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easy clean nibs and feed fountain pens for use with iron gall inks


dave321

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the best pen i have to use with iron gall inks like kwz is a TWISBE ECO, its so easy to clean the nib

and feed and generally the whole pen, and its a really smooth writer.

 

what other decent pens out there allow you to do the same thing,

(not cheap Chinese) ?

 

this would also be beneficial for nano pigment inks which i also like using.

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Iron galls were the only inks available for the majority of the time when everyone used fountain pens; they didn't require "special" pens, they just used pens. Nothing has changed in that regard. 

 

They also didn't disassemble their pens to clean them. That is a thoroughly recent fetish.

Vintage. Cursive italic. Iron gall.

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but some pens are easier to clean than others with regard to deposits

it would be useful to know i think from a buying perspective

 

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Very few pens are designed to be dissassembled. Even those that ship with tools, with the possible exception of Conids. Deposits are only an issue if the pen has a faulty seal, or if you let the pen dry out. You are better off avoiding both of those.

Vintage. Cursive italic. Iron gall.

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37 minutes ago, silverlifter said:

Iron galls were the only inks available for the majority of the time when everyone used fountain pens;

 

I will, agree that they were available, however it is my understanding that Herbin dye based inks have been around since at least the 1870s, if not before. The formula of which, no doubt, changed with the advent of fountain pens.

 

TWSBI has inadvertently cursed younger FP aficionados with the notion that every pen needs to be taken apart.

 

Add lightness and simplicate.

 

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5 hours ago, dave321 said:

but some pens are easier to clean than others with regard to deposits

it would be useful to know i think from a buying perspective

 

Iron-gall inks, by their nature, do not have particulate matter that would deposit in or clog the nib; they contain nothing that a long soak and flush with a dilute ascorbic or citric acid solution won't dissolve and clean out ‘normally’ without disassembly. Especially if you're planning on buying or allocating one or more pens primarily for use with iron-gall inks — which is what your thread title seems to suggest — you don't need pens of easy-disassembly construction just for that.

 

I doubt there are many, or any, pen manufacturers in the market today that will endorse disassembly of nib and feed from their housing and/or gripping section for cleaning; and disassembly in such a manner will probably void warranty (note: this isn't an argument of whether the manufacturer could detect it on inspection of the pen).

 

However, “cheap Chinese” pens aside, Fountain Pen Revolution sells spare nibs and feeds for some of its pen models for easy replacement — even if just to change the type of nib from time to time — so it's hardly going to object if you decide to pull the nib and feed out of a FPR Himalaya, for example, for deep cleaning. (They are Indian pens, not Chinese.)

 

On the other side of the spectrum...

 

The friction-fit nib and feed from just about any Sailor pen can be pulled out easily, so if you particularly want to do it to a “not cheap Chinese” Sailor King Of Pen, you can.

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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11 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

On the other side of the spectrum...

 

The friction-fit nib and feed from just about any Sailor pen can be pulled out easily, so if you particularly want to do it to a “not cheap Chinese” Sailor King Of Pen, you can.

 

thats the sort of useful information i was after - thank you

as an aside, Registrars ink from Diamine does gradually over time leave a deposit of insoluble material in the original bottle. - i accept that if this happened in a pen feed it could be dissolved with a weak ascorbic acid or citric acid solution.

 

thank you all for your comments.

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As several esteemed members have stated over the years, "Pens are expensive, ink is cheap."

 

I played with iron gall inks over the past few years but ended up tossing them all. With so many dye and pigment-based inks available, I just moved on to other inks I enjoyed using.

 

Good luck with your IG inks!

 

Buzz

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22 hours ago, silverlifter said:

Iron galls were the only inks available for the majority of the time when everyone used fountain pens; they didn't require "special" pens, they just used pens. Nothing has changed in that regard. 

 

They also didn't disassemble their pens to clean them. That is a thoroughly recent fetish.

God, how I flinch and shudder when people yank apart piston pens not designed for that. They are not Twsbies or Ahabs.

I have both a MB and Pelikan '50's instruction sheet, saying clean the pen every 3 months.....back in day....I as a child and lad, didn't know I was supposed to clean a pen***.....many others didn't either explaining all the old pens in the drawer that work with minor cleaning.............not taking the pliers to them.

