What Pen did you clean out today?

[senzen]

Cartridge Cleo Skribent bought second hand: looks new but refused to write. Put the section 90 seconds in the ultrasonic cleaner, blue ink came out, now writing with Lie de Thé. Need a 6mm converter.

[Bo Bo Olson]

I'll put this here, in I did clean that Artus Ballit out once.

Picture borrowed from Ebay.

Mine has a Degussa nib on it.  I expected the normal for that sort of steel Degussa nibs that I had/have a hand full it to be the first stage of superflex, Easy Full Flex, but it is 'just' semi-flex.

Inked with the decade long discontinued  Caran d'Ache Grand Canyon. For the time, a fancy square bottle' with a wide shallow U for the ink. An Italian made 30ml bottle.

 

On some of my classic rough laid and linen papers it shaded just a tad. but no where else on other good to better papers.

Which might explain why that ink has been sitting in the back of an ink drawer for so long.

The brown color is good enough.

It was only a partial fill, which turned out to be good. I have other inks that shade, should this pen get another chance....got lots of semi-flex pens.

If the picture dies, the pen looks a bit like a Pelikan 120/140.

 

I had two of them. Artus Ballit's with Degussa nibs, the second one a Easy Full Flex...that will only write what was dipped, even when filled. Got to go take a look at why.

MB Toffee bought 12-13 years ago when it first came out for €13 is still a very nice shading ink. Good thing the bottle's 2/3rds full.

[A Smug Dill]

A white Pelikan M205 that had held a fill of Herbin Poussière de Lune since March 2023. The ink did not dry out completely in all that time, and there were no hard-starts, in spite of the cap on the pen having worked itself loose somehow while strapped down by elastic inside a Kaco Alio pen folder. No staining of either the ink window or the opaque white plastic pen body (inclusive of both cap and barrel).

 

A black Jinhao 35 that had a (syringe-filled) cartridge's fill of Hero 232 blue-black iron-gall ink from whenever; I'd say it would be three to four months old. While the ink hadn't dried out completely, and the pen still wrote when uncapped, the ink was so condensed it just kept glistening on the paper surface and wouldn't dry completely in spite of three minutes' wait.

 

…

 

Too lazy to clean out a Sailor Profit Jr. in hot pink that held a fill of Sailor Shikiori Irori for over seven months. No hard-starts, and the converter was still between 10% and 15% full (of undoubtedly condensed red ink), so I just topped it up, and trust the colour of the ink that the pen writes with will be more vivid for that.

[Bo Bo Olson]

I have an English made Parker Duofold jr, semi-flex # 10 F nib, that sat staring at my nose for months. Now loaded with MB Toffee; a favorite of mine.

 

I didn't know the temperature of the water in the shot glass, nor how many seconds one kept it in the near boiling water, for 30 seconds to heat sink the nib and the feed. ...pressing hard in a paper towel between thumb and forefinger.

 

That other Artus Ballit (the second that just got released from captivity) with a first stage superflex; Degussa steel, Easy Full Flex nib. A flex stage above maxi-semi-flex and below Wet Noodle, has an OEF nib. DA Purple, which follows Wiki's reddish purple, instead of my ancient crayon box's bluish purple is a joy to write with. The extra soft nib gives such nice line variation.

 

A fun nib that makes it appear that I can write....appearances are  in this case deceiving.

 

[A Smug Dill]

Found three Moonman M200 pens that was last filled in June 2021, each with a different Graf von Faber-Castell ‘document-proof’ ink. That stuff is capable of staining the material forming the port or ‘mouth’ of the converter, in stubborn ways such that neither friction nor soaking (with water, ammonia solution, or Herbin cleaning fluid) can remove all the colour. Edited to add: Bleach and a test tube brush didn't make the stains go away, either.

 

Also two Moonman M100 pens last filled with Rohrer & Klingner inks, fill date unknown but would be at least two years ago.

[Runnin_Ute]

Cleaned the Pelikan M400 White Tortoise which had KWZI El Dorado and refilled with Edelstein Olivine.

[Doug C]

Waterman 52v.

[Misfit]

I cleaned a TWSBI Diamond 580 RBT, and a Conklin Duragraph Voyager. The day before, I cleaned a Monteverde Mountains of the World K2 pen. 

