How Clean Do You Really Clean Your Pens?

[I like mango cheesecake]

I've recently cleaned about 4 or 5 pens, removing the nibs and feeds, flushing them out with pen cleaner, soaking them in water and reflushing again. I've flushed for a very long time and flushed again.

 

I've let them dry and put them away for sometime now. I pulled out one and decided to dip it in a vial of water and low and behold, a stream of a very diluted ink seems to be streaming out of the nib.

 

I decide to check my other pens and the same thing happens. I've let them soak for almost an hour now and I took one to a tissue paper and it still does not blot clean.

 

Is it really necessary to get the pen absolutely ink free? It seems to be an impossible task. I don't want to get an ultrasonic cleaner for just this, as I've heard some not so good things about them and 14K nibs.

[perth]

I just run the water through the front section or use the converter to empty the ink.

[ac12]

I use an ultrasonic cleaner (USC).

The problem is with gold PLATED nibs, not the gold alloy nibs. And the problem is with the plating. If the plating is not bonded well to the base metal, the plating could flake off. And I've seen gold plating flake off without using an USC.

 

The degree of cleaning depends on what the current and next ink will be.

If going from black to a light pink or yellow, then you need more cleaning than going from black to dark blue or blue to black. And if you are not changing colors, then it really does not matter much.

 

Also if the pen is a used pen, I clean it more than my own pens, cuz I don't know what is in the pen. Some times the ink is dried up solid or has turned into a paste and will take a long time to disolve and get into solution so that it can be flushed out.

 

What I do is clean the pen flushing and USC where practical, then I do an overnight soak with the pen filled with water and the nib down. Almost always I will get ink out of the overnight soaking. The problem is flushing will not clean out the ink reservoir in the feed, because it is out of the flow of the ink channels. Soaking and blotting will help get the ink out of reservoir.

[Moshe ben David]

If I'm refilling with the same ink (rare, but I do have a couple of pens that will forever only see one ink; e.g., one pen inked with red ink) then I may not even flush between every fill.

 

Generally though, I will flush through the feed/nib section with distilled water using a baby type bulb. (Like what you'd use for rinsing ear or nose of an infant; get them at a pharmacy). Once it seems to be running clear, I will also usually flush a couple of times with JB Pen Flush followed by 3 rinses with distilled water. Note the JB Flush can go right back into its bottle; the bottle is good until the contents become so saturated that you cannot see through it.

 

If the pen also has a separate converter I will clean the converter in the same way. For piston fill I don't use the bulb; just flush as above making use of the piston mechanism.

 

I've never had need to even consider taking apart the nib and feed assembly.

[balson]

I've recently cleaned about 4 or 5 pens, removing the nibs and feeds, flushing them out with pen cleaner, soaking them in water and reflushing again. I've flushed for a very long time and flushed again.

 

I've let them dry and put them away for sometime now. I pulled out one and decided to dip it in a vial of water and low and behold, a stream of a very diluted ink seems to be streaming out of the nib.

 

I decide to check my other pens and the same thing happens. I've let them soak for almost an hour now and I took one to a tissue paper and it still does not blot clean.

 

Is it really necessary to get the pen absolutely ink free? It seems to be an impossible task. I don't want to get an ultrasonic cleaner for just this, as I've heard some not so good things about them and 14K nibs.

 

You have to think that you are getting rid of possibly 80+ years of sediment. Pens will often work fine even if you never get them fully clean. i think what happens though is that when you clean the pen you can only remove the top layer of sediment at a time because the water never reaches the lower layers of sediment to loosen them.

 

i have found the easiest hands free way of cleaning a pen is to flush it as usual. then you fill the pen with water and leave it nib down on a wet paper towel placed in the bottom of a cup. the capillary action will draw the inky water into the wet paper towel.

[brunico]

Is it really necessary to get the pen absolutely ink free?

 

No.

