Fountain Pen Maintenance

Just as your car needs its oil changed, your fountain pen needs internal cleaning. A once a month flushing will save you a trip to the nib specialist. After flushing the ink out of the pen with water, we recommend flushing with 1 part household ammonia and 2 parts water. Fill and empty the pen three or four times to dissolve the solids accumulation. Then flush the ammonia solution out of the pen with three or four more flushes with tap water. This is especially important if you change brands or even colors of ink, or use a cartridge exclusively. (Some inks react with each other, creating a viscous substance.) Even if you just flush several times with tap water on an irregular basis, you should be able to avoid the clogging problem. (Important note: Never use ammonia on the barrels of Wahl Eversharp pens from the 20's or 30's, or any other pen with aluminum parts. The ammonia eats aluminum quite fast! Also, do not soak the barrels of nitrocellulose pens in ammonia for any length of time. It can discolor the plastic.)

Many twist plunger filler pens such as Pelikan and OMAS brands will begin to twist hard if ink is allowed to cake inside the barrel. In an extreme case this can compromise the gasket or even break the twist mechanism. If you can see accumulated dry ink in the transparent part of a Pelikan pen you can see how this problem occurs and take the remedial action yourself.

Cartridge/converter pens also need to be cleaned regularly - especially if cartridges are used most. Never put your pen away with a cartridge full of ink in the pen. Very often cartridge/conveter filling system pens are the ones that are rarely, if ever, flushed. However, it's just as easy to maintain these pens as it is for twist plunger filler pens. Use the converter to flush with the 1 part household ammonia and 2 part water solution.

FYI: A "de-soldering bulb" available from Radio Shack for about $5.00, makes a great flushing tool. (Remove the nylon tip and slide the mouth of the bulb over the back of the section and pump away!) An ear syringe also may work. With household ammonia as a flusher, many plugged pens can be cleaned.

If the feed is just too plugged for flushing, of course send it in for our cleaning. We have specialized tools for clearing the worst case, impacted waterproof ink. However, because we cannot always see this plugged condition when the pen arrives for assessment, we sometimes have to add charges in order to clean out the feed system. The complaint is frequently that the pen has started skipping or drying out and the nib is believed responsible.

We get questions regarding what inks to use and what inks not to use. The first thing we should mention is that we are not ink specialists. That said, over the years we have found that India ink (or waterproof drafting inks) tend to cause problems in fountain pens that are not cleaned of the ink directly after each use. Because these inks do not dissolve in anything that will not dissolve the pen, or feed itself, the resulting "clog" is extremely hard to remove. (We have had cases where the nib has sat in our ultrasonic cleaner with full strength ammonia for several days with little result.) We have also found that red ink has a composition which lends itself to clogging the feed.

We are not here to dissuade anyone from experimenting with ink (that's half the fun of owning a fountain pen!). However, we strongly suggest cleaning the pen after each use (if using India ink or red ink) or keeping to a regular maintenance schedule as outlined above.

Happy inking!