I posted this one in the February Acquisitions thread, but I felt it was worth a new thread. I bought a Lamy 2000 fine on Monday from a Seller on Amazon and it arrived yesterday. I bought from them based on price since my local place wanted MSRP $200 and Goulet was about $160, and the Amazon seller was $130.11 + $3.99 for next day shipping so I copped out and went that route based on speed and somewhat price.
Well the pen came in and after an eventful morning with it being knocked off my desk after a good cleaning I got around to fussing with it. There wasn't any damage from the fall, it seemed to land on it's side so all was well there. I did notice later that I had some problems, the piston was stiff and the nib wrote dry, it skipped on the upstroke and scratchy and the sweet spot was tiny and I had to use a low angle to get the pen to write decently. I filled it up with PR midnight blues, my wettest ink since it wasn't very wet and I wanted to be sure it just didn't like my J. Herbin Ocean Bleu. I was really disappointed that the pen didn't write very well and I was all set to send it in to Lamy since I read this can be an issue.
This morning once I got to the office I thought I'd break out my 20x loupe and see what was going on. Well low and behold the nib is off center, a common problem, so I moved it over and tightened the nib section just a little and it seemed to lock it down and it hasn't moved since. Then I see the tines are misaligned, very uneven, so I set out to bend the tall one down starting very gently and inspecting each time. The top one did not want to move at all so I decided that we would try moving the bottom tine. Working gently and checking often I lined it up with the other tine and it felt much better on paper each time until I finally aligned the tines.
Now she writes perfectly, wet, true and no scratch, buttery smooth just like the sample I tried. Now I can't wait to run it out of ink so I can try the J. Herbin again.
After all of that trouble and my anger at being without my pen for a month and $10 more for repairs, it turns out it just needed a little tweek and I'm very happy. I still feel that I shouldn't have needed to do anything to it out of the box, but it's quickly becoming my favorite pen.
Well the pen came in and after an eventful morning with it being knocked off my desk after a good cleaning I got around to fussing with it. There wasn't any damage from the fall, it seemed to land on it's side so all was well there. I did notice later that I had some problems, the piston was stiff and the nib wrote dry, it skipped on the upstroke and scratchy and the sweet spot was tiny and I had to use a low angle to get the pen to write decently. I filled it up with PR midnight blues, my wettest ink since it wasn't very wet and I wanted to be sure it just didn't like my J. Herbin Ocean Bleu. I was really disappointed that the pen didn't write very well and I was all set to send it in to Lamy since I read this can be an issue.
This morning once I got to the office I thought I'd break out my 20x loupe and see what was going on. Well low and behold the nib is off center, a common problem, so I moved it over and tightened the nib section just a little and it seemed to lock it down and it hasn't moved since. Then I see the tines are misaligned, very uneven, so I set out to bend the tall one down starting very gently and inspecting each time. The top one did not want to move at all so I decided that we would try moving the bottom tine. Working gently and checking often I lined it up with the other tine and it felt much better on paper each time until I finally aligned the tines.
Now she writes perfectly, wet, true and no scratch, buttery smooth just like the sample I tried. Now I can't wait to run it out of ink so I can try the J. Herbin again.
After all of that trouble and my anger at being without my pen for a month and $10 more for repairs, it turns out it just needed a little tweek and I'm very happy. I still feel that I shouldn't have needed to do anything to it out of the box, but it's quickly becoming my favorite pen.
