TL;DR I talk about maintaining a pen. I forgot to take pictures, so those will come at a later date …
A Note About Maintenance
Having nice things that are repairable generally means maintaining them in a way that allows them to keep functioning for a very long time. This includes knowing how to disassemble, clean, and do the basic things that the object requires to function well. Maintenance is important for just about everything that has a mechanical component: Clocks, Watches, Pens, Glasses, Phones, and Headphones with replaceable components, etc.
One thing I would suggest is getting an iFixIt toolkit, and a watch maintenance kit (also good for glasses and other small things). Taking care of things is probably the best way to be sustainable. If you have a thing that should last a long time, don’t replace it: Repair it.
The Topic At Hand: Fountain Pens
I really like having a good pen. It makes writing fun instead of a chore. This is important to me, largely, because I do not trust modern technology as much as someone thinks I might. The Cybersecurity to Farm pipeline is real, and I am absolutely part of it. Because of this, I take all of my notes by hand in a notebook. I use a free-form notebook method where I just write stuff down.¹ It is also super important to the future of the planet that humans stop just throwing shit away all the time. The destructive attitude of replacing everything is abhorrent and needs to end. We do not need new things, we need to maintain the things we have.
To wit, I use refillable fountain pens. In this example we are talking about a Lamy Safari Fountain Pen with a Z27 adapter.
Required Tools
You will need a few things you probably have laying around the house for this:
- A small bowl of warm water.
- I use an old yogurt cup that I have saved for these kinds of things
- A small container to empty the ink into
- I just use the same bowl of water I will be cleaning everything with anyway. This may impact the cleaning but it works fine.
- Cotton swabs on a stick
- The “Do Not Put These In Your Ear” type
- An old utility toothbrush
- I suggest not brushing your teeth with this afterwards…
- Some paper towels
- Belief in yourself
- I believe in you!
Disassembly
The pen disassembly steps are fairly straight forward:
1) Remove the cap 2) Unscrew the Feed Body 3) Remove the z27 adapter cartridge a) Empty the z27 adapter cartridge 4) Remove the pen nib a) This is achieved by simply pulling on the pen nib away from the Feed Body 5) Remove the ink feed a) Same as the nib, but a LOT harder b) Be careful, but just yank that sucker out 6) Place all of these components into the bowl of water a) Or Kem it all and take a picture. Something I failed to do for this post.
At this point, the pen is disassembled and ready to be cleaned!
Cleaning
Since you have already put all of the components in water, the substance the ink is soluble in, cleaning is very straight forward:
1) Take the components out of the water and brush each component to remove dried on or stuck ink and fibers 2) Place each component on the paper towel to dry
If you want to be a little extra there is a bonus step:
1) Fill and empty the z27 converter with water a few times to clean it out
That is it. The components are now clean!
Reassembly
Everything you did for disassemble, do it backwards.
Really, That is it.
At this point, your pen is clean and ready to be refilled. Congratulations! You have maintained your pen!
Now, when is the last time you cleaned your phone… or your earbuds?
Footnotes
¹ I should do a post about my journaling method of just write it down at some point.
