Tickled Tip Tuesday - Cleaning Copic Nibs

Hi everyone - Pink Lady Debbie here with a little tip for you - a copic tip about tips - LOL. Do you have copics that aren't blending right and are leaving shiny patches like the patch on the left??? Well I have several pens that have started do do this and some even start taking colour off and leaving a patch that won't take colour??? This is especially true of the darker, more pigmented colours

What to do??? When I asked someone it was suggested I pop new nibs in - but I haven't got any, the one is this pen was in OK condition and - more importantly - I NEEDED to use the colour that wasn't working - it's one of my faves. In my desperation I came up with a solution and thought I'd share it with you....the patch on the right is the fixed pen blending beautifully again.

But just a disclaimer - this worked for me but I haven't heard of anyone else doing this so I hope it works for you too. I figured all I was wasting was a nib I would have to replace anyhow!!!

You'll need a small bowl, some rubbing alcohol, a messed up copic and a tissue.

Pull the offending nib out of the pen and pop it in the bowl with some of the rubbing alcohol. Then take the tissue and wet it with more of the alcohol and use it to clean up the sticky ink from the marker itself.

You'll see the alcohol pulls the dried ink out of the tip freeing it up from clogging - you may need to swirl it around a bit. You won't get ALL the colour out but it certainly helps to improve the ink flow. You can also see how much "cleaner" the pen is. I did my best to clean inside the lid too.

Now all you need to do is dry the nib off a bit with the tissue and pop it back in. You'll need to let it sit for a bit for the ink from inside the pen to flow back into the nib before using. I would have done a comparison patch with this colour but I need to re-ink it and don't have that re-inker - oops - shoulda picked a different one. Ah well - hopefully you get the idea and this helps someone...

Until next time {Think PINK}
xXx