Fountain Pen Dry..., Do You Flush Then Fill, Or Just Fill?

[85AKbN]

Definitely an overthinking thread. The last two refills - a Lamy Safari and Al-Star, both with the same ink, I just refilled. So it's not like there's a known problem to fix. Just the thing that killed the cat - curiosity.

 

Inquiring minds want to know. lol

 

If you flush then fill, do you let the water evaporate a little before filling, or do you just fill?

[pajaro]

If I flush a pen, I place it nib down into clean wound up in a paper cup tissue to draw off the water before refilling.

[A Smug Dill]

It depends on the pen and the ink.

 

I didn't flush my Rotring 400, which has been continually filled with Noodler's X-Feather ink for four or more years. It never gave me any trouble such as hard-starts or nib crud, and never failed to write immediately as soon as I uncapped it, even though I may have left the pen undisturbed for months. On the weekend I decided to give it a bit of a flush and then a warm bath in my ultrasonic cleaner, and the amount of solidified specks of ink that fell out into the tank surprised me.

 

On the other hand, I always flush my Pilot Capless pens between refills, even of the same ink, because they aren't so good at preventing ink from drying out when their nibs are retracted. Whatever remained in the feed or converter could easily be four times as concentrated as I would expect the particular ink to be (if it hasn't completely dried to a crust), so if I just refill without flushing and cleaning, the colour and other properties of the ink may end up quite different from what I expect (for an entire fill).

[Estycollector]

The person who restored a Parker 51 for me said to refill the pen on the same day every week. He didn't say not to flush. Flushing was not mentioned.

 

On my old Esterbrooks, I do flush before refilling and I am beginning to think it is unnecessary. However, since it doesn't take that long, why not?

 

From what I have read, using a wet ink in these old pens is best. Waterman was listed by this same source, and so, that's the only ink I use. Serenity Blue is my favorite color, and I also have Waterman black ink.

 

I read a post yesterday about a person's Vanishing Point being out of use for a while and not useable. So, for me, I tend to keep most of my collection un-inked and only ink for a season of use.

[mana]

I use piston fillers for the most part (or aerometric fillers in the case of Parker "51"s) and I do not flush them before filling unless I am switching inks (then it is a must) or in case I notice dimished performance or other issue that can be alleviated by flushing the pen.

 

The inks that I commonly use are Pelikan 4001 Blue-Black & Turquoise, Sailor Souboku, Diamine Eau de Nil and Alexandrite.

 

Come to think of it, I do not recall when the last time was that I flushed my pens (aside from earlier this year when I cleaned all my inked pens and retired some from the rotation). I also switched ink on some of them at the same time...

[knarflj]

Once upon a time I owned only two pens and one bottle of ink, and I didn't know flushing was a thing. Refilled both pens (a Safari and a Pelikan M400) for years whenever they got low on ink without ever cleaning them once, and never had a problem. Then I found FPN and (along with learning about pen hygiene) acquired more pens and lots more ink...

 

Nowadays I like to change colours frequently, so of course I flush thoroughly between most refills, and I do leave the pen to dry (nib down on a paper towel) before refilling. But on the rare occasion I'm refilling with the same colour I don't normally bother with cleaning.

 

If I had a pen that I kept always inked with the same ink, I'd probably flush it every few months - at least a couple times a year (frequency would probably depend on the ink) - but not every fill.

 

Jenny

[Mercian]

I have a short attention span, so to prevent myself from forgetting that I have pen ‘x’ inked, and therefore letting the ink in it dry out & clog the pen, I limit myself to never having more than two pens inked at once.
This means that I tend to switch pens and/or inks a lot.

 

I flush out a pen whenever it runs out of ink. Once it’s cleaned out and dry, it goes back in with my other ‘resting’ pens until the next time that I want to use it. At that point I just fill it, obviously.

 

The exception to this habit is if I am going to re-fill that same pen with the same ink immediately. But that’s rare for me nowadays. I think that I’ve only done it three - or maybe four - times in the last decade.

 

 

[sharonspens]

If I flush a pen, I place it nib down into clean wound up in a paper cup tissue to draw off the water before refilling.

This. +1

[silverlifter]

Once upon a time I owned only two pens and one bottle of ink, and I didn't know flushing was a thing.

 

This was me. For over thirty years, I treated my pens like, well, pens. If they ran dry, I refilled them. If I misplaced one and the ink in it dried out, I refilled it. I can only recall flushing a pen with tap water on the very odd occassion.

 

It was only when the converter in my Targa stopped working some years ago that I ventured online and discovered the intricate rituals of pen maintenance.

[Arkanabar]

If it's dried up from lack of use, I often give a pen a short fill of water and write it out.

If the pen is misbehaving or I'm changing colors, I generally flush and fill. But if it's behaving itself and I trust the ink, I may just refill without flushing.

[WaskiSquirrel]

If I'm refilling it, I don't flush. I figure refilling it is enough flushing.

 

If I clean it, I'm almost never planning to refill it.

[Karmachanic]

Same ink - refill

Similar colour - rinse nib/feed, dry with tissue, and fill.

