Koh-I-Noor Rapido-Eze Cleaning Solution, 5.2 oz. Container, 1 Each (3068S6)

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.

works well

After re-discovering over a dozen Rapidograph pens that hadn't been used in over 35 years, I was successfully able to get six of them working again, thanks to this cleaning solution. It was no easy feat and could not have been done without it. There was a whole lot more dried ink in those pens than somewhat, yet this solution managed to eat through a half dozen of them with the aid of some hot water. DO NOT USE BOILING WATER. Learning the hard way, I did and ended up melting three tip heads. My last piece of advice is that should you ever attempt to revive an old pen, be very patient and very gentle. These are more delicate than you first imagine and you are truly performing surgery. I learned that the hard way as well killing another three pens in the process.

I bought this cleaner to clean out some fountain pens with long-dried ink inside them. The first pen I used as a test piece, and I actually let the nib soak in a cup of undiluted cleaner for about 6 hours. It did a great job cleaning the ink out, but it caused some discoloration and change in texture to the plastic below the nib. For the second, much more expensive pen, I was more careful and filled the piston with the cleaner, forcing it out through the nib. I repeated this a few times, and quickly washed off the cleaner. It did a good job, but must have reacted with something, and caused a bluish-white build up at the base of the nib, which I had to scrape off. It's a good cleaner and made my pens write better, but you should just be aware that it is strong stuff and is not very gentle on plastic.

This is the only product you’ll ever need to clean rapidograph pens or fountain pens. If you’ve ever tried to clean a dried up rapidograph you know it’s pretty much impossible. It seems easier to buy a new one! But they’re so expensive! Antique fountain pens are almost as bad. This stuff works like a miracle. It seems pricey, but a little goes a very long ways. It can be diluted at 4:1 ratio to do regular maintenance, 2:1 for crusty dried ink, and full strength for badly clogged antique or neglected pens. I placed a nib for an antique (1950’s) fountain pen in a 2:1 solution and the liquid immediately turned dark with dissolved ink. I removed it after 30 seconds and the nib was sparkling. After 10 minutes of soaking I removed the nib, blotted it and filled the pen with ink. It works now after years of neglect. It is amazing how it instantly makes an old crusty nibs look and work like new! I’m now working on an even older (1930’s) pen which wouldn’t come apart it was so dried up. A few drops of full-strength liquid on the threads and it came apart easily. It’s now soaking overnight in a 2:1 solution and I expect the same excellent results. The next project is a full set of badly neglected rapidograph pens we found. In all my years of using rapidograph pens for artwork, I don’t know why I’ve never tried this stuff. I always seemed to let the pens dry up, then struggled to get them to work again to no avail. Try it. It’s truly amazing.

This is for my fellow “vintage” graphic design friends that bought their technical pens for design school in the 80s and have severely neglected them like I did. It wasn’t on purpose. I didn’t clean them one day long ago. Days lead to months and then years….LONG forgotten and put away. Several decades later, with ancient dried ink in them, I decided I wanted to use them again. Alas, they didn’t work. That is, until I found this product while going down a YouTube rabbit hole. You can get it on Amazon. I had to soak them for several days (stirring occasionally) but it magically dissolves old, dried ink and now they work like brand new. Totally worth the small price for the cleaner as a new pen set like this can cost several hundred bucks. Unfortunately, I had taken the first few completely apart and for two of them the tiny piece that holds the metal nib in its casing went down the drain when I was rinsing them. If you do this, LEAVE THE ENTIRE METAL NIB CASING TOGETHER. That’s what I did with the very fine line pens. Fortunately for me, I found a small incomplete set on eBay for a very reasonable price. I plan on buying that just for that small piece so I can use my entire original pen set. In the end I will have gotten these working for less than one new pen cost. Yeeeeeeehawwwwwww!

Makes quick work of cleaning a technical pen. Very easy to use, it has threads for both ends of the nib so you can attach it in both directions and it also has an attachment that fits over the small diameter nib itself that helps to draw ink into the nib to begin its flow. In a stroke of good luck I found that in addition to Koh-I-noor Rapidographs the threads also fit Rotring Isographs and Rapidographs as well as the UniTech technical pens (these are the only ones I’ve tried so it probably fits even more). I also have an ultrasonic cleaner but since I started using this bulb cleaner I rarely need to use the ultrasonic unless I let a pen sit empty for a few weeks or I buy a used pen that’s been left dry. Even it it didn’t work so well as a cleaner (which it does) it’s worth the price just for the attachment that starts the flow in a new or newly filled pen. I use this feature a couple of times a week. No more tapping, tilting, gently shaking or patiently holding a pen tip down trying to get the ink to start flowing again! Simply squeeze the bulb and slide the attachment over the nib and let go of the bulb. The suction draws the ink down the feed and out the nib in seconds! It’s amazing! If you’ve used these pens for any length of time and have to refill ink or change colors frequently you know how frustrating it can be to get one started again. This little attachment puts an end to all of that. Anyone who uses technical pens frequently *needs* one of these!

The rubber bulb had a rough feeling to it, as if it were old. The small plastic adapter, which is really why I made the purchase, was missing. The paper box it came in was not visibly damaged, but the lid was loose enough to have the small plastic adapter easily fall out. This is a good product, but I happened to get old inventory that did not meet my needs.

Pour le prix, c’est de l’eau et du savon, je garderais le petit bocal pour les voyages….

This cleans my pens quickly and safely

This great product works well to clean out the Koh-I-Noor Rapidograph pens. However, it only works well if you actually receive the product, which I did not. Very difficult to get the issue resolved or get a refund, so I can't recommend this product.

La mejor para limpiar plumas y plumillas.

I quickly found that Rapido-Eze Cleaning Solution is by far the best pen cleaner I have used to date. It really gets to work to soften and remove hidden ink deposits deep inside the delicate internals of my Faber-Castel Technical pens and after only a minimal amount of time the pen is working consistently again. I hope that this will extend the working life of these expensive nib units which previously had to be discarded after what I considered to be an unacceptably short amount of use.