My notes and advice on fountain pen cleaning
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Entry posted by A Smug Dill in Workshopping
4,702 views
A “casual beginner”, as she self-identifies, whom I've offered to penable asked to pick my brain about cleaning and maintenance, and wanted to know my suggestions about what tools and apparatus may be useful. This is what I wrote for her, and I thought it may be good to share it here, in case someone else may see some value in the content.
Cleaning
Removing ink from fountain pens relies primarily on carrying the colourants (and other components) in the ink away with water. To that end, the substances have to be either dissolved or loose in a surrounding body of water, which is then driven out of the pen parts.
In the ideal case dyestuff ink will dissolve immediately upon contact with water, and rinsing the grip section under a running tap will be sufficient, assuming the cavities and surfaces exposed to ink are all accessible by the gentle flow.
In some cases the grip section may not be removable from the ink reservoir, and/or the interior of the reservoir may not be penetrable by the stream from a tap. In those cases, one has to draw clean water into the reservoir (most likely) through the nib and feed, in the same manner as filling it with ink, and then expel the liquid that is stained with ink, leaving less of the colourant(s) inside for the next cycle; rinse and repeat, until the liquid that is coming back out of the nib and feed is no longer observably coloured.
There will be many occasions when more is required, in the aspects of:
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Dissolution: (not mutually exclusively) time, temperature, and chemical action will help
- Time: long soak, with or without additives, in water to give condensed or dried out ink the opportunity to rehydrate before dissolving out into the bath of water surrounding it
- Temperature: the rate of chemical activity (including dissolution in plain water) increases with temperature, although I don't recommend using water any warmer than body temperature for cleaning pens, but some way to heat water up to that is useful
- Chemical action: sometimes plain water is not sufficient, and substances such as commercial pen flush solutions, (very dilute) aqueous ammonia, ascorbic acid, and surfactants such as dishwashing liquid (with as few additives as possible) would help; but never use alcohol in or on any pen part
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Dislodgement: sometimes there are insoluble particles — pigments, shimmer, etc. — or even grit or dust that should not in the ink that need to be removed, and they may not come off surfaces and out of cavities readily
- Pressurised flushing: helps get water into nooks and crannies, as well as expel stained water; and the larger the volume of water that physically passes through the pen parts, the more likely loose particles would be carried away instead of staying trapped
- Shaking the particles loose from the surfaces to which they adhere: this could be as simple as filling (say) the reservoir half full with plain water or other solvent and then shaking the pen/part violently with one's hand, or using an ultrasonic cleaner
- Brushing, or otherwise application of physical force and friction against the particles
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Drying: expelling or otherwise removing “excess” moisture, then allowing evaporation to do the rest
- Centrifugal force: this could be just flinging beads of moisture out of the pen parts by shaking them with one's hand and arm, or it could be with the use of mechanical aids such as a repurposed salad spinner
- Pressurised air flow: to blow loose beads of moisture off surfaces and out of the opening of accessible pen parts, and also speed up evaporation
- Capillary action: in other words, touching the liquid with absorbent material
So, that's the theory. Practically, the following items and apparatus are useful to make cleaning more effective and more efficient:
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Bulb syringes, of the type one can buy in pharmacies, nominally for flushing ear canals
- These can be used to drive liquid into or through pen parts for pressurised flushing, as well as deliver pressurised air flow for drying
- Their slightly elastic rubber nozzles can fit around “nipple” connectors (onto which one usually attaches ink cartridges or converters) to form a tight seal, thus wasting less time and effort
- Additional benefit: these could be used to draw water in through the nib and feed with more pressure than a pen's filling mechanism, and theoretically that is safer and more efficient than pushing liquid through from the back end, because any insoluble particles inside a nib unit housing's cavity or a feed's ink channel must have entered through the back end in the first place, so it is less likely to get stuck when forced to go out in reverse
- This is singularly the most useful “accessory” for a beginner and seasoned pen users alike
- The rubber material is apt to “rot”, and separately there is significant risk of mould growing (which can then “infect” pens one flushes with the bulb syringe next), if the interior of a bulb syringe left damp; but there is only so much one can do to dry the interior after each use
