Did Lamy Change The Feed?

[Needhelp]

Previously I made a post about fixing a skipping issue on fountain pens. But ironically it did not work for me, but my pen did not have any skipping but had an inconsistent flow. Sometimes it would write really wet and sometimes it would write really dry. So I thought maybe it was the converter, so put the ball agitator from the Parker converter and still, it did not do any difference, even tried a cartridge refilled without any fix. It was definitely not the ink because it would write wet and sometimes dry. So it must be the feed right? Because the nib had no problems, it is smooth, the slit is proper where they are just not touching at the ends as how it should be. So I took the feed out and I thought, before doing any modifications to it(like widening the slit,)so I switched he feed from my al star. But I noticed something. My safari was the 2018 edition (all black) and the al star a 2017 edition(pacific), was that the al star feed was a bit more like, greenish or lighter black,I think than the safari which as dark black. The al star had a number on the filling hole which says 3 and safari says 4, I thought it was the nib size. My older lamy safari umbra which I bought in 2015 had 5 on it.

So any way I switched it and now the problem is gone. Before when I would draw fast lines left to right and scribbling it would skip and not keep up but now it keeps up well. I refilled the cartridge with the same Lamy blue ink and the nib and feed dried I but the cartridge in nib facing up and as soon as I put nib to paper it wrote well and now writing fast lines it keeps up very well.

So, does anyone have any idea of what is going on? Why did they change the feed if it had no problems?

[prashant.tikekar]

My safaris and al stars from 2008 did not have any flow issues. Mostly cleaning does the trick. So switching the feeds might have worked for you. Lamy uses same feed in all it's pens except 2000. It is tried and tested for reliability.

[Astronymus]

Sometimes companies modernize their machinery and tools. I think that happend a few years ago in feed production. But the design of the feed is still the same. I see and experienced no difference.

[1nkulus]

But the design of the feed is still the same. I see and experienced no difference.

+1

[RMN]

Perhaps for the Black edition they made sure the feed was also really black??

 

D.ick

[sirgilbert357]

If the feed you are having trouble with is new and you haven't written much with it, I would clean it with a 50:50 solution of ammonia and water. Get a clean toothbrush and scrub it a bit. You might just have "mold release" chemicals still in the feed channels. All plastic injected parts use a non-stick mold release so that the part comes out of the mold with ease. But we actually WANT ink to stick to our feeds so that capillary action can do its thing and get the ink to the paper. Maybe your feed isn't "sticky" enough for the ink...

Edited September 20, 2018 by sirgilbert357