Lamy AL-Star Broken Feed

[Philip1209]

My new nib from Lamy arrived today. Yay!

I also picked up a bottle of Lamy black-blue ink and am using that in the converter now with no problems. My baystate blue is sitting unused on my shelf right now, but I suspect that my mom will start using it in her Pelikan.

[Spats McGee]

One more update:

 

Now almost a month later, I still haven't seen any problems with my Al-Star. It's still inked with BSB and everything seems fine. Glad to see that Lamy stepped up to the plate on this.

Edited May 25, 2008 by Spats McGee

[mstone]

I've seen at least 3 of these situations in the past month or two on Lamy pens using this common nib/feed. One involved a Safari and another a Studio.

How many of these involved BSB?

[wacomme]

I was planning on purchasing a Lamy Safari (blue one) for the sole purpose of using Noodler's Baystate Blue ink. Now I'm not so sure. I currently have a white Safari. I dare say I'd be too presumptuous to try BSB in that colored pen. However, I thought a blue Safari dedicated to BSB would be a good bet, until I read this posting.

 

Do I "go for it" and assume there is no relation between Safari's and BSB, or should I choose another inexpensive pen? The trouble is, I like how XF nibbed Safari's write. Apparently BSB works well in Parker "51"s, but my two "51"s are not cheap (I haven't found the stellar eBay deal). Maybe I could try a Hero 616 or 110, though I'd rather have a Safari for the price. How do Pelikan Pelikanos, Pelikano Jr., or Futures handle BSB? I want a cheap fountain pen that can handle BSB. Thoughts? Suggestions?

 

Michael

[Wolfgang8810]

I just bought an Al-Star a few weeks ago with no adverse effects so far, aside from my wallet. I will keep an eye out for this though.

[nullnull10010]

Not to revive an old thread, but I just thought I would report that this exact same thing has just happened to me. My poor, poor Lamy Safari... Weirdly enough, the pen wasn't running Baystate Blue but Cape Cod Cranberry. So, it's not just BSB, but the whole line apparently! I emailed Lamy, and I hope they'll replace/repair my pen. It's only 6 months old, if that.

[Philip1209]

Not to revive an old thread, but I just thought I would report that this exact same thing has just happened to me. My poor, poor Lamy Safari... Weirdly enough, the pen wasn't running Baystate Blue but Cape Cod Cranberry. So, it's not just BSB, but the whole line apparently! I emailed Lamy, and I hope they'll replace/repair my pen. It's only 6 months old, if that.

 

Thanks for the feedback. I don't have Baystate Concord, but my brother does, so I'll be sure not to put it in my Lamy.

[feiye]

Very interesting thread this one...

 

Just as an aside, if meemory serves, the feeds on all Lamys (including the Al-Star and Safari) are ebonite not plastic as mentioned in this thread. I don't know if that makes any difference (I don't have BSB and my chemistry's slightly rusty ).

[ebola297]

Very interesting thread this one...

 

Just as an aside, if meemory serves, the feeds on all Lamys (including the Al-Star and Safari) are ebonite not plastic as mentioned in this thread. I don't know if that makes any difference (I don't have BSB and my chemistry's slightly rusty ).

 

Fellow FPN'ers

 

I have another feeder breakage to report in 2 of my Lamys. I have been using Bay State Blue (a color I really love by the way) in 2 of my LAMY pens. I first loaded BSB in my brand new Lamy Safari Lime green (Medium Nib). I noticed that the BSB tended to stain the plastic very easy and figured that that was the risk I took with the Noodler's warning. I had use the pen for about 3 days and then the same instance with feeder breakage occured. The mess that it made, made my lime green into a pretty cool tye-dye effect (I must say). I sent my Lamy off to them and they replaced my lime green with a new one in a very timely manor. Just this week I loaded up my Lamy Al-Star Ocean Blue (Medium nib) and not 6 hours into using it the same feeder breakage that has been posted previously occured. I was a bit leery of using the BSB in my Al-star but I figured with the aluminum body I wouldn't run into the staining problem.

 

I will be sending my Lamy back and I expect that the excellent customer service I have received before will apply again. I am thinking of using BSB in another one of my older Al-stars. If I have the same results I will respond to this post again.

 

What I wonder is, if there has been a bad lot of ebonite feeders that Lamy has? Since the Ocean Blue and Lime Green are some of the newest Lamy releases that the described incidence have happened in and what has been described before hasn't happened in older Lamys. I have a new Raspberry Al-Star that I don't know if I'm willing to try any of the Bay State inks in. I have a older green Al-Star that I may or may not potentially offer to the feeder/nib gods. But, we will see what happens.

 

Could it be that these instances of feeder breakages are within tolerated limits and this is a product standard? We are lucky that with our devotion to pens that theses few instances are reported and can be discussed. I really find it wierd that this has happened twice to me. We could go totally X-files and do another thread of Bay State Inks -vs- Lamy pens (but, I digress...).

 

Thanks for reading....

