Lamy 2000 Fine Nib

[RNHC]

After reading all the rave reviews, I had to get one and finally received it yesterday. Boy, what a let down.

 

The pen feels solid. I prefer heavier pens so I was a bit worried about it being a light weight (since it's made from plastic). But no worries there. I tend to hold my pen high so the tapered barrel wasn't an issue either.

 

I expected a wet flow but the flow was average. The fine nib does write fine. I got the fine expecting medium from other reviews and postings. I guess I was being too smart. Unlike older model, the newer all metal section pens run true to size (mine does, anyway).

 

The problem is the nib! It was scratchy. It's more than a tooth. It felt like a tusk. I did the nib tweak and the brown paper bag "grinding." The nib is smoother now but it's still not as smooth as Sheaffer Triumph Imperial fine nib I have. I can honestly say that it's my second scratchiest pen I have. It's not as smooth as my other pens with cheaper steel nibs.

 

And the feel, I can best describe as being dull. I guess some would say "soft" but if I can make an analogy, it feels like riding a Buick rather than BMW.

 

I admit the construction and material of the pen is definitely solid. However, the nib is the "heart" of a pen. I just hope that with more use, the nib will break in and become the nib I expected.

[tonybelding]

My suggestion. . . Send it back!

 

You can get a bad nib on any pen from any company. It happens.

 

Some while back I bought a New Postal Jr from Richard Binder. It comes with a "Binderized" -- professionally adjusted -- nib. SURELY this would be a good writer. Right??

 

It was scratchy. It just wasn't right. I sent it back and Mr. Binder said, in effect, "we goofed on this one", and he quickly fixed it and returned it to me. Now it's an excellent writer. And the lesson is. . . Don't expect perfection, because even the best can falter once in a while. Do expect fairness and honesty. If you can get that, you'll be OK.

[J English Smith]

LAMY USA/Filofax service is great and fast. Bob Nurin is the main Lamy tech there and I think he will be able to help you.

[John Cullen]

You should have sent it back before you did the smoothing trick. Probably a brown bag did not do any serious damage to the nib, but it is better to send a pen back before you experiment.

 

Lamy service tends to be good so maybe they will still help you. Good luck, J

[RNHC]

The pen was inked so it went through QC process (IIRC from other postings). I am just amazed that Lamy had passed the pen. What was the criteria? As long as pen puts ink on paper, it passes? Perhaps my expectations were set too high and perhaps I am more sensitive to scratchy nibs than others, but I don't understand how Lamy thought the nib was acceptable. It's your flagship model, for crying out aloud!

[LexieS]

I agree that you should send it back. My EF nib on my 2000 is not scratchy at all, and I have no problem with ink flow.

[attika89]

I agree that you should send it back. My EF nib on my 2000 is not scratchy at all, and I have no problem with ink flow.

 

+1

 

My EF is great too! Its my smoothest writer! I don't have a lot of pens to compare though....

[Silvermink]

Yeah, send it back. It won't "break in" - it needs to be adjusted.

[wmfowler]

+ 1 on sending it back. My Lamy 2K Fine was very smooth straight from the box. It is also a very smooth, wet writer that does produce more of a M line than what I would consider F. Noodler's Legal Lapis in mine if that helps.

 

I have found from some other pens that a little tooth can be exacerbated by bad paper, too dry and ink, etc. You may want o look at different inks and papers before you get too down on the pen.

 

Good luck with getting that writer up to your expectations.

Edited March 31, 2011 by wmfowler

[joshk]

I just got mine, and it's slightly scratchy. If I change the nib angle a bit to the side, so it's not writing directly on tines it helps some but I think I'm just going to bounce it off their repair / service department. My Studio and Safari were incredibly smooth.

 

Like all things CS there is some give and take. Heck Chris Reeve has let a few knives slip by without logos – and this is the company that keeps parts to a 0.0005" tolerance!

[TSWard]

My L2K Fine was also 'out of whack' when I got it. After sending it for service, it's fantastic.

[mstone]

If I were lamy I would not be inclined to take something back after someone sanded the heck out of it.

[RNHC]

See? All these rave reviews are what got me into this mess! I guess I am special and lucky.

 

If I were lamy I would not be inclined to take something back after someone sanded the heck out of it.

 

Well, being a self-reliant, independent, handy-dandy type of a fellow that I am, I tried to resolve the problem on my own before relying on others. I am still on the fence about sending to Lamy for replacement/repair. I may fuss with it a bit more and am considering getting it italic cursive-fied on it.

[mstone]

Well, being a self-reliant, independent, handy-dandy type of a fellow that I am, I tried to resolve the problem on my own before relying on others. I am still on the fence about sending to Lamy for replacement/repair. I may fuss with it a bit more and am considering getting it italic cursive-fied on it.

 

Well, it's fine to do what you want with your pen, but it takes a certain amount of chutzpah to expect the manufacturer to then take it back. From where we sit (not having the pen) we can't tell if there's any problem or not. Different pens feel different. Is the difference you dislike simply the way the pen is, or is it a defect? I don't know. It may be that if you'd sent it back in the first place they'd have said "that's normal, and the way we expect it to be". They might have also said "we can tune it to be the way you like it, instead". But now there's a good chance they'll say "it's definitely not normal and someone sanded it so it never will be". IMO people on this board are way too eager to whip out the brown paper bag, when it's really appropriate only for very specific circumstances. What you're describing (if not just the normal variation between different pens) sounds more like an alignment or flow issue, and sanding the nib isn't the way to fix that.

