Left home expecting to be gone a couple days, ended up gone over two week. Several pens were nearly empty or already had a bit of water added to the ink so I was not surprised when they were dry. They are now soaking in water and dish detergent.

Have a Wing Sung 830, non hooded nib, with Waterman Purple in it. It is normally a very nice writer, I can let sit for days between use, no problem. Last night it wouldn't write. The pen had ink in the converter. Last night I played with a combination of dipping the full nib in water for a few seconds, spitting on paper, wiping nib slowly with a wet paper towel, shaking, twisting refill on converter to force ink out nib. Splat! Nothing got it going.

I'm now to the point it can go into the clean pile as I've used virtually all the ink, but last night I had more than 1/2 converter and didn't want to waste it flushing and cleaning. Also didn't want to just pull off the converter and clean the rest as I read Richard's note that converters do wear out being removed from the pen. It's such a good pen that I was certain it would get going in just a second. Didn't happen.

Any tricks to getting a pen like that started? Or judging when to dump the ink and start flushing?
Thanks

You may have to soak the nib for a few minutes rather than just dipping it.

Peter

I have a collection of Pelikans, Viscontis and a few others that have been left sitting for several weeks at a time. The Pelikans always start right up like no time has passed. The Viscontis and most of the others usually need some persuasion. For them, I lay them on their sides or nib down, an hour or so before I want to use them, and that's usually all it takes.

Possibly you need to tighten your caps a bit more or perhaps your caps are not airtight.

Thank you both.


For this pen, that maybe the answer. I got it in a lot at a very low price, some had small scratches, a couple describes as looser caps. This cap snaps on tightly, but may not fully seal.

I'm still learning about pens, next time I'll soak the nib and see if that works. As always, thanks for the advice.

No matter how you cut it, ink is fairly expensive. But I always consider the maintenance of my pens as a priority. When I have left pens sit too long, I will soak and flush the nibs if the pens are cartridge/comverter fillers. If the pen is a piston filler. I still dip or soak the nib in water. If it still doesn't write, the ink is out and I flush the pen as well as I can.

Just my personal habit, not a mandate for anyone else.