Putting a pen aside for -indeterminate- time

I'm pretty sure you all are going to say that if the pen is set aside, flush it out?

But what time frame would you do this for? If you aren't going to use the pen for more then a week?

-jim

Depends on the ink.. but a month or longer if I know it will be set aside I will flush it.. but then I have put pens down and forgotten about them fpr longer than that and had no trouble

I have set aside Pilot Varsities, both with the original ink and ones that I have refilled, for a couple of months and had them start right up. I currently only have one with ink in it, and that ink is Noodler's Fox, potentially a difficult red ink. The Varsity still starts right up even after a couple of weeks, which is fortunate, as I don't really use that much red ink.

Other pens have been okay after a couple of weeks, some have seized up after a couple of days, although wetting the nib always seemed to get them started again. With so many possible pen and ink combinations, it's not easy to give a hard and fast rule. I just try to keep the number of inked pens fairly low (I don't count the Varsity) and write with them regularly while they are inked, even if just a couple of lines to make sure they're okay. If I were going on a trip of more than about a week, I'd probably empty and clean any pens that weren't coming with me, preferably emptying them by actually writing with them before flushing.

Thanks, I was pretty much in a space where I didn't really care that much about it, like you say, wet the nib or refill and off I go. But I pulled out my PFM after a couple of months of non-use and found the snorkle plugged. The thought that I may have inadvertently ruined this wonderful pen because of my lack of proper maintenance upset me.

I think I will go through my pens tonight and have a quiet evening sitting by the fire, watching football, sipping a beer, flushing pens.

-jim

Just yesterday, I found my Parker 15 that had been misplaced back in January. The instant it touched the paper, the blue quink flowed perfectly. I wasn't surprised though - it was my school pen and rekindled my FP love, doing almost exactly the same thing 5 years after I last put it down. Shame I don't actually like to write with it.

Pelikan m205 sat for better part of 8 mos...picked it up and it flowed just fine no problems! But, IMHO I should have flushed it.

I am bad, as I seldom flush. I touch the nib to the tip of my tongue to moisten it a bit and off I go. This may give me cancer at some point.