LAMY 2000 quality control issues are not related to the "sweet spot"

Just got my LAMY 2000 in the mail yesterday; now it is snug in its box headed back to the distributor I ordered it from for a full refund. I REALLY wish I had listened to the quality control complaints that are so ubiquitous, but I loved the look of it and wanted to believe the dismissals from the pen's advocates that said it was just an angle issue and that the complainers just didn't know how to hold the pen properly. After realizing to my horror that it wrote like a chicken bone, I took it to a nearby fountain pen store where the staff confirmed that the nib was very catchy. For a $250 (Canadian) pen to write like that out of the box is ridiculous. I saw a lot of people online saying it wrote badly until they cleaned it many times, or after 3 ink refills, or after getting the nib ground and now they love it. Thanks, but not thanks. If I'm paying hundreds for a pen, it's going to, you know, actually write well without manipulation. That's something I ask of my $30 pens, let alone a gold nib from LAMY.

What really irks me is the glib dismissals of what I now know are genuine and accurate complaints about LAMY's embarrassing quality control. If you are considering buying a LAMY 2000, and are worried about this issue, don't let people tell you it isn't real. It 100% is and I've experienced it first hand. Buyer beware.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I have bought three over the last decade or so. All of them have been fine out of the box…

My experience of pen fora is much more limited, but if I were to generalise I would say that, going by posts like yours, German pens tend to suffer from baby's bottom (Pelikan, Kaweco, Lamy) and Italian pens just suffer.

You are certainly not alone in experiencing Lamy QC issues. I have. And I've read about it more than a few times.

We don't have a large sample set or a scientific approach, only anecdotes, but there are enough to encourage exercising caution when purchasing, certainly.

Too, it is worth remembering that one anecdote cannot disprove or dismiss another.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by silverlifter

My experience of pen fora is much more limited, but if I were to generalise I would say that, going by posts like yours, German pens tend to suffer from baby's bottom (Pelikan, Kaweco, Lamy) and Italian pens just suffer.

---

Ah, but so many of the Italian pens are so beautiful. But I do understand your point.

This is embarrassing, but I went and got a new one. I had it cleaned in the store and then took it home and inked it. I wrote about 20 pages with it and it skips, on average, about ten times per page. So that's two absolute duds in a row. Although I will have owned a LAMY 2000 only briefly (I'll be returning this one this afternoon), it will rank as the worst pen I've owned in any price bracket. When you factor in the price, I can't think of anything that I've bought for this amount of money that felt like I was getting something that should cost about $2.

It's a shame, because I love the design and feel of the pen and there is nothing else quite like it. A pen, however, should write.

Have you tried changing the ink? Many pens prefer certain inks over others.

I don't at all doubt the OP's experience.

While I don't really care for piston filers, the 2000 is such a talked-about pen that, after agonizing over which nib size to buy, and whether the little nubs would annoy me, or if the pen would feel too heavy, I watched a brief Tube demonstration vid. it featured an EF nib, filled with Sailor Souten. And it looked soooo coooool.

That decided me. I got one off Amazon. What sweet spot? It wrote beautifully out of the box, no flushing ('cause that's just how I am), with Souten. I don't use it often, but it was great for me.

Of course, this was several years ago. QC may have slid downhill since.

I have used Lamy pens, but not the 2000. I have to admit, it was the greyness, charcoal, the idea of perpetuating neutrality, brut beton, ratty colors, smog, copd,... I rather have a Safari or a different brand for the gold nib. In the least, shiny black with gold trim should always be an option ;- )

On the more practical side, I have heard complaints on most brands, including the best top models, just not two times in a row by the same buyer. I allow a bit more scratchiness on extra fine nibs, but a minium of smoothness and evenness for any fountain pen. Dip pens on the other hand you just have to accept come with a certain resistance and sqeeky noise to the paper. I fuzz a lot with getting the right nib too.

You may know all this but in case it helps anyone someday:

Since it is skipping you might try thoroughly flushing it with a pen flush liquid first in case there is any residue left on the nib or feed from the manufacturing process.

A wetter flowing ink like Iroshizuku Take-sumi, Pilot Black, Quink Black, or Skrip Black could help mitigate other issues. What ink are you using?

If ink doesn't help perhaps the nib tines are too tight. Lamy or a nib meister should be able to easily fix this. Or you can too—if you've practiced on a number of cheaper pens first. :)

In my internet search for Lamy 2k issues, flow tuning seems to be one possible issue of several posited across various threads.

Some posters indicated that their pen needed a little more than usual pressure to deliver ink to the page. Or that upstrokes—usually much lighter than downstrokes—skipped.

I've tuned a few of my pens so they deliver a very fine, faint line of ink under only their own weight, but adequate ink flow under normal writing on downstrokes, so that the finer line appears on fast upstrokes of certain loops in letters like h or y. The result has been a reliable writer with subtle line variation.

