Cleaning My Fountain Pens

Yes. I know. I mentioned in a previous blog post or more like weeks or maybe it was a month ago where I made a comment about needing to clean all of my artsy fountain pens. Time has flown by. I played around with my watercolor paints for a bit. I shifted gears and dove into another favorite hobby of mine…sewing. Lots of sewing.

My artsy fountain pens sat in a “to be cleaned” bin and started to dry out. Literally, the colorful inks in my converters and ink cartridges evaporated. Let me step back to last month when I was suppose to publish this blog post about my fountain pens.

November 2025

This week I was cleaning my artsy fountain pens (TWSBIs, Kakunos, indie pens). It was the first batch of pens to get cleaned. I gave them a good long soak as there was quite a bit of shimmers to remove.

I’ve decided to take a break from filling over a dozen fountain pens (at one time) with lots of inky colors. I have to admit, it’s hard to keep up with over a dozen fountain pens and making sure to write with them or sketch with them everyday so they don’t clog up. From all the shimmers settling down in the feed and nib. From lack of use. I think you get the picture.

I used to enjoy seeing all this shimmer until I have to clean them out.

Wow! Look at the sparkling blue goodness! It sooo pretty!

It took a good couple of hours for the shimmers to flow out. Every few hours I stopped by my studio desk and dropped some water into the sections. I used shop towels or Viva towels in a glass jar and that helped absorb the water and the remaining ink and shimmers. As long as I place my nib down, it all flows downhill. Right?

After a few hours, majority of the shimmers flowed out of my pen

Here’s a close up of the shimmers finding a new home on my Viva towel.

Here I am adding a few drops of water into the pen section. Sometimes the water disappears quickly. Sometimes the water flows slowly out of my nib. That’s when I know there are still some shimmers getting in the way. I am patient. I can wait. Drop. Drop. Drop.

Today

This morning, I finally got around to cleaning my remaining artsy fountain pens. That’s a total of nine pens including my three faves and currently inked fountain pens that I re-inked. I took all my pens over to my sink and took them apart. I rinsed each nib/feed/section under a steady stream of water to get the dried ink flowing. I then placed them nib side down into a jar filled with paper towels. I also cleaned out the converters and ink cartridges with the steady stream of water. Twenty minutes of rinsing and I’m done at the sink. I took all of my pens and accessories back to my studio desk.

Nine fountain pens in various pieces and my jar of sections

At my desk I took my cottonnswabs and cleaned out the pen caps. I always find ink inside my caps. I started by dipping my swab into some water and swirled the swab inside the cap.

I collected my pen caps and bodies and placed them into a bin to let them air dry.

My mini crate with pen pieces and my new Benu pen

Before I forget. My hubby gave me a Benu for Christmas. This is Midas from their Astrogem collection. My pen has lovely swirls of medium olive green with swirls of dark raspberry colors. It also has swirls of golden shimmering particles.

I filled my new Benu with Robert Oster Sydney Darling Harbour ink.

My Col-o-ring with my Robert Oster swatches

I’m thinking about inking a few pens from my fountain pen collection. I’m going to take a break from the shimmering inks and just pick out a few faves from my normal ink stash. I will definitely include Thunderstorm and a few other Robert Oster inky colors.

I’m looking forward to getting back into sketching with my fountain pens and inks.