Sailor cleaning kit

[awa54]

Either great minds think alike, or Sailor has payed attention to various FP forums...

 

I started advocating using a 30cc vet syringe with a dummy cartridge attached in place of a needle for quick and effective flushing *years* ago!

 

Glad to see someone was listening  

[arcfide]

I have this kit and I've been a big fan of it. The empty cartridges really are pretty good, IMO. I think the Platinum kit probably does a better job strictly of cleaning because of the cleaning solution packets, but the Sailor kit is definitely a little more feature rich and user friendly. Additionally, if you stay "in brand", the IG and pigmented inks of Platinum can benefit from the cleaning solution more than the mostly more water soluble (pigmented inks included) Sailor inks. Plus, Platinum has some seriously good normal cartridges, while Sailor's definitely seem to benefit from having the reinforcing for doing multiple fills, IMO. 

[awa54]

Koh-I-Noor Rapido-Eze is a great cleaner that deals with the pigment/nano/carbon inks quite effectively, tackling feeds packed with decades old dried ink and even sumi, especially with the aid of an ultrasonic cleaner. It comes in an 8oz. bottle as well, which has lasted me several years now.

 

My cleaning kit has dummy cartridges for all of the major cart types, double spares excluded.

[PotbellyPig]

3 hours ago, awa54 said:

Koh-I-Noor Rapido-Eze is a great cleaner that deals with the pigment/nano/carbon inks quite effectively, tackling feeds packed with decades old dried ink and even sumi, especially with the aid of an ultrasonic cleaner. It comes in an 8oz. bottle as well, which has lasted me several years now.

 

My cleaning kit has dummy cartridges for all of the major cart types, double spares excluded.

I’m new to fountain pens and am purchasing a Sailor 1911L.  Can you briefly explain how to use the Sailor cleaning kit? At first I will only be using Sailor regular ink cartridges and not the pigment ones.  But looking at the Sailor kit picture I have no idea how to use it.  Thanks!

[awa54]

Hi PbP,

 

first off, if there's a farm supply store near you, I'd suggest getting a larger syringe to compliment this kit, a 20 to 30cc size is ideal... make sure it has the same internally threaded tip as the one Sailor includes, so that the cartridge adapter will function correctly

 

Using warm water in a sink, my usual process for a pen that isn't full of stubborn dried ink is as follows:

 

rinse the section under the running tap, let water flow in the cartridge end and through the feed until it doesn't have too much remaining color

then fill the sink with warm, but not hot water deep enough that you can fully immerse the nib and section you're cleaning

attach the syringe with cartridge adapter to your nib/section, make sure the adapter is firmly fitted to the syringe (not too tight though, it's just plastic!)

immerse the whole thing so that the water covers the nib unit completely and up to the join between the adapter and syringe if possible (this prevents air leaks)

making sure that the nib has plenty of clearance, so it can't hit the bottom of the sink if you slip, pull outward on the syringe plunger to draw water through the nib and feed in reverse

(there are two reasons to do it this way, first it prevents water pressure from forcefully ejecting the nib unit and potentially damaging the tip, second, it means that you can easily see how clean <or not> the water you are pulling through the feed is)

repeat this until the water you are drawing through is clean

 

it depends on if you intend to change colors and how light the new color ink will be as to how thorough you need to be with this process... going from black to blue black doesn't require a complete flush, but going from black to yellow does! 

when changing brands or formulas (i.e. iron gall to regular, or pigment to dye based) it's best to do a more thorough flush as well, even if color isn't a concern

also, if you have lots of ink coming out during the flush, you may need to drain the sink and refill it with clean water, usually this isn't necessary when cleaning just one pen though

 

It's also OK to push water through (or back out) with the syringe, but if you do, always be certain to hold the section firmly in your off hand, so that it can't be ejected off the end of the adapter by water pressure... luckily, I didn't have any damage occur, but the first time I used this type of kit I did shoot the section into the base of the sink! 😧

 

if you have a totally gunked up pen, either soak it in water overnight, or failing that add some pen-safe cleaner to the soak water; rapido-eze is ideal, but very dilute household ammonia (unscented) works better than just straight water as well, much past 10% ammonia can leach alloy components out of gold nibs potentially weakening them and/or causing a frosted appearance

