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Hi, everyone! This is my first post in the forum. Three days ago I bought a Pelikan M200 from the only Pelikan dealer in my country. As with every pen I purchase I roughly inspected the tines under a loupe to see if they are aligned. I didn't see any problems so I bought the pen. When I got home however, eager to try it out, I inked it without flushing it first. The pen had a very hard time starting and when it did, it skipped a lot. I immediately thought it was factory oil residue left from the manufacturing process so I flushed it with dish soap and water. Inked it up again and it started a lot easier than before but it skipped a lot. I thought this time that it was a matter of the nib "breaking in" so I took it to school with me for the next two days and wrote around 20 A4 pages(cheap paper) for that period of time and flushed it with soapy water every day after I got home from school. It was still a hard starter but at least it no longer skipped. I went to a local office supplies store and bought a no. 12 Rhodia notepad to see if the paper was the problem. No difference at all. In fact it was much worse on Rhodia paper than on the cheap notebooks I regularly use. I'm thinking about sending it back to the store but I wanted to ask if it's just me or the pen is indeed defective. I took some photos today of the nib and I'll be very thankful if someone can tell if there is a problem with my pen. Thanks in advance. P.S I use Pelikan 4001 Royal Blue ink

Hi everyone, About a week ago I found an abandoned fountain pen in my drawer. I decided I'll try and make it work, since it always had a problem which I could never fix. The problem is that the ink seems to be leaking, but I don't know where from. I tried cleaning it, I soaked it the entire day in lukewarm water to clean its system from ink, then I filled a cartridge with water to test if it leaks. The water obviously has different characteristics than ink, so it seemed not to leak then (or I didn't notice it, since it's water). After that I put a usual ink cartridge in it to see if it still leaks. Well, it leaked. I took some photos of it so you can see how it leaks, if it's any use. I can't find the source of the leakage, it's not where the cartridge is, so it must be somewhere near the nib. Is there a possibility it cracked somewhere? When I leave it standing with its cap on, and when I open it the second day, it's mysteriously covered in ink like in the photo. It writes normally (not too thick), but a bit light because of the water experiment. Can I fix this anyhow? Thank you Here are the photos: http://s9.postimg.org/o4dkh6l6z/IMG_3118.jpg http://s9.postimg.org/ftrr9cpmz/IMG_3121.jpg http://s9.postimg.org/4nsuunq2z/IMG_3122.jpg http://s9.postimg.org/e1u70pgwb/IMG_3123.jpg http://s9.postimg.org/sstkcdadn/IMG_3124.jpg

Hello from Jakarta, It's great that I could find this great forum for fountain pen where I could learn so much form many people. I just have this hobby recently and really interested in fountain pen (Actually, I've already liked fountain pen for quite a long time but only considering to start collecting it recently). So I've bought my first fountain pen, the Sheaffer Taranis. It came with the converter but I decided to buy the cartridges also. First I tried to use the cartridges because it was more practical than filling up the converter, considering I've never use one. After a few days I started to like the pen and found it worked well. Then a few days ago I tried to use the converter for the first time, it was unique for me. The first time I tried to fill up the converter I found a problem right away, it won't suck the ink from the bottle! I thought there might be some air inside, so I tried to do it many times to push the air out, yet still nothing happened. Then I tried a different way which I dipped the converter directly to bottle to fill it, and it worked. I put it to the pen and started using it. For some time it worked well then it stopped writing. I thought I was running out of ink (which is impossible because I just inked it up). I opened the barrel and saw it still had a lot of ink inside, so I turned the piston a little bit just to push the ink down, then the pen started to write again. But after using it for some writing, the same thing happened again. I don't know what's wrong with it. So my questions are: 1. Is it normal for a converter to behave so or it's just me being picky? 2. Do I have to push the piston each time to draw the ink out? it's really a bother for me because I have pushed the piston about 2-3x in 30 minutes of writing (not 30 minutes of non-stop writing). 3. Shouldn't I be able to draw the ink from the bottle with the converter attached to the grip section? or is there some type of converter which I have to put the converter directly to the bottle if I want to draw the ink out of it? Thanks!

Has anyone ever bought ink directly from Diamine at their website (http://diamineinks.co.uk)? How was your experience? I've placed an order there a week ago and didn't get any feedback whatsoever. Last friday I sent them an email, forwarding the payment receipt and asking what's going on with my order and a couple of days later still no feedback. Tomorrow I'm calling their offices, which is a pain and should be avoided. Does anyone have experience buying directly from them?

from iampeth.com website, i found that i need to align the tip of my nib with the axis of the holder, ( sounds reasonable enough ) However, the nib is ALREADY inserted as far as it will go. Yet it protrudes over the axis. My Nikko nib is also the same situation... I think its Speedball design problem. What do you think ? http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3744/11081707705_e0d39eb977_c.jpg

Hi, everyone! I am new to both - fountain pens and this forum. Sorry, if this has already been discussed, but I haven't found it on the forum. I recently bought my first fountain pen - a Montblanc Jonathan Swift with medium nib with Montblanc toffee brown ink. I was looking for a decent notebook which would be used both - for office notes and my personal ones. Moleskine seemed to be the perfect choice due to it's design and creamy paper colour. It turned out to be a disaster as I can use only one side of the notebook due to severe bleed-through of the ink. Please see the pic. http://s11.postimg.org/domcfwwir/image.jpg Please advise if all moleskines are like that or it is due to the choice of pen/ink. What substitute to moleskine would you recommend? I would rather change the notebook, then the pen . Do all monblanc inks have the same bleedthrough qualities or should I try another ink, maybe a non-montblanc one? thank you in advance! Dennis