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LAMY Safari - ink won't flow, please help!


noramulv

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I hope I'm posting this in the right place, I'm new here!

 

I got a LAMY Safari about two years ago and I absolutely loved it for the first year and a half. Recently, though, the ink hasn't been flowing. I have to give the knob on the converter a twist every time I write with it just to force the ink out of the feed. I've tried everything I can think of – new nib, new converter, flushing with water, soaking in water, using a sewing pin to see if there was anything lodged in the feed... no luck. I have absolutely no idea what's going on or how to rectify it. It's probably worth noting that there was mold growing in the ink that I was using in that particular pen, and although I stopped using that ink as soon as I realized what was going on, maybe the mold affected the pen somehow? I have another LAMY Safari that has worked absolutely perfectly the entire time I've had it, so either this is a fluke, or I'm doing something very wrong. I've been using fountain pens for a few years, but I definitely still have a lot to learn, so any advice is appreciated. Thank you!

 

 

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I would do a bulb flush with soapy water.

 

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4 hours ago, noramulv said:

using a sewing pin to see if there was anything lodged in the feed

Ouch ... sharp!

A soft toothbrush is a safer cleaning tool for feeds. (Toothpaste also helps.)

 

Did you pull out and check the whole length of the feed, or just the front portion under the nib? If mould or other debris from an ink bottle is clogging the feed then the blockage will most likely be at the back end of the feed, where ink from the converter enters the narrow fissures of the feed.

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Before I start taking my pens apart, I usually will: 

 

  1. Soak the feed in room temperature water (not hot, not cold) for perhaps a few days. 
  2. Flushing as mentioned above can certainly help with this. 
  3. I recently had a pen that this did NOT work, so I then flushed it with fountain pen cleaner (see below). 
  4. If that fails, then I move on to say taking the feed apart. 

 

I make my own pen cleaner (or pen flush) as follows: 

 

1 part household ammonia to 10 parts water and a couple of drops of Dawn Dish Detergent.

 

If you use pen flush, draw it into the pen or converter, soak, and then rinse with plain water repeatedly to insure all the cleaning solution is gone.

 

Ammonia, however, can stain different materials, so be very very careful if you do this. Here are the standard warnings: 
 

Never use ammonia on the barrels of Wahl Eversharp pens from the 20's or 30's, or any other pen with aluminum parts. The ammonia eats aluminum quite fast! Also, do not soak the barrels of nitrocellulose pens in ammonia for any length of time. It can discolor the plastic.  Do not use ammonia to clean aluminum, brass, or copper pen components, since ammonia can corrode these metals.


Bleach: If all else fails, you can try cleaning the pen with a very diluted (20-to-1 or so) mixture of water and bleach. Bleach can be damaging to some pen components, so it should only be used as a last resort.

 

Never use ammonia and bleach together, as they will react to form toxic vapors. Just pretend you will create Chlorine Gas if you do this, you know, something that can kill you if done wrong.

 

That said, I have had very good luck with my "pen flush" / "pen cleaner", but I generally do not soak things for long and I can almost immediately see that it is dissolving ink. When my favorite Edison pen just would not flow, I was able to clear that up after my standard water soak did not work. 

 

 

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Just get a new Safari. 

I ride a recumbent, I play go, I use Macintosh so of course I use a fountain pen.

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