Test for flow with the syringe and adapter, once you can get any flow, try a thorough flush, if that still doesn't fix things repeat the soak, or get an ultrasonic cleaner (small, lower powered home jewelry cleaning types are both cheaper and safer for plastics and enamel than large commercial grade cleaners)

 

 

if your pen is writing fine and you're just putting a cartridge of the same color (or darker) on, then it's OK to go for a long interval between flushes, but it doesn't hurt to flush your pen every 6 months or so, even if it "doesn't need it"

If it ever dries up, you should give it a complete flush to get any residue out of the feed collector, before fitting a new cartridge

(the collector is a finned portion of the feed that regulates inkflow, preventing ink from blobbing out on the page when there's a temperature or altitude shift, it also ensures that the nib won't run dry if you suddenly bang off a whole paragraph quickly, or use lots of extra ink while flexing a soft nib)

[PotbellyPig]

Thank you!  I will read this over a few times thoroughly.  If I don’t change ink color or ink brand but there is some dried up ink, is just running the bottom section of the pen under the tap enough?  Or do I have to do the second step of using the empty cartridge and syringe to get the reverse flow of water into the nib as well?

[awa54]

When you keep a pen inked and use it regularly, the ink continually passing through the feed keeps things clean and free of deposits, it's when ink dries up (or thickens) in the feed channels that problems arise, like if a pen is left inked and dries out due to a weak cap seal, or is left uncapped overnight

 

high pigment density inks can cause issues as well... I love many of the Noodler's colors, but lots of them are problematic, due to the amount of solids in the ink (among other things...), so I've pretty much stopped using them (sorry Nathan)  

thinning dense inks with water can help, but it usually spoils, or at least diminishes the special look the ink has at "full strength"

 

basically, if it's still writing well, there's no need to flush a pen completely, though as I said it's not a bad thing to do a full flush every 6 months or so

typically, I do a "white glove" cleanout on pens I'm putting away and don't intend to re-ink soon

[A Smug Dill]

1 hour ago, PotbellyPig said:

If I don’t change ink color or ink brand

 

Never mind that both may be Sailor inks, I'll assume you don't want to mix red ink with green, or otherwise allow one ink to ‘contaminate’ another such that the colour that comes out is no longer true to one's expectations, and/or shared understanding with other users and hobbyists as a point of reference, of the latter.

 

1 hour ago, PotbellyPig said:

but there is some dried up ink, is just running the bottom section of the pen under the tap enough?

 

There is dried up ink, and then there is dried up ink.

 

Even if you don't change the actual ink, there's a difference between cleaning dried out Sailor (Jentle) Black ink — for which a relatively gentle flush will usually do — and cleaning out dried out Sailor Shikiori Yonaga.

[PotbellyPig]

1 minute ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

Never mind that both may be Sailor inks, I'll assume you don't want to mix red ink with green, or otherwise allow one ink to ‘contaminate’ another such that the colour that comes out is no longer true to one's expectations, and/or shared understanding with other users and hobbyists as a point of reference, of the latter.

 

 

There is dried up ink, and then there is dried up ink.

 

Even if you don't change the actual ink, there's a difference between cleaning dried out Sailor (Jentle) Black ink — for which a relatively gentle flush will usually do — and cleaning out dried out Sailor Shikiori Yonaga.

Do you know what type of ink comes in those standard boxes of 12 Sailor ink cartridges?  I know it isn’t waterproof.  Is it the Jentle ink?  Sailor also sells a box of 12 pigment ink cartridges which is waterproof but I am not referring to those.

[A Smug Dill]

5 minutes ago, PotbellyPig said:

Do you know what type of ink comes in those standard boxes of 12 Sailor ink cartridges?

