How to clean your fountain pen
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- Опубликовано: 10 сен 2024
- Welcome to Draw Tip Tuesday!
Each week, Sketchbook Skool's co-founder Koosje Koene shares a tip or a trick with you to help you build your creative habit. One drawing at a time!
This week we are sharing tips for rinsing and cleaning your fountain pen. Koosje doesn't clean her pens too often but these tips can be helpful if you're filling your pen with a different color ink or if you just want to start fresh.
Check out www.sketchbookskool.com for more inspiration from our awesome instructors!
I own multiple fountain pens, including a few Lamy Safari's. It is very easy to (gently and straight!) pull out the black feed+nib from the section. The feed has a long 'strip' on top, that can be removed for cleaning the ink channel. When assembling the pen again, the feed only fits in one orientation, never force it back in. Slide the feed and nib back into the section until it clicks in place. Groeten uit Eindhoven ;).
I have a Lamy fountain pen and confess that I don't use it often... a few weeks could go by...I use it for making the random notes on a piece of paper.
Might the sheer lack of use explain why there are often times where it doesn't seem to work...where no ink is coming forth (even though the ink cartridge is full)? That might also explain why, when I then decide to rinse the bottom half of the pen/nib with water, that 'tons' of ink comes out...even though the ink cartridge is not attached at the time... So I can only surmise that LOTS of ink was stuck/dried up in the lower half of the pen/nib. And perhaps this is DUE to the fact that I don't use the pen often? SHOULD I be trying to write with the pen at least once per day...because in doing so I'm keeping the ink flow more 'active' and therefore less likely to dry out and eventually clog the lower half of the pen?
Is there a benefit to keeping my pen stored or at-the-read, in the upright position, so that the ink is constantly flowing downward towards the nib?
Also, if I remove the current ink cartridge from my non-working pen and then try squeezing the cartridge (which is admittedly a bit hard for me...the cartridge never feels all that 'flexible')...but if I do my best to squeeze it really hard over a paper towel, should I be seeing SOME amount of ink actually spilling out from the bottom? And if I do NOT, does that mean that the likely culprit is not that the nib etc is dried out or stuck with old ink, but that it's the CARTRIDGE that is dried out? And if so, can anything be done about a dry cartridge, or must it be tossed? Do most folks, if they try to SQUEEZE an ink cartridge that is good and 'fresh'...should we be able to SEE ink dripping out in that instance, or is it in fact hard for a lot of other folks, like me, to squeeze it hard enough to produce drops of ink at the bottom?
Thanks!
Thank you so much for this! I had never considered actually taking the nib out, and had to use a needle nose pliers to loosen it, but it works great! I have a few better quality fountain pens, but I also like to sketch with the cheap ones that you get at the dollar store. I just refill the cartridges with a syringe and a bottle of ink. Previously, I had been soaking the pens in either vinegar or ammonia, but it only worked with limited results. I just tried your method one of my cheapies and it works great!
Hey! I'm in a big one right now 'Cause I left my pen for long time and the nip won't loose. Is the needle nose plier safe enough for its fine tip?
I would love a draw tip tuesday video on what kind (brands) of sketchbooks you can use when you draw with ink and watercolour in your sketchbooks. Any tips on that? I use at least 190 grams. Hahnemuhle, moleskine or hand book. Can you recommand other books?
Thanks God you don’t have the cursed black lamy nib
How is it cursed?