What To Do With New Old Pens.

[Mickey17]

I'm new to fountain pens, as well as FPN, and recently purchased my first vintage pen. I picked up a Pelikan 140 on the Ebays. My question now is, what is the first thing you do with a new old pen? Do you flush it or soak it with water? Do you immediately ink it and see what happens?

 

Any help would be much appreciated. I'm excited to use my new pen! The temptation to just fill it with ink and try it is becoming hard to resist.

[WirsPlm]

Flushing is a good first step (just room temperature water will work), see how well it draws the water in and what color it comes out, if the water doesn't run clear after a few flushes a soak is probably a good idea since dried ink needs time to be loosened by the water. If possible, disassembling and cleaning the pen is also a good idea, since we have no idea where the pen has been, and that helps spot any problems early. Check in the brand forums for advice for your pen, different materials have trouble with water or have tricky disassembly instructions. I know it's hard to resist the urge to use the new pen but you'll be really happy you did if the pen doesn't work properly (water is so much easier to clean than ink).

Edited March 4, 2014 by WirsPlm

[Mickey17]

Thank you. I really appreciate the response, even though I realize now that I may have placed this thread in the wrong section of FPN.

[ac12]

I ALWAYS inspect and clean a new old pen. I never take anything for granted on stuff from eBay.

 

If the pen has an ink sac, even if it seems to work, I put it into the repair queue to replace the ink sac. The problem is the sac could be over 50 years old and just ready to fail, and leak ink all over the place. So I make it a standard procedure to replace the ink sac.

 

If there was red ink in the pen, and you load turquoise, the resulting ink color would not be what you want.

Cleaning old pens can be a chore as WP said. Old ink can be dried SOLID or a messy paste. That ink has to be disolved and washed out of the pen, in a repeating cycle of soak, empty, blot, then repeat the process. Depends on the pen, disolving the old ink out of pen can take a LONG time, 2 of mine took about 2 weeks, most are less than a week. Just be patient.

[Pelikan Vera]

Okay here my two cents worth of advice. Soak the pen nib down in cold water just covering the nib and a little of the section. If you see ink coming out then change the water and see whether it will come clear. then unscrew the nib unit (only if there is ink in the pen that has dried). Fill the barrel with cold water and flush it until it is clear. If you have silicone grease try to lubricate the piston seal. reassemble the pen and you are good to go. There is a video on how to unscrew the nib on youtube by SBREBrown. Be aware that the piston unit on your pen cannot be unscrewed. Have fun. Pelikan 140's are great pens.

[sargetalon]

Old pens from eBay almost always come with dried ink. What I do is inspect the pen thoroughly making sure that there are no cracks not previously disclosed. Then I try to gently turn the piston. Do not force it as it could be stuck from dried ink and forcing it can break it. If it moves easy enough, I will try to flush it. It may take several flushes including some ammonia to help clear out the dried ink. I'll let it soak, rinse, and repeat. This is also a good time to find out if the piston seal is competent. After much soaking, I will try to very carefully unscrew the nib, but abort if I get any amount of reasonable resistance. Finally, if I'm able to get the nib off and the pen cleaned, I will apply some pure silicon to faciliate the piston moving easily. At some point in all that, I'm also cleaning out the dried ink from the cap that usually gets ignored.

 

I buy a lot of used Pelikans on eBay and this is my procedure for everyone of them.

Edited March 4, 2014 by sargetalon

[WestLothian]

PeliKan 140 is not a difficult pen to get going. I would soak the nib and the end of the barrel section in tepid water for a few minutes. The nib unit should unscrew easily, if you gently squeeze the nib against the feed before twisting this will prevent a torsional disaster with the tines bending in all directions. The nib-unit threads and the cylinder barrel that the piston runs against will benefit from a wipe with silicone grease. It is best to use food-grade or diving gear quality grease to make sure there are no unexpected solvents added. All surplus silicone should be wiped away with lint-free tissue or camera lens wipes.