Cleaning A Bulb Filler.

[Bill Wood]

I've had a hankering for bulb fillers lately. The thing is I love to fool around with different coloured inks. I usually change color every day or so. I just can't see bulb fillers that easy to clean. I think the system is wonderful and cool. I'm just not sure about clearing all the old ink out, and what about a general good cleaning of the pen? Anyone like to share some experience. Thanks all.

[red52ripple]

Not all bulb fillers are the same. There are a few variations of design. Many have a clear plastic barrel, and that does tend to take on the colour of the ink used. Most have a breather tube which is great for getting liquid in, but not so good for getting it out, so they don't flush especially well. Some Mentmore and Langs designs have a threaded section which would allow access to the barrel for cleaning. Careful reassembly is needed as bulb fillers tend to blob if any air is getting in where it shouldn't.

 

All in all, you're probably right - the bulb fillers I'm familiar with wouldn't be all that easy to clean and I suspect it would become a real chore to do it every day!

[Dillo]

Hi,

 

There are a few tricks I think are useful when cleaning bulb fillers. What I usually do is fill the pen with water. Next, I depress the bulb slowly and let the liquid in the pen drip out drop by drop. Do this until the pen is empty. You will find that it is an effective way of getting the liquid out of the pen. Repeat this a few times until the water is clear.

 

Out of curiosity, have you considered dedicating a specific pen to testing out colors and filling up the other pens in your collection is specific colors for each pen? This way, you can pens with all sort of colors ready for you to write with.

 

Dillon

[bitterwonder]

I have one old bulb filler from the thirties, it is a pain to clean. I will never buy a bulb filler.

[Sasha Royale]

I have very limited experience with these. Does the nib assembly come off ?

The nib of my Esterbrook unscrews, exposing the opening of the sac. I drop

the nib assembly into a glass of water. I carefully squirt water into the sac

with a medical syringe, until it runs clean. Then, I shake it dry, and stand

it on a paper towel. I rinse the soaking nib, and dry the same way.

 

Now, Vacumatics are a pain to clean. So, I do a half-hearted job of it. I

keep one for black ink, one for blue ink, and one for green ink.

[requiescat]

I wouldn't be surprised that they can be hard to clean. My one bulb filler is an Edison Pearl and I disassemble the pen (screw out the nib unit, take off the rubber bulb thing, take off the tube) in order to clean it. Even so it's slightly annoying and I only use the one ink in it. I would love to look at other ways of doing bulb fillers someday, though.

 

(And goodness, yeah, my Vacumatic is even more annoying to clean and it too is relegated to a single ink.)

[Brian Anderson]

I wouldn't be surprised that they can be hard to clean. My one bulb filler is an Edison Pearl and I disassemble the pen (screw out the nib unit, take off the rubber bulb thing, take off the tube) in order to clean it. Even so it's slightly annoying and I only use the one ink in it. I would love to look at other ways of doing bulb fillers someday, though.

 

(And goodness, yeah, my Vacumatic is even more annoying to clean and it too is relegated to a single ink.)

 

You could also unscrew the section and clean the barrel that way, leaving the breather tube on the back of the nib unit and soaking that separately. I have a Glenmont bulb filler (our new 2013 LE's) and that is how I would do it. Of course, I have yet to run out of ink, but...

 

Brian

[Ernst Bitterman]

IF the section unscrews, or it's a modern point/feed unit type, it's relatively easy to clean. If it's not, and the section is fixed to the barrel... well, it's not QUICK, but it's not hard. Squeezy squeezy squeezy does it in the end. A Parker 61 is HARD to clean out.

 

I'm also a bit of an ink butterfly, so I understand the motivation behind the question. I'd say a bulb filler is easier to live with if you don't change the ink in it more than once a week. Daily flushing would grow tedious indeed.

[bgray]

I wouldn't be surprised that they can be hard to clean. My one bulb filler is an Edison Pearl and I disassemble the pen (screw out the nib unit, take off the rubber bulb thing, take off the tube) in order to clean it. Even so it's slightly annoying and I only use the one ink in it. I would love to look at other ways of doing bulb fillers someday, though.

 

(And goodness, yeah, my Vacumatic is even more annoying to clean and it too is relegated to a single ink.)

 

One comment - you shouldn't be removing the bulb sac. It is shellac'ed in place, and needs to stay. If you have broken the shellac seal, maybe send me an email so I can get the bulb re-attached. It the bulb sac is only attached with friction, you could be asking for a mess. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your post, but if the bulb sac has been removed, contact me and we'll get it fixed.

 

Besides that, I can only speak to cleaning Edisons as an authority.....

 

Of course, filling and emptying, filling and emptying is the easiest, and it's what I recommend to people who are not wanting to tinker with your pens.

 

If you enjoy tinkering with pens, you can remove the section. Then flush out the interior of the pen. If there's an ink window showing some ink, you can get a Qtip inside the barrel to clean the ink window.

 

Then to flush the nib quickly, use a bulb syringe. You don't need to remove the breather tube. The breather tube will fit inside the snout of the bulb syringe.

 

Here's a couple of videos that will help. The flushing video shows how to flush a bulb filler nib by putting the breather tube inside the bulb syringe snout.