[Bo Bo Olson]

Cleaned out today six pens. For the first time MB's (@'90 146 regular flex OB, and a'60's 264 semi-flex OB ,took longer to clean out than Pelikans ( a transition '54 B light tortoise, and a green stripped '50-54 OB, and my Geha 760 eyeballed OB with the reserve tank cleaned out fast today also. Normally because of the reserve tank that gives you a page or two of more writing takes longest to clean out.

Italic semi-flex nibbed pens, and a wet writing Lamy Studio with a Z55 B nib. Now to let them dry until Monday.

I'm expecting some papers by mail, that shows sheen on Monday and want to be ready.

I've had mostly the wrong papers for sheen, even if mine are good to better. I however was chasing shading.

I was looking for wet, wide nibs in hopes of catching some wicked wild sheen.

I have Lamy Dark Lilic inked, in a 1990 Lamy Persona made into a CI B, from a do nothing at all 18k nail OB by Pendelton Brown.

His writing.

None of my papers show Lamy Dark Lilac sheening with that pen.

Octopus Unicorn showed sheening just once as good as one sees in pictures here on the com. It had touches of it. Octopus Medusa should have sheened but only on the last paper and not in the expected color.

Of the four Indian Krishna sheen monsters that should have shaded also...none did well, two did nothing.

I'll try Sea at Night, and Moonview.

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

For the sheer hell of it, a poster shocked the hell out of me, saying a favorite ink of mine, the discontinued 4001 Brilliant green sheeed well for him.

I have with luck and wishing for the Snorkel I no longer have, a 1/4th-1/3rd of a filling of of a piston pen. Can needle fill.

R&K's fine green-green Verdura shading ink, will fill that ink bottle next. It is a neck better than the old 4001, and a nose better than MB Irish Green.

 

 

[Penguincollector]

 I just cleaned out my blue Pilot Elite Lady F pocket pen and a red Cross Solo M. 

[Bo Bo Olson]

Adding to the sheen cup a Osmia-Faber-Castell 540 maxi-semi-flex M, the pen that started my addiction.....and I was so sure it was clean in the pen box...wasn't quite, that 1/2% of Violet ink that got drained out.

 

An my first expensive pen...back when I was swallowing hard to bid €30, and hand't broke 50 yet...this one cost me a whopping €70. My first BCHR pen back when i thought I'd never get one.

Still the sharpest of that type of chasing. A fox jumping through a capitol P nib, that is first stage of superflex, spreading tines 4-5 X. @ M, which is wide for superflex.

[mhguda]

@Bo Bo Olson - what is that pen? I have one just like it, I think! only it's broken, the piston won't pull up ink anymore, and the person who had sold it to me after having restored is has dropped off the map... in fact I want to find a way to have it fixed?

[Penguincollector]

1 hour ago, mhguda said:

@Bo Bo Olson - what is that pen? I have one just like it, I think! only it's broken, the piston won't pull up ink anymore, and the person who had sold it to me after having restored is has dropped off the map... in fact I want to find a way to have it fixed?

  While I’m not Bo Bo, I do know that he sends his pens to Francis in Belgium, known here as fountainbel. Closer to Curaçao, I would send your pen to Ron Zorn or Kirk Speer. It’s probably a gasket or cork that needs replacing, from the sound of it.

[mhguda]

6 minutes ago, Penguincollector said:

  While I’m not Bo Bo, I do know that he sends his pens to Francis in Belgium, known here as fountainbel. Closer to Curaçao, I would send your pen to Ron Zorn or Kirk Speer. It’s probably a gasket or cork that needs replacing, from the sound of it.

Thanks @Penguincollector much appreciated. I will try to contact one of them... Belgium is like on the other side of the world.

[RedPie]

2 minutes ago, mhguda said:

Belgium is like on the other side of the world.

LOL you are right. DHL will be your friend!

[mhguda]

Hm somehow past experience makes me doubt that... DHL can make everything costly and difficult when you live on a small island in the Caribbean... Anyway we'll see what the best way to get this one fixed will be.

[Penguincollector]

2 minutes ago, mhguda said:

Thanks @Penguincollector much appreciated. I will try to contact one of them... Belgium is like on the other side of the world.

