On Buying And Cleaning An Old Pen

[azbobcat]

I just bought an OLD Parker 45. It arrived today. Judging from pictures on Ebay it looked like it had not been cleaned in years, so I set about cleaning it. Well...

 

It seemed it had only seen one type of ink: A Midnight Blue to Blue-Black ink.

 

The screw in nib/feed assembly was FROZEN in place.

 

The Converter seemed to be empty, but the second water hit it ink started to flow and flow. 15 Minutes later I at last got it running Clear. I filled a small dish, added a few drops of Dawn, dumped the converter in and ink started to flow out. After every 5 minutes of soaking, the soapy water was a nice Blue-Black!! 10 changes of soapy water later it looked as though it was beginning to clear up.

 

I threw the rest of of the pen into a second small dish and ink started to flow again . 5 changes of water later I was getting clear water. The nib/feed was still frozen in place. Added some Dawn direct to the inside and on to the assembly itself. Filled the dish with fresh water added a few drops of Dawn,and plopped all the parts into the dish, and suddenly there is a bloom of Blue-Black ink!! Removed the parts added fresh water, a few drops of Dawn, plopped the parts back in but before I dropped the lower section in I tried to unscrew the nib assembly. I could feel it starting to yield. 5 more changes of soppy water and FINALLY the nib unit unscrewed!!. Dropped the lower section in the soapy water and there is a fresh bloom of ink!!.

 

Having finally removed the nib assembly I tried to remove the nib from the feed by pushing down the collar. It did not move!! Some more dawn, dip, soak, and finally the collar was able to be removed, and the nib removed.

 

With all 3 parts separated, I dropped them in with the rest of the parts and where I dropped them there is a sudden bloom of Blue-Black ink. Removed the parts filled the dish with fresh soapy water and dropped all the parts back in.

 

One hour later the water in both dishes was now a nice Twilight Blue-Black. Changed out the water in both dishes added some more Dawn, and dropped the parts back in. Four hours later the water in both dishes had not remarkably changed, so removed all the parts rinsed and filled the dishes with Fresh water ONLY and let soak for another 30 minutes, then rinsed and removed all the parts to dry.

 

Before re-assembly of the nib unit. I I got out my brass sheets and "flossed" the nib to ensure that any ink that *might* remain was removed, I then rinsed and re-assembled the nib unit.

 

Grabbing the converter I squeezed it over and over on a paper towel, there was no color coming out of it. I then ran a paper towel inside the lower chamber where converter would fit. There was no color on the paper towel so inserted the converter. I now screwed in the nib assembly and tried to then unscrew it!! Much to my dismay while it was not frozen it place, it was sticky. Dis-assembled everything and then hit the screw ends with a a shot of Windex, rinsed, and dried out with a Q-tip then screwed in, screw out, screw in, screw out the nib assembly. Wipe the threads with a Q-tip. Amazingly enough there was still a tad bit of color left on the Q-tip!! Once it become easy to unscrew the nib assembly, reinserted the the converter, screwed the nib assembly back in place, dried the interior of the top half of the pen, screwed in onto the pen, and finally dried out the interior of the cap, and at last capped the pen!!

 

6.5 hours later I now have a very CLEAN pen. Tomorrow I will re-ink it and put it back into service.

 

I'm curious: I've bought some used pens and there has always been some residual ink hiding somewhere, a flush, followed by a 4 hour soak in some soapy water, followed by a fresh water rinse is usually all that has been needed, but in this case the pen just seemed to gush ink!! Have any of you had one of these these pens that just seemed next to impossible to get rid of the ink? I suspect there was a whole lot of DRIED ink that basically was hard to remove until it came in contact with the soapy water, and then all that dried ink seemed to start going back into solution. The dry ink removed, the more dry ink would be exposed on the next soak and so on.

[JulieParadise]

It can also happen to used pens i.e. pens that are regularly used and only refilled and refilled and refilled and ... I got an OMAS Arco Celluloid pen in July from a friend who asked me to "do something" to make it write consistently again as it was skipping more and more.