 

The inks were once mostly IG inks, so were cleaned if one read, every three months.

There was a time when a man had a black, a blue and perhaps a blue-black ink so pens were cleaned less than today....women had the other colors.

Now we all have the colors, so it is mostly run out of ink, change it.....clean your pen then.

I would think cleaning your pen of IG ink would be just fine with every 6 weeks...

 

 

*** As a School kid I didn't have to worry about that there were pen collectors even then..........they were always stolen with in the school year. In 10th grade I graduated to the Bic....one did have to learn to keep the cap off the pen or it too would be collected.

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

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My experience is surely more limited than that of other people commenting, but I will share it because of the reference, in the original post, to "iron gall inks like kwz." 

 

The one iron gall ink I own is Rohrer & Klingner Scabiosa, which is very easy to flush from a pen, probably easier to flush than any other ink I have.  I assume that my cleaning protocol is adequate, insofar as I have had no trouble with flow, or with switching to and from Scabiosa in the same pen, for more than five years.

 

The one KWZ iron gall ink I have tried--IG Violet #3--was quite different.  It took far longer to flush than most inks, but the extra work was due to the saturated color of the ink, not its iron gall component.  By the time I finally got all that color out, any residues of iron gall must also have been long gone!

 

I have never used a carbon ink in a fountain pen but am prepared to believe that those present some cleaning challenges across the board.  My suspicion comes from using sumi ink on a brush for Japanese calligraphy:  not matter how long I rinse or soak the brush after a writing session, there is always a smudge on the tissue I use to wipe it.   

 

As for pens, the maximum disassembly I am ready to undertake is separating the section from the converter, in order to squirt distilled water through the section until the expelled water runs clear.  After flushing, I soak the section overnight.  I have never used an iron gall ink, or a very saturated ink, in a pen other than a cartridge converter and would hesitate to do so.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

      

   

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I have never used any, KWZ iron gall inks. I have because of my pen buying habit, been limited to the old big companies, and that little enough. Over the last 7 or so years there are a hell of a lot of new, good ink companies.............:crybaby:And I've not even got my 100 basic mainland Europe inks, much less got around to the new boys.............I do so strive to stay away from Inky Thoughts and Ink Reviews......in I ink pens.....and until I empty some bottles, can't even think about the new boys.

 

I use Rohrer & Klingner Scabiosa and it's twin, in my Pelikan piston pens, and would use them in my unplanned growing collection of MB's or any of the old once main German piston pen companies; with no fear.

 

At most I would do .......gee....:huh:would be treat them like a Purple ink:doh:.....which I am more careful with than my R&K IG's.

I do change purple inks after one use, or twice.....I'm sure I've been lazy enough to refill. Reds and to a slightly lesser amount purples are known to stain ink windows.

So....suddenly I get some of the fear of IG inks folks have...........In Piston pens with a window.

My opinion still is if you are not using an ink window pen.....every six weeks would be time to change to a different ink, non IG.

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

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For me cleaning the pen with IG or permanent ink has never been about how much I need to dismantle the pen, I do like the fact that some pens can be disassembled completely but I don't think there is any need to do that in most cases and I never saw a need to (I use pigment inks everyday and they are more issue causing then any IG lot). I flush the pen regularly but thats all, thorough cleaning is done only when ink switch or when need for storing for long time. The working is below.

 

For thorough cleaning my weapon for cleaning has always been soap water. When flusing is done, the feed unit is kept in water for 8hrs to 2 days if needed with water changed from time to time and shaking the unit sometimes. The water used varies from mild warm to freezing cold not used together but depends on situation. The water is changed from time to time during the process. Followed by clean water flushing and drying.

 

For piston fillers, I do remove the nibs but again only when really in need (clogged pen, feed having issues and nib block or damaged or a swap and such), else the thing can soak water and soap all day with regular flushing between the soaks. Finishing with clean water flushes and done.

 

This is if one wishes their pen to last, twisbi are easy to open, yes and by my experience as easy to crack and break, they are not ment to last a life, many FP are, eg almost any ebonite pen.

 

The pens do exist to do full dismantle and I will list some of cheap ones that I use.

Any Indian ebonite pen from my experience uses all standard components and can be dismantled to your hearts content.