On a few occasions I have observed pens with misaligned tines to skip. Again that's something that Lamy or a nib guru can fix. And so can you with practice.

If the pen suffers from baby's bottom it will tend to hard start when first starting lines, in my experience. This issue makes printing is a nightmare while cursive is less annoying. The hard starts may only appear after pausing cursive writing for a few seconds.

By contrast, skipping in the middle of a continuous line (of cursive writing, say) would likely be a flow issue, I think.

Hope this is helpful.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by carlos.q

Have you tried changing the ink? Many pens prefer certain inks over others.

---

I haven't although I get that. I just have some run of the mill LAMY Black that, in my opinion (and I hope LAMY's) should work in a LAMY pen, at least to the point that it is not extremely annoying to write with. Also, I've had other people say things like "try this ink, or that paper". Okay, but it should work with standard paper and ink, not only when I have really nice, expensive wet ink and only on the most high quality paper and only when the planets are all properly aligned. Lots of pens will feel smooth like that.

I appreciate that you're trying to help me out though and I genuinely appreciate that. I just want a daily writer that writes consistently, and the LAMY is touted as such.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sailor Kenshin

I don't at all doubt the OP's experience.

While I don't really care for piston filers, the 2000 is such a talked-about pen that, after agonizing over which nib size to buy, and whether the little nubs would annoy me, or if the pen would feel too heavy, I watched a brief Tube demonstration vid. it featured an EF nib, filled with Sailor Souten. And it looked soooo coooool.

That decided me. I got one off Amazon. What sweet spot? It wrote beautifully out of the box, no flushing ('cause that's just how I am), with Souten. I don't use it often, but it was great for me.

Of course, this was several years ago. QC may have slid downhill since.

---

I don't doubt your experience either! Enough people that know a lot more about fountain pens than I do love them and say that they are one of their favourite pens. I just think you got a good one and I didn't, and that's all there is to it. I want so badly to love this pen, but every time I pick it up it's just. Not. Right.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by azkid

You may know all this but in case it helps anyone someday:

Since it is skipping you might try thoroughly flushing it with a pen flush liquid first in case there is any residue left on the nib or feed from the manufacturing process.

A wetter flowing ink like Iroshizuku Take-sumi, Pilot Black, Quink Black, or Skrip Black could help mitigate other issues. What ink are you using?

If ink doesn't help perhaps the nib tines are too tight. Lamy or a nib meister should be able to easily fix this. Or you can too—if you've practiced on a number of cheaper pens first. :)

In my internet search for Lamy 2k issues, flow tuning seems to be one possible issue of several posited across various threads.

Some posters indicated that their pen needed a little more than usual pressure to deliver ink to the page. Or that upstrokes—usually much lighter than downstrokes—skipped.

I've tuned a few of my pens so they deliver a very fine, faint line of ink under only their own weight, but adequate ink flow under normal writing on downstrokes, so that the finer line appears on fast upstrokes of certain loops in letters like h or y. The result has been a reliable writer with subtle line variation.

On a few occasions I have observed pens with misaligned tines to skip. Again that's something that Lamy or a nib guru can fix. And so can you with practice.

If the pen suffers from baby's bottom it will tend to hard start when first starting lines, in my experience. This issue makes printing is a nightmare while cursive is less annoying. The hard starts may only appear after pausing cursive writing for a few seconds.

By contrast, skipping in the middle of a continuous line (of cursive writing, say) would likely be a flow issue, I think.

Hope this is helpful.

---

Thanks for your advice. For what I paid for this pen, I'm not willing to start doing a bunch of fiddling with it or getting repairs, etc. I am going to walk back to the store, calmly and politely ask for a refund, and not think about the LAMY 2000 again.

Before you return the pen give it another opportunity and try it with something else than Lamy black, which is a notoriously dry ink. My Lamy 2000 with a fine nib doesn't like dry inks either. However it works great with Sailor Souten. Same thing happens with a vintage MB146: it definitely dislikes dry inks but it sings with Sailor 4B.

I don't blame you for taking it back. I would expect a lot better at that price point.

Lamy Black is a very dry-flowing ink, but even if your pens were tuned on the dry side, they should still write with Lamy Black anyway, though perhaps faintly and not very smoothly.

Which is to say it sounds like Lamy needs to fire one or more of their nib grinders.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xuben

This is embarrassing, but I went and got a new one. I had it cleaned in the store and then took it home and inked it. I wrote about 20 pages with it and it skips, on average, about ten times per page. So that's two absolute duds in a row. Although I will have owned a LAMY 2000 only briefly (I'll be returning this one this afternoon), it will rank as the worst pen I've owned in any price bracket. When you factor in the price, I can't think of anything that I've bought for this amount of money that felt like I was getting something that should cost about $2.

It's a shame, because I love the design and feel of the pen and there is nothing else quite like it. A pen, however, should write.

