Cleaning A Previously Used Ink Bottle

[Charles Skinner]

How do you clean a previously used ink bottle before adding new ink? C. S.

[Mr. Pink]

Soak it a long time, or if it does not clean out peferctly, toss it. Be sure to soak the cap, too.

[DonLeone]

I just rinse out with tap water. Then again, I only clean out the lamy bottles because they're awesome. I make sure to get it dry using paper tissues because my tap water is very hard. I mean, I don't let it air-dry.

[T4TEXAS]

Much like flushing a pen. Tap water, then water with drop of dish detergent if needed. Then with 10 percent amonia if still not clean. I always finish by rinsing 2-3 times with distilled water.

[Chrissy]

Wash it out as clean as you can get it, and if it still isn't clean put it in the dishwasher.

 

The cap will need cleaning separately if it has a cardboard disc inside it. If you can easily get the disc out then you will be able to clean it properly. Otherwise there will still be old ink underneath the disc, so that will need a lot of cleaning out.

[Arkanabar]

If the disc is cardboard, replace it with a disc cut from a disposable styrofoam plate

 

Bottles can be sterilized by boiling or rinsing with 70% isopropyl rubbing alcohol.

[Randal6393]

Plus one for Arkanabar. Have replaced the discs in my Montblanc shoes several times, cleaned them every so often -- whenever one gets empty, it gets a good soak and clean. I don't take any particular care to avoid mould, live in Charlotte, NC, which does have its share of mould problems. But it has never struck here.

 

Rinsing and cleaning with 70 % isopropyl rubber alcohol is an excellent choice. Shin of OpenInkStand cleans her dip pens in alcohol, it is a great way to quickly get a nib up and running.

 

Enjoy,

[Runnin_Ute]

Wash it out as clean as you can get it, and if it still isn't clean put it in the dishwasher.

 

The cap will need cleaning separately if it has a cardboard disc inside it. If you can easily get the disc out then you will be able to clean it properly. Otherwise there will still be old ink underneath the disc, so that will need a lot of cleaning out.

Have done something similar to this. Both with a Pelikan 4001 and Levenger bottle.

[amberleadavis]

Oh and I think it bears multiple repeatings, sterilize the cap!

[inkstainedruth]

I haven't gotten to this point yet, but I have considered what I would do when that time comes. I definitely would think about sterilizing both bottle and cap.

Back when my husband was doing a lot of home brewing, he used stuff called B-Brite, which is a strong oxidizer. The advantage of it over bleach was that it was easy to tell when it was completely rinsed off -- it would stop being slippery. Given how hard the water is where I live, I might go the extra step of using distilled water to both make up the B-Brite solution and to rinse it off. Weirdly, that issue never came up in making beer -- and my husband was really good at trouble-shooting problems that other people had, such as when they forgot to sterilize something (or, in one case, the guy's tap water was metallic tasting, so that made for metallic tasting beer; my husband mentioned this to a friend who worked for the Pgh. Water & Sewer Authority, and it turned out the local water tank wasn't being flushed as often as it was supposed to be!).

Because B-Brite washes off completely, I wouldn't worry about interaction with any inks (the bottles, carboys, air-traps, etc., were all air-dried).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth