What Pen did you clean out today?

[Baka1969]

I cleaned out and reinked my three Pilot Elites and my Sailor pocket.

 

[A Smug Dill]

[Particular_Song3539]

@A Smug Dill
I just want to say, your crab did a good job posing for you. 
and, is that pen savable ? 

[A Smug Dill]

11 minutes ago, Particular_Song3539 said:

your crab

 

That's a scorpion! Confucius say, ”Man who fishes in…” 😅

 

The pen's fine, but I think I'll just have to replace the converter. Or perhaps I can use it as-is; after ultrasonic cleaning, theoretically any crumbling speck of rubber from the piston plug surface would have been removed, and the next fill of ink may or may not cause more deterioration of the material. I see no evidence that the rim has been compromised to stop the plug from creating a seal against the interior wall of the clear tube, although that'll need to be tested if I choose to give it another go.

[SLinkster]

In the process of cleaning up a two pens:

1. Levenger TrueWriter in a color that @donnweinberg shows in his "True Writer Pen Collection So Far" thread as "white; it's a lovely pale vanilla and white pearlescent thing with silver hardware and black finials. The pen is in excellent condition, aside from the nib/feed being full of dried ink. There was a bit of ink in the cap liner, but none between the liner and the cap, fortunately. Barrel was clean as well. Somebody had jammed in an extra-long standard cartridge which had long ago dried up. That's for the bin. The OEM converter appears to be unused. I'm quite pleased that the nib is a FINE and not the usual medium these pens shipped with by default (or that most people bought by default because that's what Levenger suggests by default). It came in a presentation case without a sleeve; I will keep the box.
2. I also am trying to clean an abused and filthy Pilot Metropolitan, black croc version with a medium nib. On first inspection the pen appeared to have never been inked. Then I unscrewed the section and *sploosh* out fell a few mililiters of black ink. I rinsed it under running water for a while and discovered a cartridge under the ink, which I removed - and discovered a con-B inside the cartridge. More rinsing. Looks like the cartridge was a hack to stop the converter from leaking, as the sac seems to be torn. I can't even imaging what must have happened to the poor pen to cause that trauma. This pen also came in a box, but it's a cheap metal&plastic thing that is (unsurprisingly) bashed and scratched; this box goes into the recycling bin.

I have the sections from both pens on soak, sitting atop the espresso machine in a cup of warm soapy water where it will keep warm until I get home from work in the morning. Hopefully I'll be able to finish cleaning both pens tomorrow, and to resurrect the Pilot.  I hate to waste a con-B but not sure it's economical to have a new sac put in.

 

 

Edited December 2, 2023 by SLinkster
Added photo

[jmccarty3]

I'm cleaning a Waterman slim Exception in dark blue with a sterling silver cap. It ran out of Waterman Serenity Blue. Wish it had a round section instead of a rectangular one.

Edited December 6, 2023 by jmccarty3
Error in nomenclature!

[SLinkster]

On 12/2/2023 at 2:38 PM, SLinkster said:

nib is a FINE

I lied so so much here... That nib is a broad, and super-juicy when I swapped it into my other Levenger pen. My only excuse is that I was apparently coming down with a cold. 

[inkstainedruth]

Today it's been the grey Pilot Decimo, F nib, ending a fill of what ended up being diluted Iroshizuku Murasaki-Shikibu.  Yesterday after REPEATED flushing, I finally seem to have gotten all the ink (Robert Oster Sydney Lavender) out of the Dove Grey 51.  

Slowly working down through the list so that I can ink up the recent acquisitions or repair jobs without having too many pens in rotation to be manageable (I really don't know how A Smug Dill manages).  Of course I still have several MORE pens to flush out over the next few days, before I allow myself to ink up any of the new/new-to-me ones.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[SLinkster]

After installing a factory broad nib in my inked Levenger True Writer Metalist, I managed to write the pen dry this morning just futzing around making writing samples.

 

Disassembled, flushed, scrubbed, drying now on the espresso machine.

 

What pen to ink next... And with what ink? 

[jmccarty3]

Cleaned my OMAS Ogiva European Union, which ran dry. This was an original Armando Simoni Club pen, back when OMAS was OMAS.

[RedPie]

On 12/6/2023 at 5:50 AM, SLinkster said:

After installing a factory broad nib in my inked Levenger True Writer Metalist, I managed to write the pen dry this morning just futzing around making writing samples.

 

Disassembled, flushed, scrubbed, drying now on the espresso machine.

 

What pen to ink next... And with what ink? 

The one you did not use for a long time...your choice of ink! ✒️

[Penguincollector]

Today I cleaned out a Sailor Clear Candy and a Pilot Sterling Silver Dragon. 

[ParramattaPaul]

I cleaned my Kaweco Special fountain pen today.  By accident.  In the washing machine.  With dark black pants, jumper and towels fortunately

 

No damage done thank heaven.

 

 

 

Note to self:  Check the pockets before putting clothes in the wash.

[inkstainedruth]

Yesterday it was the green and black Do-Write lever filler I got repaired at OPS last month.  I think that's the last of the "repaired" pens to go, with the exception of a Snorkel which I might have already flushed out.  

The problem with getting seven pens repaired at a show is that I had seven pens I had to then work through, on top of the ones I had brought to write with....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[RobNYC]

Today I cleaned out a Sailor Pro Gear Imperial Black.

[ParramattaPaul]

23 hours ago, ParramattaPaul said:

I cleaned my Kaweco Special fountain pen today.  By accident.  In the washing machine.  With dark black pants, jumper and towels fortunately

 

No damage done thank heaven.

 

 

 

Note to self:  Check the pockets before putting clothes in the wash.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered the nib missing from the section.

[Arkanabar]

22 hours ago, ParramattaPaul said:

Imagine my surprise when I discovered the nib missing from the section.

Oh no!  Any chance it's hidden inside the cap?

 

I cleaned out two pens for my wife, so she could have green and red ink for our Christmas cards.  First, the Pilot Decimo with the stub nib, removing Pilot Blue-Black (easy) and replacing with Diamine Sherwood. 

 

Second, her Lamy Logo XF, with the pearl finish.  The last time I wrote down what I was putting in it was 2021, and I documented MB Mystery Black.  I have a suspicion that I later topped it off with Heart of Darkness, because it took over 12 hours of soaking for the black exudate to stop coming out of the nib, including at least two replacements.  Then I filled it with water again and put it point down in a piece of kleenex, and the chromatography is showing pink, black, and blue.  It will get a short fill of Blackstone Cashmere Red 8%.  It's not my very brightest red, but it's certainly red enough, and the green sheen should be really cool, if anyone notices.

[SLinkster]

Conklin Coronet stub after writing it dry a second time. Kind of frustrating that it ruins dry so often but I do understand that's the nature of the beast. Maybe it's time I look for a large-capacity eyedropper with a stub nib.

 

Also cleaned out the little BCHR vest pocket pen. I managed to chip the cap, which speaks to both my clumsiness and the fragility of old rubber. I'll retire this one. The nib is nice, so I'll keep an eye out for some other pen it might fit. 

 

Hoping to write out and clean at least one more pen this week, maybe two. 

 

ETA

Managed to write out a Sailor music stub so have cleaned that out.

 

Also cleaned my Monteverde Omniflex as well, after discovering most of the ink had leaked into the cap. 

 

So I'm down to a mere five pens inked. Time to make some fresh pen+ink pairing decisions. 

Edited December 12, 2023 by SLinkster
More cleaning

[Penguincollector]

LITZY EF demonstrator,  matte grey Sheaffer x Sailor Sentinel. 

[RedPie]

It was not easy...