---

So, you bought a Lamy 2000 and put it to an acid test. I have thought about this for a while and about my two Lamy 2000 pens, both extra fine, that perfectly suit me. One is dry and one is wetter. The dry one will skip sometimes after writing a few pages or if I have paused writing. The wetter pen will go interminably with long pauses and never dries out or skips. Someone tuned the wetter pen to write wetter. It isn't 10/10 wet, but perhaps 8/10. The dry pen is about 5/10 or a bit drier. It could conceivably be that your pen needed tuning to a slightly wetter state.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xuben

I just want a daily writer that writes consistently, and the LAMY is touted as such.

---

All pens are, aren't they? At least by their makers. And some get hyped and become the "it" pen for a while. Usually not for no good reason at all, but these days if a few youtube reviewers get nice pens, then it seems persuasive... all of their pens are probably good.

I absolutely believe you got two bad Lamy 2000s in a row. Pens should write, I totally agree, and at some price points a fixer upper might be acceptable for some and not for others, and at the price of the Lamy, besides the known "rolling" sensitivity, no adjustments should be necessary.

However -- if someone touts a whole pen line as being perfect out of the box every time (unless you know each one going out of the factory are hand tested as some fine brands indeed are), then you mustn't believe that person. There is just no way for them to know that unless they have a very large sample size. You can believe the reverse more readily: someone who fixes pens and see a lot of brand x in their shop. Even that could just be that brand x pens are popular.

Anyway, I'm sure you get that and I am not helping. But assume you're going to have to send one back once in a while. Or twice in a while.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by carlos.q

Before you return the pen give it another opportunity and try it with something else than Lamy black, which is a notoriously dry ink. My Lamy 2000 with a fine nib doesn't like dry inks either. However it works great with Sailor Souten. Same thing happens with a vintage MB146: it definitely dislikes dry inks but it sings with Sailor 4B.

---

Too late, it's returned as well! That was a LOT of anxiety. I hope it doesn't kill my nascent fountain pen fascination. I planned on getting that LAMY for months and was really excited when I finally pulled the trigger it; like a kid at Christmas. Now i'm leery.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xuben

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by carlos.q

Before you return the pen give it another opportunity and try it with something else than Lamy black, which is a notoriously dry ink. My Lamy 2000 with a fine nib doesn't like dry inks either. However it works great with Sailor Souten. Same thing happens with a vintage MB146: it definitely dislikes dry inks but it sings with Sailor 4B.

---

Too late, it's returned as well! That was a LOT of anxiety. I hope it doesn't kill my nascent fountain pen fascination. I planned on getting that LAMY for months and was really excited when I finally pulled the trigger it; like a kid at Christmas. Now i'm leery.

---

Yes, it's too bad it didn't work out better. I think the seller should have adjusted the nib for how you intended to use the pen, so you rightly returned it. Results like this do sour some people on fountain pens. If you still have the interest to buy a fountain pen, you might consider a Pelikan. These pens usually have the ink flow to support a lot of writing. The seller should adjust the pen to how you intend to use it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xuben

Too late, it's returned as well! That was a LOT of anxiety. I hope it doesn't kill my nascent fountain pen fascination. I planned on getting that LAMY for months and was really excited when I finally pulled the trigger it; like a kid at Christmas. Now i'm leery.

---

Fear not. I really feel you will have far better luck with certain other brands.

What other pens do you have currently?

We can always recommend pens that are more likely to work out of the box.

Also, some of the folks on here sell vintage pens they repair and restore (penwash, Deb) so you know a live human has tested the pens. I occasionally do too (for fun; I am no pro). I always test and tune them until they work properly or I won't sell them.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by azkid

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xuben

Too late, it's returned as well! That was a LOT of anxiety. I hope it doesn't kill my nascent fountain pen fascination. I planned on getting that LAMY for months and was really excited when I finally pulled the trigger it; like a kid at Christmas. Now i'm leery.

---

Fear not. I really feel you will have far better luck with certain other brands.

What other pens do you have currently?

We can always recommend pens that are more likely to work out of the box.

Also, some of the folks on here sell vintage pens they repair and restore (penwash, Deb) so you know a live human has tested the pens. I occasionally do too (for fun; I am no pro). I always test and tune them until they work properly or I won't sell them.

---

On a whim I bought a Pilot Metro fine point which I enjoyed and then I bought a LAMY Studio (fine) which I love and which writes like glass although a bit wetter than perfect. It's because I like my Studio so much that I was so surprised and disappointed with my 2000. I'd like to buy an "entry level" gold nib and now that I've written off the 2000, I'm kind of thinking about the 3776. I don't love the look of it, but a traditional style to start off with might not be the worst thing and I tested the medium in store and liked the way it felt. I went with the medium instead of the fine, because the fine in the Studio writes like a medium anyway.

I'm not interested in amassing a huge collection, but rather spending about $200-$300 (Canadian) in a pen like once a year and then, in ten years, getting a grail pen in the $1,000 range. I figure that would be a decent collection in about ten years.