Leaking/messy Namiki VP? ...

[cmeisenzahl]

Yesterday I bought a new bottle of brown Skrip. I filled up my recent Namiki VP with it via the twist converter, after flushing the previous ink w/ water. No problems with filling or using the pen in the 2 months or so I've had it. In fact, I've had no trouble with FPs in 2.5 years of using them so far.

 

This morning after only 1-2 pages of writing it started skipping like it was out of ink. Seemed odd. So I opened it up to find a huge blob of ink sitting around the area where the nib meets the stainless steel section, but still technically on the nib. But on the part that's far enough up that it can't be seen when the pen is screwed together.

 

Of course I wiped it all of and jammed some tissue down the barrel to soak up the rest of the brown ink. As much as I could anyway.

 

A couple questions:

 

1.

What the heck happened here? I didn't drop or jar the pen or anything like that.

 

 

2.

The bottom of the pen has that little spring loaded door. Should I not rinse out that part of the pen barrel? I'd like to get all the ink out if possible.

 

 

3. I wondered if maybe the converter worked loose. But if that happened, wouldn't the ink mess be at the top of the pen insert?

 

Any ideas? How can I prevent this from happening again?

 

 

Thanks very much!

 

Chris

 

 

 

 

AN UPDATE FROM LATER TODAY:

 

 

When I got home today I fished out the squeezer type converter someone sent me a while back. I put it in the pen and filled it with ink. But when in the pen, the doesn't protrude far enough when clicked to the open position. I tried to put the metal cap on the top that is usually for cartridges, and then is was far too long.

 

So for now I just popped in the Namiki blue cartridge that came with it. Seems okay so far. But I do dislike cartridges in general.

 

I did rinse out the end of the pen that has the spring loaded door. When I was done I used an air compressor to blow the moisture out, seemed to work well.

 

When I look into the business end of the pen, am I supposed to see the little spring holding the door shut? I hope so, cause that's what I see. ;-)

 

 

Thanks in advance!

 

Chris

[KCat]

When I look into the business end of the pen, am I supposed to see the little spring holding the door shut? I hope so, cause that's what I see. ;-)

 

 

Thanks in advance!

 

Chris

yup!

 

Let us know how it works with the cartridge. I'm not crazy about cart's either but i haven't found a better way.

 

I do have the twist converter in one of mine and it seems to be fine. You might try it again at a later date to see if that really was the problem.

[zxc]

My eyes are tired so I haven't read your post fully merely scanned it. But I have noticed on my new VP that ink sometime sprays leaving the metal above the ink covered with ink and the front bit as well. I assumed it was due to the force of the nib springing up :/.

[pvdiamon]

My VP works great with cartridges, but I was not so impressed with the converter. It didn't seem to fill well. I tried it with water, and it worked great (to see if it sucked any fluid at all!), but it didn't seem to like Namiki Black ink from the bottle. I know a sales person at Farhneys in DC said he loved his VP, but found the converter difficult and preferred cartridges. I'm hoping to use this pen with some Noodler's Black when it arrives, so I'll see what happens.

[cmeisenzahl]

Thanks veryone, I appreciate it. At the moment I have the blue cart in there that came w/ the pen.

 

I think that when this runs out I'll switch back to the twist converter and Noodler's ink.

 

Chris

[Compulsion]

The converter, unfortunately, doesn't hold a lot of ink. Definitely not a bellyfull. However, that means I have plenty of opportunities to change ink colors!

 

--Ron