Different colour - flush.

[WLSpec]

I normally dry the pen out with a paper towel before re-inking after flushing. Sometimes I will place it nib-down in a cup with a paper towel at the bottom to let the water evaporate and seep out before re-inking, but I'm not the most patient person, so often I just refill the pen after drying (no evaporation). Some pens I can disassemble completely, like my Sailors, and in that case there is no need to let water evaporate because I can dry the whole thing off inside and out.

 

When I am changing inks, even for a similar color, I always flush. Same ink, I just refill.

[sirgilbert357]

If you had asked me 6 months ago, my habits would be different, but here's my current state of affairs:

 

Only 3 pens inked.

M800 Renaissance Brown - continuously filled with Edelstein Smoky Quartz, refilled without flushing when it gets low/empty. Flushed once a year so I can grease the piston.

Lamy 2000 - currently (and almost always) filled with Noodler's Liberty's Elysium, refilled without flushing when it gets low/empty. Flushed if I change colors or once a year to grease piston.

Lamy Aion - currently filled with Pilot Blue Black. I rotate inks through this pen, so it is usually a different color for each fill. I flush at each color change.

 

For all flushing, I fill and dump clear water until I can detect no color in the water at all. Then I fill with water, wrap the whole pen in a paper towel and shake the pen like an old mercury thermometer to get all the water out. This usually results in a lot of concentrated ink coming out that would otherwise have never vacated the feed with regular flushing.

 

Final step is to fill with water and set nib down in a cup with a paper towel wrapped around the nib/section to suck all the water out. Then the pen is left to dry and put in the pen box. When I want to use it again, I just fill with ink and enjoy.

 

I don't have an ultrasonic cleaner or I'd be doing things different. I prefer to keep my stuff spotless. At the annual flushing for the piston fillers, I'll usually do a homemade pen flush mix. On the Lamy 2000, I take the section all the way apart and do a deep cleaning of the feed and the nib. Noodler's Liberty's Elysium leaves behind a reddish purple residue that only comes off with disassembly. Flushing will never get it all out...

Edited June 3, 2020 by sirgilbert357

[Runnin_Ute]

My Pelikan 140, because I rarely change ink in it but keep it always inked with Pelikan 4001 Blue Black I rarely flush. Every few months maybe if I perceive it's performance has degraded a bit. Same with my Platinum 3776 Century Borgogne which gets a steady diet of Diamine Merlot.

 

I'm changing inks frequently enough that I only do them when taking out of rotation or changing inks. I normally keep around 10 (+/- 2) pens inked.

[inkstainedruth]

For me it depends. I may refill if I like the pen/ink combination. I may flush if I don't like the combination, or get bored and want to put a different pen into rotation, or the ink is very saturated, or is a ink that needs a little more care and maintenance (iron gall inks, shimmer inks, and pigmented inks). And in some cases, I will refill with distilled water -- generally when I'm too lazy to flush, but also when an ink is very saturated and I want to see what it looks like when diluted, or to make it easier to flush when I finally get around to it.

And then, there are the Parker 61s, which I just refill with distilled water to see how long I can run the pen before the ink in it gets to the point of being diluted past the point of legibility....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[OMASsimo]

Relax. For a few decades I wasn’t even aware of the notion of cleaning a pen. I used one pen and one ink seven days a week for years and there never was a problem. That’s what most people did those days. Only after turning into a fp collector, this changed a bit. I will flush and clean a pen thoroughly before I retire it for a while but not if I refill it with the same ink.

 

Good inks contain additives for “cleaning” the pen and unless you neglect your pen enough to let the ink dry out completely, this should be enough. I once read an old Pelikan user manual from the 1950s suggesting that the pen should be flushed once a year if you stick with one ink and twice a year if you change between inks. Telling, isn’t it?

[85AKbN]

Great reading and a wealth of knowledge and experience. Thanks!

[inkstainedruth]

@ OMASsimo -- That story reminds me of an Agatha Christie mystery where the murdered person is thought at first to have committed suicide -- but the "note" found was not the ink she had last used, because she had run out and snuck a fill of green ink from another tenant in the hostel she was living in (and of course the "note" was in fact written earlier, as an apology for having been a kleptomaniac and stealing random stuff from the other tenants.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

ETA: The book is variously titled Hickory Dickory Dock or Hickory Dickory Death. Hercule Poirot gets involved because the woman who runs the hostel is the sister of Miss Lemon, his secretary, and the title is because the location of the hostel is "Hickory Road" (plus, Dame Agatha takes a lot of titles and plot ideas from nursery rhyme lyrics).

Edited June 4, 2020 by inkstainedruth

[sandy101]

If using a cartridge, it is much easier not to flush - and to change the cartridge before the feed runs completely dry. Forcing ink from a cartridge into a dry, clean feed can be a problem - but then that can be solved by dipping the nib.

 

Unless changing colour, I tend not to flush - it's only when the ink flow starts to be impeded that I give the pen a thorough flush.

 

With P51's I just keep the same colour, and don't bother flushing. Too much trouble.