The 146 is a classical piston filler: for filling, the piston at the rear end is completely unscrewed; the nib is fully immersed in the ink bottle and the piston then turned all the way in; finally two to three drops of ink are returned to the bottle. With regular use a cleaning is seldom necessary; after longer idle times or ink change, the writing instrument should be rinsed several times with cold or distilled water. Cleaning agents or polishes are to be avoided. An instruction manual is included with every Montblanc ink bottle; complementarily, animations on the Visconti website offer an illustration of the piston filling principle.