 

As always I started by flushing it. A clean pen is the first thing you want to have as a starting point when you try to detect where your problem comes from, right?!

 

So, I flushed it. Akkerman Pulchri Pink was inside and was determined to stay inside. To not wiggle & strain the piston too much I usually only fill & empty piston fillers until the lukewarm water comes out fairly clear. Then I proceed by filling the pen with water and let it empty itself out by standing it in a glass on a paper towel. Normally it is totally sufficient to repeat that 5-10 times until you could even switch from a dark ink to a light inks as the tinting of the paper towel tells you fairly securely what might be left of colour = dried ink in the pen.

 

But well, the ebonite feed of this gunked up OMAS wanted to be filled ca. 30 times until the paper towels only had a very light pink tint to it. Luckily this kind of cleaning was enough to make the pen with its broad Mottishaw B (rather a 1,9 italic) write again perfectly until now.

 

So, I am not surprised that your vintage pen would need even more -- a lot more! -- effort to be clean again.

[grainweevil]

45s are particularly prone to this - there's an ink collector hidden in that seemingly simple section, wherein a whole lot more ink than you'd believe possible can lurk. As you've found.

[inkstainedruth]

I have had that happen with a number of pens (mostly recently a . I've also had the Parker Urban from Hell -- I don't know how many times I soaked the nib unit, but I still had ink coming out from the collar over the top of the nib -- if you had said "You've opened a stable wormhole to the ink universe!" I would have believed it.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[ParkerDuofold]

Hi Azbobcat, et al,

 

 

Two simple words: ultrasonic cleaner.

 

 

Modern, (post 1950ish), injection molded plastic feeds can be brutal to clean because they have lots of closely placed fins which attract and trap ink... and when it dries and solidifies with age and other environmental stresses... you're in for a PITA.

 

And as grainweevil and Ruth noted above, Parker's are notorious for this because of their ink collectors and dual channel feeds.

 

Get a USC... they're worth their weight in gold.

 

Be well and enjoy life.

 

 

- Anthony

[djmaher]

Has anyone successfully tried the converter trick to get the collector out?

[penwash]

Patience is everything if you want to preserve your sanity when cleaning out old pens.

6.5 hours is nothing, try two weeks of soaking an ebonite barrel in WD-40 to remove the section from a metal liner that has fused itself.

 

Just dump the inky section into water (I restored 350+ vintage pens and never needed to use soap) and leave it overnight. Tomorrow, if it still has ink, repeat, so what if it takes one week? What is the hurry?

[azbobcat]

Patience is everything if you want to preserve your sanity when cleaning out old pens.

6.5 hours is nothing, try two weeks of soaking an ebonite barrel in WD-40 to remove the section from a metal liner that has fused itself.

 

Just dump the inky section into water (I restored 350+ vintage pens and never needed to use soap) and leave it overnight. Tomorrow, if it still has ink, repeat, so what if it takes one week? What is the hurry?

Reminds me of an old joke I read during Viet Nam:

 

There is this poor old guy crawling through the desert asking for water. High above him are a pair of vultures sitting on a branch watching the guy. One of the vultures turns to the other and says, "Patience my ass, I want it NOW!!!"

 

Thank you Sir, but I think I'll leave the pen restoration work to you!!! My hat off to you for sure. For us mere mortals 6.5 hours is a lot of time just to clean a pen. Most mortals (and whoever had this particular pen) don't even take 5 minutes to even flash a pen out let alone to really CLEAN it!! Up until this pen, my general procedure, was take the pen apart, rinse each part out until the water is clear, and then throw the pens in a dish with some distilled and Dawn, change the water once about two hours in repeat one more time (there is usually no ink left by this point) rinse in clear water, fill the dish one more time with distilled, soak for 30 minutes, dry, reassemble. Now that it is back in regular use, it is like to get a good cleaning at least once every 2 months (I said CLEANING, not flushing which I tend to do just before each refill). Hopefully this Nightmare in Midnight Blue is a thing of the past.

