pen maintenance Archives

Getting Fountain Pen Ink Off Your Hands, Clothes, and Desk

Ellen Ashford · July 13, 2026

Getting Fountain Pen Ink Off Your Hands, Clothes, and Desk

Early on, I tried to blot a fresh puddle of Diamine Oxblood off my desk with the sleeve of the sweater I happened to be wearing, and I learned two things in the same ten seconds: fountain pen ink does not care about your clothing choices, and hesitation is the whole problem. Since that morning … Read more

Nib Tuning at Home: Smoothing a Scratchy Pen Without Ruining It

Ellen Ashford · July 10, 2026

Nib Tuning at Home: Smoothing a Scratchy Pen Without Ruining It

A single letter stamped into steel — just “F,” nothing else — is all the identification my old Pilot Metropolitan nib ever gave me, and for a while I figured that letter also stood for “flawed.” Fresh out of the box, that pen caught on every upstroke like a fingernail dragged across window screen. I … Read more

How I Clean Every Fountain Pen I Own: The Routine That Prevents Clogs

Ellen Ashford · July 8, 2026

How I Clean Every Fountain Pen I Own: The Routine That Prevents Clogs

Sitting in my pen cup at this very moment is a Pelikan M200 with a faint ghost of iron gall staining near the feed — a scar left by a clog that took three full weeks of soaking to undo. That pen is also the reason strangers write to me more often about clogs than … Read more

Shimmer and Sheen Inks: Beautiful but Here Is What They Do to Your Pen

Ellen Ashford · June 27, 2026

Shimmer and Sheen Inks: Beautiful but Here Is What They Do to Your Pen

Here is the myth I need to bust straight away: shimmer ink is not simply “sheen with sparkle added,” and treating it that way is exactly how you end up scrubbing metallic grit out of a converter on a Saturday you’d rather have spent writing. That deep, shifting purple I once uncapped for the first … Read more

Pen Refill Compatibility Guide: Which Refills Fit Which Bodies

Ellen Ashford · June 23, 2026

Pen Refill Compatibility Guide: Which Refills Fit Which Bodies

Every January, when the new notebook goes on the desk and I dig through the pen cup for something worthy of page one, I run into the same infuriating snag: a refill that’s *supposed* to fit and somehow doesn’t. It’s happened to me more times than I’ll admit out loud. A proper pen refill compatibility … Read more