Originally Posted by
Seattleite
Here is my big giant suggestion that you start with diagnosis and eliminate the easy to address issues first. Chrissy's advice about not "sticking anything up the hood to adjust it" sounds like good advice in both medicine and mechanics, but it applies to fountain pens as well. Are you sure that there isn't an obstruction? 70 year old pens that have just been worked on are notorious for having some piece of 70 year old crap get dislodged, but not flushed away. Could also be a bit of sealant stuck somewhere. A good regiment of flushing and some warm water soaking is tedious, but a good place to start. Also, once you work on it where you move any parts, you kind of lose your right to send it back to get adjustments under your original work order.
As to using a shim to widen a 51 nib, I would shy away from it. Damage to slit, dislodged tipping and even cracks at the vent are pretty easy. Moving those short stout tines laterally takes a lot of force. If it only opens up when the tines are pushed up into the hood, then you have issues that I think would have been addressed when the pen was serviced. I have only heard good things if it is the Danny that I am thinking of, and concur that sending it back makes sense. If you want to work on it, you could always find out what type of sealant was used and the recommended removal method, as you know who did the work.
With my vintage pens, I kind of have settled on using inks of similar properties, with the dry writers being the dry writers and the wet ones being the wet ones. One of the advantages of having a gazillion pens.
Have a good one,
Bob
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