Clean out bulbs

[Inxoy]

I went on a bender in January and had 22 of the 24 pens I owned inked up trying out different inks, nibs, and papers. While it was tremendous fun, I spent a few hours last night cleaning all of them (ok, the cleaning was fun too because I like pens for more than the ink).

I bought a clean out bulb from vintagepens.com and I wasn't entirely sure what I was doing with it. I took the bulb, filled it with water, placed the nib section against the bulb and then gently applied pressure to the bulb until water/ink would drip through the nib. I did this until the water came out clear.

It seemed to work well but my question/concern is, thinking about how hydraulics work, is this bad for the relationship between the nib and the feed? I would think as long as I'm not trying to squeeze too hard it should be the right and appropriate use of the bulb.

Thoughts?

[Woody]

Not enough pressure to cause any harm there. These bulbs are meant as ear syringes, therefore I think there safe. Another bulb cut in a fashion can be used as a backward flush from the nib end.

[mhosea]

I agree with Woody's response, though I will add that some cartridge converter pens whose nibs have been removed a few times may be loose enough to blow out the nib and feed using a bulb syringe. This does no harm unless they go down the sink, in which case it's worth an expletive or two (stopper the sink next time, and maybe don't blow water through like a fire hose on that pen :))

[Jon Szanto]

Indeed, to follow up on Mike's suggestion:

One of the topics that comes up far too frequently is a post that will say "AAAAAAARRRGGGHHH!!!! My 14k nib went down the drain!!!111!!!" Or something similar. Many of us use a sink (for me the laundry sink so I don't get any ink stains in the house) and it is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY that you put a screen or trap cover over the drain in the sink to keep any small objects from going down the drain. It seems so simple, and so obvious, but I'm willing to be that there aren't many people who haven't done it. At least once.

Just FYI. ;)

[Inxoy]

Awesome. Thank you all for the responses.