I was wondering how you ink the non eye-dropper pens from the eye dropper bottles. Piston and converter examples appreciated. I am thinking that we wind up with empty bottles and pour some in or you can immerse the converter or piston filler nib into the ed bottle. Not a mechanical genius, asking first.

I am also wondering if any members here have immersed any of their pens (filling from the bottle some will get on the barrel at times) the Noodler's Heart of Darkness, Nikita and Baystate Blue and has there been any staining.

thanks

Depends on the pen. For instance, Pelikan pens have a removable nib unit (at least my M800 does, but I believe all Sovereign line does). So I mostly remove the nib unit and fill it with an eyedropper, then put the nib unit back in. I always make sure my piston works well, even though I never use it. This works for me because it saves me from having to clean the pen and nib after dunking it in ink.

Thus far, I have gotten eye dropper bottles because they are big and hold a lot of ink. I have just been pouring ink from the larger bottles into smaller ones. I like to recycle Visconti and MontyB bottles. I just have to remember to lable them properly so I don't get my inks too confused. I have only actually used one of the eye droppers once to fill my Dani Densho.

I used a syringe to draw up enough ink and put it in small (tiny) plastic container that I used to draw ink from. Then I used the syringe to transfer the left overs back to the bottle.
Then washed the container.


No spills, nice neat, and next to no waste. (about 3 drops).

I just found out Sunday that the Pilot 78G has a removable squeeze converter. A friend at church was given one by a mutual friend who bought several from me. He told me he just removes the converter, fills it with Waterman blue with an eyedropper, and puts it back in. I never knew it was removable, because I prefer to dip the nib and fill from the bottle, and, if I get a c/c pen, I always do my best to get a converter.

Donnie

To follow Rapt's suggestion of a syringe, I use an insulin syringe. It has the thinnest and shortest needle I've seen, so it wastes the least ink, and rinses out clear with just one flush of water (other syringes may take multiple flushes).

But then, the needle is short, and you have to go deeper into the bottle to hit the ink in these tall ED bottles, right? At first I thought I couldn't use the syringe with the 4.5 oz bottles... but then I realized that you can suck some ink first into the glass eyedropper that's built in to the cap, and then suck the ink out of the nozzle with the syringe. Careful, don't spill when you tilt the eyedropper cap sideways to get the syringe in.

But filling a separate vial or bottle is probably the simplest way to do it!!

I fill my main pen from a Visconti Traveling Inkpot which is filled by eyedropper from the bottle. I need a few more of those inkpots.

I just use the vials that we send ink samples in: fill them with the enclosed eydropper, type out a label and tape it to the vial. There, you have a ready made mini bottle of ink.

I just filled my brand new Platinum Preppy highlighter with my new Noodler's Year of the Golden Pig. I didn't realize that the YotGP came with another Preppy with grease and o-ring added, so I ordered a regular Preppy highlighter, two replacement tips, and a convertor.

I wasn't sure how well immersing the tip of the Preppy would work, so I elected to fill the convertor straight from the eyedropper. I simply extended the piston of the convertor all the way, then placed the tip of the eyedropper in the convertor, and retracted the piston, which filled the convertor with ink.

Then I slowly slid the filled convertor into place, so as to let the fiber tip's capillary action draw the ink out of the convertor. That way, it wouldn't get squeezed out of the convertor and end up in the barrel.

It worked quite well, and I'm very happy with both products.

Yep, this is the way I do it when I'm not refilling cartridges. Those tall-ish, thin vials make it much easier to get a pen filled without having a whole lot of ink in the vial. I don't type up labels though, a little code scheme and a Sharpie marking on the white cap is good enough for me.