I actually registered over two years ago and now realize I've never posted. I have no idea why. I also stopped using my fountain pens for a while and I have no idea why that happened, either.
For many moons, I've gone hunting around for a ballpoint (ick!) or using the gel pen I reserved for writing checks whenever I needed to jot something down. It's been not only inconvenient, but completely unnecessary, but I've continued to do it, until just the last week or two when I rediscovered my fountain pens.
So, now I've gone completely in the other direction and inked most of my pens, including the Parker Reflex I've hated for so long. It's a much smoother pen than I remember, but it's got a problem with intermittent skipping. Yet, I'd still rather use it than most ballpoints. I guess I've returned from the Dark Side. LOL
Indeed welcome back & congrats on your first post.
RE: the skipping reflex.
soak the section in a cup of slightly over room temp water for 20 minutes or so. Shake it off, dry it up, then pull the nib/feed out of the section. A small piece of ink sac or rubber of some kind will help grip it & not slip as easily. After it's out, use an old toothbrush to clean the ink channels in the feed. Rinse & set aside. Using a very thin piece of sheet brass, floss between the nib tines. rinse & reassemble the nib/feed in the section. I'm willing to bet that solves your skipping issues. Let me know if this works.
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Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito ~Yield not to misfortunes, but advance all the more boldly against them
And thanks for the suggestion, DWL. I'll give it a try. So far, aside from partially disassembling a malfunctioning Snorkel (which turned out to need more work than I'm prepared to do--will be sending it out when I can), and turning a few of my nibs into stubs, I haven't tried to work on my own pens. But it's less scary with a cheap pen. LOL
Dont send that snorkel out! Go over to the repair forum & watch my repair videos & learn how to do it yourself! it's a lot of fun & you'll save hundreds on repair costs that you can use to buy more pens...lol.
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Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito ~Yield not to misfortunes, but advance all the more boldly against them