What's Your "Cleaner" Ink?

[ErrantSmudge]

I have a Prefounte that I use for ink testing, which has been stained purple.  I had a tiny bit of Quink with Solv-X left, which helped a bit but residual purple remains.  I bought a bottle Sailor Doyou at a pen show and have loaded up the pen, curious to see how it turns out.

 

[Arkanabar]

@james3paris, I very much d0ubt it; Quink packaging hasn't mentioned "Solv-X" for years.  My dad bought it back in the 1980s, before he switched over from his 1954 Parker "51" to the ugliest Pentel Rolling Writer he could find, with the hope that it'd be too ugly for anyone at work to steal.  I am very happy to have his old "51" now.  It's a bit battered, but still writes like a champ.

[aurore]

Fellows, what about standard Parker Washable Blue (that with a light blue sticker)? Some praise it for cleaning properties, but I have no experience with it and would prefer to avoid it (since it is ugly as sin) unless it indeed helps with cleaning...

[amberleadavis]

On 6/22/2022 at 12:30 PM, ErrantSmudge said:

I have a Prefounte that I use for ink testing, which has been stained purple.  I had a tiny bit of Quink with Solv-X left, which helped a bit but residual purple remains.  I bought a bottle Sailor Doyou at a pen show and have loaded up the pen, curious to see how it turns out.

 

Any results to report.

[ErrantSmudge]

On 7/5/2022 at 8:40 PM, amberleadavis said:

Any results to report.

 

I'm deliberately trying to write that pen dry, but I may have to flush it early.  I have to say DoYou isn't my favorite color, so  I have to make an effort to use it.  

 

Meanwhile we have a Lamy Safari with a converter stained by some red ink; we've loaded it with DoYou too.  I'll have some photos up soon.

[amberleadavis]

39 minutes ago, ErrantSmudge said:

 

I'm deliberately trying to write that pen dry, but I may have to flush it early.  I have to say DoYou isn't my favorite color, so  I have to make an effort to use it.  

 

Meanwhile we have a Lamy Safari with a converter stained by some red ink; we've loaded it with DoYou too.  I'll have some photos up soon.

 

I look forward to the results.

[TSherbs]

Updated responses:

 

As of today, 24 August 2022, the repeat-mention cleaner inks in this thread (since 2015) are the following (not in ranked order):

 

1. Noodler's Rattler Red Eel (particularly the "eel" version)

2. Sailor Doyou

3. Parker Quink with Solv-X (no longer sold)

4. Parker Washable Blue

 

a few other inks were mentioned along the way, and some other cleaning methods

 

[ErrantSmudge]

OK, here's a report on my experince with Sailor DoYou to clean out my Platinum Prefounte.  The entire section of the pen was stained purple by a vintage tablet ink (thank you @amberleadavis for the gift). 

 

I apologize for not taking a "before" photo for comparison.  But as you can see in these "after" photos, DoYou cleaned out the entire inside of the section housing the feed.  Some purple remains on the part of the section that mates with the converter, but even there after letting the section sit in a water bath with residual DoYou, the purple lightened up a shade or two.

 

I originally bought the Prefountes as testers for new inks, but now I realize they're not very good for that purpose because the feed traps the ink and it takes a good amount of soaking to thoroughly clean the pen.  The Prefounte, and its cousin the Preppy, are probably better to dedicate to "high mainentance" inks.

 

[amberleadavis]

@ErrantSmudge, sorry for staining the pen. Thank you for the report.

[Misfit]

Yes indeed, my thanks as well.  I have Doyou in my Visconti Wall Street which had the ink window stained by J Herbin Rouge Hematite. I haven’t written the pen dry yet. But I think it is helping. I do have a before photo, so some day I’ll post both. 

[essayfaire]

23 hours ago, ErrantSmudge said:

I originally bought the Prefountes as testers for new inks, but now I realize they're not very good for that purpose because the feed traps the ink and it takes a good amount of soaking to thoroughly clean the pen. 

I have come to the same conclusion.  I have three; I liked how the   first one wrote so bought two more as tester pens.  I will be sending them elsewhere once I get all the ink out as I don't want to soak/flush.  

 

Have you found a good tester pen?

[ErrantSmudge]

11 hours ago, essayfaire said:

Have you found a good tester pen?

 

Not yet; but this is perhaps a topic for a different thread:

 

 

[ErrantSmudge]

Sailor DoYou to clean out a stained Lamy Safari converter.  I'm not sure what red ink left behind these stains.  I have to say that in this case, the cleaning effect of DoYou is rather slight:

 

Before:

 

 

After:

[amberleadavis]

Hmm.... I expected better.

[ErrantSmudge]

16 hours ago, amberleadavis said:

Hmm.... I expected better.

 

I did too, given all the other success stories.  This is from my SO's pen; I think I will trade one of my Lamy converters for this one so I can experiment with it some more.

[amberleadavis]

4 hours ago, ErrantSmudge said:

 

I did too, given all the other success stories.  This is from my SO's pen; I think I will trade one of my Lamy converters for this one so I can experiment with it some more.

I have really good luck with Skrip vintage ink.

[essayfaire]

The Sailor DoYou has arrived; I am running it through its paces. The color's not bad.

[DvdRiet]

I'm on my second fill with Doyou ink in a vintage pen that seems to have had a bright purple alcohol-based ink used in it (smelled like a Sharpie). I gave the pen a very thorough clean with every known concoction to get all the terrible ink out, but the ink window was stained quite purple. The Doyou is not really taking the purple off the ink window, unfortunately. So maybe your red is from a similar, non-fountain pen type of ink, @ErrantSmudge. 

 

And if anyone has any ideas for how to remove the stains from bright, alcohol-based marker ink, I'm all ears!!

[ErrantSmudge]

5 hours ago, DvdRiet said:

The Doyou is not really taking the purple off the ink window, unfortunately. So maybe your red is from a similar, non-fountain pen type of ink, @ErrantSmudge.

 

I'm certain the stains are from a fountain pen ink.  It's my partner's pen, and he always fills pens with one of the FP inks in our collection.  I just don't know which one of the reds he used, and he doesn't remember.  It might be Noodler's Voltaire Candide Vermillion, one of the FPN exclusive inks.

 

I don't have much in the way of vintage inks, but I do have a bottle of Skrip Peacock that dates back to the 90s, which I think qualifies as vintage, so I'll give that a try next.  Otherwise it's off to find some vintage Skrip Blue-black or Quink with Solv-X.

[kestrel]

12 hours ago, DvdRiet said:

And if anyone has any ideas for how to remove the stains from bright, alcohol-based marker ink, I'm all ears!!

Sharpie graffitti in my classroom could be removed with either ethanol or isopropyl (Rubbing) alcohol and a bit of elbow grease.  I'm not sure how alcohol will affect pen parts.  Xylene (aka Zippo lighter fluid) worked as well and I have used it on some celluloid and ebonite pens to remove sticker residue.  The fumes are nasty so adequate ventilation is mandatory.  Acetone (nail polish remover) removed the graffitti but the fumes were really nasty and I wouldn't let that stuff anywhere near a pen.

 

One of our custodians used MEK, the best graffitti remover I have ever seen, until I showed her the MSDS (possible permanent brain impairment).  Besides, it dissolves lots of different plastics and celluloids.

 

Oxychloride X will remove any stain from any surface but there are certain, uh, side effects.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv4qUFgQ_7s