Experiences: Sustained Use Of A 444 Dip-Less

March 1, 2015

I am about to put a 444 Dip-Less set into use at work. I've done my fpn searching and it seems a few of us use these (or the 407s) regularly. As it took some time to clean it out, I have two use and care questions, one generic and one very precise.

1) Based on your experience, what advice for care and feeding of a 444 or 407 can you share?

2) I plan to use 50s era Skrip in it because (in part) the ink would have been designed with this as a use case and the biocide would be up to the task. For those with experience of vintage ink in these devices, did it work well?

Edited March 1, 2015 by PhilProf

March 2, 2015

I've just traded a two-year-in-place 444 out for a 407, so I'm exactly in the place to hold forth:

1.1) You'll want to run some water over the pen about every month, and beware of ink creep at the well-mouth getting onto the bit of the holder just ahead of the gripping zone.

1.2) Depending on your rate of use, you may want to tip in a little water every two months or so to make up for evaporation; if you're using it lots (mine is for red ink, and gets about four linear inches of use each day), you'll probably just heave in more ink.

1.3) As long as you keep the level below the indication ring, level doesn't matter much. The capillary action is very effective.

2) I used two modern inks, so my advice is less on point. I saw more stuff grow in modern Skrip than in Camel (an Indian brand with what I suspect is a very old-school formulation) or in Diamine. The only real problem with whatever was growing when there was growth was the smell, which was pretty unpleasant; the pen's function was unaffected. Sheaffer made their own desk-wells in the '50s, too, so vintage Skrip should be fine as long as it's still chemically active.

March 3, 2015

Thanks for your advice Ernst. I'll forge ahead with the vintage skrip and cross my fingers. Happy to read (in 1.3) about the capillary action's effectiveness. The rod/feed/holster looks ingenious; I'm a sucker for a good idea well-executed.