What Pen did you clean out today?

[InkyProf]

Cleaned out my two travel pens: a Parker 25 Flighter, which was a very pleasant companion during two nonconsecutive weeks of travel to various libraries and archives (in the latter of which, of course, one cannot use ink, only pencils and laptops; but that only accounts for eight hours of the day); and a Lamy 2000, which seems to have a sensitive constitution, did not take well to all the jostling, soiled its cap, and is now sleeping off the effects of the journey, poor thing.

[AmandaW]

A year or so ago I moved my pen cabinet (where I store inked pens) from my study to my studio. It made sense at the time. It's  air conditioned and not that hot.  I can work in there. Should be fine...

 

Too late I found the extra 5°C made all the pens dry out. They were all pens that I trusted. A few degrees makes a big difference. 

 

It was a lot to clean... so I didn't. I put them in a box and inked different ones to use... just until I had time, you know. And even mostly refilling those same few to avoid cleaning, I still kept adding to the Box of Shame. All year. 

 

Today, stuck inside due to a heatwave... I cleaned four Kaweco Perkeo, one Kaweco Student and three Lorelei 667. Only about 50 more to fix. I should be done by the time the forecast is more sensible.

[ParramattaPaul]

I suspect that the cooler air was less humid. That might have facilitated your pens drying out.

[AmandaW]

Sorry I didn't make sense. I meant my studio is 5° hotter, but I thought it would be OK since I can work in there. I really didn't think it would make that much difference. I put temp gauges in both rooms (after the horse ran off) to see what the difference was.

[inkstainedruth]

Today it's the Marbled Green Sheaffer No Nonsense with an M nib -- which I finally got a converter for recently (it had a dried out cartridge installed when I was given it) and there was apparently also a LOT of dried ink (not sure if it's green or turquoise at this point) in the feed....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[AmandaW]

Ten pens cleaned today...

- TWSBI Eco x4

- Kaweco Dia2

- Greenfield School Pen

- Pilot Lucina 

- Pilot Prera 

- Pilot Kakuno x2

[Penguincollector]

  Today it was my Parker 50,  Sheaffer Fashion II, Xezo Maestro Abalone, and a humble Wing Sung 3010. Down to 20 inked. 

[AmandaW]

Today was Faber-Castell day

- Hexo x5

- School

- Neo Slim

- Loom

 

I am very surprised the Loom dried out because it has been totally reliable for me for so long. One of the best. It just shows that they all have environmental limits.

 

I didn't order them all at once... but yeah, over time I ended up with all the Hexo colours. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[PAKMAN]

Cleaned out my Montblanc 220 today.

 

[gnomedeplume]

Two Lamy Safari that I hadn’t used in 10 years!  I left pigment based ink in both, (I deserve any and all ridicule directed my way 😣) but after a thorough soak and flushing with nothing more than water and a couple drops of washing up liquid. Both are writing beautifully.  I think this unintended experiment with neglect is testament to the legendary ruggedness of Lamy Safari.

[AmandaW]

A batch from the Box of Shame

- Sailor fude (long pen without clip) x2

- Sailor Tuzu

- Sailor Shikiori

- Pilot capless 

- Pilot Custom 74

- Narwhal x2

 

What's more interesting, perhaps, is the few that didn't dry out. So far they include:

- jinhao 992 x2

- jinhao 86

- Platinum Carbon Desk Pen 

- Opus 88 Picnic (hard start that needed to dip the nib in water)

[inkstainedruth]

Well, after soaking and flushing that No Nonsense pen for most of the weekend, it FINALLY seems to be running clean.  I had assumed that the cartridge (but it turned out that a LOT of the ink seems to have dried inside the nib and feed -- the converter I had installed in the pen to flush it out and then use was brand new, still in the packaging when I bought it....  

The pen has been drying (nib down) in paper toweling for a couple of days now, and I'm not seeing any change of color to the paper.  So HOPEFULLY it's now cleaned out enough to actually use....  Just trying to decide what to ink it up with....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[AmandaW]

Today was Lamy's turn at the kitchen sink.

- Studio x3

- Safari

- Lx 

- CP1

 

[AmandaW]

Eleven pens cleaned today bringing me to the end of the Box of Shame. Yay.

 

Then I went through my pen log and accounted for every pen I own. (No, I don't know how many it's just a text doc. Thankfully.) That meant digging through pen cases and sketch kits to test anything else inked. That yielded 7 more to clean. Sigh. Tomorrow.

 

That leaves me with 19 inked pens... not inking any more til at least some of those are written out. I hope.

 

Among them is this Daiso pen inked with the cartridge that came with it when it arrived from @A Smug Dill in October 2020. I inked others to use, then put this one aside to see how long it took to dry out. It hasn't. Not even a hard start!

 

 

 

[Mark from Yorkshire]

Lamy studio glacier, that has been left waaaayyy too long with Lamy Black ink in it. Not been flushed out anywhere near often enough. It had stopped writing despite having a fresh cartridge in it. Had to force water through several times and now it is soaking in water. 
 

Z27 converter refuses to draw water through nib and feed so suspect there is still dried ink in the system.

[Christopher Godfrey]

I just rinsed out two pens: Soennecken 111 (Superior in brown) and my Pelikan Original of its Time 101 (lapis).

[MarcoA63]

I cleaned out this beautiful Helios Silga pen.

 

 

[inkstainedruth]

That's an interesting looking pen!  I'm not familiar with the brand, and was wondering what sort of fill system it has. From the back end of the barrel in the second photo, I'm guessing that maybe it's a piston filler?

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[MarcoA63]

Hi Ruth, indeed it is a piston filler. The company's history is a bit 'foggy'. One seems to be a lower tier for Kaweco pens around 1925. There is also an Italian brand dating from 1929 that had some shared business practices with Kaweco before this went bankrupt in 1929. Originally they were push button filler but in the 1940s they moved on to piston fillers. The company went out of business at the end of 1940 This pattern is very cool and highly transparent if compared to a Vacumatic. I could not find an original nib and out of desperation replaced it with a modern #5 Beaufort steel nib. It writes divinely now :-)

HTH

[kazoolaw]

Long, long overdue:

Lamy Al-Star & Vista

MB 149 & Hemingway

Y-o-L Grand Barley*

Parker 51 Flighter

Faber-Castell Emotion Pure Black
Diplomat Aero

 

___________________________

*Is there a U.S. source for a converter, or a Y-o-L Substitute?