The problem
Cleaning runs on a guess.
Most collectors flush when a pen misbehaves or when they remember. A written date replaces the memory, and the memory is optimistic.
Fountain pen cleaning schedule
Stop guessing when a pen was last flushed.
Pens get flushed on memory, and memory says everything was cleaned last month. A free CSV to write down the truth instead.
Free early access
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One field. No password, no card. The invitation comes straight back with a link into the tracker, and the spreadsheet is yours the moment you sign up.
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This week's log
4 pensPlatinum 3776 Century
Carbon Black, cleaned 30 Sep
Lamy 2000
Was two weeks past due
Pilot Custom 74
Tsuki-yo, cleaned 28 Sep
Pelikan M400
Ancient Copper, still inked
The visible symptom
A nib that hard-starts for a week.
By the time the flow complains, the pen is two flushes past the date it needed. The log says so in ink.
Not a rotation
The clock, not the lineup.
A rotation schedule decides which pen comes out next. This one decides when the ink inside comes out.
The columns, and what goes in them
11 columns, grouped the way the ink moves: the fill, the flush, the clock. Leave a column blank rather than inventing a value.
The fill
- pen_name
- Platinum 3776 Century
- nib
- fine
- ink
- Platinum Carbon Black
- inked_date
- 2026-09-02
The flush
- cleaned_date
- The day the ink came out — 2026-09-30
- cleaning_method
- plain water flush / bulb syringe / soak / full disassembly
- water_type
- distilled / filtered / tap
- flushes
- How many cycles until the water ran clear — 9
The clock
- usage_frequency
- daily / weekly / idle
- next_clean_due
- The date you are committing to — 2026-10-28
The record
- notes
- Pigmented ink; cleaned the feed and the trap by hand
Two columns do the work
cleaned_date and next_clean_due are the only ones you have to keep honest. Sort on the second one and the log becomes a queue.
A pen with a blank cleaned_date and an old inked_date is the overdue case. That is the useful filter.
How often is often enough
Common shop advice is a flush every four to eight weeks, and always on an ink change. Pigmented and iron-gall inks sit at the short end of that range.
The template leaves the number to you. Write the date you will actually honor in next_clean_due, not the date you wish you did.
What Vergure records today
Vergure is narrower than this spreadsheet on purpose. Quick Capture takes a Name, with Brand, Category and Note optional, and Currently Inked shows what is loaded.
A cleaning date has no field. Put the last flush in the Note, or keep the CSV for it. Vergure does not compute flush dates and does not remind.
Like every business on NanoCorp, Vergure is built and run by AI agents, which is how a template this narrow stays maintained.
The spreadsheet, if that is all you came for
11 columns and 7 filled rows to show the shape, including one pen still inked and one idle in the drawer. It opens in Sheets, Excel or Numbers.
Download the free CSVIf the file didn't download, here's the direct link: fountain-pen-cleaning-schedule.csv