Why does my fountain pen stop working?

Good question, and one that we hear a lot. As wonderful as they are to own and to write with, even the most expensive fountain pen can be temperamental and fussy. The reason why: a fountain pen is a writing system – like mechanical systems, electric systems, every other kind of system, it relies on a number of components working in harmony and like all systems there can be hiccups in its overall performance if even one of these components isn’t working as it should. However the vast majority of the time these problems can be fixed, and often by yourself.

Diagnosing the problem

To begin to fix your fountain pen, it’s important to pinpoint the problem. Without seeing the pen for ourselves, we can’t tell you 100% what the problem is, but this guide should help to give you a clearer idea of what the issue is and so of what you should do next. Here are some of the most common symptoms that we see: 

• Skipping (the nib/point intermittently dries up and won't write)
• Flooding (nib/point consistently lays down too much ink)
• Poor starting (pen won't write on the first few strokes)
• Blotting (pen periodically lets out huge drops or blots of ink during writing)
• Scratchy point (feels like you are scratching holes in the paper)
• Needs to be refilled too frequently
• Leaks into the cap (or elsewhere)

Causes of the problem. 

Wrong kind of ink used

Symptoms: Skipping, Poor Starting, severe cases of ‘It’s Filled with Ink but Won’t Write at All!’

As said earlier, fountain pens can be rather fussy. Not all inks are good for all kinds of fountain pens, and the more ‘dense’ the ink, the more likely it is to cause problems. India ink, for example, is made with soot – wonderful for dip pens, but this sediment can build up very quickly inside even a new fountain pen and clog the feed, preventing ink flow. Calligraphy and art inks can also do this to fountain pens.

Ink types and what to look out for

• Pigment-based inks hold particles of the colouring material in suspension, meaning a greater likelihood of clogging up the feed. These can be used, but to keep the pen in tip-top condition prepare to commit more time to maintenance. When using heavily pigmented ink you should not fill the fountain pen completely unless you plan on using all of the ink in one sitting - or leave unused ink inside the filling system for long. Flush out the pen after use to prevent ink drying in the chamber and causing future problems, especially if it won’t be used again for more than a few days.
• Dye-based ink are dissolved in water and therefore recommended for fountain pens. Very unlikely to clog up your pen. Bottled ink that had been left for some time might lose some of its water and become thicker – simply dilute with a drop or two of filtered water to restore.

Fix: Wash out the pen – process varies slightly depending on filling system. For plunger fillers, sac fillers and mosquito fillers, fill them with warm, faintly soapy, warm water the same way that you would fill them with ink and then shake the pen to dislodge any residue. Use one small blob of washing up liquid such as Fairy in warmish water – never use powder-based soap for flushing a fountain pen. When you’ve flushed it a few times, pour out the soapy water and rinse with clean, filtered water to clean away the soap. Repeat this until there are no more bubbles.

Factory glue

   Symptoms: Similar to above; Skipping, Poor Starting

The symptoms of this one are very similar to using the wrong kind of ink, but it’s often the case if the pen is brand new and doesn’t write well. If you’ve just bought a fountain pen and the ink’s not flowing right, then this might be because of factory glue on/in the nib. 

Fix: Luckily this one is easily fixed. Rinse the nib section under a warm tap for a couple of minutes, and then gently use a cotton-bud ear cleaner to carefully polish the split in the nib.

 Accumulation of ink over time

   Symptoms: Skipping, Poor Starting.

If you’ve rediscovered a fountain pen after a couple of months of separation and distinctly remember it writing better the last time you used it, there’s a good chance its time in hibernation has resulted in the ink crusting up inside and blocking the feed.

Fix: Flush, and keep flushing. Or send it to us and we’ll put it into our ultra-sonic pen spa.

