Problem with TWSBI Mini

**elaineb** · February 2nd, 2015, 12:22 PM

I'm looking for advice from you pen veterans, on how to deal with a customer service issue that isn't really straightforward to me.

Two years ago I spent what was for me a lot of money on a TWSBI mini with an EF nib, and loved it. Beautiful writer, reliable, durable, etc. Unfortunately, after six months, I lost it. Heartbroken, I saved up for some months and bought another one directly from TWSBI's web site. It arrived quickly, and wrote nicely out of the box, except after about half a page of writing, the ink would stop flowing.

I pulled it apart and checked nib alignment, tipping, tine spacing, and feed channels and saw nothing wrong. I cleaned everything thoroughly, reassembled... and the same thing kept happening. I could turn the piston knob to pump more ink into the feed, but again, after about 10 minutes of writing, the pen would go dry again.

I wrote Phillip Wang and he had me send the pen back to the company. I enclosed a note describing the problem, along with a sample sheet demonstrating it. A couple weeks later, I got the pen back with no note or acknowledgement, but the problem hadn't been fixed. In fact, the nib now felt scratchier than it had before.

I just gave up and put the pen away in my drawer, too discouraged to do anything further. I know for many of you, a Mini is a very cheap pen, but I'm on a student budget and $50 had been a big purchase for me. It's been probably eight months now since I got the "repaired" pen back, so I think I'm probably past any sort of warranty period. But I'm wondering if you guys think it's worth contacting TWSBI again to see if it might be fixed.

If not, do you think the problem might be solved if I bought a new nib unit for the pen? Since I couldn't really troubleshoot what the problem had been in the first place, I don't know if there could be other areas of the pen at fault, besides the nib/feed unit. Anyone else have experience with this?

Thanks for any advice

**fountainpenkid** · February 2nd, 2015, 02:08 PM

The same happened to me (at school, nonetheless)--these pens have a habit of disappearing!

My experience w/ TWSBI has been similar as well--"Please send the pen, we'll fix everything" and yet they failed to acknowledge the blatant crack in the barrel of my pen. You should try contacting them; they might charge you for the fix if they agree to do it, but it would almost certainly be less than buying a new nib unit for the pen. You could also send it to a nibmeister; although the problem may not lie in the nib...idk.

Best of Luck!

**jde** · February 2nd, 2015, 03:32 PM

Originally Posted by elaineb

I'm looking for advice from you pen veterans, on how to deal with a customer service issue that isn't really straightforward to me.

Thanks for any advice

Elaine,
Just contact Phillip again and explain what you told us. IME he's been really great at dealing with things that are out of any warranty period.

If not, a nib replacement might very well fix your problem. But not guaranteed. It would be cheaper to buy a new nib, btw, then to send it to a nib worker. Sadly, the TWSBI Mini uses a smaller nib than the larger TWSBI or I'd send you a nib to try.