Frequently Asked Questions

When you first get a pen it’s a good idea to just flush it a couple of times with clean water before you ink it up.  This is something most manufacturers recommend because there could be leftover oils or residue from the manufacturing or packaging process that you just want to rule out as a factor in case there are any flow issues with your new pen.  Many manufacturers do this themselves already but it’s good practice to just go ahead and do with all new pens.

It’s definitely a good idea to clean your pen when you’re changing ink colors.  Not only might colors bleed and look vastly different than intended if you have ink leftover in your pen from a previous color, but some inks don’t mix well with each other, and you want to make sure whatever ink you last used is completely out of your pen before inking up with something new. 

If your pen’s not been used consistently or is just sitting there for a while, the ink may start to dry up in the pen.  Fountain pen ink is primarily made of water which can evaporate over time, though some pens are designed to keep from drying out better than others. Pretty much if the pen hasn’t been used in a while and feels like it’s out of ink or writing dry or skipping while you write, it could be it was sitting around a bit too long and could benefit from cleaning.  Or you could also try dipping the nib of the pen back into the bottle of ink or into a cup of water to get it saturated again.

A good rule of thumb for how often to clean a pen is once a month, unless you change colors or have some performance issue in which case you’d clean it when you have that issue.

If the performance of your pen has changed, like you’re skipping, having hard starts, you feel like you’re having to press down to get ink to come out, all these are signs that cleaning might be in order.  Cleaning is always a good step to take when you’re troubleshooting a fountain pen’s writing performance.  Cleaning a fountain pen is essentially rebooting it, you’ll flush out any dried ink or blockages that may have developed over time, and you’ll get that ink flowing again as it was originally intended!