 

Of course, these videos apply to Edisons. I can't guarantee that these techniques will work with other bulb fillers.

 

 

Edited January 6, 2013 by bgray

[Dillo]

I wouldn't be surprised that they can be hard to clean. My one bulb filler is an Edison Pearl and I disassemble the pen (screw out the nib unit, take off the rubber bulb thing, take off the tube) in order to clean it. Even so it's slightly annoying and I only use the one ink in it. I would love to look at other ways of doing bulb fillers someday, though.

 

(And goodness, yeah, my Vacumatic is even more annoying to clean and it too is relegated to a single ink.)

 

 

Make sure you shellac the bulb back onto the end of the pen when you take it off though. It might not be the best idea to remove that for regular cleanings. Usually that needs to be removed when the pen needs restoration, but not for regular cleanings.

 

Dillon

[requiescat]

I wouldn't be surprised that they can be hard to clean. My one bulb filler is an Edison Pearl and I disassemble the pen (screw out the nib unit, take off the rubber bulb thing, take off the tube) in order to clean it. Even so it's slightly annoying and I only use the one ink in it. I would love to look at other ways of doing bulb fillers someday, though.

 

(And goodness, yeah, my Vacumatic is even more annoying to clean and it too is relegated to a single ink.)

 

One comment - you shouldn't be removing the bulb sac. It is shellac'ed in place, and needs to stay. If you have broken the shellac seal, maybe send me an email so I can get the bulb re-attached. It the bulb sac is only attached with friction, you could be asking for a mess. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your post, but if the bulb sac has been removed, contact me and we'll get it fixed.

I'm flying home today from out of state and will contact you after I get in--I managed to break the shellac seal my very first time taking it apart because I didn't realize it was sealed. I'm so sorry! I've been just putting it back in place with friction and honestly, I hadn't noticed a problem yet because the pen's behavior has been great.

 

**penitent**

[bgray]

I wouldn't be surprised that they can be hard to clean. My one bulb filler is an Edison Pearl and I disassemble the pen (screw out the nib unit, take off the rubber bulb thing, take off the tube) in order to clean it. Even so it's slightly annoying and I only use the one ink in it. I would love to look at other ways of doing bulb fillers someday, though.

 

(And goodness, yeah, my Vacumatic is even more annoying to clean and it too is relegated to a single ink.)

 

One comment - you shouldn't be removing the bulb sac. It is shellac'ed in place, and needs to stay. If you have broken the shellac seal, maybe send me an email so I can get the bulb re-attached. It the bulb sac is only attached with friction, you could be asking for a mess. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your post, but if the bulb sac has been removed, contact me and we'll get it fixed.

I'm flying home today from out of state and will contact you after I get in--I managed to break the shellac seal my very first time taking it apart because I didn't realize it was sealed. I'm so sorry! I've been just putting it back in place with friction and honestly, I hadn't noticed a problem yet because the pen's behavior has been great.

 

**penitent**

 

OK, no problem at all. I'm sure that the pen is working fine with friction, but it really should be sealed. You could have a major mess if the bulb sac comes off.

 

Just shoot me an email when timing is good for you, and we'll get it taken care of.

[kmeredith923]

Certain cheap Hero and Fuquilong pens fill with bulbs. After spending the better part of an hour flushing (squishing that stupid bulb or mashing down the lever on the housing to squish it) to the point of hand cramping trying to get the Diamine Imperial Purple out using everything from soap and water to bleach and water I finally got it to the point where clean water only slightly tinges the paper towel pink. I have now resigned myself that those pens will just have to be reserved for that same ink or something in the same color family. So, I have pens for reds/purples, greens and blues. Whoever made the decision to put them on pens is a moron. *sigh* I knew when I filled them they were going to be trouble. Only one of them is a pen I like anyway. The others have some writing problems. They're EF/F that I ordered before I realized how different Asian market nib sizes are compared to what I'm used to. They're scratchy and dry writing, but they have the hidden nibs so I don't know how to try to get them wetter. I'll try to smooth them out eventually when I get enough money to buy the supplies. I really hate that I'm wasting my Diamine Eau de Nil in one of them. At that nib size it just looks like black. Luckily my other favorite (of the inks I personally own) Diamine Steel Blue is in the juicer medium nibed Fuquilong 895.

[ac12]

To me a bulb filler is a lever filler but rather than a lever, you use your fingers. So cleaning would really be the same as a lever filler.

 

Personally I would not use a bulb nor lever filler for ink testing where you are changing ink every day. If you can unscrew the nib assembly, like Esterbrooks, then it would make cleaning easy enough to change inks every day. Otherwise, I would stick with a cartridge/converter for ink testing.

Edited April 12, 2016 by ac12

[kmeredith923]

To me a bulb filler is a lever filler but rather than a lever, you use your fingers. So cleaning would really be the same as a lever filler.

Personally I would not use a bulb nor lever filler for ink testing where you are changing ink every day. If you can unscrew the nib assembly, like Esterbrooks, then it would make cleaning easy enough to change inks every day. Otherwise, I would stick with a cartridge/converter for ink testing.

Exactly, if I could have disassembled it more it would have been so much easier. As it was, it was just torture!