How To Clean A Visconti Homo Sapiens

[ching1202]

Hi all. I just bought a Homo Sapiens Bronze Swirl and ink it up for the first time.

But the ivory grip section is dyed with blue ink color (just a little bit but quite visible)

I try to clean it up with water but it doesn't help. Is there any way I can prevent it from happening?

 

Does the normal Homo Sapiens have the same issue? Thank you all.

 

and...how do I dry out the water inside the barrel?

[LizEF]

Hi all. I just bought a Homo Sapiens Bronze Swirl and ink it up for the first time.

But the ivory grip section is dyed with blue ink color (just a little bit but quite visible)

I try to clean it up with water but it doesn't help. Is there any way I can prevent it from happening?

 

Does the normal Homo Sapiens have the same issue? Thank you all.

 

and...how do I dry out the water inside the barrel?

 

I think I would try a pen wash to remove the ink - probably dampen a (paper) towel / rag with the pen wash and use that to wipe the section - repeatedly, as needed.

 

I personally would not use a staining, permanent, or super-saturated ink (like Noodler's, Private Reserve, Organics Studio...) in my Homo Sapiens (mine is a London Fog). Mine doesn't have a problem with the section getting stained. I hear the lava ones can have that problem as they draw in liquid, so one needs to clean the section quickly when inking - but that's just what I've heard, no personal experience.

 

As for the water inside the barrel, I live in a desert and leave it uncapped in a very, very safe place after cleaning (if I'm not going to immediately ink it up again). Every now and then I'll operate the plunger to spread out any remaining water / see if there's any left. But otherwise, you don't get it out.

Edited December 9, 2018 by LizEF

[LizEF]

PS: Congrats on your pen - I was sorely tempted by that one.

[Honeybadgers]

never buy a white grip pen. pelikan's ivory sections stain too.

 

A little bit of dilute ammonia, followed by a little bit of dilute bleach (if the ammonia doesn't work, also rinse the pen well between the two, ammonia + bleach = mustard gas) and use really gentle inks.

[ching1202]

 

I think I would try a pen wash to remove the ink - probably dampen a (paper) towel / rag with the pen wash and use that to wipe the section - repeatedly, as needed.

 

I personally would not use a staining, permanent, or super-saturated ink (like Noodler's, Private Reserve, Organics Studio...) in my Homo Sapiens (mine is a London Fog). Mine doesn't have a problem with the section getting stained. I hear the lava ones can have that problem as they draw in liquid, so one needs to clean the section quickly when inking - but that's just what I've heard, no personal experience.

 

As for the water inside the barrel, I live in a desert and leave it uncapped in a very, very safe place after cleaning (if I'm not going to immediately ink it up again). Every now and then I'll operate the plunger to spread out any remaining water / see if there's any left. But otherwise, you don't get it out.

 

 

never buy a white grip pen. pelikan's ivory sections stain too.

 

A little bit of dilute ammonia, followed by a little bit of dilute bleach (if the ammonia doesn't work, also rinse the pen well between the two, ammonia + bleach = mustard gas) and use really gentle inks.

Thank you for the help!

 

As you mentioned "gentle ink", is sheening ink (e.g diamine majestic blue or pilot iroshizuku series) considered as "gentle"? I never used a demonstrator pen before. Not sure if the "sheen" would make the body stained :/?

[ching1202]

PS: Congrats on your pen - I was sorely tempted by that one.

The nib is a bit too wet for me but i still love its white/brown design. Most importantly it's LIMITED EDITION!!!

[LizEF]

As you mentioned "gentle ink", is sheening ink (e.g diamine majestic blue or pilot iroshizuku series) considered as "gentle"? I never used a demonstrator pen before. Not sure if the "sheen" would make the body stained :/?

 

Most sheening inks are highly saturated. Therefore, they might stain / be harder to clean. I would test the ink in another pen with a converter (since you have no other demonstrator) and see if it stains. If it does, I personally wouldn't use it in your pen. If it doesn't, I probably would. Iroshizuku inks seem pretty safe to me. I've never tried Diamine Majestic Blue, but most Diamine inks I've tried seem pretty safe, too. If you haven't tested the ink, maybe check out how it behaves in a sample vial - does it stick to (or worse, stain) the walls of the vial? Or does it just run right off (immediately is best, eventually is probably OK).

 

The other thing I'd do is set up my filling station ahead of time so that I was ready to immediately wipe the section clean (before even capping the bottle / vial) - seems to me that the longer an ink remains, the more likely it is to stain, and the longer a stain remains, the more likely it is to be permanent. So maybe a dry towel to get the wet ink off, then a damp-with-pen-flush towel to get any remaining stain off. Huh, it occurs to me you could "test" ink by putting a drop on the grip section and wiping it off, just to see how well it comes off - you wouldn't have to fill the pen.

 

The primary reason I'd be cautious about what you put in this pen is just because of how expensive it would be to have any repairs done on it. There are ways to remove stains (though no way to be sure it'll work in any given case without trying it), and the Homo Sapiens nib unit can technically be unscrewed without the special tool that you can't find (I think there's like one store in Europe and they've been out of stock for eons), but doing so risks messing up the nib (particularly the tines) because of how tight it is, and palladium, as it turns out, is not as easy to tune as steel or gold. And a replacement nib is like $350. All that makes it seem not worth it to take the risks you'd take with other pens.

 

So while you can do anything and there's technically a way to resolve any issues, the potential expense goes up.

 

For my Visconti, I've basically decided to avoid inks that are known to stain, inks that stick to the walls of sample vials, permanent inks, and reddish colors (including orange and brown) - just because reds are more likely to stain. (I had a brown in it, but it seemed to stain (or maybe just get stuck around) the metal down at the knob end of the pen - I'm still not sure if it stained the metal down there or if I'm mis-remembering the initial shininess of that bit of metal. It came off the body of the pen fine, but I've decided not to use brown again.)

 

There have been some white-grip Pelikans - you might hop over there and see what the folks there say about keeping the grip clean. I don't have experience there, just a guess that getting it off immediately is best.

[LizEF]

The nib is a bit too wet for me but i still love its white/brown design. Most importantly it's LIMITED EDITION!!!

 

Yes, they are very wet. I grew to like it. And yeah, gorgeous - that's what tipped me over the edge with the London Fog - its colors and design ended up being irresistible. The limited edition doesn't matter one way or another to me, but if you like that, good for you. I hope you enjoy it (and that getting ink off the grip isn't too difficult, once you figure out what works best).

Edited December 10, 2018 by LizEF

[Honeybadgers]

 

 

Thank you for the help!

 

As you mentioned "gentle ink", is sheening ink (e.g diamine majestic blue or pilot iroshizuku series) considered as "gentle"? I never used a demonstrator pen before. Not sure if the "sheen" would make the body stained :/?

 

 

Some sheening inks sheen because they're hyper saturated. Avoid stuff like akkerman shocking blue or organics studio or undiluted noodlers inks. Pelikan 4001 inks, waterman inks and standard pilot, sailor, and platinum colors should be perfectly safe.

 

Some of my pens are just going to have to use more traditional colors. I learned my lesson after badly staining my pelikan m205 demo and having to bleach it. That pen gets boring colors from now on.

Edited December 11, 2018 by Honeybadgers