 

インク：水性染料

[awa54]

Sailor ID key, for USA product packaging:

 

Sailor "jentle" ink comes in either plastic 2 packs (black, blue black, sky blue, pink or red brown) or paperboard boxed 12 packs (black, blue black, blue and red)

)

the pigment "nano" inks come in paperboard boxed 12 packs as well (kiwaguro/black, seiboku/blue black and souboku/blue gray black)

then there are the Shikiori inks, these are in paperboard boxed 3 packs and despite claiming to be dye based, most colors are somewhere between the jentle and nano inks as far as cleaning/maintenance issues, due to fairly high color density

 

[awa54]

if you really plan to stick with just one, or a select few colors, I'd suggest using a converter so you can buy bottles of your favorite ink, it's cheaper and once you master getting a complete fill of the converter and section cleanup (expect inky fingers the first few times), it's just as easy as cartridge replacement

 

P.S. if you choose to try bottle inks, don't limit your color choices to one brand, there are many different makers who produce safe, reliable inks that will work as well in your Sailor as their own inks do

that said, the shikiori series has some of my favorite colors in it and the jentle and nano lines are both excellent inks as well!

 

[PotbellyPig]

1 hour ago, awa54 said:

if you really plan to stick with just one, or a select few colors, I'd suggest using a converter so you can buy bottles of your favorite ink, it's cheaper and once you master getting a complete fill of the converter and section cleanup (expect inky fingers the first few times), it's just as easy as cartridge replacement

 

P.S. if you choose to try bottle inks, don't limit your color choices to one brand, there are many different makers who produce safe, reliable inks that will work as well in your Sailor as their own inks do

that said, the shikiori series has some of my favorite colors in it and the jentle and nano lines are both excellent inks as well!

 

I had ordered a paperboard pack of 12 of the first one in the pictures.  It should be the jentle ink.  So it should be comparatively lower maintenance.  That’s good to know.  Thank you for explained which is which.

[arcfide]

7 hours ago, PotbellyPig said:

I’m new to fountain pens and am purchasing a Sailor 1911L.  Can you briefly explain how to use the Sailor cleaning kit? At first I will only be using Sailor regular ink cartridges and not the pigment ones.  But looking at the Sailor kit picture I have no idea how to use it.  Thanks!

 

万年筆サポートキット　ペン先クリーニング - YouTube

万年筆サポートキット　空カートリッジ筒へのボトルインクの吸入方法 - YouTube

[awa54]

26 minutes ago, PotbellyPig said:

I had ordered a paperboard pack of 12 of the first one in the pictures.  It should be the jentle ink.  So it should be comparatively lower maintenance.  That’s good to know.  Thank you for explained which is which.

 

correct, the jentle ink has just one fault, which is that it only comes in plain colors

the more exciting ultramarine and epinard jentle inks seem to have gone missing, though they were very close to the new shikiori series colors nioi-sumire and tokiwa-matsu

for an easy keeping ink, the color density is very good and the blues are less murky than many "basic" inks, while the black is close to being a true black (many have blue, red or purple undertones that show through when diluted or faded), I can't comment on the red though, I'm just not a red ink kinda guy I guess...

[A Smug Dill]

4 hours ago, awa54 said:

correct, the jentle ink has just one fault, which is that it only comes in plain colors

the more exciting ultramarine and epinard jentle inks seem to have gone missing,

 

Jentle as a ‘brand’ was retired from Sailor's product marketing in late 2018(?). The sixteen colours in the Shikisai sub-range of the former Jentle inks, which were regular production inks available for retail in the Japanese domestic market, were rebranded as Shikiori inks and placed in the sub-range named 十六夜の夢, and joined by four newer colours in the 月夜の水面 sub-range.

 

Jentle Ultramarine and Epinard, if I'm not mistaken, were overseas-only offerings not available in the Japanese domestic market, in the same way currently available Manyo inks are. If so, then there is no surprise that they weren't made available in ink cartridges way back when, and aren't now.

[awa54]

until quite recently a lot of Sailor's offerings were only "gray market" in the US, or if they *were* imported, no retailers I knew of were carrying more than a fraction of the full line...

 

several Amazon and Ebay sellers capitalized on this and 50ml bottles of the Asian market inks were regularly $30 to $80 through those outlets

 

I'm still a little annoyed that the shikiori range is only available in 20ml bottles, despite the big plus of it being domestically available now

 

 

[awa54]

there was also a jentle apricot, which was a close match to the shikiori kin-mokusei