Hi all. I'm now an owner of a black 823 but I'm finding cleaning the pen troublesome as I cannot seem to get a tiny amount of ink inside out. Is it just a case of using a small amount of washing up liquid to remove it and flushing it through?

Many thanks,

Ronin

Depending on how brave you are, you can actually pull the nib and feed right out of the section. This leaves a hole through which you can suck in plently of water to fluch it slean and also it'll dry quicker.

I think some on the board have done it without doing damage to their pens. I have done it with one of my 823s but I haven't actually inked that one yet so I don't know if I've broken it

Thanks, Siv! I've been lurking on this thread, hoping that somebody would answer Ronin. As you can see below, I am still using my 823, but it's getting down in ink and I'm eager to use some of my other new acquisitions. That means that soon I will need to clean it out before I ink another pen.

I hope other FPN members can offer their experiences too...

Erick

I've taken the nib and feed out a couple times, but I don't think you'd usually need to do that. Just rinsing with water repeatedly should be enough to get most of the old ink out, unless you're switching to or from an ink like Baystate Blue that can't tolerate trace amounts of another ink.

I clean all my piston-vac filling pens (mainly Viscontis, but the 823 too) using a Visconti traveling inkwell filled with clean water. You can run the water through the pen and back into the inkwell pretty quickly, but you have to refill the inkwell with clean water maybe 2-3 times. It works better for me than anything else I've tried. But you need an traveling inkwell...

My 823 nib screwed out easily. If you do not want to do this you could try the salad spinner modification found on the board else where. It works well. But I became impatient waiting for my son to fully attach the botom of the baster with plastic holders and used twist ties. It worked about 10 times then the twist tie let go and my pen left its protective holder and bent the nib. Be sure you build it solidly and then its a great device
Barry

I've never been able to completely clean my 823, although to be honest it doesn't worry me. I think the problem with demonstrators is the fact that you can see everything. You can't see what the inside of a non transparent pen looks like hence the adage 'what you can't see you don't worry about'.

I used repeated flushing, helped along by a pen centrifuge, aka a tweaked salad spinner. If you're interested, take a look here:

Pen Centrifuge / salad spinner

Thanks Southpaw,what a great idea!

Ronin