20+ yr old hard starting mystery

November 6

I’ve had this utterly glorious pen in my collection since it was brand new and I’ve never been able to write with it. Shortly after I bought it I had it sent back to the manufacturer but they concluded there was nothing wrong with the nib.

I’ve tried everything — VERY careful coaxing with shim to make it wetter (which helped a bit but honestly made me even more annoyed about the hard starting, because I love a juicy nib!), using the pen to scribble song lyrics a bit every day, changing the way I hold the pen; nothing pleases this pen enough to let me start a character with a downstroke.

looking at these photos, can any of you shed any light on my sad problem? I don’t know if you’d label it baby’s bottom but clearly there’s some wonkiness to these otherwise deliciously smooth and perfectly aligned tines and I’ve run out of ideas short of introducing them to the micromesh family.

November 6

Apologies. I forgot to mention that it’s a Mont Blanc, and I’ve only ever used MB Royal Blue ink in it.

November 6

1 hour ago, kyelani said:

I’ve tried everything — VERY careful coaxing with shim to make it wetter (which helped a bit but honestly made me even more annoyed about the hard starting, because I love a juicy nib!), using the pen to scribble song lyrics a bit every day, changing the way I hold the pen; nothing pleases this pen enough to let me start a character with a downstroke.

The best way to hold a pen to check for 'Baby's Bottom' is not with the nib horizontal, or vertical, but instead pointing upwards at an angle of about 30-45° to your eye, with the decorated upper surface of the nib downwards (i.e. so that the underside of the feed is above the nib).
In that position you will be able to see the part of the tipping that makes actually contact with the paper.
There's a really good picture somewhere on here (and possibly on Richard Binder's site too) that shows this but, scapegrace that I am, I cannot currently find it :doh:

Assuming that your problem isn't baby's bottom...

Is the hard-starting the only problem?
Or is there an issue with ink-flow in general?

If it's only hard-starting when you first try to write with the pen, I would suspect evaporation of ink, so maybe a problem with the cap seal.

But, if there is a problem with ink-flow in general, or repeated hard-starting whenever you pause between sentences, I would suspect that the nib may be set slightly incorrectly on the feed, and thus the ink not flowing through it properly.

Can you get the nib & feed out of the pen easily, and then check to see that the nib is sitting in the exactly-correct place on the feed?
It seems to be mounted centrally enough, but it may be slightly too far forward (or too far back).
Or is your pen one of the Montblancs that have been built to make disassembly by the owner impossible?

If the latter, the only thing I can suggest is something that you have undoubtedly already done.

Which is running a couple of fills of water that contains a bit of Fairy Liquid through the pen (by filling it, then standing the uncapped pen nib-down on a folded piece of kitchen roll inside a mug, so that the the contents of the pen 'wick out' through the nib).
After your have done that twice, do it again with a fill of plain water (to remove the detergents), and then try the pen with ink again.

If it still won't work properly after doing that, I'm afraid that you will need to send it back to Montblanc again, along with a letter that fully describes the exact nature of the problem in detail, and states that merely dip-testing the pen won't demonstrate the problem, that they need to fill it with ink and try to write with it - and of course you will need to pay them to 'service' your pen fully.

I wish you the best of luck with it :thumbup:

Slàinte,
M.

November 6

@Mercian Thank you so much for taking the time to reply in such detail.

In the past, I’ve used as much force as I dare to in order to separate the nib and feed from the section. It’s a Meisterstück 140 Platinum Line that I purchased brand new in the 90s.

it’s only downstrokes that fail and they can occur mid-word as well. Following a skip, it can take some scribbling to get it writing again

The ink flow appears to be fine but your suggestion that there’s an issue with how the nib is seated on the feed makes sense if the tipping material looks okay, which, looking again from the angle you suggested, it does.

I’ve soaked, flushed, sonically cleaned it etc multiple times over the years, BUT, I’ve never specifically used Fairy Liquid! Is there a chance that might make all the difference? I don’t have any here but I do have Vulpex, which is something else I wouldn’t have tried in the past. If FL is a box I should definitely tick and Vulpex isn’t a viable option, I’ll pick some up tomorrow and report back.

Thank you again!

November 6

3 minutes ago, kyelani said:

I’ve soaked, flushed, sonically cleaned it etc multiple times over the years, BUT, I’ve never specifically used Fairy Liquid! Is there a chance that might make all the difference? I don’t have any here but I do have Vulpex, which is something else I wouldn’t have tried in the past. If FL is a box I should definitely tick and Vulpex isn’t a viable option, I’ll pick some up tomorrow and report back.

If you've already cleaned the pen multiple times then Fairy Liquid may not help - and nor may Vulpex (of which I have no personal experience).

Before you put any Vulpex into your pen, you need to check its label to see that it is safe to use on plastics (that it doesn't contain any alcohols or petroleum-based 'organic chemical' solvents).
I once ignorantly tried to clean out the grip-section of an old Manuscript calligraphy pen with Surgical Spirit - which of course dissolved the plastic of the section and feed :doh:
My mistake only destroyed a cheap pen that was easily replaced - I would not want to be so unfortunate with a Montblanc!

