Let's hear your fountain pen filling horror story ...

Who here has a horror story related to splashed or spilled ink? Or a badly leaking pen? ;-)

It was a dark and stormy...

Wait a minute. Not THAT dire!

Let's just says that, much as I love PR Black Cherry, it is not an ink to be idly toyed with, or filled on the fly. If I have an important meeting, I invariably show up looking as if I've stuck my hands into a grinder to get the old circulation perking (the stuff dries to the exact color of a well-ordered bruise). Worse, on one occasion, I ended up with a nice Gorbachev-ish blot on my forehead.

I'm investing in one of those little atomic plant isotope handing booths. You know: the ones with the handy robotic hands...

Noodler's Zhivago on my favourite white sweater

"Filling" a Sheaffer's Snorkel WITHOUT an ink sac...It was supposed to have been repaired! GRR! I normally do the pulling when it is out of the ink, and then push in the ink, then pull when it is IN the ink, and finally the last push. That way it fills almost all of the way. Very effective! However, when there is no ink sac, ink floods the barrel...and NO one likes that! Anyways!

~~K~~

I once tried to fill a Pelikan Level5 using an eyedropper instead of the usual ink bottle thing. I did this when I took the end cap off to clean the inside of the pen, then thought I may as well fill it with ink again and not bother with the special ink bottle.

I forgot that without the end cap on the pen, the ink inside the pen can flow freely out of the nib without creating a vacuum inside the pen, therefore flow freely it did.

Luckily I managed to clean up all the ink stains, it was on a desk and a few quick wipes with wet towels did the job. This happened only a few days after my mother told me that fountain pens can cause mess, and I confidently said I haven't experienced that yet.

My MontBlanc Love Letter's cap cracked & spilled over the entire box & over to the next ink box. I didn't even notice until I looked at my ink pile & was wondering why that box was all red. Not very messy, but a waste of a whole bottle.

I had a Parker converter leak, and I didn't notice until I'd dripped ink on my nice wooden coffee table. The ink? Noodler's. And it was a lot of ink that leaked!

My horror story last year:

My Sheaffer snorkel (green statesman) decided to wriggle free of its cap and the nib made a huge wet, purplish (Quink red + blue) spot on my white shirt. And of course I was oblivious until someone asked me if I was bleeding!!!

And I had a very very important meeting which the CEO of the bank was hosting. So I ran to my car to go home to change and discovered that there was a flat tire. While changing the tire I discovered that the spare was also flat. Time was running out so I managed to get a taxi to the local shops, bought a new shirt and made it back to the office just in time to go to the mens room to wash and change!!!

Moral of the story: If I wear a pen in my breast pocket, I now keep it to the left side, where the SEATBELT does not cause the cap to come loose!!!


regards

Farooq

I have two horror stories.

1) Several years ago....
New Carpet, Waterman's Florida Blue, New Fountain Pen user, New pair of light color slacks, box full of tax stuff on floor....

Got the pen filled just fine (forgot to cap the bottle), in my excitement to write on something with my new pen and ink I grabbed a pad and bumped and knocked over the bottle. Ink went all over the desk, pants, carpet and tax box.

Thank goodness it was Waterman Florida Blue and they hadn't come out with noodlers Legal Lapis yet or my wife would have ended my fountain pen obsession on the spot. The ink came off the desk and pants and carpet really well, the tax box still has ink stains down the side to remind me to NEVER AGAIN leave an open bottle of ink on my desk after filling a pen!

2) Parker Penman Saphire
After wasting a half a bottle of Flordia Blue and always being on the search for the perfect Blue, I heard about Parker Penman Saphire and had to have a bottle. Picked one up at the Dallas Pen show and stopped my search having found the most perfect color of blue. After I used up nearly every drop from that bottle I found out that this was a discontinued ink and no more was to be found anywhere at any price. In a panic I went on a desparate search world wide for more.

Finally on Zoss a fellow was cleaning out his excess pile of dozens of inks (at the time I had one half bottle of Waterman Florida Blue and the few drops of Penman Saphire) and he put up for consideration 3 bottles of the precious Penman Saphire !! I bit right away at the email and he told me I was first and did I want any other colors? DUH what other colors could one want! I said no but please hurry with the Penman as my pen was almost empty and the last drops were drying up in my only bottle!!!!!

Two days passed with no info and I couldn't wait so I emailed him back and he responded with the saddest tale I had ever heard! On the way to the post office with the precious fluids bound for Arkansas, he tripped and fell and landed on the box destroying the entire contents and leaving the most beautiful Saphire Blue stain on the sidewalk in front of the post office!

This incident though very sad did cause me to expand my ink colors and has set off an addiction almost as bad as my pen addition. I now have about 40 bottles of ink in nearly every blue imaginable and have even expanded to include browns and a bottle or two of reds and greens. What about the Saphire Blue you ask? I have managed to amass about a Dozen bottles and my Pelikan 400 is in my pocket every day filled with the precious fluid. My preciooooouuuuusssss.....

