Jump to content

How Long Does Ink Last?


overlander

Recommended Posts

I am considering getting into the fountain pen hobby, and I am wondering how long bottled ink lasts. Specifically, to be used for primarily school notes and homework, with a fine or extra fine lamy nib (if that makes a difference). How many milliliters of ink do you guys usually go though with schoolwork? I realize that there are a lot of variables at play here, but a rough estimate would be very helpful to me. Thanks :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 32
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

  • KBeezie

    8

  • casualmerlinconstant

    4

  • Ink Stained Wretch

    2

  • amberleadavis

    2

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted Images

I write and sketch daily with my pens and I use about 1.5-2ml of ink per week. Ink lasts a long time. I have 7 ink bottles here and none is even halfway gone. I do use flex nibs though, so that uses a lot more ink. If you're going to be using XF/F nibs I'd be surprised if you used more than 1ml per week.

Edited by discopig
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I find that I can run on one fill of ink for the whole week (and often longer).
Admittedly, I'm using a TWSBI 580 EF and they do hold a lot...plus its an EF so less ink.
I'm really not sure how much it holds but I'd say about 2ml?

I haven't even gone through one bottle yet and I've been taking notes with FPs for about a year or so.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I concur with discopig and hungh r.e. the volume of ink used in writing. But also keep in mind that if you leave a pin inked up and don't use it for a while the ink can evaporate a bit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Depends on what size nib you have. I use Extra-Fines, and lived on one bottle of ink for a year and a half. Still not even half way through that bottle yet. (Admittedly its a 90 mL bottle, so at a rough guess I went through about 40mL in a year?). Basically if you buy one bottle of ink, you won't have to think about it in a very long time. (good luck resisting trying different colours though)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I used Pelikan EF nibs while at school and through the 4 years of about a-page-a-day note-taking I used ~100ml of black, ~60ml of turquoise and ~10ml of violet. One fill lasted a very long time for me.

Edited by fledermaus89
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm a neurotic med student and I use about ~1ml of ink a day. I primarily buy 80ml bottles of Diamine ink. Even burning through ink a bottle still lasts me forever.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nib size.. it do makes a difference, F or EF Nib pens last longer the M nib pens i use a M NIB Sheaffer (Targa and 300) beside a P45 with a F Nib the Parker last more than the Sheaffers like if the Sheaffer last a week the Parker last a week and a half or more a 60 ml bottle of ink might last a year or so i terms of my use.

Edited by h.farmawi

http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/5642/postcardde9.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I couldn't tell you an exact number (primarily because I have so many pens inked), but other than an eye-dropper (ie: a pen designed to be filled by the barrel without any cartridges or converters or pistons or such, mainly you fill it up with an eye dropper), most I've seen are usually around 0.5 to 1.1 millimeters (including the ink that may be held in the feed, if you used a converter to take up the ink).

 

My Montblanc 225 is a piston filler, and including the feed I measured it taking up roughly 1.3-1.4 millimeters of ink which is pretty huge in my opinion, and since the nib is somewhat of an 'extra fine' by western standards and is somewhat dry but not lacking flow, it lasts quite a bit (can probably get thur 25-30 pages of notes easily with it). Most of my converter filled ones are usually no more than 0.8-0.9ml, with my Sheaffer Snorkel Admiral being probably around 0.5 (my Touchdown Admiral [fat], probably does closer to 0.7).

 

Now if I did the same thing with a wet 1.5mm stub nib, that ink would be gone by the end of the week out of a converter.

 

PS: Some of the cheaper pens like the Jinhao (Chinese) pens will actually lose ink just sitting around if you don't use them much. Had a Baoer 507 (8 Horse Design), completely dry up in it's converter after about 2 or 3 weeks just not touching it. Which also means they're probably going to be hard to 'start up' when sitting still overnight. So it is possible for ink to evaporate in some pens depending on the design (something that won't likely happen as quickly in my montblanc or monteverde, nor does it seem to do so in my Snorkel which I rarely seem to use now days).

 

So with that in mind, considering that you may consume 1ml of ink filling up (and whatever you wipe away etc), in a 90ml bottle of noodler's ink (I use Noodler's black Eel in a $12 90ml bottle, which seems to be lasting me like forever), you figure you can probably get 80-85 fills of a pen, and if you're using an EF/F nib (if by Japanese size standards, may last even longer), probably won't need to refill until a week or two later if you're constantly writing. (though my Sheaffer Craftsman is a 'extra fine' line, it's also pretty wet, so that dried up pretty fast).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I find that I can run on one fill of ink for the whole week (and often longer).

Admittedly, I'm using a TWSBI 580 EF and they do hold a lot...plus its an EF so less ink.

I'm really not sure how much it holds but I'd say about 2ml?

 

I haven't even gone through one bottle yet and I've been taking notes with FPs for about a year or so.