All sailors are pretty much friction fit (no idea of every specific models but this is the case for most).

Rest have to be checked individually as, as mentioned above not many pens are made for dismantling....same goes for above pens, you can, yes... should you.....well not for every cleaning no.

 

Hope it helps.

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At the time of IG ink many pens were just a cylindrical container, a feed and a nib. That is the easiest to clean set up, and the typical pen was an ebonite eyedropper. In an ebonite eyedropper the body is ebonite and the feed is ebonite, the only metal part in contact with ink is the nib, and best would be if that were gold.

 

Lots of things have however changed meanwhile, but I think that is still an easy set up to use IG.

Several Indian makers are still making ebonite ED pens in which you can fit a gold nib, but even a steel nib won't be a problem nowadays, certainly not with KWZ IGs. ED pens are cheaper to produce that converter pens, so you are likely to get an ED ebonite pen from Indian makers from $20 to 60 approx.

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I often put IG inks into my Parker Vectors.  If necessary I can remove the converter and soak the nib unit.  But last night I was flushing out one after having finished a fill of KWZI IG Violet #2 (which is less saturated than IG Violet #3) that had also been diluted (refilling the converter with distilled water unit such time that I could actually flush the pen completely, and then writing with the diluted ink.  And I didn't have a lot of issues with cleaning the pen: just flushed it a few times with distilled water, then flushing and soaking it, nib down, in diluted vinegar solution with a drop or two of Dawn for an hour or two, then flushing the pen nib, feed and converter chamber with more distilled water.  The pen has been draining into paper toweling since last night, and I'm pretty sure that the pen is clean (I didn't even use the trick someone here who is a chemist suggested in a thread a couple of years ago -- to use a dilute ammonia solution after the vinegar solution was rinsed out and then flush that well with more water.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

"It's very nice, but frankly, when I signed that list for a P-51, what I had in mind was a fountain pen."

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31 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

I often put IG inks into my Parker Vectors.  If necessary I can remove the converter and soak the nib unit.  But last night I was flushing out one after having finished a fill of KWZI IG Violet #2 (which is less saturated than IG Violet #3) that had also been diluted (refilling the converter with distilled water unit such time that I could actually flush the pen completely, and then writing with the diluted ink.  And I didn't have a lot of issues with cleaning the pen: just flushed it a few times with distilled water, then flushing and soaking it, nib down, in diluted vinegar solution with a drop or two of Dawn for an hour or two, then flushing the pen nib, feed and converter chamber with more distilled water.  The pen has been draining into paper toweling since last night, and I'm pretty sure that the pen is clean (I didn't even use the trick someone here who is a chemist suggested in a thread a couple of years ago -- to use a dilute ammonia solution after the vinegar solution was rinsed out and then flush that well with more water.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

I, too, often fill a pen with distilled water and write with the diluted ink.  In addition to making it easier to flush the pen when the time comes, I have found some inks to be very attractive in their diluted state.

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That's one way to make a shading ink out of a supersaturated ink, which many like.

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

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15 hours ago, ENewton said:

 

I, too, often fill a pen with distilled water and write with the diluted ink.  In addition to making it easier to flush the pen when the time comes, I have found some inks to be very attractive in their diluted state.

I like to do that too 🙂 - especially often with "new" 2nd-Hand pens.

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The only attention I suggest you to pay is for gold plated nibs.

Platinum for example strongly suggest to not use platinum IG inks with platinum pens having a gold plated n in.

And they are right, as I experienced the peeling of the gold plated nib in a platinum balance using platinum blue black nib.

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8 hours ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

That's one way to make a shading ink out of a supersaturated ink, which many like.

True.  I've got diluted Noodler's Baltimore Canyon in the TWSBI 580-AL, B nib, at the moment.  And while I LOVE the color of the undiluted ink a whole lot to begin with, I even like it diluted -- I'm getting not only shading, but haloing at times (when I have to adjust the piston at times to prime the feed). :wub:

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

"It's very nice, but frankly, when I signed that list for a P-51, what I had in mind was a fountain pen."

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haloing...got to look that up.

Some supposedly 'sheen' inks I've tried...don't find it....It don't appear to be in my German inks.

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

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