As I was caught up with work (to clear my credit card for the Laban Kaiser purchase), I didn't realise that I had left the Kaiser for a few months inked and unused, stashed away in a drawer somewhere. Little did I realise the damage that did to the pen.
I found my Kaiser's nib stained with ink corrosion at the end of the nib, marring the clean steel nib. The pen became a poor starter, refusing to write on the first stroke and skipped frequently. I was sad and quickly consulted Rafil who then took me to another store to introduce me to a pen doctor - the Gills. The Gills have been in the pen business for a long time and though their shop is not fancy looking like Pen Gallery, they do carry branded pens and lots of middle to lower range pens. And they know what they're doing. (note: I could have brought the Kaiser back to Pen Gallery to be fixed but we were not going to swim through the jam that day).
My Kaiser was fixed and I also found out that my converter was faulty thus making inking the pen a bit of a chore as the ink was never able to fill the converter fully. Out comes the cash for a new converter but my Kaiser is a happy camper now. The stain on the nib remained though and it's a good lesson for me. I could have changed the nib but I wanted that "stained" nib to remind me to take some time to care for my fountain pens.
Check this penspotters site out. I learned quite a few things from it.
All in all, my Kaiser is very dear to me. It's special because it taught me a lot of things I never knew about fountain pens. In fact, if the Kaiser hadn't acted up (which was basically my fault in the first place), I don't think I would have learned much and delved much deeper into the art of fountain pens.
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