What's new

How often do you clean your pen?

Now that I have one, I was wondering how often you who use fountain pens clean them? I was just watching a Goulet Pens video, and he said every two to four weeks if you use the pen regularly, using the same ink. That got me to thinking, once I put the cartridge in, I might not want to fill it full so as not to waste ink, but then again, I don't yet know who quickly a FP goes through ink.
 

jar_

Too Fugly For Free.
I clean a pen when I change ink colors or empty it to store it away. My current pen has now been in use for about two years. Maybe when this cartridge is empty it will be time to clean and change.
 
Depends a little on the filling system (Parker 61 capillary filler, I'm looking at you...). For most you empty and fill the pen with clean water to get most of the ink out, then fill with a very dilute water/soap mix. Some companies sell a pen flush that you could use instead. Leave to soak for a bit and rinse repeatedly with clean water. Finally, fill with water and leave with the nib in clean tissue to wick the water out.

For a c/c pen you could also get a bulb syringe, remove the converter and flush the section through very quickly.

Some people take the whole pen to bits and clean each part individually. The general opinion on this seems to be that it is not required in most cases and is probably asking for trouble.
 
I rarely give a pen a thorough cleaning when just refilling it, as I often do several times in a row. Like Jar, above, I do give it a thorough flushing when emptying it and putting it away. At the least, I will flush it repeatedly with water, and wipe off the outside of the pen and the inside of the cap if needed. Sometimes I will flush it with a pen cleaner designed for fountain pens, followed by clean water. If it's a cartridge/converter type, and if I've been using a particularly tenacious ink, I might separate the section and the converter, and run them through my little ultrasonic cleaner.

That is what I do. Whether what I do is actually correct is open to debate, but it has worked out well enough for me.
 
I am also on the, "when I change color or ink" boat. I will generally give a good flush with water and sometimes let the section soak for a little bit. I find my pistons easier to clean out than my cartridge and both easier than my sac pens.

The one big caveat is if I am using an ink that stains, has particles (either shimmer or is a pigment ink like Sei Boku), or is super saturated in which case I typically try to wash it out of a pen within a week or two whether I've finished it or not.
 
OK, so it seems flushing it every two weeks isn't necessary (assuming I'm using it, of course).
 

jar_

Too Fugly For Free.
OK, so it seems flushing it every two weeks isn't necessary (assuming I'm using it, of course).
Again, it is very much dependent on the specific ink and pen.

For example I could let my 1950s Aurora 888P filled using a Platinum Blue cartridge sit unused for months and find it working from the moment the nib touches the paper. But some of my other pens and some other inks would fail to work initially is left unused for more than a day or two.

There is simply no universal right answer.
 
But some of my other pens and some other inks would fail to work initially is left unused for more than a day or two.
And to get the ink flowing again? Just write a few strokes to get it moving? Put the nib in water? What do you do?
 

jar_

Too Fugly For Free.
Again, there is no universal answer. With some just touch the nib to my tongue and off it goes, other let it sit for some time nib down, other run under faucet ...

Depends on the pen and on the nib and on the ink.
 
My Pelikan 140 from the 1950's gets a steady diet of Pelikan 4001 Blue Black and outside of about two fills early on (I got it in August 2017), that's all I have used. I flush it maybe three or four times a year. Oh, it is always in rotation and inked.

Others? When I take out of rotation or change inks. I typically keep 8-12 pens inked, although it is currently down to six, with five or six in the pen cup to clean.



Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk
 

Rhody

I'm a Lumberjack.
Recently I’ve been trying to clean a pen when it’s empty and then I’ll let it dry then try another new ink. Trouble is I ink too many pens. My goal is to have 2 pens inked.
 
Top Bottom