 

It also doesn't help that terms like "smooth" and "scratchy" are extremely subjective. You can have 30 people tell you that theirs is smooth, but it may well be that if you tried it you'd think it was scratchy. Ink and paper also play a large role. FWIW, my 2k EF has a rather small sweet spot and wants a fairly light touch. It rewards that with a fine line and nice variation on a running hand. A different person with a different writing style may well hate it, but it works very well for me. It's a completely different experience than the stiff nib on a safari or a triumph.

[Ernst Bitterman]

Let's perhaps distinguish between application to Kraft paper and "sanding". If the point was wrong, the point was wrong, and my understanding of this sort of exchange is is that Lamy is likely to take the old point and recycle the material rather than just re-install it in an other pen so it doesn't matter a lot it the precise nature of the wrongness has been modified. Unlike, say, taking an emery board to the thing, this is more in the line of "I wrote with it for quite some time in the hopes it would get better, but it hasn't." While I've never had any trouble with my 2000, I understand that Lamy and Filofax have smiled upon much grosser abuse of a pen as covered under warranty than we're discussing here, which is one of the reasons everyone oohs and aahs about them.

 

The distillation of what I'm yapping on about: make a polite inquiry about the warranty coverage. It certainly won't make the situation any worse.

[RNHC]

Just to clarify a couple of points, I was merely expressing my dissatisfaction. I didn't even consider exchange/repair until other brought up the option. And, as I've said, I am not sure if I want to go that route.

 

mstone is absolutely correct that each pen would "feel" different depending on the user. I can't say I have tried all the pens in the world but I've tried a fair amount and the Lamy 2000 I got definitely is scratchy and does not feel right.

 

I do enjoy tinkering and I will most likely keep messing with the pen; and if it comes to it, I'd rather send it to nibmeister rather than waste time and money shipping the pen back and forth for warranty work.

[Jimmy James]

It's certainly your choice to refer the pen to a nibmeister if you prefer, but I'm not sure what money you'd be wasting sending the pen to Lamy for service. I understand shipping the pen will create some minor cost, but it would be nothing compared to nib work I'd think.

 

I think I'd encourage you to do your best to determine if this is defect or an issue of preference. If you believe this pen would not satisfy anyone, it would make the most sense to me to send it back to Lamy. If you think the nib just isn't what you'd prefer and a nibmeister can transform the pen into what you want, I'd go that direction because you probably won't get much satisfaction from Lamy.

[RNHC]

It's certainly your choice to refer the pen to a nibmeister if you prefer, but I'm not sure what money you'd be wasting sending the pen to Lamy for service. I understand shipping the pen will create some minor cost, but it would be nothing compared to nib work I'd think.

 

I think I'd encourage you to do your best to determine if this is defect or an issue of preference. If you believe this pen would not satisfy anyone, it would make the most sense to me to send it back to Lamy. If you think the nib just isn't what you'd prefer and a nibmeister can transform the pen into what you want, I'd go that direction because you probably won't get much satisfaction from Lamy.

 

Well, I figure it may take a couple of sending it back and forth with Lamy to get the pen right. That's about $20 in shipping and "service fee." Add in the value of time for waiting, I figure it's better to apply that toward the cost of getting the nib customized, which I gather is around 30 to 50 bucks. I might as well save time and chip in a little more money and get a pen with cursive italic nib (which i always wanted to try anyway). That is if I can't get the nib right on my own.

[Jimmy James]

I'm guessing, then, that your only quarrel is with the character of the nib? If that's the case and you really do want the CI, I guess it comes down to which artisan to use. Best of luck with your pen, and I hope you eventually like it as much as I love my beautiful stubby broad 2000.

[ankitsoni]

After reading all the rave reviews, I had to get one and finally received it yesterday. Boy, what a let down.

 

The pen feels solid. I prefer heavier pens so I was a bit worried about it being a light weight (since it's made from plastic). But no worries there. I tend to hold my pen high so the tapered barrel wasn't an issue either.

 

I expected a wet flow but the flow was average. The fine nib does write fine. I got the fine expecting medium from other reviews and postings. I guess I was being too smart. Unlike older model, the newer all metal section pens run true to size (mine does, anyway).

 

The problem is the nib! It was scratchy. It's more than a tooth. It felt like a tusk. I did the nib tweak and the brown paper bag "grinding." The nib is smoother now but it's still not as smooth as Sheaffer Triumph Imperial fine nib I have. I can honestly say that it's my second scratchiest pen I have. It's not as smooth as my other pens with cheaper steel nibs.

 

 

 

The same ting happened to me around the same time really - quite a co-incidence that. I've always used Lamy F nibs and expected a 2000 F nib to be at least as smooth if not smoother than what i would get in an Al Star or a Nexx. VERY toothy, and very scratchy - I took it back and William Penn here in Bombay replaced it, no questions asked. They gave me an M instead, which was the only other 2k in stock, but not so much of an issue since it seems to write the same width as my old fine nibs. Odd, but well, *shrug*