 

I rinse pens when changing colour. I don't bother between fills of the same ink unless I've got several other pens to clean and think I might as well do them all. If I'm changing from black to yellow, I'll blot the nib until I think any remaining ink won't affect the new colour, but otherwise clear enough is good enough. And all with just a cold tap and bog roll.

 

So to me, cleaning a pen has always been about not making sure the new fill comes out the intended colour, and nothing to do with actually cleaning a pen.

 

I was wondering whether you can clean a pen too much. At least one person thinks so:

 

Over flushing your pen with water will over-clean a pen to the point where it will need to be broken-in again. Your pen needs to have at least some slight traces of ink residue present in its guts for it to work as intended.

 

I know nothing about fluid dynamics, so I can't say whether this could be true or not. Just thought I'd throw it into the mix.

Edited February 8, 2014 by brunico

[loudkenny]

I don't know about 'overcleaning' pens, but I rinse every pen out after every other fill. I flush them in ammonia/water mix once a month or when I change inks. Any new pen I buy gets completely stripped down and put in the ultrasonic bath before I even try it out.

 

Works for me...

 

ken

[Koyote]

Good grief, we're not talking about surgical instruments. I will often leave a pen inked for 3-4 months, simply refilling (with the same color) when it is empty. If I want to change inks, I will run a few fills of water through it, with the last couple being bottled water (our water is very hard) if I have it handy.

 

Granted, I tend to stick with fairly safe inks...But I've not had any problems.

[Hammer1]

I have to agree with brunico and Koyote, I rarely clean my pens, only just to change colours. Some of my pens will go over 12 months without a clean with no ill effect.

 

I'm sure if one blocks up, thats the time to clean it. It might take some time then to clean the pen properly, but I think I will be hours ahead of people who clean them regularly.

 

Having said that, when I do clean them, it is nice to watch the ink flow around and mix with the water in the glass

[Sasha Royale]

A Parker 45 lives in my shirt pocket everyday. I use it everyday. After four or five loads of ink (eight weeks),

I give it a quick flush. Other pens of my collection are used in rotation, and stored while "off rotation". Each

is cleaned thoroughly before storage.

 

Dried ink is the enemy.

[Inkling13]

What have you heard about US cleaners and 14k gold nibs? I don't think it would be harmful to the nibs per say, but what do you know that I don't? I'd just be worried about materials that are sensitive to water, and getting water into places that it can't come back out of, say behind blind caps and such.

[PJohnP]

I suppose it depends on the inks used. Occasionally, I'll use a truly saturated or deeply coloured ink in a pen, and this will be more tenacious about removal. As others note, some colours, possibly due to the specific dyes, can "stick" more than expected. I'll do much as others have noted, although I use my own "home-brew" concoction for pen flushing with a fresh water washthrough, sometimes followed by a light polish with a jeweler's cloth before putting the pen up for a time. Sometimes, inks that I've tested like Iroshizuku Murasaki-Shikibu or Yama-Budo will be more difficult to dislodge, leaving a faint trace behind.

 

Where this has clashed with my sensibilities for inks that I'll plan for the pen when placed back in the rotation, I will fill the pen with clear fresh water, and let it sit for a week or two. It will gradually leach "old" ink from the pen walls or the sac. Occasionally, it will need several of these soaks, but it's a decent approach to addressing residual ink in a gentle manner. I wouldn't leave a pen flush in the body of a pen for a prolonged period, but fresh water is another matter. This approach has also served very well with many vintage pens where the "pen hygiene" of previous owners was weak or non-existent.

 

I also agree with some others in the thread about some caution with ultrasonic cleaners. They're a cleaning alternative that offer some benefits, but thoughtlessly applying them to some more delicate components is not a good idea.

