How to Fix Skipping and Hard-Starting Pens

so you've got your fountain pen Inked Up and presumably ready to write you begin your first letter and nothing you try again and oh there we go we're good now it's writing no wait it's not writing again your pen is skipping and giving you hard starts overall it's being inconsistent and that is not acceptable so in this video we're going to primarily focus on the nib and how that might be interrupting your Pen's flow before we dive too deep into that there are some things that you can do first first of all clean your pen seriously 80% or more of the problems that we encounter here at the goua Pen Company are fixed by the customer cleaning their pen you can rule out some other things also one by one uh by trying a new ink trying a new converter or cartridge and by using a different paper it could be anything really it could be anything in or on the pen it could be the ink the paper it could even be you but but we'll get into that later in the meantime here are some common issues that could cause your pen to hard start and how to fix them if your pen is not writing at all if it's gushing ink or if it feels scratchy though check out some other videos that I'm going to list in the description below okay a disclaimer first of all we have a process for helping you with your pen if you bought it from us so reach out before you attempt any manipulations we're not responsible for any damage you may do to your pen while trying to fix it this video is meant to be a quick basic troubleshooting assist based on our successful experiences with our customers okay let's get started with hard starting arguably one of the most common issues we see is when you go to start a letter or a word and then the pen just Glides onto the page and doesn't deposit any ink super anticlimactic the term skipping is often used here to describe when this occurs mid sentence and and the symptoms and solutions are the same skipping or hard starting it's all the same so hard starting is the ink not being able to get from the tip of the nib to the paper it can be caused by a few things such as an overol nib if the nib has baby's bottom which is pen slang for something being over poolish or improperly Polished in terms of the Tipping material the nib will flow all the way down and will stop just short of the paper as over polishing creates a gap between the nib slit and the page so the ink physically can't reach the page you could also have ink feeding issues the pen could be dried out which would certainly prevent flow since the water in the ink has evaporated leaving behind a more viscous version of the ink even sometimes leaving behind solid or semi-solid particles if a lot of air is getting into your cap things will dry out faster and let's not forget you could also just be running out of ink so definitely check that all right number two you could have sped tines did you maybe Flex that nib a little bit too much you may have spread the tines too far apart to the point where it causes that same Interruption as an overp poish nib the ink now can't reach the page because its pathway is too broad to travel down and finally it could be you check the rotation and the angle you right at try try rotating your nib a little bit on the page to make sure that you're making good contact with the paper you can also try raising or lowering your writing writing angle as well if you have a pen friend that also can use the pen and see if they're also having the problem it could be helpful to see if the problem persists with a different user so what can we do to fix these issues again clean and reink it's always a good idea and it never hurts if it's still giving you hard starts let's check out the nib using a loop check the nib for baby's bottom all right I made a nib here to show you what baby's bottom looks like as you can see there is a rounded bit down there at the bottom this is caused by over polishing where it's polished so much that it actually pulls material away from the inside of the nib so if this nib were to come into contact with a flat surface like paper the middle portion where the ink is is not touching the paper nothing is going to make contact with the page and therefore no ink is going to get where it needs to be unfortunately this is not an easy fix the Tipping material will actually need to be completely reground to remove that shape luckily there are plenty of qualified professionals that can do this for you next check the time spacing this will be much easier to do if your nib is clean and dry because you'll want to look through it like this this slit in the middle of your nib can be too tight or too wide both will impact ink flow if there is no light at all visible between the slit then way tight if it looks like this that's not going to work either ideally you want a bit of taper it can touch at the very tip that's okay um or it can just taper and be very very thin at the tip but you want something like like that not something like that certainly not something like that if you hold it up to the light you should be able to see a little bit of light all the way up to the top or maybe just ending at the top like it's okay if this bit is touching the tiny tiny bit but you want to see that taper a taper is just a very very helpful path for the ink to flow so if you have a nib that is really really tight or really really wide you might be able to to fix that however if it's something like that that's no don't don't don't mess with that so if you've got something and you uh have a uh let's see let's see if it's really really wide right you need to bring these back together so the way to do that is actually to take you know if it's really wide you just want it's just a piece of metal you want to bring it back together so you'll want to cross it over like that a little bit more flip it over to the bottom cross it like that a little bit more and then do that a couple times check it often that is super super important do a little bit of that and check it a little bit of that and check it and keep doing that until you notice that your spacing has improved up here at the top so it's no longer you know uh wider than the bottom you don't want that you want the top to be more closed off than the bottom is if it's the opposite if it is too tight you need to widen that and that needs to be done by inserting something into this lit like a piece of brass and then slightly twisting it to then provide some outward pressure opening them up which is a little bit more difficult to do it's definitely easier to close them than to open them but they can be done however I caution you I'm going to put my tipping material back on to show you exactly what can go wrong here since you're dealing with tipping material as well as the nib uh this is going to be way more resilient to bends and twists and manipulation than this the Tipping material is welded on to the main part of the nib so if you do put a piece of brash or some other shim element in here to try to open them up use most of your Force down here in the middle of the nib not up at the top where the Tipping material is because if you put something in here and start manipulating it back and forth you could do that and that a is not going to work you're not going to get a good flow and this is very difficult to fix and move moving these back and forth over and over and over again they're just going to do that because you're going to mess with the Weld and just have a sad sad time if you do end up working on your nib remember that you will need to realign it after you're done if you're going in and out and moving it this way and that way that those are all big manipulations but it will still be misaligned more than likely unless you get Super Lucky so after you're done making your big manipulations you will need to make sure that you don't have something like that going on or or something like that going on because that creates scratch so if one time is higher than the other you're going to need to fix that so if this time is too high you're just going to take it and gently bend it down a few times to see if it is better bend it down a few times see if it's better bend it down a few times oh no I bent it down too far just take it maybe bend it back up maybe this one needs to come back down very small manipulations and check often every time you touch it check it touch it check it over going over again cuz then you won't run the risk of overdoing it when both of these seem to be right at the same level so that you're not having one time higher than the other then you should be good put it to paper make sure it's nice and smooth you could take your nib off of the feed to do this um however the pressure that gets put on the nib once you put it on the feed and reinstall it could actually um mess with your adjustments so I would recommend doing all of your major adjustments with the nib off of the feed and then once it's reinstalled go back and do your fine-tuning again only start manipulating your nib if you're careful and confident this will likely void your warranty with the manufacturer and disqualify you from any retailer return policy if you're unable to get the pen the way you want it or feel like you shouldn't try seeking the assistance of a nib technician is the best bet I'll include several links for some in the description below of course if it's an option you could also seek out a replacement nib hopefully that helps I wish you the very best of luck in your fountain pin Adventures have fun right [Music] on

Channel: The Goulet Pen Company

Views: 26,443

Keywords: Goulet Pens, fountain pens, writing, Fountain pen show, Fountain pen comparison, Fountain pen overview, Fountain pens for beginners, Fountain pen writing, Writing with a fountain pen, Fountain pen tips, Pens and ink, Luxury gifts, EDC fountain pens, Writing, Analog writing, fountain pen skipping problem, fountain pen hard start and skipping, hard starting, fountain pen not, fountain pen not flowing well, fountain pen not writing, skipping, hard-starting, pens, how to fix

Id: JSyvMbNrnos

Length: 10min 16sec (616 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 06 2023