I have a Rotring Isograph .10 (I bought the College Set) that won’t work. I stupidly left it with the ink in for several days and… I guess it clogged, because now it won’t write.

I’ve tried “quick” cleaning and “thorough” cleaning, and now the nib (that’s what it’s called right?) is soaking in a bowl of very warm water and some mild liquid soap. A thin trail of ink is slowly rising from the nib (it’s pretty cool watching this in the water). I’m hoping this will work.
they are a bit different, but probably pretty similar for cleaning (in a fountain pen, the ink goes down a slit cut into the nib - technical pens have a tube for the ink to flow down instead). They’re all plastic, so I’m pretty sure soaking is a good thing for them - may take a bit of time. The biggest practical difference is probably the ink - drawing ink is different stuff to fountain pen ink, so may be slightly different to get out - water is still going to be the best thing to try first, though.
I would think the household ammonia trick would probably work, well diluted. I’ve only heard it recommended for clearing fountain pen ink, but I doubt it’s that different.

If the ink is coming out with a soak, though, you’ll probably ok that way. Just give it a swirl around every now and then, and change the water as it starts getting all inky.
I left the pen tip to dry on a towel while I went to school today. I got back and decided to try it. The pen tip still had some ink coming out of it (from the.. umm.. rear end) actually, but I decided to try it nonetheless and it unsurprisingly still didn’t work. Grrr. So now it’s soaking again. SIGH

I hope my local bookstore has that cleaning kit in stock. That “pen key” thing didn’t come with my college set though.


Do you mean for removing the sleeve from around the nib unit so you can get to the feed? It’s the cap! Push the centre part of the cap out through the cap from the top - the bit with the width marked on it. Just push where the “.50” or whaterver is marked, and it should drop most of the way out - might need poking with something to come all the way out. You then push the nib in through the top end of the cap, and the part that centre bit was sticking in is the key. Push the cap over the nib, give it a bit of a twist and wiggle, and the bit surrounding the feed should come right off.

That should make cleaning a good bit easier.

If it won’t come clean, Sanford are pretty much killing Rotring off now, so you might stand a good chance of finding them getting sold off cheaply. Our local Staples sold the Parker fillers off for £6 each - used to be £18 - and I’ve seen quite a few of them going cheap on eBay.

I’ve just opened and tried our set, probably left full of ink and unused for a long time - all three work fine, so it looks like you were pretty unlucky there.
My Parker 51 fountain pen worked well for 2 years. In recent months, I write a paragraph or two and the inks ceases to flow. I unscrew the piston and reassemble it, the ink flows again, a mite too copiously at first. A paragraph later the flow stops once more. I do not think the problem has anything to do with dirt blocking the flow of ink. I suspect that for some reason air is not flowing back into the piston to push the ink out.