Cleaning Rotring drawing pens

[Mr Arch]

I have been gifted a set of Rotring Isograph drawing pens, 0.10, 0.13, 0.25, 0.35, 0.5 sizes.


They haven't been used for a while and so are clogged with dry ink.
Any suggestions for an easy, low cost, non damaging method for cleaning them so they can be used again?

Cheers.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Soak in water

[andygates]

Get the cleaning juice from an artshop. 

But if they're really gacked up, the ultrasound cleaner was the only way to really clean them. Which is why you've been gifted them: the disposable innards give as good a line and are less leaky or tough to clean.

(sad sigh of a rotring fanboy)

[Efrogwr]

You lucky, lucky bastard! I wish I still had mine.

Rotring makes cleaning fluid for these pens. A Google search should find suppliers for you.

If the pens are very badly clogged, you'll have to soak them for quite a long time. First, fill them with cleaning fluid and wait. Shake them occasionally; when they rattle you are making progress (the feed is controlled by a weighted wire in the "nib").

Then you can try dismantling them. The nib units screw into the body, but there is a special tool for the job (it's a plastic disc with a hole in the middle. If you can remove the nib without damage,  soak the parts in the cleaner. If you have access to an ultrasonic cleaner, the whole process will be quicker.

If all else fails, try isopropyl alcohol.

Good Luck! They are well worth refurbishing.

Happy drawing.

[Mr Arch]

Get the cleaning juice from an artshop. 

But if they're really gacked up, the ultrasound cleaner was the only way to really clean them. Which is why you've been gifted them: the disposable innards give as good a line and are less leaky or tough to clean.

(sad sigh of a rotring fanboy)

This is what I was fearing.
I will pop into an art shop to see what cleaning stuff they have, and how effective it might be, to see if it is worth while.

[Jurek]

I used to use this for cleaning these.

I've just had the top off and the contents smell very similar to isoprop alcohol - that's not to say it might be something different.

I've just realised there's two pens there which have never been used.

[rogerzilla]

What sort of ink do they use?  Is it spirit-based?

I only know that 10% ammonia in water (Robert Dyas stores sell household ammonia; supermarkets generally don't)  is the stuff for fountain pens, because ammonia dissolves crusty water-based ink.

[Jurek]

Indian ink, or a variant thereof, as far as I recall.

I don't recall it having any spirit based solvent in it - it smelt far too dull for that.

[frankly frankie]

They'll clog up again next week.  Whatever you use.

[Jurek]

They'll clog up again next week.  Whatever you use.

I think the trick is (was) to use them as regularly as possible.
Having said which, I still have cold sweats when I remember  trying to insert the weight and cleaning wire back into the nib of an 0.1.
It was so thin, that if it was made of ham, it'd be ok for a vegetarian to eat it.

[andygates]

They'll clog up again next week.  Whatever you use.

Sad but true. And they leak in my very hot hands. But oh, what a lovely line, and oh, what a lovely black.

[Jurek]

and oh, what a lovely black.

Oh god, a totally light absorbing black

[rogerzilla]

And it's like, how much more black could this be?  And the answer is none.  None more black.

[andygates]

Everybody I talk to says the same thing.  It's the meme of the moment.  That Rotring ink is just...

I used to do a lot of stuff that got photocopied, and there was that intermediate stage where it was all drawn up, the block black markered in and the detail Rotring'd, letratone and blue markup pencil (you whippersnappers haven't bloody lived).  And you couldn't tell Rotring black from toner black.  That's how black. 

A sharpie black is a suggestion of black compared to the insanity of albedo that is Rotring black.

Having said that, the disposable markers -- Tikky and Xonox -- aren't so black.  They're ordinary.  They're not #000000.

[rogerzilla]

Rotring black is made from black cats, coal holes and Ozzy Osborne's poo after a night on the Guinness.

[a lower gear]

I used to do a lot of stuff that got photocopied, and there was that intermediate stage where it was all drawn up, the block black markered in and the detail Rotring'd, letratone and blue markup pencil (you whippersnappers haven't bloody lived). 

Takes me back to drafting diagrams and maps for 1980s reports when working for Welsh Water. Dusted off my drawing equipment and ordered specific Letratone sheets when I drew up plans for our house extension about eight years ago. Still use Rotring pens (disposable pens just aren't in the same league) for plans and diagrams and suprised myself by using a snippet of Letratone last month. Tend to hand-letter for my own uses rather than stencilling though - much faster!

[andygates]

I found an old Rapidoliner insert in my pencil case (toolbox #2)! Gave it a dirty click and ... oh my days. So black. Such nostalgic scritching. It's like writing with tiny, anally-retentive spiders. Gotta buy myself a set again, they're reduced on Amazon, and I'm a sentimental fool.

[Arch]

And it's like, how much more black could this be?  And the answer is none.  None more black.

I once said that sort of thing for some time after I'd had a few drinks and ended up (don't ask how, I can't remember) staring into a tin of treacle.

[a lower gear]

And it's like, how much more black could this be?  And the answer is none.  None more black.

Try a 1kg tin of letterpress printing ink: thats a lotta black.... 

[Wombat]

I always had the impression, when doing a mass clean of my 10 or so Rotring pens (I worked in a drawing office) that if you dripped one drop of Rotring ink into the Pacific Ocean, the whole thing would turn black.  There was always this semi-macho thing abotu using the 0.1, and when it all changed sizes, so we started at 0.13, then .18, .25, .35 (I'm open to correction here!) and so on up to the monster 2mm one that you could stand on end, if careful, it was soemhow less cool than using the 0.1 for your construction lines.

I vaguely recall there was a "lightweight" soapy cleaner, and a more fearsome stuff introduced later, for dried up gunge. 

However, as you say, letterpress ink is a different world...  I have seen it, but have more familiarity with offset litho ink, and cleaning the blankets with MEK....   Currently sat about 10metres from where that all used to happen 35plus years ago, having changed jobs back to work in the same LA!

[mrcharly-YHT]

And it's like, how much more black could this be?  And the answer is none.  None more black.

Try a 1kg tin of letterpress printing ink: thats a lotta black.... 

Pah

Try a diesel boiler chamber that's been burning dirty diesel for weeks.

Stare into the blackness. Shine a 3W LED fenix into the black and try to work out where the light goes. No reflection. No colour. No shape. After the cleaning it out, no lungs either.

[frankly frankie]

In here is black.
There's even a sign 12km away down the road, saying "pedestrians must carry lights"

[The Mechanic]

I used to use these pens for chart corrections when I was a navigator.  They blocked up then so nothing has changed much.  I used to use the Rotring cleaning fluid and it worked OK.

[Arch]

"It's this crazy colour scheme that gets me. Everytime I press one of these little black buttons labelled in black on a black background, a little black light lights up black to tell me I've done it...."

[Dibdib]

Knowing there's probably someone reading this who's tried both... any anecdata on how it compares to Noodlers Heart of Darkness in a fountain pen?

Chris (trying to avoid more spending urges)