Koh-I-Noor Rapido-Eze Cleaning Solution, 8 oz. Bottle, 1 Each

OK,I have about… 100 or so fountain pens. I lost count a while ago…. and I don’t really keep track of how long ink is in them. And this process kind of taught me a lesson, which is, that from now on, I’m storing my pens WITHOUT ink in them. Because- I sort of left shimmering inks and pigmented art inks in pens a LONG time. OOPS. My BAD. so at the point I needed the cleaner, I had quite a backlog of cleaning on my hands, and was planning to systematically clean out every pen that had been sitting full of ink until the ink was basically rattling around dry inside the converters.When I got this stuff,I squirted about a teaspoon or so squeeze of it (kind of like one might with dish soap) into an old pasta sauce mason jar, about quart sized, of warm to hottish tap water.I used a bulb syringe to see which pens needed to be fully disassembled, and which ones just needed to be flushed. I flushed them with the solution and basic dye inks without staining dyes came clean pretty fast. that eliminated a number of the pens right off the bat.It took a long time, disassembling like 30 pens, a bunch of feeds, even a few converters. some of them don’t disassemble totally, like some of the Cross ftn pens, and a couple of my pens I could not disassemble because fo gunk in there. I had everything from Pilot Metropolitans to Cross FTN pens, to Jinhaos, to Monteverde, to demonstrators, cheap knock offs, all metal pens, plastic pens, converter pieces, clogged feed units, the works. (no noodlers pens though, those were already clean).Anything that seemed like flushing with the cleaning solution (using a bulb syringe, which is WAY FASTER than trying to rotate the piston converters or whatever) wasn’t gonna cut it, I decided to soak.SO,I chucked allllll my disassembled pen parts into the jar full of cleaner… the cleaner that I had already used to flush a bunch of the pens… and I shook it a little bit, and let it sit overnight.The next day,I put some plastic coated butcher paper out on the table and some rags and paper towels. cleaning pens is a messy chore no matter what. I also used a bulb syringe again in some cases, and had an EMPTY jar with a lid too. in the sink, I drained the liquid from the full of parts jar into the totally empty jar with a mesh strainer (like you’d use for straining loose tea leaves or veggies whatever) to make sure I didn’t lose and teeny parts, and to reserve the cleaning solution, and then I dumped the wet parts onto a plate with some old clean rags on it. I had basically a full-ish quart jar of the liquid still, and an empty jar.Anything that I couldn’t separate or wasn’t designed to disassemble, I used the fluid and the bulb syringe to flush the nib/feed units. anything that looked like it still was dislodging ink I set aside.I basically wiped off all the parts, most of which were clean, and put them aside for reassembly. (I did rinse the ones that looked basically clean with water before drying them.)the ones that needed further inspection, I tried to flush them out (with another jar of clean water) with the bulb syringe until the water ran clear or in the case of some inks, until there weren’t any more dried particulate coming out. if that didn’t work, I soaked them a second night. there were only about 4 cross nib units tat needed this.I’m telling you, you can use WAY less than the bottle says and it works GREAT. I must have used about 1-2 ounces with about 4 quarts of water total to clean about 60 pens that were pretty… BADLY NEGLECTED.SO all the pens turned out great. It was a lot of work, which honestly was my fault for leaving the pens inked with stuff like shimmertastic and pigmented ink for so long.the point is– I left all kinds of ink in all kinds of pens for WAY too long. THIS STUFF DID THE TRICK! all the pens and all the different materials cleaned out really nicely. I did have to rub some areas with q tips, and I did have to flush some pens a couple times, but the parts came out feeling …. conditioned? sparkly clean, shiny, lots of them just like brand new.not only did this pen cleaner do a fantastic job, but it was SO ECONOMICAL. because it is concentrated a big bottle like this will last a really long time. I used about a 10th of the bottle for 50 pens, so I think this 16 oz bottle will easily clean several hundred pens using this method, even if they have been neglected or have ink dried in them.for reference, I would say none of the pens sat with ink in them longer than 4 years. and none of the pens were vintage or had rubber bladders, etc. I did clean several pilot (non-vintage, less than 6 years old) converters that use rubber bladders- they were just fine, so the cleaner didn’t do ANY damage to ANY of the materials or pen parts, It also doesn’t smell weird or like nasty or harsh chemicals, and I didn’t use gloves except on the really strong ink colors when disassembling the pens to keep my skin from staining. once I was using the cleaner, I just had bare hands, and it didn’t bug my skin any more than like a Palmolive type dish soap would have. there was just no issue with stinkiness or fumes or my skin. the water with the cleaner in it did feel fairly slippery, almost lubricating, but not gross or harsh to me in any way, FYI.So cleaning about 60 pens, this stuff worked as a flush, as a soak, and didnt damage anything, and worked like a charm. I only had to soak 4 pens a second time, and they had dried up cross ink cartridges in them, in non-disassembling feed/nib section housings, with pretty nasty dried up ink. and they did flush clear finally after that second night. but diamine shimmertastic, iroshizuku, platinum carbon, a couple iron gall inks, all of them came clean and working GREAT.BUY THIS STUFF TO CLEAN YOUR PENS. just, yes.Update January 2024:Still the best thing ever for cleaning fountain pens. I have 15 LAMY safaris that were clogged with dried up glitter inks. I soaked the feed and grip section overnight and flushed the fluid thru with a bulb syringe. Clean now. Don’t hesitate. This stuff works great.