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how to avoid contamination of a pristine ink


nweissma

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suppose i have a comparatively expensive pristine ink and i want to use it to fill a converter fp which had been used with a different-colored ink and i want to avoid contaminating the new ink. the converter fp stubbornly shows the old ink no matter how many times that i clean it.

 

what can i do to prevent this converter from contaminating the new ink?

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My flippant answer would be "What Carrau said".  But I'd also ask what the previous ink was and HOW you cleaned the pen.   Because different inks have different pH formulas. So (for instance) if you had previously used an iron gall ink in the pen, I'd say to flush with water -- I use distilled water because the water is very hard where I live -- then flush/soak with a dilute vinegar solution (1 part white household vinegar to 9 parts [distilled] water and a drop or two of Dawn dish detergent, regular formula -- the blue stuff, not the green stuff -- then flush well with water.  Then (and I don't know enough chemistry to know why this works, but someone on here who'd DID have a degree in chemistry suggested it) then do a flush with ammonia solution (same ratio but with with clear ammonia instead of the vinegar, then flush with more water.  For a "regular" fountain pen ink (one that is more neutral pH to alkaline) just use the ammonia solution.  

For really noxious stuff like India ink or paint (which shouldn't really be put into fountain pens to begin with) you may have to go to an art supply store and get Rapid-o-eze (used for cleaning technical pens -- the kind of pen like a Rapid-o-graph, which instead of a nib has a tub with a wire running down through it).

Of course there's always the possibility that the stains are just that -- stains.  And there's so little ink that the odds of contaminating another ink are pretty low.  If you are worried, though, you could transfer a small amount of ink into another container -- a sample vial or a small bottle or jar that's been cleaned (and maybe even sterilized with boiling water or bleach solution or stuff called B-Brite, which is used by homebrewers to sterilize their equipment instead of bleach because it's easier to know when it's all rinsed off than bleach).  And then instead of filling directly from the bottle, fill from the intermediate container (eyedroppers or pipettes are good for this, rather than trying to pour into a smaller bottle or jar from the original bottle).

Hope this helps.  (Although, honestly, a replacement converter might be cheaper in the long run, unless you end up with a lot of pens or change ink colors a lot).

The nice thing about the ammonia solution and vinegar solution is that you only need to make it up as needed: distilled water is pretty inexpensive in US grocery stores, and you should be able to find the vinegar and/or ammonia in the cleaning aisle -- I buy them in gallon jugs and mix up batches as needed.

 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

edited for typos

"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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5 hours ago, nweissma said:

what can i do to prevent this converter from contaminating the new ink?

 

You're dipping the nib and feed, and not any part of the converter, into the bottle of ink if you're following the refilling instructions from the pen manufacturer (and they all tell you to do it that way, from what I've seen). If the nib, feed and gripping section is clean and free of contamination, then as long as you're only drawing ink up into the converter and not pushing any air or fluid back down through the nib and feed, I don't see why any insoluble remnants of colour you see in the cleaned converter would pose a risk of contaminating the relatively expensive and pristine bottle of ink.

 

Now, if you mean you didn't want the new fill of ink in the converter to be contaminated, and become any different (or behave any differently) than what you expected you acquired at relatively great expense, then as Carrau suggested, buy a new converter at lesser expense if you don't trust the old converter to be free of contaminants.

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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6 hours ago, brokenclay said:

Fill the converter with a syringe.

I see..you get a converter and you use it like a cartridge...😆😆🤷‍♂️

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  • 4 weeks later...

Also consider buying some pipettes and vials.  Use the pipette to transfer ink to the clean vial and fill from the vial.  It's also a great way to share inks, you can send someone ink via the pipettes or in the vials. 

Fountain pens are my preferred COLOR DELIVERY SYSTEM (in part because crayons melt in Las Vegas).

Create a Ghostly Avatar and I'll send you a letter. Check out some Ink comparisons: The Great PPS Comparison 

Don't know where to start?  Look at the Inky Topics O'day.  Then, see inks sorted by color: Blue Purple Brown Red Green Dark Green Orange Black Pinks Yellows Blue-Blacks Grey/Gray UVInks Turquoise/Teal MURKY

 

 

 

 

 

 

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  • 2 years later...
Quote

Also consider buying some pipettes and vials.  Use the pipette to transfer ink to the clean vial and fill from the vial.  It's also a great way to share inks, you can send someone ink via the pipettes or in the vials. 

 

That is my suggestion after all my travails and research on contaminated inks.

With the new FPN rules, now I REALLY don't know what to put in my signature.

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