What Pen did you clean out today?

[brindle]

Today I cleaned four vintage Esterbrook J's and one Pilot Metropolitan. I feel very virtuous.

[Wil D]

Merlin cartridge filler stopped writing, so I flushed it. Writing again.

[Bo Bo Olson]

My wife went to the flea market.....Herlitz-Bugatti....with a B in a Coffin nib, ...company unknown. Thomas/Kaweco says Böhler used HP, and the long passed Sr. Bock didn't know who made it.

 

As one can see by the dead dried ink bottle, the black and gold pen sat in the box for one hell of a long time...filled, so it took me much of an hour to clean it. That ink would have been a very vibrant dark blue. Rex don't show up as an ink.....(There use to be two members...Chevalier and Rex....so they come up, nothing else.)

 

 Now filled with the discontinued affordable C'dA Storm, a light purple.

I listened to Stateside buyers...saying how expensive it was... Not realizing they wre paying air freight and import tax.

 

After it was discontinued I went looking for one bottle...and found the ink only cost €8.00 when Pelikan 4001 cost 3.50 or so. I cheaped out getting only four of the six bottles...and they sit there in the back of the ink drawer...

Dried flat to the back of the bottle.

Marksman......could be Pilot's, Korean sub brand, or a Korean company or even Chinese. Could be the name was freely used in Asia. Has a Parker style rubber squeeze bar filler.

An Arrow through an Oval nib marking.

An EEF nib. Western eyes.....could be Japanese EF. A nice narrow nib...and I've been looking for such lately.....coming from Broad and wider, it has taken me some 15 years to be looking for super narrow....western eyes.

Inked with Kon-peki, an ink for narrow nibs.

 

The chrome pen is an AR....noting found on that in internet. Not the deluxe fancy Japanese AR pens. Looks unused...will have to sweat with shellac a plastic part of the pen that holds the screw piston to the pen body.

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

My wife has a collection of ball points and that Bugatti-Herlitz has a real good gel or hybrid no name at all Parker style ink cartridge, (I'm so out of date I have no idea which but it was for a BP ..very nice...to write with)......OMG...I'll have to buy my wife a glass topped pen box for her collection....and not hidden in the dark of a drawer.

[antares1966]

Cleaned out the Pilot Custom 743 Verdigris and put to bed for a while.

[thx1138]

Cleaned a few Parkers today.

[ParramattaPaul]

Wow. Three is the most pens I've cleaned at one time. 

[Bo Bo Olson]

A couple weeks ago, I did 15....took my wife's round 'office' chair and sat it in the bathroom before the sink........and saved my back.

Eventually the dirty pen cup was empty..................

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

Now I have 12 to clean.

 

31 inked....got too many new pens, too many new inks....and I am scribbling enough having emptied 12.

Six weeks perhaps two months ago. I'm sure I was down to 7 pens inked. My way of using more ink.

 

Tomorrow, a lady will show up with my Osmia-Faber-Castell Progress 66 G from @ 1957....and it will be inked.

 

It had an old BB ink in it. Now has Pelikan Edelstein  Apatite. 4-5 seconds on the buff stick made the OM nib write smooth, by removing the Osmium micro-corrosion drag, of sitting over 25 years in a drawer. 

 

Faber-Castell sensing the end, returned the Osmai diamond on the finial......after erasing all of Osmia, a first class pens marking. Faber-Castell (pencil empire) despite of being stone rich, produced only a second tier fountain pen before buying up Osmia...whose brand marks they erased in the early to mid 50's.

They had an ego problem....having bought their Graf title in the 1880-90's...Count title.

 

[Joe Griffures d Encre]

Today I cleaned (or rather tried to clean) a Lamy filled with white ink which did not want to transfer to my paper but also did not want to leave my poor ink pen

[Surlyprof]

On 7/1/2024 at 6:57 AM, Joe Griffures d Encre said:

Today I cleaned (or rather tried to clean) a Lamy filled with white ink which did not want to transfer to my paper but also did not want to leave my poor ink pen

That’s a lovely drawing of a rose with your signature.
 

C'est un joli dessin d'une rose avec votre signature.

