Ink Angst

[ArbInv]

All

 

Having gone from just a couple of pens to my current array of 10 fountain pens I now realize I cannot possibly keep them all inked and in any sort of regular rotation. I write a fair bit but still wonder a) how long I should let a pen go without use? and what harm would occur if I left some inked for several weeks without use. I hate to waste ink and just flush them and clean them but I also dont want to cause them any harm. Most are new although i have a vintage Pelikan and Vacumatic from the 50s.

 

Thanks

 

Arb

[Joe in Seattle]

Myself, I've never let one go beyond 2-3 weeks without use.

[ArbInv]

To be sure of that I would need to probably ink up no more than two or three pens I guess. This is more disciplined than I have been to date.

 

Arb

[Wandering Man]

I left one inked for 15 years. Although the feed was still good, I've been spending the last month or so searching for a nib to replace the one that the ink ate.

[AndrewC]

I have 10-15 inked at a time, and they go for months that way. Sometimes longer.They all are kept upright so ink doesn't dry in the feeds, though. Really, keeping a pen inked and idle is not that different from owning 1 pen and keeping it filled for years. As long as the ink doesn't dry in the feed, things should be okay. This is not to say you should just ignore a pen until the ink dries in the converter/sack/chamber, but it takes a while for that to happen. Some pens might be problematic, like maybe a capillary filler or ED, but modern pens should not prove troublesome. Keep the ones filled as is, use them up over the next couple months, then when they run out, clean some and put them to bed for a while if you like to keep fewer in rotation. Some folks will use 2-3 pens at a time, and as soon as one runs out of ink, it goes into storage and another one comes out. Some folks use a number of pens for a set amount of time, then empty the pen (some discard the ink, others return it to the bottles), and move to a new set. I am far more haphazard. I just ink up with what strikes my fancy and run with it. If I know I have not used a color or pen for a couple months, I empty it and put it away. Some pens are never emptied, and always have the same ink. I have yet to have issues.

[setriode]

I found much relief and pleasure in reducing the number of inked pens and flushing, drying and putting away clean pens. I now have about 4 in circulation and when a pen runs out of ink, one then has the joy of selecting the next one for use.

 

It is always better, in my opinion, to know that a pen which is not in regular use, is sitting clean, ready and safe for inking whenever it is next required.

Edited November 22, 2014 by setriode

[Runnin_Ute]

I have between 10-15 inked at any given time. I just write with each one of them if not daily then a few times a week. Some were last filled a couple of weeks ago with no issues.

[WaskiSquirrel]

Some pens can successfully remain inked longer than others. I've had amazing luck with the Platinum brand: both the Platinum Preppy and the Platinum 3776. These pens are both great at storing ink for a long period of time. The Platinum 3776 is designed for it.

 

That said, in most pens, there is evaporation and the ink gets strange. If I'm not regularly using most pens, I will clean them out.

[SockAddict]

Okay, before I go further, I now know better.

 

I am a child of the ballpoint age. I have used fountain pens in a very streaky on-again, off-again manner for 25+ years, but nobody ever told me they needed to be cleaned out between uses, or that it was bad to let the ink dry out in the pen. Now, as a frugal person, it upset me that I lost that ink, but I had no idea that it was bad for the pens.

 

So, given that, I have let many pens dry out over the years. I have always been able to revive them with sticking the nibs under running water for a time. Sometimes a long time, I admit, but they always came back. Yes, I know bad things *can* happen. Maybe I've even been pretty lucky. The pens were all new pens -- well, new to me, anyway. I suspect the earliest pens had been in the store for a while before I purchased them, but that still makes them modern pens the way we count them.

 

My guess is that while it is bad to let a pen dry out because something could happen and a blockage could occur, it's not an automatic thing. I guess I'm saying, be careful, but don't sweat it and don't worry.

[Buzz_130]

When you look at those special bottles of expensive, limited edition, or vintage ink, the thought of flushing pens can be a difficult one to ponder. But you can also look at this a different way. When you consider what you have already spent/invested in your fountain pens and then compare it to the cost and incredible supply of fountain pen ink, you can probably move forward without angst.

 

I keep 5 pens inked, and when one runs dry, it gets cleaned and put away. I pick up another from the pen case, fill, and place in my pen wrap for a trip back to the office. When I'm not particularly enjoying a pen, then it just gets flushed and cleaned. I mitigate all of this by deliberately filling my favorite inks in my favorite pens, but the rest is fair game.

 

Buzz

[Parker51]

My solution is to not discard the ink, but to save it. No, I don't fill pens randomly with ink that I flushed out of another pen, and no I don't ignore color by randomly mixing a little left over of one color with another. But I do use a bottle that I long ago used all of the ink from as a repository for the first emptying of a pen that I am going to fill with a different ink. This bottle of ink, which changes in color over time as blues are added to blacks, reds, browns and greens is what I use to refill a desk pen that is always inked up and next to a pad next to a land line phone. It is used daily for the mundane tasks of taking notes from calls, transcribing voice mails, and making action lists. This type of writing, while pedestrian is better with a desk pen than any other type of pen I ave found, and really doesn't require any specific ink color.

[Sandy1]

Hi,

The practice of having many pens charged with various inks and letting them sit idle continues to confound me.

For personal writing, I'll charge a pen with ink for a certain purpose / document, and when that is done, I cleanse and retire the pen until the next time we meet. (As I have trouble with Red-centric inks, sometimes for one letter there's half a dozen pens to be cleansed.)

For pens that are in active use, I've had no problems running them for months with a quick rinse of the nib+feed every time they're charged with ink. Even the Plumix that's a test bed for prolonged exposure to I-G ink with zero maintenance is doing well one year on (or is it two?), and that's just being used for envelopes and bits of ephemera. It seems that my daily writers are most often taken out of service due to ink accumulation in the cap, so the rest of the pen tags along for the ride.

If I'm running written samples / tests of an ink, I want them to be on-the-level, so clean freshly charged pens are used.

 

For my play time with an ink, often in a casual carry pen, I want to use that ink+pen combo exclusively - no other ink+pen combos to distract me. (OCD enough?)

Also, fairly prompt clean-up minimises the maintenance overhead and the use of clean-up chemicals stronger than water.

Then there's one's Tedium Tolerance. Even if using the Caran d'Ache inks, I reckon the extra time it would take me to cleanse a pen that had ink lingering in it is worth more than the cost of discarded ink, (currently £0.5 per ml.) And I can only imagine what travails await those who'd leave a persistent ink in a pen known to be tedious to cleanse. I've rescued enough pens found in the wild that I have no desire to go through that rigmarole on a routine basis.

I also support the practice of using a small 'filler bottle' so that fresh ink can be recovered and used. I would not be keen on recovering ink that was left lingering in a pen.

Heel taps of seldom used simple aniline dye inks go into one of the bottles set aside for use with dip pens.

And speaking of dip pens, if I just want to use a bit of a given ink for a specific spot purpose, the Brause Ornament nibs often come out to play.

 

No inky angst here!

Bye,
S1

Edited November 22, 2014 by Sandy1

[lmarine0510]

Last week, I found an inked Reform 1745 in my drawer that had not been used since I got it in April (~7 months ago) due to me not liking its small size. I got it out, uncapped it, and it wrote without any problem. That cap must have a good seal to the barrel.

[Lou Erickson]

My personal record is six years. I had the multi-color set of Pilot Varsities, which I put someplace safe until I needed them.

 

Six years later, I found a friend who should have them, and tore half the house apart to find them. I tested them before I sent them; every one wrote the first try.

 

Dunno what Pilot does to the Varsity, but it must seal well. Never had one leak, either.