Over the last couple of months I have been much enjoying the Delike New Moon fude nib fountain pen. I am on my second, after giving the first one away.

The main reason why I enjoy this inexpensive pen so much, comes down to writing pleasure from the nib and the way it compliments my handwriting. The fine fude stainless steel nib, (with its upturned tip), writes very smoothly and provides some subtle line width variation in my usual style (whether underwriting or overwriting). Also it has the versatility of providing several different line widths when required, simply by changing the way I hold the pen.

Looking back over the pages of my notebooks for the past few weeks, where I often write a few lines of nonsense just for the pleasure of putting pen to paper from any of the dozen or so currently inked pens in the pen cups, I noticed that the Delike had produced a more interesting line: my handwriting seemed to look more attractive from this pen, than from many others.

Nothing is ever perfect. Recently I noticed that my Delike had taken to hardstarting: not writing immediately when I picked up the pen after an interval of a few hours. I keep my currently inked pens upright in pen cups and write something with most of them fairly frequently. But I started to notice that if the Delike was left overnight in the pen cup, it might hesitate to start the next day. The nib would be dry. I might get a word or two out of it, but some letters would be incomplete (skipping) and then the nib would run dry completely. I would hold the pen nib down and give it a few shakes. After a few bouts of shaking, ink would flow, dark and wet again, and the nib would feel super-smooth and lubricated. I would be cooking on gas and all would be forgiven and forgotten.

This was not due to ink starvation, which is sometimes caused by surface tension causing ink to remain at the back end of the cartridge or converter, when it should flow to the nib. The Delike’s converter includes a little coil of metal as an ink agitator which slides up and down to combat that.

At first I thought that the problem was one of ink evaporation. This can occur when the cap does not create an airtight seal around the nib. Some pens are brilliant at avoiding this, such as some Platinums with their slip and seal sprung inner caps, or the Esterbrook Estie which also has a sprung inner cap. My Aurora 88 and Aurora Optima both have ebonite feeds which, together with well designed caps, mean hard starts do not happen.

To see if your cap is airtight, a crude test is to place your mouth over the rim and try to blow: if air escapes it is not airtight. If your cheeks puff out and nothing happens, then it is. The Delike cap passed this test.

This led me to think that the hardstarting may not be due to ink evaporation but instead have another cause, that the ink drained away from the nib and/or feed overnight, back into the cartridge or converter. This would simply be due to gravity, whilst the pen is left upright in the pen cup. If that is the cause, then an easy solution is not to stand the pen in a pen cup but leave it horizontal.

This week I have been testing my theory on the Delike. Does this work? It is early days but I am cautiously optimistic that the problem may have been solved. I have not been very (or at all) scientific in my method. I have only one Delike New Moon pen, not a whole bunch of them to put into two groups, to leave some horizontal while another, control group stays upright. I also try only one ink at a time. Temperatures may make a big difference if evaporation is at play. However, I shall continue to monitor how this goes.

As for inks tried, I am on my seventh, having inked my first New Moon with Pilot Iroshizuku Tsuki-yo, Pelikan Edelstein Smoky Quartz, Montlanc Toffee Brown, and Parker Quink Blue Black: my second New Moon has had Waterman Serenity Blue, Robert Oster Aqua and currently Montlanc William Shakespeare Velvet Red. A fill with the gorgeous Velvet Red is a luxury usually only afforded to my Montblanc Classique and so I hope that the pen behaves itself. So far so good.