 

- john

[Penguincollector]

  Last night I cleaned out my grey Waterman’s Stalwart (I think that’s what the gold hardware, one band model is called). Down to 22 inked pens, hopefully a couple more will empty soon.

[Bo Bo Olson]

3 hours ago, Penguincollector said:

Down to 22 inked pens, hopefully a couple more will empty soon.

Down to 30 inked, with with 12 pens in the dirty pen cup.

And some 10 days to two weeks ago I cleaned out 15  in a long afternoon.

1795 Meissen mustard jar...attached to the plate, missing the mustard jar top. So now one of my three filled pen cups. I have a completely different set of pens in it now, of course.

And there is no rhyme or reason to which pens are in which cups.

And I know some 6-8 months ago I was down to and had remained at 7, to use up more ink...

That had taken quite a while to get down from my 'normal' 17 inked....some how well over a year.

 

Then one gets more pens...and or, one gets more inks.

And that was not the Old Days of inking at least two widths to see what the ink would do...... that is nowadays, one ink-one pen...hopefully Medium...the wide and the narrow seem to balance each other out.

 

What I do know is Lamy pens are my hardest to clean out pens. I have a 1990 Persona (CI B), A bought last year Studio (Z55) and an old Joy(1.5), and will have to clean out a Safari (B). It took a good hour to clean out the Persona, same with the Studio...expect the same length for the Joy and eventually the regular blue Safari.

[Penguincollector]

  I was hovering around 30 for a little while as well, @Bo Bo Olson. I started using my dip pens more with colors that I was too excited to wait to use. Not all the dip nibs will accommodate fp inks, but some do pretty well.  I have been working hard to use what’s inked. 
 

  For cleaning Lamy pens, I like to take the nib and feed out and soak the feed overnight in soapy water, but that’s just for the ones that use the Z series nibs. The Persona nib I don’t have any experience using, but it’s a good looking one.

[Bo Bo Olson]

19 hours ago, Penguincollector said:

For cleaning Lamy pens, I like to take the nib and feed out and soak the feed overnight in soapy water, but that’s just for the ones that use the Z series nibs.

Thanks for the tip.

It's not something I'd thought of...Back when I was real noobie, I took out two nibs and feeds, perhaps one more. More to see what was what, with no idea of what and why.

Since then I don't find a reason to do that.....in all my on the pen's nibs were as good or better than my impression of what Knox nibs should be like.

 

There is an old newspaper & school supply  store in my village, with some Lamy and Pelikano pens, with basic inks. They had  a flat nib box under the counter from long ago, with many compartments with various nibs ....again knowing nothing I got a few of those third class nibs (regular flex..in I have no interest in nails).... luckily for more than I wanted, so only got a few....that I've never used.

The nibs on the old used vintage...semi-vintage pens even the Mutschler type were good enough. I may have been real lucky.

[thx1138]

On 7/1/2024 at 4:15 AM, ParramattaPaul said:

Wow. Three is the most pens I've cleaned at one time. 

Other than the 51's, these are pens from my collection which I have never used but when I find that they have been inked, once upon a time, I run them through the ultrasonic. 

[thx1138]

On 7/1/2024 at 4:15 AM, ParramattaPaul said:

Wow. Three is the most pens I've cleaned at one time. 

Other than the 51's, these are pens from my collection which I have never used but when I find that they have been inked, once upon a time, I run them through the ultrasonic. 

[Penguincollector]

I’m in the middle of cleaning out my lavender clicky pen that @Sailor Kenshinsent me.  21 to go, I have about four that are about to run dry.

[Penguincollector]

 Late last night I wrote my Parker 180 flighter dry. This morning I cleaned it up. That brings me to 20 inked. 

[Bo Bo Olson]

38 minutes ago, Penguincollector said:

20 inked

Then comes 15.........................with hope of 12.

[Penguincollector]

4 minutes ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

Then comes 15.........................with hope of 12.

I’m trying to get it down to about 13 myself. I need ROYGBIV inked, plus pink, teal or turquoise, blue-black, brown, grey, and black.

[Bo Bo Olson]

I was down to seven, stayed there for months...until I made the mistake of buying pens and inks.

I did have enough that I didn't 'need' either....but I'm weak willed.

Going from normal 17 inked to seven took at least six months; perhaps longer.