So I have this pen, a Uniball Vision micro, for about a year now, that has lately turned into a very scratchy writer with reduced flow. Normally with a rollerball I would attribute this to running out of ink, but I can see that there's plenty of ink left in the pen. So is this problem caused by my heavy writing pressure on the ball, forcing it in? It's twin that I bought at the same time I have used much more often, still writes well.

As much as I enjoy bulletpoint rollerballs, I've often had problems with them, which I attributed to them being poorly constructed. I bought a set of Staedtler rollerballs, and half of them turned scratchy and lost flow within weeks, and those that didn't had thier ballpoints fall out! A set of Pilot Vballs lost thier balls gradually until one hardy survivor was left, and in high school I ran through a set of three uniball deluxes, with one losing its ball, one finishing normally, and another having premature wasting.

So is it really me? I have never had these problems with any other sort of pen, even needlepoints.

WOW! It sounds like you and rollerballs just aren't made for each other. Remind me never to lend you one of mine!

I've never had a rollerball ball fall out! The ball from a ballpoint pen, yes, a rollerball, no.

I'm not at all sure what makes a good rollerball go bad (turn scratchy) but I do know that a fountain pen and a technical pen can pick up paper dust (yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as paper dust) when used for long periods without being cleaned or wiped down. I recently (and I do mean recently) had an old fountain pen refuse to write well. No matter what I did I just could not get it to write well at all. Then I took some #000 steel wool and twisted the point of the nib in it for a few seconds and now it writes just fine. I guess there was a bit of corrosion on the corrosion resent metal.

Now I don't suggest that you do this to one of your scratchy rollerballs, not at first anyway. Get some Isopropyol alcohol (91% is best: less water) and a cotton ball and try cleaning the scratchy offender (you might want to wear rubber gloves for this, unless you like ink stains on your fingers). If that doesn't work then by all means, try the #000 steel wool trick (eh, please, don't use a Brillo pad! Invest in some fine steel wool from Walmart, or Ace Hardware, or borrow some from a neighbor [and don't tell them what it's for, it'll drive them nuts!]) Again with the rubber gloves on, take a small ball of steel wool in the fingers of one hand and gently twist the tip of the pen into the ball of steel wool. Do this for about 15 seconds, wipe the nib off with a tissue (or your husbands favorite tie) and see if the scratchiness has gone away. You may have to repeat the process several times in order to reach the entire surface of the offending ball (your husband will love the look of his "new" tie).

If the steel wool trick does not work and your rollerball fails to write from this point on, well, hey, it was worth a shot, wasn't it? I mean, it was on the fast track to a slow death anyway, right? It's not like you, of all people, haven't had a rollerball or two conk out on you, right?...

Seriously, try cleaning the pen tip first before trying to smooth it out with steel wool. In fact, you might want to try this before the steel wool angle. I've had success cleaning out non-refillable non-replaceable technical pen nibs using a liquid (non aerosol) spot/stain remover. It dissolves the old ink and cleans the nibs out quite well. Of course I've pulled the tips free of the pen body and soaked the overnight in a small amount of solution in a shallow bowl. What I suggest you try is to put a small amount of spot remover into a small cup or glass (disposable preferably) and place the offenders into the liquid, just to where the tip is covered is all that you need. Let them set for an hour or so, checking on them every 15 minutes to assure that the ink isn't running out of the pens (I doubt that this will happen, but you never know). Remove the pens form the cup and dry them off and see if the scratchiness has gone. If it has then the offending nibs had dried ink in them. If there is no change, well it was worth a shot, right?...

I hope that this helps in some small way. :roll:

I tried your suggestions. Alcohol did not work, spot stain treatment failed, and the steel wool didn't work either. The pen actually writes even scratchier now, but I just have an excuse to get a replacement, until the same thing happens again. It really must be my writing style.

However, I tried the steel wool on a disposable fountain pen that was giving me trouble, and it totally fixed the flow problem. The nib never really worked right for me and a moments with the wool saved that one from the garbage can. :D

So thanks for the tips!

Sorry the tips only worked on the fountain pen. But I'm glad it worked on that one at least.

I can't really understand why a rollerball ball would suddenly become scratchy unless something has scratched the ball. But it's difficult to believe that a rollerball ball can get scratched because it's generally made form stainless steel. I don't think that under normal circumstances that anything that a writer does can cause a stainless steel ball to become scratched. The one thing I can think of that would make a rollerball feel scratchy is a lack of ink flow or inadequate ink flow. The ball has a series of tiny pits in it in order to hold the ink. If there is insufficient flow of ink to the ball then the pits could be making more contact with the paper and causing a scratchy feeling.

But then again, what do I know? :roll: :lol:

I've never had a ball fall out (I'm pretty sure I haven't)

Whats it look like? An inky silver ball? :)