   While the States are still not close, we’re at least on the same side of the planet. Both are definitely worth reaching out to. 

[Bo Bo Olson]

5 hours ago, mhguda said:

in fact I want to find a way to have it fixed?

Belgium is not really further away than the States....mine had to have a rebuild of the piston section....your might also. That repair man might not have really repaired it, if he didn't do a rebuild.

The pen was sold, and the part needed to repair was sold separately...back in the day.

I'm sure Ron can do the same work as Francis can do. Check your post office for mailing costs...Francis wants €15 more for re-turn postage.

 

 

I cheapen out at the wrong time and didn't buy the piston part when the pen was still in Ebay. Eventually....quite a long bit later...a decade of out of sight, ...Fountainbel (on the com), Francis Goossens in Belgium built me the missing parts...my Fendomatic, this pen,

And he set the nib in properly so it wasn't Just semi-flex but first stage of superflex; Easy Full Flex.

 

And sometimes I repair a pen for more than it's worth....but it's my pen and when I'm not here, it should work when returned to the Wild. Too pretty to die in a trash can.

Third class pen, pretty.

 

I've had a good number of pens repaired, and or had some parts rebuilt for the repair.....I rave about Francis's work quite often.

 

 

My antique SS steel nib has a Fox jumping through a capitol P.

Yours?

I won the pen so took the pictures from Ebay. Or think I did. WTH if not.

 

I just had words with someone just recently, who didn't like someone also had pens of  a brand of pens he was so proud of.

 

He didn't know of the time when not everyone had pixel cameras or pocket phones with great cameras, and found examples, instead of hand drawing pictures not his cup of tea. He also didn't know often one can ask permission from someone like Penboard.de or PenTime for permission to use a professional picture of theirs.

 

[mhguda]

My nib says EDELSTAHL over a picture of a hand within a circle, and underneath it says PRIMA.

The clip on mine looks, to my limited view, exactly like yours. I bought it from a fellow FPNer, @Lexaf, who, if I remember the story correctly, came upon a suitcase full of similar pens from the time of the second world war... He restored them, and I got to buy two. The other one is still working. I am not knowledgeable about flex, but that nib does flex nicely...

BTW I have been trying to get in touch with him but not managed to get any response...

[Bo Bo Olson]

55 minutes ago, mhguda said:

Lexaf,

I don't know if it was him I bought it from, but he was active at that time.

He did have the piston spare parts, that was for sure....and I like so often cheapened out at the wrong time and didn't buy.

55 minutes ago, mhguda said:

EDELSTAHL over a picture of a hand within a circle, and underneath it says PRIMA.

Don't know that one.....but there were many nib makers, and I never organized my cheap broken pen pile to which nibs are there.

 

That was in the era when some flex , be it semi-flex or first stage of superflex was normal. (Outside of Tropen an export only pen, Lamy and some Herlitz pens who offered nails.)

Went looking for my Predo, a no name pen War pen, to see what  nib it had on it, and can't find it. But now that I think of it, it was a Degussa nib. I had been trying to find a superflex nib on a Swan pen, and chased so slow, I never got one. And  a Junk shop I ran into the 'flexi' pen I had been chasing, so stopped sweating which Swan was what flex.

That was way back when, before definitions became more defined....some even thought a springy regular flex was flexi...was if one was straight nail user. Semi-flex was a wider definition than now, and Superflex's three stages were lopped with semi-flex as 'flexi'. Wet Noodle seemed to be a rather new term back then.

 

That Predo was my first German War pen, with a pressed pattern on the cap was where a ring should have gone. The pattern was pressed marked so one knew it wasn't just missing the cap ring of a smooth middle of the pressing for a cap ring.

 

I believe but can prove that pressing the ring the hard rubber or what ever kind of plastic cap was hoped it would be stronger than unpressed....besides which there was a war on, be happy you got a pen as was.

In March of '43, all German pen companies were told May was their last month of pen production.

I don't have a picture of that pen. Lots of my stuff got lost on Randsom Bucket...lousy eventually tossed camera, & poor photographer.

Wasn't the worst thing to happen....some of the worlds worst chicken scratch in this or that ink, got dusted.