Ive been very happy with the performance of my no40 kuretake, in fact its not an exaggeration to say its the best pen ive ever used. Ive been feeding it Carbon Ink & have refilled my Gold Cartridge about 3 or 4 times.
Well as you can imagine, its finally become gunked up & dried. I now know that it wants to be thoroughly cleaned before every refill.
I tried to clean it myself using odorless brush cleaner & warm water, but felt that i couldnt quite reach the real problem area; the base of the bristles. I saw a youtuber remove the tip cone revealing the base, but when i removed mine, it appeared different. My tip pulled out a thin felt rod that was seated in the ink well/barrel. It doesnt appear to be able to come apart any further, though the rod has some movement if pushed or pulled upon. I was too afraid to push or pull more than 1mm, if you are willing to risk ruining your pen for the sake of science please let me know if the felt pulls the bristles out or what actually happens. I imagine if they are somehow attached to the felt, you would then thread the felt back in through the tip like a needle, but then im unsure how you would continue to push it through without damaging the bristles too much. perhaps theres enough room for the felt to appear again on the opposite end without applying pressure, in order to pull on it again.