Nib Misaligned 

  Symptoms: Skipping, Blotting, Scratching, Poor Starting

A misaligned nib is one of the problems that you  may need professional help with - particularly with expensive pens as a nib is delicate and can easily be damaged by amateur attempts to realign it. Before you diagnose your nib as misaligned, we’d advise making sure that it isn’t a less serious issue of the nib being incompatible with your writing style; ask a few other people to try writing with the pen and see if they experience the same problem as you do. (If they write well with the pen, and it is a case of incompatibility there’s a fix for that too: we can have nibs reground to your requirements.)

To diagnose misalignment, look closely at the tines – are they straight, and is the gap between then narrow and parallel? It is up to you as the pen’s owner to make a decision based on the cost of repair and the potential risk of damage in relation to the pen’s value. Some fountain pens are more easily replaced than others; some have sentimental value, are out of production or are irreplaceable limited editions. A new gold nib can cost hundreds of pounds, whereas a professional fix is comparatively cheap at about £30.

Accidental damage 

   Symptoms: Bent nibs, Flooding, Blotting, Scratchy nibs, Broken clips, Broken plunger-filling systems, Leaking feeds, Leaks into the cap, Leaks into the barrel. 

Accidental damage is a broad category and very common; accidents happen even if you’re careful. Symptoms vary widely but if something happened to jar the pen and the problems started soon afterwards, it’s likely this is the chapter for you. Some of the older filling systems such as sac fillers are increasingly delicate with age, and it can take as little as a pen rolling off a desk and landing badly to bend a nib and result in blotting, scratchiness, skipping and leaking. Other causes are being trodden on, being put through washing machines. Hungry dogs (More common than you might expect). As far as accidental damage goes, we think we’ve seen it all until the next pen arrives. 

The symptoms of accidental damage are often similar to ink-caused problems but flushing out the fountain pen won’t fix the problem. 

Fix: Professional; we wouldn’t recommend a DIY fix for this. If you’d like further advice, tell us what happened. We’ll quote you a price once we’ve seen the pen, and let you decide whether you’d like to go ahead. Also, bear in mind that older fountain pens can use components that aren’t produced by the manufacturers anymore and can therefore take some time to source old stock.

Musings about the Shakespeare limited edition pen and what it might look like.

As it was announced yesterday, this year being the 450th anniversary of his observed birthday, Omas have dedicated their latest limited edition pen to the life and work of William Shakespeare. This pen has been designed with The Shakespeare Birthplace trust and our very own John has been visiting them in Stratford upon Avon with the Omas team this week unveiling this new pen which will be released officially on the anniversary of Shakespeare’s death the 23^rd of April this year. As of yet, we are yet to see a picture of the latest limited edition, so I will now speculate about what it might look like…

Omas limited editions are always special, designs not only aesthetically stunning and distinctive but also layered with well-researched meaning and significance. Perhaps the only other Omas pen offered at the moment with a parallel source of inspiration is the Aleksandr Pushkin limited edition. Also inspired by a national cultural icon, the Pushkin was released in 2007 to celebrate the life and work of the great Russian writer.

About the design thought process behind the Aleksandr Pushkin pen, we know:

“The drawings on this limited edition pen are simple, incisive and full of pathos. The design is inspired by the evocative language but simple construction in the apparently uncomplicated works of Alexsandr S.Pushkin. 

The … enamel, reminiscent of the paper used for manuscripts, acts as a background to the images. These depict the head of the poet on the top of the cap, a page from Eugene Onegin created using diamond engraving techniques and a symbolic goose feather on the clip.

Pushkin's face, based on a self-portrait, can also be found in the middle of the ink reservoir with clouds above and the generous human earth below. Pushkin's name can be found twice: in the Cyrillic alphabet at one end of the fountain pen and in signature form on the body.”

So based on this design process, what might we expect from the William Shakespeare pen? Considerations will be representative materials, symbolic details and the writer's work. As also a celebration predominately of the man himself, like the Pushkin pen, the Shakespeare pen is likely to feature a representation of his self. The first assumption would be for a picture of him - however the Droeshot engraving that we associate with Shakespeare, though said by his contemporaries to be a good likeness, is still questioned by some. Though the national portrait gallery believe it to be authentic, and it is included in the banner they have announced the news with, it will be interesting to see whether Omas incorporate it into the pen design. 