 

Ultimately, we can use our pens or not. If the long-term designation of the pen is as an investment - "never dipped, never filled" - no ink can be applied to the pen in any way. Where I've hit some of the problematic inks, ones that people have claimed stain, plug, or dissolve pen components, I've used one of several "test pens" that I've designated for this use, including modern and vintage pens that I'm mentally prepared to lose if the predictions are borne out. I've had some staining, although I've been able to remove it thus far, occasional slow starts, almost plugging in a couple of instances, and the inks in question have not proceeded to pens of greater value to me (who knows if others would like them...). Those decisions are intensely personal, much like one having a nice car in a parking lot where someone could ding it or even hit it, so that one decides on whether to take the car out of protected storage at all. My pens do get out on the road, and into the parking lots paved with paper every day...

 

 

 

John P.

[tinta]

I'd say that unless you use highly saturated or problem inks (discussed in the Forums), a few flushes with water will most likely suffice.

(Our village well water here is extremely hard, so I use bottled RO water for all my pen cleaning.)

 

I use four different brands of ferrogallic inks, in a couple of dedicated pens. These pens regularly get a flush with a mild vinegar solution, some Pen Flush, with RO water rinses in between.

 

The rest of my pens get cleaned only in between colour changes & usually only with water.

 

 

 

 

[WaskiSquirrel]

I will clean a pen if I change colors. I'll also clean it after I fill it enough times with the same color. When I do clean them, I soak them in water. I will also flush them with the piston and converter. Afterwards, I put the pen nib down on a paper towel to wick out the remaining ink.

 

I don't need my pens to be perfect. I don't like mixing colors, but otherwise I'm happy.

 

My own exception is Noodler's Kung te Cheng. I have one pen dedicated to that, and I clean it every other fill. That particular ink has too many solid components to just let it dry.

[alexander_k]

A clean pen is less likely to disappoint. If I don't change inks or put a pen out of rotation I normally don't feel inclined to rinse them unless they start misbehaving. Putting the feed under the water tap is my priority, so I feel cheated if I can't disassemble the nib and the feed. If in doubt about old residue, as with many vintage pens, I use Quink Washable Blue once or twice - it does a good job and it gives me the opportunity to test the pen too. So far this has been enough for all the pens I had the fortune to use.

[sharonspens]

I have dedicated one pen to being consistently inked with Diamine imperial purple for one year (until August 2014). It has not been cleaned between fills, and is fine. Everything else goes in and out of rotation. When I no longer plan to use a pen, it is rinsed with water until clean to the naked eye, then placed in a shot glass nib down with a paper towel until dry. I recently bought JB Flush, and have incorporated that into the mix, still ending nib down to dry. Are they perfectly clean? maybe not, but I don't tend to worry about it when I change inks; the new color comes through eventually.

 

Sharon in Indiana

[Bookman]

Since I learned how to remove the nibs and feeds from my sections, I found it much quicker and easier to remove them, rinse all three pieces, gently scrub the feed with a soft toothbrush if necessary (going to or from pigment ink or iron-gall), hand dry with a paper towel as dry as I can get them, and then blow-dry using the cool-air setting. From old ink to new takes ten to fifteen minutes.

[Zowlyfon]

I usually clean my pens every few weeks with the exception of my Lamy safari which only ever uses quink. J herbin 1670 red ink clogs my pens up a lot, when I use that ink I will clean the pen a lot more.

[PolarMoonman]

I clean my pens every time one of the runs out of ink. Its overkill and probably not necessary but I like my pens to be clean and pristine

[Funkmon]

Good grief, we're not talking about surgical instruments. I will often leave a pen inked for 3-4 months, simply refilling (with the same color) when it is empty. If I want to change inks, I will run a few fills of water through it, with the last couple being bottled water (our water is very hard) if I have it handy.

 

Granted, I tend to stick with fairly safe inks...But I've not had any problems.

Absolutely. I'll go one further. If it is a pretty standard ink colour, like if I am refilling from Parker Quink to some other normal blue, (bleep) it. That (bleep) ain't getting cleaned.