I've never understood why people soak vintage pens. Water just isn't very good for hard rubber, celluloid or casein and it's certainly not very good for the metal parts pens contain. Once you get water into a barrel or cap it's hard to get it back out again. I'm not sure what the soaking is intended to achieve. It won't soften glue or shellac. It can dissolve hardened dry ink but there are other ways of dealing with that.
I've repaired thousands of pens and I don't soak anything. Tight sections? Use heat. I invested in a heat gun long ago and it's one of my most frequently used tools. For safe disassembly and reassembly, it's an absolute essential. Though I don't remove nibs and feeds unless I have to, using a bulb to get water through is enough to allow safe removal with the knock-out block. Any hardened ink can be removed from the section and feed then, using cotton buds and stiff brushes.
Removing old ink from caps and loosening crusted-in clip screws calls for naphtha. Unlike water, naphtha leaves no trace behind and doesn't start metal parts rusting. As soaking is so prevalent a process in pen repair, perhaps I'm missing something. Convince me!
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