Sunday, December 18, 2011

Copic Marker Maintenance


Do your Copic markers look like this?  Ewwwww...

I thought I'd take a little time today to delve into maintaining our Copic makers.  

Have you ever been coloring and noticed a fleck of something on your image and wiped it away only to have a (usually red for me) nasty smudge on your work?  Can you see the wet and dried ink above the nibs and in the caps of my makers?  Those little bits of dried ink can fall off on what you're working on and create ugly smudges when you try to wipe them away. 

That's where maintenance comes in:


What you see here is a box of Copic marker refills, the refill needles, 91% Isopropyl Alcohol, Copic blending solution, used cotton balls, a couple of small containers to hold cleaning solutions and a taken apart Copic BG72 marker.  

I use the alcohol on cotton balls to clean my Copic marker barrels and caps.  I also have a clogged marker nib every once in awhile and I use the alcohol to soak the nib in to see if I can get it unclogged before I replace the nib.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.  The 91% alcohol is much cheaper than the Copic blending solution so I use it first and have had great success with it for cleaning.  


This picture is just a closer view of soaking a clogged marker nib.  It never truly came clean so I replaced it with a new one.  

I hope my blog post today was helpful to you, thanks for visiting my blog!

12 comments:

Cassie said...

Great info, Jan! Thanks :D

AllisonG said...

Very helpful post today, Jan. Thanks so much!

Cindy O said...

Thanks for the tips Jan! I also like to use clear gel hand sanitizer for cleanup (Purell or other brands). I keep a travel-size bottle in my crafts area. A little dab goes a long way.

Beth L. said...

Thank you for the tips. I never thought about having to clean them but I am new to using them.

Cora said...

Thanks Jan. I like to use q-tips to clean inside my lids. Maybe I will check all of my markers today and see what needs cleaned

Zingaro Skoolie said...

WOW!! I didn't know any of this. Thanks so much for posting.

Carol L said...

Thanks for these great tips! Who knew? And did you know that the price of Copics is going up AGAIN in January? Geesh! As much as I love them, as they wear out I may have to resort to my trusty tombows to color again!

Joan V said...

Thanks for the info.

Jane H said...

I have a rubbermaid container that I put about an inch of alcohol in and then toss my toss in the caps, put lid on container and shake well. then all you need to do is pull the caps out and dry them. Much easier than wiping each out individually. Hope that helps someone.

Unknown said...

Hi Jan! Thanks so much for the tips!

Donna Wiedeman said...

i just use alcohol wipes. (I'm a nurse so i have many)

@StampingTherapy said...

This post is STILL relevant! Thank you so much for providing knowledge that we can continue to use and share. I appreciate YOU so much! TFS!!