Ultrasonic cleaner

[charles]

India Pale Ale? what a waste.

[michael adams]

Yes just warm water. I'm wary of using detergent although apparently a surfacent, or whatever, is recommended for some things which apparently also alters the size of the bubbles

From memory the maximum time is 240 seconds - 4 minutes, and two or three lots of 240 usually does the trick. They may work after only the one - but its its easier to leave them in for three - renewing the warm water each time than dry them off and trying them out each time. The water gets very cloudy as the ink leaks out but weighing them afterwards on a digital scale shows that hardly any ink is lost certainly as compared with cleaning cycles on the printer.

They're stood on end with the print head side on the bottom with just enough water to cover the metal contact plate running along the top. Afterwards the metal contacts are stroked with the end of a tissue to dry them off.

michael adams

...

[michael adams]

These are HP cartridges where the head is integral with the cartridge. So I'm led to believe anyway. So that every time you change the cartridge you get a new head. Sounds too good to be true, but there you go. And is why I switched to secondhand HP printers on eBay having had loads of trouble unblocking heads on Epson printers (secondhand eBay as well natch) which by the end, had turned into a hobby all by itself.

michael adams

...

[Andy Burns]

Got an old dried up fountain pen?

[Andrew Gabriel]

You made me go and find mine, and somewhat to my surprise, after I sucked some water up into it, and dabbed the nib with kitchen roll a few times (and now have a blue thumb and second finger which won't wash off), it works just fine.

I haven't used it since school, i.e. at least 35 years and probably longer - I doubt I used it in the last several years at school. I don't have any ink - it's just using what had dried in the pen and has now redissolved.

Come to think of it, the blue thumb and second finger reminds me why I stopped using fountain pens, although my writing was instantly improved just now when I tested it.

I still remember starting to write at infant school - someone had to come around all the desks with a jug and fill up the ink wells and hand out the pens. The child who got the job that week was called the Ink Monitor.

Ink wells gave way to ink cartridge pens the following year, although ISTR desks had the ink well hole and grove to rest the pen over it most of my way through school.

[Andy Burns]

bang the nib assembly in the U/S tub and you'll be amazed how much ink comes out ... took several changes of water to get mine to run clean.

[spuorgelgoog]

Wireless doorbell push

Owain

[Gordon Henderson]

I sometimes wish I could use a fountain pen, however I'm left-handed, and yes, I know you can get left-handed nibs, but I'm a "pusher", so the nib ends up gouging into the paper, then my hand gets covered in ink and it smudges.

Also my hand writing is utter s**te, so not much point even thinking about it really.

Gordon

[D.M.Chapman]

My Daughters primary school still has one class kitted out with these desks (it's her class, the kids love it!).

These are the lifting desks, with ink well and groove :-)

Darren