How Often Do You Need To Flush Your Pen If You Use Cartridges?

[hintkid]

Dear All,

 

I've been using a Waterman exception to write these past few months. I decided to order Mysterious blue cartridges thinking they were serenity blue and forgot to flush my pen. Nevertheless, the mysterious blue works fine but writes a little too green for my liking. Do I need to flush and clean my pen every time I change ink colors with cartridges? Can I revert back to serenity blue without flushing?

 

Best,

 

[viclip]

It's strongly recommended that you flush the old ink out whenever changing to another ink. The reason being that non-compatible inks can react with each other, forming precipates that can clog your pen, & these can be difficult to remove.

 

Of course if you know that the inks are compatible, there's no need to flush unless it's to keep the colors from mixing ~ personally I rather enjoy seeing the resulting colour in those situations.

[gordonhooker]

I clean my pens on a regular basis, always if I change in colour.

[ink-syringe]

how often should you clean your pen:

 

More than you used to in 1966

 

But ...

 

Less that the obsessive peeps on this board say you need to.

 

heh...

 

 

but yeah, if you are changing inks cleaning out is best. Though switching from one Waterman Blue to another, likely the world won't end. but if you want to switch back you probably should run some water through it. (& if you are not in a rush) let the pen dry, nib down, in a cup lined with tissues to dry it out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ac12]

In grade school I did not flush the pen when changing inks, and as others said, the changing ink color was interesting to see.

 

Today, when changing inks, I would flush, soak and dry the pen. This is more important when switching from a darker color to a lighter color, to eliminate color contamination of the lighter color.

 

As for general flushing. As I recall, I did not flush my Parker 45 in 7 years of college (undergrad and grad), all the time using cartridge ink, and never had a problem. Maybe I was lucky.

Edited October 28, 2015 by ac12

[mirosc]

Same here. My Pelikano didn't get flushed for 17 years and it served me well and was always reliable.

But I had used it with one ink exclusively.

 

Today I'm changing not only ink colors, but also ink manufacturers and so I think flushing in between is helpful.

[Newjelan]

Of course if you know that the inks are compatible, there's no need to flush unless it's to keep the colors from mixing ~ personally I rather enjoy seeing the resulting colour in those situations.

I am ashamed to say that I didn't ever flush my Visconti Van Gogh Maxi (original version) during the 6 or so years I owned it before I found this site. During all that time I used it every day with Visconti and J. Herbin cartridges in varying colours without a single flush. It worked perfectly (and still does) although now I use bottled ink and clean all my pens regularly, I promise.

[wastelanded]

If using the same ink and it's dye based, I wouldn't worry. As some have already said, years can pass and nothing will happen as long as the pen is used regularly. With an iron gall ink, and not switching inks, maybe a blast of plain water every couple of months with the ear syringe is good enough.

 

A simple rule of thumb: the more saturated an ink is, the more often the pen will need a flush. In stripping down a pen (Kaweco Sport), I noticed that Noodler's Air Corps builds up under the nib, even with syringe flushing.

 

As the OP did, changing colours within the same brand, shouldn't be a problem. It's when going from one brand to another that one must be the most diligent in cleaning, as different manufacturers use different ingredients, and one may end up with a pile of sludge in the pen instead of nice runny ink.

[mhosea]

I got into a little bit of trouble recently switching between incompatible inks, not much, but flow wasn't quite right until I cleaned it thoroughly first.

 

I might add that if I recommend cleaning more often than really needed, it's not because I think it's generally necessary, rather because there are some inks that are reasonably easy to clean out after 2 weeks but very difficult to clean out after 2 months. Cleaning a little more often seems to make life easier, not harder.