I cannot believe how long it's been since I touched a fountain pen. They have been sitting with ink in them for many months (shame on me) and was in bad need of some maintenance.
First I completely took each pen apart soaking and cleaning each component. I have a little hummingbird feeder brush I used on the ribs of the nib unit to work loose any dried ink. My brown inked pen was the worst, which had #41 Brown ink from Noodler's. I didn't have quite the cleaning job with those loaded with Lexington Grey or Document Gray. After the components were dry, I (for the first time) used the grease that comes with TWSBI pens for the plunger that pulls/pushes ink in the barrel. One of my TWSBI 580 pens was a bit finicky in putting back together but I finally worked through that issue. Now I have four clean pens with only two I have loaded with fresh ink.
After I loaded the pens with ink, I took the one with Document Brown ink (instead of the #41 Brown) and worked a couple loose sketches in my journal with Fabriano Artistico Cold Press (old stock). The second illustration shows using the Urban Gray on Fabriano Hot Press in another journal.