- To contain the risk of mould growth, clean the interior by sucking up either dilute household bleach or dilute aqueous ammonia (but never mix those two substances), then shake the bulb syringe violently in one's hand while its nozzle is blocked by one's fingertip, then expel the liquid. Then rinse with plain water several times in the same manner, until the liquid expelled no longer froths. After that, hold the bulb syringe with nozzle point down, blow out as much of the excess moisture from its interior as possible by squeeze, dry the exterior, and store the bulb syringe in some sort of holder with the nozzle pointing down so that nothing can accumulate against the wall of the interior
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Disposable(?) syringe with blunt tip needle attachment(s)
- These are useful for delivering pressurised flushing into tighter spaces, parts with narrower openings (e.g. the rod and ceiling space inside a Pilot CON-70 converter), or just more precisely targeted streams (e.g. a particular spot inside a pen cap)
- They are also useful in the handling of ink samples, extracting the last drops from an ink container, refilling of “eyedropper-filled” pens' reservoirs or reused ink cartridge shells, and even controlling how much ammonia one is dumping into a beaker or bath of water as homemade pen flush solution
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Either a clear glass beaker or a ceramic cup with a white interior wall
- Allows one to see more easily whether the liquid expelled is stained with colour
- The container's material should be smooth and easily cleanable, and resist staining
- Preferably microwavable
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Thin rubber grip/sheet
- This may provide the help you need when pull out a nib and/or feed tightly fit inside a grip section or nib unit housing
- Useful in unscrewing metal collars when disassembling converters and piston-fillers
- I use something like this which I got from Daiso (but that isn't my photo or post)
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Dishwashing liquid
- Fairy “original” dishwashing liquid (sold under the Dawn brand name in the US) seems to be the most often recommended one
- Good for flushing to remove skin oils and remnants of machine grease from new pens/nibs before first use
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Aqueous ammonia (not cloudy ammonia)
- Clear ammonia seems to be very difficult to get in Australia, even though Americans seem to be able get that just off supermarket shelves
- I sourced mine from a supplier to the dry cleaning industry (and I had to travel out to an industrial area for it, since I didn't want to pay delivery charges which would be more than the product itself), but it is industrial strength and “lethal”; the fumes that have escaped from the huge plastic “jerrycan” bottles over the years corroded all the exposed metal bits in the cabinet under the bathroom basin where I store it
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Ultrasonic cleaner
- Sheer overkill for the beginner, but I never regretted for a day the $75 or so I spent on a good one, and it has been so useful to me over the past five or six years
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Test tube brushes
- Useful for scrubbing stubborn ink stains from inside converter tubes, pen barrels, and so on if one is really desperate, but runs the risk of scuffing (and, depending on how the leading end of the brush is finished, scratching) the plastic
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Paper towels
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Obviously you'd want them to be as lint-free as possible, and not apt to disintegrate when wet
- Quilton Tuffy works well, in my experience
- It helps to cut them into little tiles and strips beforehand as one's cleaning supplies; that is less wasteful for dabbing/soaking up ink drops, and also allows one to roll a strip up to clean and/or dry inside a tube or ink reservoir (but there is a slight risk of scuffing the smooth interior wall)
- Also useful in drying a pen's nib and feed by capillary action after cleaning, if one stands the clean pen nib down (in a suitable holder) resting the tip against a wad of the paper towel to draw out the remaining moisture from the nib slit and feed's ink channel
- Pro tip: if you're going to try to shake a pen dry, first wrap (at least the forward half of) it up in paper towel and hold onto it like dear life, before swinging your arm, in case the pen otherwise flies out from your grip and ends up being a flying dart striking the wall or the floor
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Obviously you'd want them to be as lint-free as possible, and not apt to disintegrate when wet
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Drying rack
- Especially useful when one has a fleet of pens to hold different inks, and cleaning is done in batches
- Preferably not made of metal, to minimise risk of scratching or scuffing the pens exterior
- Test tube holders will work well, but be mindful that wooden ones may hold moisture that dripped onto the rack's material
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Something like this Daiso toothbrush holder will do
- Also useful in securing sample vials, so that they cannot be knocked over, when one is either filling them or extracting ink from them
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