New fountain pen owner and I'm having a little trouble.

So recently I fell in love with the idea of owning my own fountain pen, I had only used my dad's once, really I was just playing around with it at the time because I had never used one before. Long story short, I have found myself to be the owner of a TWSBI Diamond 580 with a 1.1 stub nib, and a bottle of Lamy Turquoise ink.

Filled the pen with ink and was able to write about a page front and back, but had some skipping and some problems with starting. I chalked this up to being new to a fountain pen and not being able to maintain the "sweet spot". After doing some more research it seems that stub italic nibs are prone to having the skipping issue, and might not of been the best choice for me to get.

Now I can't get the pen to write at all. Minus maybe a small line on the paper every so often after trying to make some kind of mark on a page.

I will say that I have only been writing on cheap copy paper so maybe that is the cause? I ordered a medium pointed nib and some [FONT=Lucida Sans, Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]Clairefontaine Triomphe paper which should be here soon which if neither of those things fix my problem I don't know what I will do.[/FONT]

[FONT=Lucida Sans, Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]The reason I am posting this though would be for suggestions/troubleshooting ideas for my 1.1 nib, as I do have a 10x loupe which I got for my slight straight razor acquisition disorder which I had and was able to stop by basically cutting myself off from [/FONT]B&B for[FONT=Lucida Sans, Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif] a while, and the nib does not appear to be misaligned, if anything I would say that maybe the nib got damaged somehow during my experimentation and pushed the tines too close together? I don't think so since I wasn't really applying pressure but more experimenting with angling the pen differently as I was writing. It seems weird that my one page old nib would stop writing all of sudden.[/FONT]

Did you flush the pen with clean water a few times before initially inking up the pen?

No, I did not . Would you suggest dumping the ink which is already in my pen and doing that? I'm assuming it would be bad to put it back into the bottle... usually that's a no no.

dont try to save the ink. just flush it down the sink or into the garbage, then try what mikeschu suggested.

oh yeah...and welcome to The Nib

Trent said:

No, I did not . Would you suggest dumping the ink which is already in my pen and doing that? I'm assuming it would be bad to put it back into the bottle... usually that's a no no.

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Go ahead and flush it first. 1ml of ink isn't really worth saving.

When you load the pen next time, fill the pen 1/3 to 1/2 way and then try to write with it for a page. If it's still a little wonky it might need a flow adjustment. But I recall TWSBI 1.1 nibs are decent out of the box.

Flushed the pen a few times with reverse osmosis filtered water and I am still having some issues after filling it a little more than a third of the way. I don't think I will try doing any adjustments to the nib until after my medium comes in and I have the chance to try that out though.

can i see a pic of the writing ? as well as a close up of the tip of the nib ? it may help

You might need to send the pen back for an exchange. The 1.1mm stub should flow like crazy and have no startup issues. Keep in mind also that using any kind of customized nib (stub, italic, cursive italic) makes proper writing angle and position imperative. Rotating the nib too much can cause the problems you're describing, hard starting, skipping, etc. Your particular setup is pretty forgiving, but the sweet spot is generally going to be smaller and more finicky than a regular nib. All this to say, experiment with how you're holding the pen, angle, etc.

Here is the best I can do https://www.dropbox.com/sh/q4214t7ekrdtlgr/AACTQztpcGxzjjqmz6oB9iMNa

I did notice some stray fibers when looking at the nib under the microscope under the feed side, probably from the little tissue that comes with the Lamy bottle.. . So when I get back home I will take the nib/feed apart and clean it. Also the writing is just from when I was basically scribbling and playing around. If I actually thought I was going to be sharing it I would of written nicer and of more meaningful things rather than just talking to myself basically.. Lol

Also, I'm a finger writer so that was doubling as me also trying to be a "shoulder" writer if you will

the nib looks ok as far a i can tell. the tines seem to be aligned with no baby's butt that i can see.

i'm assuming you have tried more than one ink; if not do so.

if that doesn't work, i would guess that the feed has become clogged somehow.

i don't remember how twsbi nib units come apart....i just remember that you can unscrew the section and nib from the barrel. If you can take the nib and feed apart i would try to do that; rinsing all of the parts really well.

if that doesn't work, you should see if you can send the nib unit into twsbi for an exchange. twsbi's customer service is pretty good as i recall.

ps. fwiw, i don't think the tissue fibers should affect anything....at least not like you are experiencing.

I don't have more than one ink. Any suggestions on one that I should get to try if washing my pen thoroughly doesn't work? I was looking at getting a bottle of Waterman in green.

Trent said:

I ordered a medium pointed nib and some Clairefontaine Triomphe paper which should be here soon

Click to expand...

Next step ... try with the medium nib. If you get good flow from that one, the problem is either in the stub nib or in the way you are handling the stub.

If not, there are other problems.

It may be you rotating the nib, notice it happens worse at the edges of the page where in the centre things seem to be okay, practice writing going for more of a feel doimg it slowly to hold the flow.. then write fast and see if there is a difference in what shows up on the page, I went through this with a member here in person during the meet, he fixed the rotation thing pretty quickly once he knew what he was doing.

if not you then its a flow issue in the feed since the nib seems to be okay

perfect pictures btw

You have cleaned the pen, when you flush the water out does it flow freely out of the pen?
After filling the pen do let the air out by letting a drop of ink out?

Welcome to the nib.

The water does seem to flow freely out of the pen when flushing it. And I initially did not drop any ink after filling. I did try 3 drops after refilling it because I had heard that somewhere else but it didn't have any positive effect as far as I could tell. Should I have only dropped 1?

Wad up a piece of tissue paper (or some TP) and stick the nib in ... it should suck up ink from the nib fairly quickly if the ink is flowing through the nib well ... this would suggest that the problem lies in how you hold the nib/pen. If the ink does not flow well, then you have a pen problem.

I'm going to agree with everyone saying it might be the way you're holding it. I have a Twsbi Mini with a 1.1 Stub, and it's fairly sensitive in regards to that.

I too have a TWSBI, the older 540, which I also ordered with the 1.1. It took 3 days to start writing nicely. I had to give it a good soaking in small bowl of warm water with ONE DROP of clear dish soap in it, let it sit overnight, then flush the heck out of it to get all the soap out. Then let it dry completely overnight. Then when you fill with ink again flush it with the ink itself a few times. Once full, yes you should let out a few drops to remove the air from the nib, 1 - 3 drops is fine. Then just write write write, at least a few pages. And yes, it is very important you hold the nib square to your paper. It took me quite a while to get used to the sweet spot on mine. If this doesnt work then contack them for an exchange. I can personally vouch for their excellent customer service, and am confident they will sort you out. Hope this helps.