How often should you clean out a fountain pen?

[pen_environmentalist]

I'm with OP on this one. I clean my pens when changing colors, if I'm putting a pen away, and on the rare occasion when I'm experiencing flow issues (currently using De Atramentis Document ink).

[Revekah]

No need to fuss over cleaning every month! Just clean when changing inks, especially if you're going for a lighter shade. I've got a Conway Stewart pen, and it's been writing smoothly without constant cleaning. Just give it a rinse every now and then, and you’re good to go!

[psimpson130]

I clean mine when I start having issues with ink flow. Usually just use warm tap water and let them soak for a day or two. I have switched over to blue inks as I have black tends to dry out in the pens here in AZ (when I first joined the forum many years ago, I was told black  ink tends to dry out faster. I recently reactivated one of my Waterman Phineas pens and let it soak for a couple of days (changing the water daily) to get rid of the black ink in it. Been writing fine since I did it.

 

I tend to use cartridges as they are more convenient and I also have cats in the house. :-)

[Bo Bo Olson]

I have from MB and Pelikan, old prop plane advertisement or car driving up a high mountain about pressure and a filled piston fountain pen, saying once every three months...but that was back in the days of One Man, One Pen & One Ink. One had another pen for the red bookkeeper ink.

Very few of us use the same ink.

 

IMO some are a bit paranoid about IG inks....the major ink manufactures are not as strong as the 3 months ink change I mentioned back when stronger IG inks were common.

...........................

There are many more IG inks that five years ago.....so some of them could well be stronger than  the few IG inks made by the big companies.

 

If one has a steel nib, could be, one should clean every month to 6 weeks.

I'm not an IG expert, but often I think folks over react to never, ever clean one's pen of back in antique days, getting the nib eaten away and today's ink color change addiction.

 

To clean out IG pens within 6 weeks, one should not have 35 pens inked!!!!!!...Even if not all IG...which one is?????

And there I was down to 7 pens inked to use up more ink, and then one makes a mistake or 7...and buys new inks.

[Karmachanic]

One should clean pens on Thursday the 14th.  Except if it's a full moon.  Or the wind is from the south.  In which case, Weds the 17th.  This from a fountain pen repair manual dated 1602.  But things are much faster now, so one may have to adjust accordingly.

[txomsy]

[Pub]

Before I knew anything about fountain pens and way back in the 60’s I don’t think I cleaned the pen once over a 4 year period.

Cartridge empty in goes a new one, didn’t even know you had to clean them😳

 

[Doc Dan]

I clean my pens when changing ink types or colors, before storing them, and when brand new. That's it. If, like a recent Lamy Safari, the ink flow gets thin and stops, then I will flush it out, but otherwise, I use them and don't clean. 

[Bo Bo Olson]

2 hours ago, Pub said:

Before I knew anything about fountain pens and way back in the 60’s I don’t think I cleaned the pen once over a 4 year period.

Cartridge empty in goes a new one, didn’t even know you had to clean them😳

Same here, even with the dying of the lever pens....but mine were stolen long before I would have had to worry about that.....Expensive then and still, cartridges where beg/borrowed to what ever color they had, and glad to have it.

(no one had much use with a rubber baby squeezing bulb (I never saw one until I learned about cleaning fountain pens.), so how was one to clean out a cartridge pen....that was long before converters....out side of Parkers squeeze gadget.)***

 

There were pen collectors back then....collected Parker Jotter pens too (even Playmates...pens not the ladies).

Boy was I glad when the Bic came in,,,if one kept the cap in mouth, it never got stolen. And or it could be stuck in the spiral of a notebook.

 

In 1970/71 the days of silver money...go to any bank and get a silver dollar for a paper dollar, I went into a BX (a bit cheaper than civilian market) to buy an high status expensive $8.00 ($126.98 in silver dollars today) mat black Cross skinny ball point. A Jotter cost $3.50. ($52.92)

While drooling over a classic Black and Gold Snorkel a pen I'd promiced my self once I got grown up and had a job, ($12-15?), I got mugged by the P-75 brothers, the $18 BP ($272.61) was a skinny as the Cross. FP=$22....22x $15.12= $332.16...............

 

That's what happened back in the day when one had too much money in one's pocket after payday. .....pre Credit card out side Diner's Club....one spent a whole $38 all in one place, at one time.

 

I knew about the squeeze filling gadget from seeing an occasional  P-51, Take out the two silver pens out the box...toss box.....find out only 53 years later....there were two cartridges in the bottom of that box.

 

Still didn't know anything about cleaning pens until I got on this com. Didn't know that Parker squeeze thing could be taken out, and it was the very first converter.