Calligraphy pens not laying ink evenly I have a few calligraphy kits, with an assortment of some 20 nibs among them. I believe most are Manuscript brand. They all take the cartridges, and are not dip pens. 

Out of the box, none of them are laying down ink evenly for the full width of the nib. They also stop and stutter often. 

I've tried new inks, different types of paper, cleaning the nibs, and even attempting to bend the tips of my duplicate nibs. 

How do I troubleshoot why the nibs don't work, and go about fixing the problem? 



As requested, here are some examples.

Before cleaning. I did some "flow" techniques I read.


This is after cleaning. Cleaning took a considerable amount of time. I finished with an acetone bath/scrub. The paper here is different, but the results were the same on all paper.


I have more success with perfect verticals, applying an even but firm pressure and keeping the nib perfectly level. But, even then I'll have swaths where there's 0 ink flow.

I haven't found a single nib yet that's working proper, and most are completely unused due to frustration.

If I set the pen down for a few minutes, it stops working completely until I spend a minute doing the flow techniques again.
Have you removed the protective (oil) coating of your nibs? Some people burn their nibs (over a candle, for example), but doing this they also re-temper the metal of the nib. (Don't do this if your nib is attached to plastic, of course.) I'd recommend to remove the coating with a Q-tip soaked in nail polish remover (acetone) (you can even try lemon/lime juice).

Some reviews of Manuscript calligraphy kits are pretty bad. If nothing works, maybe try a better nib (e.g. Brause dip nibs with Indian ink).