Skips on Smooth Paper

[DiveDr]

So this is what I really can't figure out, I have some really wet pens, some middle-of-the-road dry pens, some that have lots of feedback some as smooth as glass on ice.

 

With very smooth paper like Campus High Grade MIO and Black & Red Optik some of my wet smooth pens skip on fast writing and sometimes with not so fast as well.  Vintage Vacuumatics are fine, vintage Waterman as well, FPR broad, Kanwrite Broad flex Heritage and some Jinhao with #6 0.7mm all experience skipping, no baby's bottom as far as I can see.  No skipping at all on cheap copy paper that drinks up ink and most are wet pens.  Any suggestions?

[Bo Bo Olson]

What inks are you using?

 

I like Oxford Optic 90g very much. I keep a spiral notebook of it in reserve. I don't skip for me. ...unless I have a baby bottom nib...cured by having it made into a stub. 

 

I don't have a problem with oily hands, but doe it skip everywhere or just in the bottom third?

 

Many cheap 80g copy paper is rough enough to reach up into the nib slit and make sure there is no skip. ...ie occasional baby bottom.

[maclink]

I've had this problem with three pens recently.  None appeared to obviously have babies bottom.  I thought it might be ink related but none responded well to ink changes. 

 

The first was a MB Petit Prince with F nib.  After three fills of writing, the problem disappeared.  I don't know if there was something not write with the feed or the surface of the nib tip that was sorted with simply using the pen for a while.

 

The second is a MB146 with a broad nib that I bought pre-owned.  This one was a smooth writer although it hard started.  The nib looked great magnified and others agreed when I posted images here.  After several fills, the problem stubbornly remained.  I eventually polished the nib tip and this fixed the problem.  By polishing it, I mean, I took it through several grades of micromesh, i.e., 4000 - 15000 grit (as though dealing with baby's bottoming) and it's been fine since.

 

The third was a Leonardo Momento Zero with steel 1.1mm stub.  Again, with polishing, it wrote beautifully.  It was the fantastic result that I got with this nib work, that emboldened me to try the same thing with the MB nib.