cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/927840
[Image description: A white fountain pen with a silver clip on the cap and a silver zebra stripe band around the middle lies on a blue dotted grid desk pad.]
I impulse bought a Pilot Metropolitan (F) about a month ago and have had the worst experience so far. First it took 3 days of experimenting (squeezing the cartridge, flushing, cleaning, shaking, incessant scribbling) to get it to write at all. Then I noticed the nib was a bit off-center in the feed so I aligned it and it wrote pretty well for a while. This morning I grabbed it to take some notes and it won’t start, even after a flush with water and re-seating the cartridge. This isn’t my first fountain pen (not even my first Pilot!) but I’m really disappointed because the Metro seems to be such a popular recommendation as a solid, inexpensive starter pen. Did I get a dud?
This is definitely a painful experience. Will you be able to swap it out with the seller? The Metropolitan is a pen that just has to work out of the box without any tinkering.
I’ve always wanted to try one of those, but they are hard to find in the UK.
Sounds like a dud. I’ve bought number of MRs and never had such issue. That said, I never buy japanese fine nibs. They are too thin for me.