Jump to content

Do You Purge Your Ink For New Pens?


energeeon

Recommended Posts

Hi, so I've heard some people say that after buying a new pen, they fill it up to 1/2 or all of the ink and eject it into the sink to basically 'clean' the pen as most shops they buy FPs from have a bit of ink remaining for customers to test. I've recently bought a new pen and washed it by filling it with water and making sure there's no leftover ink in the piston.

 

However, I'm not sure if I have to fill it, eject it and fill it again or just fill it once and forget about purging it. If I went with the purging, would that be unnecessary and a waste of ink?

Edited by energeeon
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 20
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

  • LizEF

    2

  • energeeon

    2

  • praxim

    1

  • Tseg

    1

Top Posters In This Topic

Unnecessary and a waste of ink. I always clean new to me pens before filling if they were previously loved (or worse, neglected). I do this to help minimize the chance of contamination of my ink.

If you want less blah, blah, blah and more pictures, follow me on Instagram!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't do that. I DO flush a pen new to me with distilled water with a tiny bit of Dawn dish detergent in it to get out any manufacturing oils or grit (new pens) or to flush out old dried up ink (vintage pens). With the vintage pens I often also have to flush with dilute ammonia solution (again with a little bit of dish detergent.

I think what people are talking about is that you often have to, when filling a pen, fill, dump the ink back into the bottle and then fill again (maybe a couple of times) to get a good fill from the capillary action.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

ETA: Basically what Zaddick said. Dumping ink down the drain is just a waste of ink.

Edited by inkstainedruth

"It's very nice, but frankly, when I signed that list for a P-51, what I had in mind was a fountain pen."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ditto zaddick and inkstainedruth - flush first with a pen flush, then fill.

 

I wonder if you're conflating two techniques:

 

1) flush a pen before first use (water, soapy water, pen flush, whatever)

 

and

 

2) When filling with a converter, suck the ink in, then, while still submerged, push the ink (and some air) back out and fill again - this is to get a greater fill because the feed wasn't saturated and so you were sucking in some air ahead of the ink the first time. But you're not expelling the ink down the drain, just back into the bottle / sample vial.

 

I've never heard of anyone using ink to do the initial flush.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, that's pretty much what I meant. Though I'm afraid. I've cleaned my pen ONLY with water and dried it but I'm not sure if adding ink back in and ejecting back in the bottle will contaminate anything?

I don't do that. I DO flush a pen new to me with distilled water with a tiny bit of Dawn dish detergent in it to get out any manufacturing oils or grit (new pens) or to flush out old dried up ink (vintage pens). With the vintage pens I often also have to flush with dilute ammonia solution (again with a little bit of dish detergent.

I think what people are talking about is that you often have to, when filling a pen, fill, dump the ink back into the bottle and then fill again (maybe a couple of times) to get a good fill from the capillary action.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

ETA: Basically what Zaddick said. Dumping ink down the drain is just a waste of ink.

Edited by energeeon
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, that's pretty much what I meant. Though I'm afraid. I've cleaned my pen ONLY with water and dried it but I'm not sure if adding ink back in and ejecting back in the bottle will contaminate anything?

 

If you've flushed the pen well, and gotten it reasonably free of rinse water so that you're not putting a ton of water into the ink on first fill, then I don't see how this process would contaminate the ink - you're squirting back in a portion of what you just sucked out. I would go so far as to say that this is what the majority of converter-users do, so if it were a problem, the majority of converter-users would be observing contaminated ink, but that's not what people here are reporting.

 

If you're worried, you can adopt the practice some have done, which is to fill a sample vial using a disposable pipette1, and only fill the pen from the sample vial. In this scenario, the pipette is the only thing which comes into contact with the bottled ink.

 

1Whether you flush, let dry, and reuse the pipette or dispose of it after a single use is your choice.

 

I would point out that the pipette is far from sterile (unless you're buying sterile pipettes and opening them in a cleanroom after having done a sterile gowning, but don't ask me how you sterilize the ink bottle without ruining the ink.... anyway....), so it's as likely to contaminate your ink as your pen (unless your pen has come into contact with a contaminant which has not been cleaned out of the pen - and the pipette hasn't). (My point being that the extremes aren't worth the bother, so don't worry about them.)

Edited by LizEF
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I too just flush with cool water until the pen is clean if previously used. Then fill with ink and carry on.

PAKMAN

minibanner.gif                                    Vanness-world-final.png.c1b120b90855ce70a8fd70dd342ebc00.png

                         My Favorite Pen Restorer                                             My Favorite Pen Store

                                                                                                                                Vanness Pens - Selling Online!

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I never purge any new pen. The only pens I've ever bought were either new in my brick store and I know what we used to check it out first. Usually 4001 Royal Blue, so I go on with that at home until it's empty or I wash it out and fill it with something else.

Or, I buy something online and assume (and can check) that it's never been filled so I just fill it. No washing first. That'll be done in a day or two anyhow.

Life is too short to drink bad wine (Goethe)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I never purge any new pen. The only pens I've ever bought were either new in my brick store and I know what we used to check it out first. Usually 4001 Royal Blue, so I go on with that at home until it's empty or I wash it out and fill it with something else.