 

Sounds about right, the 540 had a capacity of 1.5ml, and the 580 was 30% more (unless I'm thinking 530 -> 580), the VAC700 is supposed to hold even more.

 

Edit: Vac700 is 2.1ml, so the 580 around 1.7-8 maybe?

Using 1ml a day is very possible with a larger nib and if you write for hours.

Hence my curiosity of pen and nib size.
Edited by KBeezie
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can't figure the exact ink consumption down to the mL because I usually have several inks and don't write as much at work as one would at school - but I have a friend who uses only one type of ink and she hasn't finished a bottle of Private Reserve over the school year so far (this being exam week) - I think she is running a Lamy Al-Star fine and a Pilot Metro. Either way as a cost if you budget for 2 bottles of PR or a single of Noodler 90mL you will be under $15 and have ink to spare for summer school... the cost killer is inking up a bunch of pens and writing occasionally.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

:huh: Hardcore... What pen and nib size?

He takes copious notes about all the terrible things that can happen to the human body. Apparently there's a lot :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

He takes copious notes about all the terrible things that can happen to the human body. Apparently there's a lot :P

probably knows every way a fountain pen can be used to torture or kill a person. (Nakaya nibs under the nails...)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

probably knows every way a fountain pen can be used to torture or kill a person. (Nakaya nibs under the nails...)

what a waste of a fountain pen. especially a Nakaya :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I concur with the others. It depends on the size of the nib. Even so, one bottle of ink should last a long (long long) time. Many have bottles of ink years old.

Franklin-Christoph, Italix, and Pilot pens are the best!
Iroshizuku, Diamine, and Waterman inks are my favorites!

Apica, Rhodia, and Clairefontaine make great paper!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have a bottle of Swan ink that used to be my Nana's. She died back in 1999, but I think that company went out of business back in the 1960. The ink still writes beautifully.

 

So if you don't use all your ink in one year there is always the next year, and the next and the next. By that time you will be into full flex pens and will go through ink like you are drinking it.

Please call me Nathan. It is a pleasure to meet you.

http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/606/letterji9.pnghttp://img244.imageshack.us/img244/5642/postcardde9.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Basically, ink lasts for quite a while if you treat it right, e.g. not leaving the cap off or loose, not spilling much and not using a brush to slather it onto the page. There are people gleefullly using 70 year old ink.

 

For someone in primary school I think that one bottle of ink, probably a washable blue for that age range, will usually last at least a year.

 

I've been out of primary school for a little while, so I don't recall exactly what my ink usage rate was back then, but I'm sure that I used very little. That has probably not changed for the current primary schoolers.

 

On a sacred quest for the perfect blue ink mixture!

ink stained wretch filling inkwell

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Most Contributions

    1. amberleadavis
      amberleadavis
      43844
    2. PAKMAN
      PAKMAN
      33494
    3. Ghost Plane
      Ghost Plane
      28220
    4. inkstainedruth
      inkstainedruth
      26627
    5. jar
      jar
      26101
  • Upcoming Events

  • Blog Comments

    • Shanghai Knife Dude
      I have the Sailor Naginata and some fancy blade nibs coming after 2022 by a number of new workshop from China.  With all my respect, IMHO, they are all (bleep) in doing chinese characters.  Go use a bush, or at least a bush pen. 
    • A Smug Dill
      It is the reason why I'm so keen on the idea of a personal library — of pens, nibs, inks, paper products, etc. — and spent so much money, as well as time and effort, to “build” it for myself (because I can't simply remember everything, especially as I'm getting older fast) and my wife, so that we can “know”; and, instead of just disposing of what displeased us, or even just not good enough to be “given the time of day” against competition from >500 other pens and >500 other inks for our at
    • adamselene
      Agreed.  And I think it’s good to be aware of this early on and think about at the point of buying rather than rationalizing a purchase..
    • A Smug Dill
      Alas, one cannot know “good” without some idea of “bad” against which to contrast; and, as one of my former bosses (back when I was in my twenties) used to say, “on the scale of good to bad…”, it's a spectrum, not a dichotomy. Whereas subjectively acceptable (or tolerable) and unacceptable may well be a dichotomy to someone, and finding whether the threshold or cusp between them lies takes experiencing many degrees of less-than-ideal, especially if the decision is somehow influenced by factors o
    • adamselene
      I got my first real fountain pen on my 60th birthday and many hundreds of pens later I’ve often thought of what I should’ve known in the beginning. I have many pens, the majority of which have some objectionable feature. If they are too delicate, or can’t be posted, or they are too precious to face losing , still they are users, but only in very limited environments..  I have a big disliking for pens that have the cap jump into the air and fly off. I object to Pens that dry out, or leave blobs o
  • Chatbox

    You don't have permission to chat.
    Load More
  • Files






×
×
  • Create New...