Recorder Pen Rinse
A small bottle for a small job: keeping the pen of your barograph, thermograph or hygrograph writing the way it should.
10 ml, with brush applicator
What it is
Recording ink is glycerine based. It never quite dries — that is exactly why it works, and also why it slowly clogs the fine slit of the pen. First the trace goes pale, then it starts to skip, and one fine morning there is nothing on the chart at all.
This is the fluid that keeps that from happening. It dissolves old ink and dust, wicks out of the slit, and dries leaving nothing behind.
The brush and the narrow neck are there for dosing: the wiper in the neck puts exactly as much fluid on the pen as is needed and not a drop more. That matters more than it sounds — splashes are unavoidable when cleaning, and the whole technique comes down to making sure they land somewhere other than the chart and the clockwork.
How to use
- Take the pen off if the mount allows it without force. Cleaning off the instrument is the better way: splashes and smears end up on a tissue rather than on the barograph. If the pen is seized, or the mount looks fragile, don't fight it — clean it in place.
- Cover everything around it with tissues: chart, drum, base. A violet ink stain on chart paper does not come out, and the week's record is gone.
- Put on gloves. Aniline ink comes off skin slowly, reluctantly, and never completely.
- Draw the brush out slowly — the wiper in the neck will strip off the excess.
- , from the arm towards the tip, the way the ink flows out. If the pen is badly fouled, work across it with brisk strokes instead — but remember those unavoidable splashes.
Do this every time you change the chart, and the pen will never need anything stronger.
Please note
Not for plastic or fibre-tip pens.
It will not rescue a pen that has stood dry for forty years; that one has to come off and soak. It is here to make sure yours never gets to that state.
Flammable liquid. Keep away from heat and open flame.