Flushing with detergent/soap?

[JRodriguez]

I recently purchased a c/c pen that skipped right out of the box. I eventually got the pen working well, but I recall reading on a number of occasions that sometime people use a detergent or soap with water to clean out pens that have this sort of problem. I've only ever used warm water, so what kind do you find to work well?

[southpaw]

I've used Dawn and Joy with no problems at all, largely because that what we use in the kitchen .

[JRodriguez]

Thanks Southpaw. I wasn't sure if there was anything in particular folks used, but it sounds like your run of the mill is fine. Cheers!

[French]

We use Palmolive Oxy on both our dishes and fountain pens. So far no problems with it.

 

french

[JRodriguez]

One more quick question then - for feed issues, is it enough to flush the pen until the ink is cleared, or is a massive number of flushes necessary?

[southpaw]

One more quick question then - for feed issues, is it enough to flush the pen until the ink is cleared, or is a massive number of flushes necessary?

Since you're having trouble and in general, I flush until the water is clear - however long that takes. You'll find it varies from pen to pen and in the same pen it will vary with different inks.

[tonyv]

I've only ever used warm water

 

 

Don't go too warm on the water...I think cold water is normally recommended but slightly warm is supposedly fine. Others have stated before that a brand new pen may have residue left over from the manufacturing process that needs to be flushed really well so your out-of-the-box pen may very well be OK.

[JRodriguez]

I've been using lukewarm water to flush my pens for about a decade and have never had any problems as yet - though I do not from my limited repairing experience that heating the nib and feed is one way to change the ink flow - this is a great little modification if you mean to doit, but this can be bad if you don't want to change the flow of ink, and its possible to accidentally do so if the water is too hot. The reason I asked about the soap/detergent was because I had read about residue of some sort as well - I'm not sure how adding soap would exactly help in removing residue in a way that water wouldn't, but it seems to have worked for people who post here and I thought I might give it a try the next time a pen is skipping. Thanks again for all the help.