Slow starting Safari?

[obiwan]

Polepole as they say in Kiswahili.

I'm new to fountain pens, so this may have a simple solution, but I didn't find any w/ a search of past posts.

I recieved a new Safari for the holidays, broad nib. I plugged in the supplied cartridge of blue to get it going. After writing with it daily for 3 weeks now, it still is very slow to start. That is to say, the first use of the day takes several swipes at the paper. Then, even after the daily initiation, any time I pick it up again to write, if the first stroke isn't dead straight and down, it won't start laying down ink until the down stroke. So, my capital O looks like a backward G or something.

I'm wondering now if I should have flushed the pen before inking it up, or if the broad nib just takes more ink than the cartrige wants to relinquish. Seems odd given that it's Lamy's ink.

For reference this happens on Rhodia, cheap laser jet copy paper and the aweful notepads they supply at my office (aweful = almost everything bleeds through).

Any ideas that the hive mind has are much appreciated.

[Sailor Kenshin]

A flush may help. My Safari B's write fairly wet and smooth depending on the ink. Yours should write just fine with the supplied cartridge.

Other, more technical responses may suggest taking a magnifying glass to the nib to see whether the tines are aligned. Or, gapping the slit a little with a brass shim.

But try flushing first with a teeeeeny drop of detergent in the water. Some people recommend ammonia. I don't like it.

[Jeph]

Both of my Safari's acted the same way. I had to disassemble both and give the business end a little soak in water with a drop of dishwashing detergent. You can probably make it work without disassembly. If you end up using a converter you should run a few fills of water through that before using as well.

[Bogon07]

Lamy tests all its nibs with a blue ink so it is a good idea to pull the nib off and clean it before use and also clean/flush the pen.

Brian Goulet has some videos in the tricks & tips section of his blog you may find useful.
http://blog.gouletpens.com/2011/03/cleaning-new-lamy-pen.html

I had a Safari with a B nib that experienced hard starts with the blue cartridges.
It happened with four of them, however I refilled one with a different ink and it had no hard starts.