[inkstainedruth]

I've soaked the nib and feed for some pens (as well as flushing routinely with ammonia solution and a little Dawn dish detergent) for the better part of a week to make sure they were really completely flushed out. They were predominantly Parker 51s and Vacumatics. OTOH, I wasn't working on them constantly, just checking on the progress periodically, while I did other things (I put pens, nib down, in a heavy, straight-sided votive candle holder I paid a buck for at Target, and use a plastic clothes pin to hold the pen upright (leaning the rest of the clothes pin against the top of the votive holder). Then, when the pens appear to be running clean, I'll stick them in another votive holder, nib down, in wadded up paper toweling.

Yeah, multitasking is easy when one of the things being done is just something which has to be checked on sporadically (like the laundry).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[FLZapped]

Hi Azbobcat, et al,

 

 

Two simple words: ultrasonic cleaner.

 

 

Modern, (post 1950ish), injection molded plastic feeds can be brutal to clean because they have lots of closely placed fins which attract and trap ink... and when it dries and solidifies with age and other environmental stresses... you're in for a PITA.

 

And as grainweevil and Ruth noted above, Parker's are notorious for this because of their ink collectors and dual channel feeds.

 

Get a USC... they're worth their weight in gold.

 

Be well and enjoy life.

 

 

- Anthony

Absotively, posilutly agree!

[ParkerDuofold]

Absotively, posilutly agree!

 

Thanks, FLZ,... I was beginning to wonder if that post was invisible.

 

Be well.

 

 

- Anthony

 

 

EDITED to correct typo.

Edited December 16, 2018 by ParkerDuofold

[sansenri]

happened to me too several times, even in pens bought on the bay as "never dipped...", it just needs patience.

just today I went to use a Pelikan P30 I have not had in rotations since a while, it looked empty but on closer inspection it had the nib full of dry ink (must be my fault this time, I must have stored it without cleaning...)

I have flushed it several times already and the section is soaking in water since this morning but blue ink keeps coming out of the nib

it will likely stay there till tomorrow...

I'm in no hurry... I used another pen instead

[azbobcat]

A quick update on This Old Pen (Is there a PBS series in this idea?) I had a NOS B nipb on hand so I changed out the M for the B. After the 6.5 hour cleaning I filled it with its first NEW ink in ages -- Montverde "Purple Reign". At first it was a bit on the scratchy side and was think of changing back to the M but then it started to get smoother and smoother, and now this has become my preferred pen for jotting quick notes. On almost any paper be it Clairefontaine or -- God forbid -- some really CHEAP notebook paper. It is not in the same class as my Conklin Durograph with its 1.1 mm stub which is slick as butter but this one is getting real close. But this and the other Parker 45's are probably the lightest pens I have ever used. Now I remember WHY I loved this pen so much when I was in school.

 

Back in the day my then Parker 45 was fed a steady stream of Parker Quink. It will be interesting to see how this pen will behave when i start feeding it (and the other P45's) a diet of Private Reserve inks. It seems to be fine with the Monteverde "Purple Reign" but it is a lubricated ink --vs -- my Private Reserve inks which are not. Just as soon as I empty this converter of ink I'll give it another deep cleaning -- by this time any Blue-Black ink that might have remained behind after the last cleaning has or is probably dissolving in the new ink, and when I clean that out, I expect all remaining traces of that Blue-Black ink should finally be gone for good.

 

As side note I just gave a friend a Parker 45 "Flighter" for Christmas that I just finished rebuilding from NOS parts, and put a new M nib on it. The only difference is this has a GT clutch ring not silver. For all intensive purposes this *is* a NEW pen! The Al body does not get scratched up nearly as much as the all plastic pens. It is hard to believe that I can still find NOS parts that that was now longer being made when the Waterman Laureat cam on the market, yet today you can't find any nips for this pen... but you can for the Parker 45!!

 

Merry Christmas to All.