I only mentioned Fairy Liquid because pen repairers in the USA recommend the use of 'Dawn' dish soap to clean out pens, and FL is reputed to be its nearest British equivalent.

You might also try using diluted ammonia, because it will dissolve any old aniline dyestuffs that may have built-up in the feed.

N.B. you need to use unscented ammonia.
Last time I bought it, I found that all of our hardware stores, and the likes of Boots, Wilkos, etc had stopped selling it, and I could only find it through Amazon ☹️

November 6

1 hour ago, Mercian said:

The best way to hold a pen to check for 'Baby's Bottom' is not with the nib horizontal, or vertical, but instead pointing upwards at an angle of about 30-45° to your eye, with the decorated upper surface of the nib downwards (i.e. so that the underside of the feed is above the nib).
In that position you will be able to see the part of the tipping that makes actually contact with the paper.
There's a really good picture somewhere on here (and possibly on Richard Binder's site too) that shows this but, scapegrace that I am, I cannot currently find it

I have now found the picture in question on an old computer of mine.

So, if anyone cannot picture what I meant, for future reference here it is:

I cannot now remember where I originally found it, and who should therefore be credited for it :doh:

My apologies to its creator.

November 6

19 minutes ago, kyelani said:

In the past, I’ve used as much force as I dare to in order to separate the nib and feed from the section. It’s a Meisterstück 140 Platinum Line that I purchased brand new in the 90s.

I do advise you to start a new thread on the Montblanc board here to ask if anyone has ever had this problem with the specific Meisterstück model that you have (144? 145? 146? 147? 149?) - and also how you might be able to get the nib/feed out of it safely.

As I understand it, some Meisterstück nib/feed units can just be unscrewed by hand, while others require the use of specific bespoke tools.
I have also read that some are held in to the grip-section with a Montblanc-specific thread-sealant (which prevents leakages, and also enables Montblanc to see whether you have 'voided your warranty' by removing the nib/feed yourself).

Good luck :thumbup:

November 6

2 hours ago, kyelani said:

it’s only downstrokes that fail and they can occur mid-word as well. Following a skip, it can take some scribbling to get it writing again

In my experience tackling with nibs suffering from "baby's bottom" (cough... Pelikan M1000s ...cough), particularly in the case of failing on downstrokes, I've found out that starting with the pen rotated more to the left (counterclockwise) than usual would help, provided that the pen is reasonably wet (most Montblancs I think are).

November 6

It looks like the nib has a bad grind. The picture is straight on, so with that orientation, the slit is parallel, no baby bottom (small inside radius on both sides), and the tines are even right at the slit but are ground unevenly. The left tine is thicker than the right (picture orientation). The left tine makes contact before the right, lifting the slit away from the paper a bit so ink might not flow. It might write if you rotated to the left a bit, but I wouldn't bet on it. I would suggest having the nib reground so that the two tines are even thickness/same height and even on the bottom. Take care of that the pen should write.

November 19

Im experiencing the hard start with a very inexpensive montverde. New out of the box I couldnt make it write for several minutes. Finally I got ink flowing but VERY scratchy.

Loupe examination revealed severe tine misalignment, and w wider than what Im accustomed to gap. So I hacked my way around to where it writes smoothly now, but still hard starts between any pauses in writing at all. I do detect the nib and feed seems to be barely misaligned. I'll look at that tomorrow. Since a steel replacement nib/feed is like 17 bucks on Amazon Ive ordered one, just in case I 100% ruin this one.

Why does it seem like it's a 50-50 chance whether a pen will be good to go right out of the box new? And price seems not to matter. Anyway 10 pens and 2 months in and Im having fun buying all sorts of gadgets, and learning new "skills".

November 27

If this pen hasn't written properly for 20 years, and Montblanc wasn't able to help you, I'd send it to someone like Ron Zorn (see post above) to sort it out. I don't think that the warranty is of any help at this point.

There may be something in a feed channel to stop the flow of ink or air into the pen. It could be that the sealant that they used somehow got out and into the feed channels. I've had problems with pens not writing when there was a tiny bit of silicone grease on the feed. (The grease was on the feed collar threads, but migrated). Dismantling and scrubbing the channels with dishwashing detergent solved the problem. With the feed out, a brass shim along the feed channels can make sure that there is no particulate matter in the feed channels.

November 27

BTW, from your nib photos, it seems that you write with the pen rotated. The nib point has turned itself into almost an oblique nib from the wear which is greater on the left tine (as you hold the pen, right side on the picture). Even so, it is aligned, and the nib slit is parallel. There shouldn't be a problem with ink flow on this pen.

If you send the pen to Ron, he should be able to correct the grind on the nib tip, if that wasn't you that produced the nib point as seen, by years of writing.