Dear Sirs and Madams,
I have my Opera Crystal No. 738 (say, doesn't SBRE Brown have No. 724??) for about less than 12 hours now and I have made a mess trying to fill then clean it. My source of information is SBRE Brown's power filler shootout, where he takes the Opera Crystal apart as far as he can.
WHY did I do this with a brand new Opera Crystal? I wanted to try a different ink. I had Edelstein Garnet in there (like it!) and wated to try Amber. Yes, that's very silly. I had no idea that cleaning this pen would be such a pain in the derriere. My Lamy st. never gave me this much trouble.
Let me recount my idiocy:
1) The nib and feed are unscrewed from the section, using your fingers just turn. Seemed simple enough.
2) The nib is pulled out of the feed. Oops, didn't think about what it would entail to _align_ them again and how to get them back into the pen. Ash on my head.
3) Using a tool (in my case a screwdriver that is broad enough for this purpose) the plastic mid-section / insert / seal inside the pen which the feed screws into and which itself then screws into the pen and providing the seal between the section and the resevoir, is then removed. The idea being to be able to get into the pen body to clean the resevoir. SBRE Brown did it. This is what happens when the inexperienced look upon the actions of the mighty and think they can do the same.
So, I did that. Now you know and can be horrified as I am.
Here are some newbie questions, as I stand here with ink all over my hands, entirely marked by my failure, with a pen that is neither cleaned nor put back together.
A) Well, how do you clean out the main resevoir? There's ink behind the plunger that just doesn't go away and won't run down on its own by gravity, and I can't get a paper towel back there. -Fill in distilled water-? Is that okay? In fact, how are you supposed to maintain the plastic plunger and get some silicon in there?
B) How do you dry the main resevoir, say, if you've filled it with water to flush it out?
C) After you put the plastic mid-section/seal/whatever its called back into the body, turn it in by hand as far as you can. Then use your tool and turn it into the body until it is firm. Yes?
D) How do I get the the nib and feed aligned properly (Yes, "experience" I am guessing - fiddle with it until you've figured it out and have it working how you like, I can accept that, that's life.)
E) Oh, but now saying you've aligned that nib and feed, how do you screw it back into the pen without messing up that nice alignment you just did? Using my fingers to turn the nib/feed into the body pushes the nib about and twists it relative to the feed and sadness ensues.
F) How far do you turn the nib/feed into the body? Do you screw until it stops? Just far enough to have it "in there"? It seems if I screw far enough it starts to push the feed about under the nib and messes my alignment up again.
Oh man. I've made a mess of my Opera Crystal. Have mercy upon me. Blot out my transgressions. Wash me wash me.
-H.Rubr
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