I've got a grey plastic cartridge pen, probably from the 70's or 80's, that says "Watermans" on the clip and "Watermans 18CTS 3 France" on the nib. I can't really identify it; it's a really simple plastic pen, with no decorations except for what looks like a gold-filled/plated clip and cap band. Anyway, I've been trying to fix it off-and-on for the past few weeks.

Apparently, the feed/section is seriously clogged. Ink won't run from the cartridge nipple to the nib. Heck, even when I fill the nipple section with water, none of it will run through the feed to the nib.

I've tried soaking the section overnight in Rapid-o-Eze, then blasting water through the section with a syringe. I managed to spray out a whole bunch of black rust-like gunk. However, I've now blasted the section to the point that no more gunk comes out, and still neither ink or water will run through the feed/section (unless I blast it through using significant pressure from the syringe).

I even tried sucking ink into the pen by using a syringe instead of a converter. All I managed to get into the syringe were 1 or 2 really tiny drops.

The thing is, the pen writes like a gem when I dip the nib in ink. It actually makes a great dip pen. However, being a perfectionist, I really want to fix the section so I can attach a reservoir to it.

Any advice? Should I try removing the feed and flossing it? How do I get the feed out of the section? Is it relatively easy to pop the feed and nib back in, or do I need expert knowledge to align them properly? Can I just pop everything back in, or will I need to glue stuff back together with shellac?

Thanks.

Guitar string (or some other "music wire") run down the nipple from the cartridge side will likely poke out the residue.

Sounds like registrar's ink (Iron gall) or possibly calligraphy ink.

Peter

Try the guitar string, but an ultrasonic with Koh-I-Noor may be needed. If it's really bad, it may very well take repeated soaks in the pen cleaner, repeated blasts in the ultrasonic, and the roto-rooter thing with the guitar string. You're going to break down the gunk a bit at a time. I've known it to take two or three weeks of soaking etc. to get a pen cleaned out.

Thanks for the advice, everyone.

Well, I can't seem to fit a guitar string down the nipple (it's a solid plastic rod with a tiny razorblade-sized slit down the middle), so I'll just keep soaking it in Rapid-o-Eze and blasting it with a syringe every night. Maybe I'll go down to Walmart and see if they carry ultrasonic cleaners.

Just make sure that it's an ULTRASONIC and not just a sonic cleaner. The later aren't worth the plastic bag that they come in IMO.

The fake ones are what I've seen at Wal-Mart, in the jewelry department.

Given that the pen is a C/C, not something tricky, wouldn't it be a good idea to pull the nib & feed and clean them directly? Even if ink starts to flow through it, there could still be a lot of clotted junk in the upper collector, etc.

-- Brian

Well, after several flushes didn't clear out the pen, I went ahead and popped the feed out of the section.

Turns out, the feed itself is fine. What seems to be clogged is the little rod that transfers ink from the nipple to the feed (I know this is part of the feed in some pens, well in this one they're two seperate pieces).

Since the rod can't seem to be removed from the nipple, and it's too thin to clean (the slit that transfer ink is literally razor thin), I guess I'm probably going to have to find an ultrasonic cleaner and try that out.

Find a bit of rigid plastic packaging material or some old photographic film scraps -- this will be stiff enough to scrape the dried crud out but not hard enough to damage the feed.

The other alternative, although you must be very careful, is to go the a bearing supply store in your local area and get some 0.001" or 0.002" brass shim stock. It will cut easily with scissors, and if you make a rounded corner (no sharp ones, please, it will dig in) you can drag it through the slit. Works nicely to slip between the tines of a nib to scrape out dried ink there, too.

Typical aluminum foil is either to floppy (regular) or too thick (heavy duty) for this job, although it usually works well to push between the feed and nib to clear dried ink.

Peter

Brass shim stock in conjunction with plain toothpaste (e.g. Pepsodent) works very well to clean the walls and bottom of ink channels.

-- Brian