The Pushkin pen is multi-textured, but of a minimalist style to symbolise the ‘uncomplicated” written works of Aleksandr Pushkin. In contrast, Shakespeare’s work was largely watched, not read, by his audience. The works of Shakespeare were performed on stage, and this could come across in the use of material. In another of their limited editions, The I Think, Omas used oak to represent the HMS Beagle that Darwin sailed the world with. Also, because of the visual nature of Shakespeare’s plays, might his pen be more colourful and visual than the Pushkin pen? In the past Omas have not shied away from this challenge; The Gentleman Seaman limited edition depicts a specific scene that represents the figure it’s inspired by. 

The Gentleman Seaman

As a dramatist Shakespeare was bold, his plays and poetry immensely colourful and diverse - and numerous, inspired by tragedy, comedy, history, war, death, magic and love. Though the pen is dedicated to the man, the work we know him so well for will surely feature in the design. To symbolise all of Shakespeare’s work, much of it so iconic to us, would be nigh-on-impossible with the surface of a fountain pen being limited but I think that we might see a design that subtly symbolises and acknowledges the diversity of Shakespeare's work. Engraving is a possibility for including some of Shakespeare's written words; Omas have proven their technical ambition and ability with the I Think limited edition, engraving by hand and in incredible detail a map from 1800 and tracing the route that Darwin took on his journey of discovery.  This is also a technique used similarly for the Piri Reis limited edition, and the diamond engraving techniques were used to transcribe a page of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin on the barrel of that limited edition. The ability to engrave Shakespeare's words is certainly there, but which? Like so many aspects of this pen, I think it will have been a challenge for Omas to pick a direction and a focus when it would be easy to create a limited edition for a single one of the masterpieces we know him for. 

We'll wait and see!

New Omas Limited Edition, The Pearl Grey Duet.

Another blog post, with a pair of pretty special pens from Omas...

Introducing the The Pearl Grey Duet. These won't be arriving on doorsteps until March, but as always because they're limited, if you have already decided definitely want a set and have £999 set aside, as there are only 131 made, we'd advise pre-ordering to avoid disappointment. So without further ado, some more information about these two beauties.

This Pearl Grey Dama set is part of the Omas limited edition Vintage collection, celebrating the popular dodecagonal Arte Italiana Paragon model. In 1931 when Armando Simoni was drawing the design for the very first Arte Italiana, he was not aware he was creating one of the most enduring collections of fine writing instruments, a long history of writing. This historic design now reemerges in a faithful reproduction of the original model of 40s, recreated as a smaller dimension but unchanged in terms of the balance and proportion of the original Paragon twelve-sided model.

Continuing Omas' tradition of the utmost dedication to craftsmanship and to continuing the fine writing tradition, each set took up to ten months to craft. Both Dama pens are enriched with rose gold trim that perfectly complements the smooth pearly celluloid, and to merge aspects of traditional Omas' design, not least an 18ct gold nib which was designed in 1983.

For this edition, Omas have declared that "Our mission is to bring personal enrichment through the experience of handwriting, by leaving behind a signature of precise feelings lived in memorable moments of our lives". 

We’ve been busy on Pinterest

I recently noticed that as well as this blog, our Pinterest boards were looking a little neglected. This just wouldn’t do….

Cue revamp!

As well as adding some of the best snaps we’ve taken in the shop, I’ve snuck in some shots of out-of-edition Conway Stewarts, some of the Omas limited editions, as well as some pen gift recommendations for her and for him if you were looking for some gift inspiration… 

And a lot of Stationery envy.

If you have ideas for boards that you’d like to see, let me know. And of course, if you have any of your own Pinterest boards (and especially pictures of pens, we like those) that you’d like to share!