Funny you should ask this - just yesterday evening I was wiping round the rim of an open ink bottle when it skittered out of my grasp, tipped over and coated my left hand with ink. Fortunately it was on a kitchen work surface, and the ink was only Sheaffer Skrip Black, and so fairly easy to clean off.

So far I've been lucky about not having any leaky fountain pens. But my filling horror story took place during the refueling of a pen.

I do all of my ink filling in the bathroom. While I was filling a pen from a somewhat low bottle of Namiki ink, I slipped and the bottle tipped over. Ink ended up filling the off-white grout of the tiled counter top! Despite my attempts to wipe it up rapidly and soak the counter with water, the grout was stubbornly stained.

What I hadn't noticed was that a nice blob of ink had gone airborne and landed on my pants. Distracted with cleaning the grout, it took me a while to sense that my upper right thigh was feeling a little "moist."

Anyway, I've been much careful since but I'm going to buy a black plastic cutting board to use for future ink fillings--just in case I manage another loss of dexterity.

Where do most of you fill your fountain pens and what precautions do you take?

I have had a few pens come uncapped in the pocket at inopportune moments. However, my worst filling incident just happened a few minutes ago. I am at work, and I filled an Ajax oversize flat-top lever-filler (unusual, small Philly brand). I filled it with a purple mix of my own recipe that I have in one the Kcat plastic vials, which is set in a glass inkwell to keep it upright. It did stay upright while I was filling, but the lever snapped back with a very positive snap, the pen jerked and ink splashed a foot in every direction.

Fortunately, most of the papers on my desk were unimportant. I did get a big splot on the bottom of my daughter IEP paperwork, but it didn't cover anything important. My shirt, however, has a lovely pattern of splotches on the front, and my hands are a disaster. I think I will be running to the mall at lunch for a new shirt - in the meantime I rinsed out some of the color in the sink, and zipped up my jacket to cover the rest.

As Iraqi Indigo is one of the base colors in the ink, I have little hope for the shirt.

John

Hmm. I had a well known fountain pen personality mistakenly *empty* part of his Snap-fil on a pair of my white painters pants once. But I'll not name names. };->

pakmanpony, your seller's story about the box drop may have sounded good, but if a tumble onto the ground was enough to shatter those bottles, do you think the package had a snowball's chance in hades of making it through the postal service to you intact? Just a thought.

Why oh why did I read this thread so carefully...because misery loves company!

Ink snafu just yesterday...while sitting in bed revising (and revising and...). Picked up my 2-week old Bexley Simplicity filled with Waterman South Sea Blue...and suddenly my hands, the note papers, part of the comforter were all South Sea Blue...managed to miss the laptop, amazingly (and fortunately).

Seems the cartridge filler went on the blink...

How about...I filled a pen in front of one of my classes and ended up getting ink all over my hands. Fortunately, I keep a stack of those horrible paper towels on hand in case the kids need one. Paper towels to the rescue! I laughed off the ink spill because I try to teach them to let small things slide.

Noodler's Air Corp that recolored a nice burgundy dress shirt when a Parker Duofold unscrewed from the cap in the breast pocket. And just when I was feeling so smug about how easy and clean fountain pen use is these days. HA!

Ah, yes. The ever popular "Hi, there! Remember me?" reminder. I recently had a Haolilai dump about half its charge of green into into my formerly favorite blue shirt. Had to dispose of it (the shirt, not the pen, which is in therapy -- even the most hardcase pen can be redeemed with proper treatment) before my wife spotted the carnage. She's skeptical enough of fp's as it IS!

To address this psycho pen issue, I take them out and write with them every ten minutes or so. A busy pen is a happy pen.

I do know that my pens plotted to get me hooked (and to add reinforcements to my home's burgeoning pen family) by being Very Good in the ink-filling department for the first two or three months. My fingers were as clean as can be after each refill. Then, after I was indeed well and truly hooked, Things Changed and I had to buy a (large) bottle of Ink Nix!

My worst ink experience was with a dip pen and a bottle of Higgins Eternal last year. It was late. I was tired. Somehow I hit the full bottle just right (it was inserted in a sponge that was taped to the table, by the way -- too loosely, it turns out) and my cream-colored carpet suddenly ... wasn't.

BTW, Higgins Eternal certainly has lived up to its name.

I've got one.

I was taking an exam, and was concentrating on an essay with a limit of 6 supplied lines. All seemed well, but then my Frontier ran out of ink. I didn't have much time left, so I fumbled for my bottle of ink, and went through the business of filling the thing. Unfortunately, I didn't take the time to wipe the pen, or the bottle, down, so ink trickled down the sides of both, and onto my paper and my hands. I lost about half a line's worth of space because of that, and turned my fingers black for the rest of the day.

I've carried at least 2 pens to an exam since then.

Gabe

I'm typing with bluish/purple fingers as we speak, thanks to a Pelikan Level that I'm trying (with limited success) to fill. This freakin' thing is driving me nuts!