I ordered two additional Wality's. New Wality's tend to be rather dirty, so I'm going to clean them well

As you all know, Wality's have ebonite feeds. I want to clean the feed thoroughly before I use the pen. So I intent to soak the nib and feed a while in water.

I wonder if this can be done with ebonite feeds.

I also want to soak them in an amonia solution. Can I safely do this, are is this bad for the ebonite?

Thanks....

Hi Johan,

If they are new, the nib and feed would only need some rinsing and flushing with a soapy solution. If they are eye-droppers, that may be a bit difficult of course, you'll need one of those blower bulbs to do it (maybe cut off a piece, so they fit tightly into the section, in order to do this).

Anyway, the problem with ebonite and water really occurs after oxidation has occurred, which one would normally not expect to happen in a few days or weeks or months, not noticeably so, in anyway. So letting it soak for a few hours should be fine. If you see that it actually starts turning lighter, you'd better stop the process.

OTOH, feeds are exposed to fluids consisting of > 99.5 % water anyway, so those shoudl be fine. I would be worried about the whole pen, rather than the feed. I wouldn't like an ebonite pen to soak in water for a prolonged period of time. Whenver I clean an ebonite pen, I do that with a damp cloth, and dry it immediately afterwards, and maybe use some wax afterwards, to protect it from oxidation.

Oh, whether you use water or an ammonia solution, it is still mostly water...

HTH, warm regards, Wim

"Oxidation" is often used to describe surface fading of hard rubber, but I'm not sure that it is an accurate term. The fading certainly is not caused by exposure to atmospheric oxygen alone, but rather by exposure to light. Fresh hard rubber that hasn't been so exposed is highly resistant to fading.

In any event, there's no real reason to soak a new feed in ammonia for an extended period. If I wanted to degrease a feed, a quick dunk would be quite enough, along with a flushing of the feed channels with a squeeze bulb.

Hi David,
You're right it probably isn't oxidation in the general sense of the word. What happens is that some of the sulphur bonds in the rubber disintegrate, which is a process speeded up by ultra-violet light, and enhanced by water. The latter probably cause H2S to form, when there are some free radicals of sulphur lying in wait . It is a complicated process, and as far as I know, oxygen is involved as well.

Warm regards, Wim

Hi Wim and David,

Thanks for all this advise. Using ammonia has given me superb results. Before using my new Wality 52, I thoroughly cleaned the pen with plain tap water. While writing, I noticed that the pen skipped a little. <_< After emptying the pen, I soaked the section for some hours in a Ammonia and water solution, while flushing it a couple of times. This really made the difference! The line is wet and 99.9% consistent!

Me Ammonia Addict!

I might also note that fading of the hard rubber of a feed isn't so critical should it occur. Faded HR also has a more porous surface, so is likely to get stained dark again right away by the ink.