How to clean a fountain pen

The better you take care of your fountain pen, the better it will work. All fountain pens can be clogged by dry ink or dust, and if you want to get the ink flowing again you will need to clean it. We recommend that you clean it regularly, approximately every other month or when you notice that the nib is beginning to skip ink. How do you clean a fountain pen? We will guide you, step by step, how to clean your fountain pen.

So how do you clean a fountain pen?

It is simple, just use water! Sometimes you will need to do it more than once, if it has been a while since you last did it. This is how you clean a fountain pen step by step:

1. Unscrew the pen and remove the cartridge or converter. Rinse the part of the pen that the nib is attached to.
   
   
2. Put this part in a container with lukewarm water and let it lay there for 24 hours.
   
   
3. Rinse it again and let it dry completely.
   
   
4. Assemble the pen and fill it with new ink.

If you have a converter (the tool that you can use to fill a fountain pen with bottled ink) you can also try rinsing the pen with help from the converter. Put it in place, fill a container with lukewarm water, and draw water into the converter. Then press out the water again. Repeat a couple of times.

If it is still difficult to remove remaining dry ink, there are cleaning solutions that can be used for this. Cleaning solutions are often sold in bottles or in kits, and usually come with an instruction.

What can you do to prevent ink from drying inside the pen?

Cleaning is unavoidable, but there are some things you can do to prevent the need from arising so often. There are also certain things that can complicate the cleaning process. We have mainly three pieces of advice for you when it comes to this:

• Store the pen with the nib pointing up. Otherwise the ink can dry inside the nib.
  
  
• Use the right kind of ink. Pigment ink is strictly forbidden in a fountain pen. These kinds of inks can dry inside the pen and because they are waterproof, the pen becomes difficult to clean. Only use inks that are recommended for fountain pens.
  
  
• Write regularly. Exercise is beneficial for both humans and fountain pens! When the pen is used the risk of ink drying inside it decreases.