> If maintenance becomes bothersome, maybe you should look into good converters and simple water-based inks. You can easily use a fountain pen like this during many months before you need to go through one cleaning cycle. For cleaning, you can buy some special cleaning agents which you can use just like ink.
Most modern "simple" (or boring) inks contain detergents to keep pens clean too. Waterman, Parker, Lamy and Pelikan (esp. 4001 series) are non-staining inside pens. Most of the standard blues (e.g.: Waterman Serenity Blue and Lamy Blue esp.) self destruct in water while resist time unless left under the sun (4001 blue is explicitly discouraged for archiving).
This means you can just put your pen section in a cup of water and wait until all water turns transparent again. Then rinse under the tap, let it dry and re-fill. It's this easy.
There are faster methods (I rinse & dry a daily driver pen in 5 minutes tops), but we're at HN and not in FPN[0]. :)
P.S.: I'm a fountain pen nut, AMA if you want.
[0]: http://www.fountainpennetwork.com
Most modern "simple" (or boring) inks contain detergents to keep pens clean too. Waterman, Parker, Lamy and Pelikan (esp. 4001 series) are non-staining inside pens. Most of the standard blues (e.g.: Waterman Serenity Blue and Lamy Blue esp.) self destruct in water while resist time unless left under the sun (4001 blue is explicitly discouraged for archiving).
This means you can just put your pen section in a cup of water and wait until all water turns transparent again. Then rinse under the tap, let it dry and re-fill. It's this easy.
There are faster methods (I rinse & dry a daily driver pen in 5 minutes tops), but we're at HN and not in FPN[0]. :)
P.S.: I'm a fountain pen nut, AMA if you want.
[0]: http://www.fountainpennetwork.com