non use.

I have no plans to spend more on fountain pens as I use them only for office work and there is not that much to write. but I plan to start my kid with FP's in his next class.

All suggestions are welcome.

 

Regards

Parveen Kalra

[mhguda]

It's a (sad?) fact of life with fountain pens that some of them get dry if not used continuously. It happens to the best of them.

You already tried to remedy that by closing off the breather hole in the cap. But that, as you found, does not guarantee the pen will start the next time... so, what is wrong with a little dip in water if the ink won't flow immediately? Sometimes the dryness can also be remedied by flushing out whatever may be obstructing the flow of ink in the pen, and then priming the feed. For most of my pens, both inexpensive and expensive ones, that seems to make the problem go away for long stretches, but not permanently. But if a wet stretch of time runs into a couple of weeks, I'm content.

 

Oh and, by the way, welcome to FPN! I hope you find many answers to questions here... and even provide a few answers to others', in due course... :W2FPN:

[PARVEEN-KALRA]

It's a (sad?) fact of life with fountain pens that some of them get dry if not used continuously. It happens to the best of them.

You already tried to remedy that by closing off the breather hole in the cap. But that, as you found, does not guarantee the pen will start the next time... so, what is wrong with a little dip in water if the ink won't flow immediately? Sometimes the dryness can also be remedied by flushing out whatever may be obstructing the flow of ink in the pen, and then priming the feed. For most of my pens, both inexpensive and expensive ones, that seems to make the problem go away for long stretches, but not permanently. But if a wet stretch of time runs into a couple of weeks, I'm content.

 

Oh and, by the way, welcome to FPN! I hope you find many answers to questions here... and even provide a few answers to others', in due course...

Thanks for the reply. I will do as suggested. I will use the fountain pen for desk job and use a ball point to carry around till I figure out something.

I would love to hear the experience of other member with these pens. I am sure there are many who have used these as camlin is very famous brand here in India.

Regards

PK

[mhguda]

While not in India (in fact, in the other side of the world - the so-called West Indies - I discovered Indian fountain pens about six years ago, and fell in love with most. I have tried some Camlins, along with many other brands. While I now prefer the more expensive handmade ebonite or acrylic ones, I keep a place in my heart for the ones I met first. And I found that many profit by a good scrub before first use, and also, occasionally when they've already been in use for longer. And happily they are easily disassembled and reassembled after cleaning, and not much can go wrong. It's one of the reasons I like them so much, as a matter of fact. So easy to tinker with, adjust them to one's own liking... or leave alone and work as is.