[offbase]

Thank God I decided to check ink reviews after reading the ink description on the Swisher site and deciding that, with those mixing warnings, I'd better check before completing the purchase and putting the stuff into my piston-filling Etruria. I don't need my celluloid stained, or my piston mechanism corrupted. Why do they still sell this stuff when it seems fairly clear (at least to me, based on all the similar reports) that it can damage pens??? Out of my virtual cart it goes. Which sucks, because the color is fantastic. Any SAFE ink come close to that color?

 

[Newbie]

Happened to me too after using baystate blue.

[Robert Hughes]

Lamy users - take note. Don't use Bay State Blue (or its close relation) in Lamy Safaris.

 

This issue has been discussed ad nauseum over the past year on FPN. Look it up. Bay State Blue is a recreation of a mid-1940's ink that was very alkaline, and BSB eats Lamy feeds for breakfast.

 

Lamy knows about it, and they're blaming Noodlers - Noodlers knows about it and they're blaming Lamy.

 

Choose your sides, take your pick.

Edited February 12, 2009 by Robert Hughes

[Jimmy James]

If you ask me, it's less a question of blame and more something that is a known issue. Lamy makes pens loved by a bazillion pen users. Noodler's makes ink loved by a ton and five sixteenths of fountain pen users. Lamy apparently uses a plastic a bit different than what seems like most other manufacturers, and Noodler's uses a formulation a bit different from most ink. I'm thankful that we have such a broad variety of products out there.

 

I don't know that the issue is simply one of alkalinity. I think it's more an issue with some compound in the ink reacting in an exothermal manner with other compounds.

[rosey]

I wish I would have seen this post a month ago about the effects of Lamy Safari's and Baystate Blue ink. I was searching a different topic on FPN and stumbled across this one. I purchased a 2009 orange Lamy Safari 1.9 italic nib from Cyberpens a month ago. I, too, love the color of the BSB and thought the pen and ink color combination would be good.

 

Two weeks ago I was using the pen and to my astonishment the nib section broke as described in the earlier posts. I contacted Cyberpens and he immediately sent me another Safari, which I thought was excellent service.

 

Thankfully I have not inked the replacement pen yet and will be wary of using BSB ink in any of my pens!

 

Sorry to resurrect this topic, but maybe there are others who haven't heard of this problem and would like to know this information.

 

 

[TwilightFury]

SoooOOoooo... anyone think that BSB would be safe in my Pelikan Future?

[Dillo]

SoooOOoooo... anyone think that BSB would be safe in my Pelikan Future?

 

I sell Pelikans and I don't recommend it. If you want to try it, I suggest caution.

 

Dillon

[lennart]

I wish I had read this thread before yesterday:

 

I filled my 4 month old ozean blue Lamy Al-Star with a new acquired Baystate Concord Grape from Noodler! 'A great ink color exactly to this great pen', so I thought. And: Bang, today (already) the nib suddenly lifted off because the feed broke - exactly as displayed and described here - like a toenail coming off! It happened while I was creating a little drawing with the Concord Grape - I did'nt put any preasure on the nib.

 

This experience confirms your observation that the combination that Noodlers Baystate inks and the plastic of Lamy feeds seem to be incompatible - at least in some cases.

 

It is disapointing, that they are so still today, more than 2 years later than your experiences. Customers should be given warning about that by Noodler as well as Lamy in their advertisment to protect them from bad experiences.

 

In US you are a little lucky, you can fint e-shops with replacement front sections to the Lamy. I have been unable to finde an e-shop in Europe, and the us shop seems to be for US only.

[coldman]

I don't agree that Lamy has any obligation to warn against Noodler's Baystate inks.

 

I might of course be wrong, but my impression is that Noodler's inks is a tiny-volume line made for and used mainly by FP enthusiasts who care rather a lot more about inks than the "average" FP users, who mostly use safe "standard" inks like Parker, Pelikan and Lamy. Some inks are unsuitable for FP use, for example india inks. It's not Lamy's responsibility if a 3rd party markets an ink as "FP safe" and that ink breaks Lamy pens.

 

Of course, this makes little difference to Lennart, who didn't know this and now has a broken pen. I hope you can get it fixed on warranty.

 

I'll try not to speculate about why Noodler's doesn't say much about the safety of BSB, but only note that at least The Writing Desk posts a notice advising against Baystate ink in Lamy pens. I do think Noodler's should follow TWD's example in this case, or at the very least respond to this issue, even though anecdotal evidence suggests that Lamy may have fixed their feeds. (If so, Lennart's pen may have been old stock.)

Edited January 12, 2011 by coldman

[mstone]

Anecdotally it seems that both newer and older Lamy's are fine, with just a batch in the middle that have issues--but the only people that really can track that are at Lamy and it doesn't seem that we'll ever really get an answer.

[Ernst Bitterman]

A correspondent of mine uses it quite regularly in a variety of vintage and near-vintage pens without anything catching fire or growing legs, but Noodler's does warn that the colour comes with a perilous pH. Comparing to the correspondent's work, I find La Couleur Royale (also Noodler's) is a pleasing and not-threatening alternative.