Holding it wrong and getting ink on my finger?

[ArPharazon]

I just purchased a Pelikan M600. It seems that after I've written with it, I get a stain of ink on the back of my ring finger next to the nail . . . basically, the part of my finger on which the pen rests while I'm writing. I also have a bit of an ink stain on the ball of my middle finger, at the point I hold the pen on the opposite side of the barrel . . . though not nearly as severe.

 

Am I holding the pen wrong? I believe that I'm holding it by the black plastic barrel between the nib assembly and the green striped barrel (called the 'section'?), and not actually laying the nib against my finger. It feels like a natural place to hold it, though.

 

Nothing like a nasty dark green stain on your finger to show people the elegance and beauty of using a fountain pen . . .

 

If I'm not holding it wrong, then what might be wrong? I noticed at first that the nib seemed a bit loose, so I've finger-tightened it. I hoped that would fix it, but it still seems to be staining the old finger.

 

Here's a pic showing my poor green finger, and how/where I grip the pen.

[RLTodd]

FWIW, and it is not much as we all hold different, you hold about an inch farther down the section than I do.

[*david*]

This will happen if you touch the nib, or the black fins behind it - even a little. Keep your fingers far above the gold trim ring.

 

If you were already doing that, maybe the cap of your pen has ink in it that needs to be cleaned out.

[amh210]

My apologies in advance for the way this question sounds.....

 

Have you wiped properly after filling?

 

Andy

[ArPharazon]

Thanks everybody for the advice. I scrubbed my fingers and wrote again today, and I did not get the staining. I believe that this was a case of not wiping properly . . . not 'after filling', but 'after tightening nib unit'. It seems the end of the pen had ink on it that was leaking from around the nib because it was loose. When I tightened it, I neglected to wipe it. Ink got on fingers.

 

BTW, tightening the nib also seems to have fixed a few other problems . . . 1) I had a hard time filling unless I dipped the pen quite deep in the ink; and 2) frequent 'dry starts' where the pen would not lay down ink on the initial stroke of a letter. Now it fills right, and writes full and wet.

[andyk]

Although the nibs shouldn't come loose with normal use, I usually check mine now and again, slightly loosening and tightening up now and again may also stop the nib getting stuck through a build up of dried ink.

 

Andy

Edited October 1, 2007 by andyk

[twdpens]

Sometimes ink can get behind the trim ring at the front end of the section. It takes a lot of wiping to get round this and the problem can re-emerge if the pen burps some ink into the cap, which then finds its way back under the trim ring...

 

Martin