 

I usually do the same, and also often use 4001 RB as the first ink. This gives me a dryish baseline from which to then make my next fill choice.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I will flush a new pen, usually with water, then fill with whatever ink is waiting in the wings... If the pen has a piston or converter I too find I get the best fill by ejecting the first fill back into the bottle, not taking the nib up out of the ink, and then filling again... If it's an eyedropper filled pen (the majority of my pens these days) I just use a pipette or syringe to pull up ink directly from the bottle and empty into the barrel. Usually just one pipette but some Rangas, Asas and Gamas are so large, it can take a pipette and a half to fill up to the threads. Since those take months to write dry, I find I often add water to a fill before all the ink is gone, since some of the water evaporates, especially when I don't use the pen on a daily basis...

a fountain pen is physics in action... Proud member of the SuperPinks

fpn_1425200643__fpn_1425160066__super_pi

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Flush and fill. That's plenty in most cases. The only pens that seem to need more TLC are Kawecos, for some reason- they tend to need more cleaning to be rid of oils.

Physician- signing your scripts with Skrips!


I'm so tough I vacation in Detroit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Never heard of this practice and I agree with zaddick, it seems like a waste of ink. Like the veterans here, I flush all my pens with water and a drop of dish soap, rinse and repeat with water and that's it.

fpn_1502425191__letter-mini.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I often have a bunch of pens filled. As I don’t write huge amounts and I have all here great pens I’ll get tired of a pen or ink before it runs out. Gotten so I just fill with one good squeeze, really just the suck up part and that lasts me for a long time. Also no dumping back in bottle ink with leftover water or old ink.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Depending on the status of the pen and my impatience, this can be one of the following options:


1. Immediately fill with ink (from the bottle or refill the cartridge)


2. Rinse with water, wipe with a paper towel, shake (like a thermometer), let lie for about 5 minutes and then refill.


3. Take a toothbrush with a thin nap and detergent for dishes (without balm for the hands! Clean!). A drop of detergent on the toothbrush, grind it to form a smooth foam. Then brush my entire nib, feeder and accessible inner parts of the pen near the feeder, polishing like teeth.

Then, using the syringe, the inner canal channels are likewise washed (if possible).

Then all this is rinsed under pressure under running tap water, slightly warm, until the detergent is completely washed off and its traces.

Then, like in paragraph 2, we wipe it, shake it off, let it lie down. And then refueling.


p.s. The composition of the ink is very different. In some strong surfactants (similar to some special detergents) a lot. In others, there are none.

And a certain composition of the residues of substances in the channels of the pen or on its feeder or nib can cause precipitation of some substance from the ink that you fill up. In this case, the permeability of the channels and surfaces of the pen will be radically broken. :(

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Many times I just fill a brand new pen, but many cases it would have been better to have flushed the pen first with pen flush or a water and soap mix first. On a used pen I always flush with water/pen flush first.

 

In one case on a used Montblanc 149 I had flushed it with water until it was clean and filled with ink. But the flow never was as good as expected with more then one ink. I cleaned it with water again and the water came out clean, but then I cleaned it with pen flush, still clean. I let it soak over night in flush and the flush turned blue with ink and the pen now has great flow. I think in the future I will use pen flush before using any new to me pen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Used pens I buy usually get time in the USC, at least a flush, before use, but I am more careless about new pens, tending just to ink them up to have a go.

X

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The most recent pen, I ran some 10:1 distilled water:ammonia solution through the converter and pushed it through the nib and feed a couple of times then ran water through it a couple of times. Then inked. I almost always keep it dunked pull ink in then out then back in. It was smooth. I am about half way through the first full and have only had it since Monday.

Brad

"Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind" - Rudyard Kipling
"None of us can have as many virtues as the fountain-pen, or half its cussedness; but we can try." - Mark Twain

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Humm, is a way to get rid of old unwanted inks.............but I'd have to buy a new pen!!!! :yikes:

Then use the ink I didn't like much to start with. :unsure:

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Most Contributions

    1. amberleadavis
      amberleadavis
      43844
    2. PAKMAN
      PAKMAN
      33501
    3. Ghost Plane
      Ghost Plane
      28220
    4. inkstainedruth
      inkstainedruth
      26627
    5. jar
      jar
      26101
  • Upcoming Events

  • Blog Comments

    • Shanghai Knife Dude
      I have the Sailor Naginata and some fancy blade nibs coming after 2022 by a number of new workshop from China.  With all my respect, IMHO, they are all (bleep) in doing chinese characters.  Go use a bush, or at least a bush pen. 
    • A Smug Dill
      It is the reason why I'm so keen on the idea of a personal library — of pens, nibs, inks, paper products, etc. — and spent so much money, as well as time and effort, to “build” it for myself (because I can't simply remember everything, especially as I'm getting older fast) and my wife, so that we can “know”; and, instead of just disposing of what displeased us, or even just not good enough to be “given the time of day” against competition from >500 other pens and >500 other inks for our at
    • adamselene
      Agreed.  And I think it’s good to be aware of this early on and think about at the point of buying rather than rationalizing a purchase..
    • A Smug Dill
      Alas, one cannot know “good” without some idea of “bad” against which to contrast; and, as one of my former bosses (back when I was in my twenties) used to say, “on the scale of good to bad…”, it's a spectrum, not a dichotomy. Whereas subjectively acceptable (or tolerable) and unacceptable may well be a dichotomy to someone, and finding whether the threshold or cusp between them lies takes experiencing many degrees of less-than-ideal, especially if the decision is somehow influenced by factors o
    • adamselene
      I got my first real fountain pen on my 60th birthday and many hundreds of pens later I’ve often thought of what I should’ve known in the beginning. I have many pens, the majority of which have some objectionable feature. If they are too delicate, or can’t be posted, or they are too precious to face losing , still they are users, but only in very limited environments..  I have a big disliking for pens that have the cap jump into the air and fly off. I object to Pens that dry out, or leave blobs o
  • Chatbox

    You don't have permission to chat.
    Load More
  • Files






×
×
  • Create New...