Hi -

New to this forum, but love fountain pens. Bought a blue marbled Waterman Rhapsody pen in SF in 1995. It has gold, or brass maybe, at the joints and the nib is 2-toned and says Waterman Ideal Paris 18k 750 France. It has both a refillable cartridge you can fill, and it has cartridges. Used it a few times, and put it away until now. The ink has dried in the refillable cartridge. It is a beautiful pen and I would like to put it back in working order.

Can you tell me how to proceed to clean it and begin using this beautiful pen again. I love the weight of it. Hope through my negligence, that I haven't ruined this fine pen.

Donna B.

Hi Donna,

A great pen and pretty easy to look after. Remove the nib unit and leave to soak in cold water for a good few hours - 24 even... it shouldn't harm anything. Then just repeat for shorter periods until it runs clear - no inky residue. Same goes for the converter (refillable cartridge), presuming its the twist action type - just leave in cold water for day.

Enjoy!

Hi and welcome to FPN! The good news is that I have found 50 year old pens with 30 year old ink in them that cleaned up just fine! Good Luck!

Donna,

To elaborate on DustyBins instructions,

As he said, let the nib section soak in some water (actually, I use warm, but not hot) for 2 or 3 hrs each flush.
If you have one of those baby ear flusher outter bulb thingummers (technical term) before you put the nib
into a fresh warm bath, put some warm water in the bulb, and the tube end of it into the open (converter/cartridge)
end of the nib section and flush it out before you put the nib in the next clear warm bath. If push comes to
shove get a mouthful of warm water and lightly blow it into and thru the nib section instead (if you don't have
the bulb thingie) try not to do that just after you've been eating crackers or popcorn. If the nib is particularly
caked up, it may take a day, 6-10 baths like this before the water runs clean. Don't be surpised if the water is almost clear then you get another POOF of ink. Some of the Waterman nibs seem to have all kinds of nooks and crannies in them for ink to collect in. I had a Man 200 nib that took about a day and a half of futzing around like this until the water ran clear. If you are using a glass or cup (hard surfaced container) to soak the nib in remember to drop the nib into the water open end of the section first, you don't want to be dropping the point of the nib onto any hard surface (even under water) repeatedly.

After the water runs clear do one of two things.

If you are brave; screw the nib section back in, FIRMLY HOLD ONTO THE PEN and with the nib down/away
give it several "thermometer shaking motions" to clear the last bit of water out of the section. You might
want to do this over something soft like the bed in case you lose your grip. (BE SURE that last water bath
ran clear for your beds sake!)

If you're chicken; screw the nib section back in and wrap the nib area kind of tightly with a few wrap arounds
of tissue and carefully put the pen nib down in a cup to sit overnight. Capillary action with the tissue will draw
the water out overnight.

Your pen should be all nice and flushed out and dry then and ready for new ink.

Unless you pen has been sitting with some sort of non fountain pen ink in it for all this time, ie; india ink,
it is highly unlikely you've done anything that the above won't fix.

Enjoy your new, old friend.

Bruce in Ocala, FL

Bruce -

Can youe xplain what you guys mean when you say Man 100, or Man 200, or even LeMan 100 and 200. It has something to do with Waterman pens, but I don't know how it applies. By the way, I bought the pen for about $200 13 years ago; what is it worth now?

Donna