I don't know if this has been done before, but I thought it'd be fun to read stories of ink spill disasters.

The other day I was washing out a newly acquired vintage pen, and splashed who-knows-what ink on my wife's new shower curtains. I quickly (and stealthily) got a paper towel and some bleach - fortunately they're white - and managed to clean it up alright. She hasn't noticed so far... I know she's looking for reasons to complain of my growing FP & ink collections.

I guess I escaped this time -- how have you fared?

1. Dropped a bottle of ink onto carpet. Carpet was dark brown, ink was black. I hid the stain for about...I don't know HOW MANY years...until we got our carpet removed and had the floorboards polished and whatnot.

2. Sprayed ink onto the blinds in my room. I was careless with a syringe when filling up cartridges.

3. Tipped ink all over the kitchen-table (Whoopsy-doodle!)

4. Got ink all down my left hand (Was holding dip-pen upside down while talking on the phone. Dribble-dribble-dribble)

5. Got ink on my tan trousers while on the tram once. This was before the days of pen-cases. I kept my pens loose in my satchel bag and when I took out one of them (Duofold) and uncapped it...blub-blub-blub! Ink splattered out onto my lap. I now uncap pens with the nib down, so as to catch any ink - just in case.

6. Ink-explosion. Transferring ink from big bottle to smaller bottle for easier transportation & storage. The syringe-plunger exploded in my face and got ink everywhere...

You're a busy man, Shangas

Clumsy, too!

How did you hid it?

I get a little ink on my fingers, sometimes, when I'm tweaking nibs or dipping in the wrong kind of inkwell. No disasters yet, though (cross fingers, toes, . . . cross everything). Thanks, folks, for letting me know what I have to look forward to.

Paddler

I always get ink on my fingers when I fill a pen but I have yet to have a disaster with a bottle of ink.

I found a small rug which just covered the ink-stain. And this was a big stain! 2/3 of a perhaps...30-50ml bottle? I was panicking like hell because at the time (about 10 years old), I'd finally convinced or persuaded dad that I was "old enough" to keep pens and ink safely in my room without mishap. When I dropped the bottle and...wow...I totally freaked out.

No true spills for me yet, apart from a little dribble when I took the lid off Waterman Florida Blue. Drip drip. Thankfully I was right next to a sink so a splash of water and a wipe got rid of it from the light surface.

1) Dropped bottle of PR Plum in University Art.
2) Dropped bottle of Esenin on bathroom counter at home, spilling 1/2 the bottle. Spouse asks if I could please do that on MY side of the sink next time. (Still shows up under black light -- we've got a tile counter, and the grout still has bits of Esenin that you can't see under normal light).

Oh, several spills on carpets, desks, clothing, and floors. My favorite was when my little ferret female, Hillary, "helped" me by knocking over a bottle of ink one night. Stained the apartment rug, my desk, and darkened her paws for two weeks. Fortunately, she didn't get sick or anything.

Randal

Luckily, I've never tipped over an ink bottle. Boy have I had some syringe troubles though... Twice, while I was pulling the piston up, the rubber gasket came loose off the plastic. That sent ink flying everywhere...twice. Second time the gasket went down the sink That was my que to buy the Write Fill kit. Haven't had any disasters yet

I have not had any ink disasters, but my dad told me something he did on purpose when he was in school. There were ink wells in the desks, and he and his class were using dip pens. My dad put an Alka Seltzer into the ink well! Suffice to say, Sister was not happy!

So that's why the nuns were so happy when Sheaffer marketed the cartridge school pen!

Paddler

Most recently I was inking some certificates and had let the pen sit uncapped too long. I decided to get it going again by turning the piston a little. At first nothing was happening then the cat came in and distracted me and suddenly I had this big dribble of ink down four of my fingers. It was Noodlers Eternal Black of course. Fortunately quick action and lava soap kept me from having a week long funky tattoo all across my hand!

But worst of all when I was a pen newbie I was filling a pen and forgot to cap my only bottle of ink (Waterman Florida Blue). I started trying to clear a space to test drive the just filled pen and I tipped the bottle over toward myself! I didn't really know I could move that fast! Barely got any on my khaki pants and fortunately I had a plastic carpet protector under my chair so only splatter got on the carpet not the main run off. After I got over the fear for my life I was really mad at myself for loosing 1/2 my ink supply in under 2 seconds!!

I think my fingers are STILL blue from Baystate Blue, even though I stopped using it a couple months ago. . .

I have ink disasters all the time!

1) I have a bad habit: while writing out college work or something, if I'm bored I tend to hold the pen top in my left hand and fiddle with it while I'm writing. There is often ink inside it and it ends up all on my hand.

Earlier this year I was round at a friend's house and we were both writing up coursework. I left the room for ten minutes or so to make a drink, while I was out my friend emptied some ink into my pentop - just enough so that I ended up with a very blue left hand for a week!

To be honest though the pair of us had inky hands already so it wasn't a huge problem. We're always comparing fingers to see who's the worst after a day at college.

2) When I was about 12 or 13, (I'm 17 now), the nib off my pen dropped off into the ink bottle while I was filling the pen at home, and sank to the bottom. My dad made me stick my finger into the almost-full bottle to retrieve it. And even then, I initially put my index finger in but it wouldn't quite reach, so I then had to put my middle finger in as well. My dad thought it was hilarious and I was walking round with two completely blue fingers for almost a week. The only good bit I suppose was that it covered up all the messy smaller ink stains that I already had on those two fingers. My teachers did wonder what I'd been doing though.

A few weeks ago, after I'd picked up a couple of hundred of a (rather cool, I think) dead stock Chinese pen, I inked one up with HERO "washable blue" and took it for a spin. The next morning I discovered that I'd gone to sleep on top of it and my (brand new, custom made) white bottom sheet had a blue spot about as big as my hand. I yanked the sheet off the bed, threw it in the shower, and poured pure bleach onto the spot....... which immidiately turned brown.
I don't know about all of you, but I'd much rather have a blue spot on my sheets than a brown one!

Good stories!

My only one was shortly after I had just started using FPs. I had an M200 filled with Florida Blue (thankfully before I had discovered Noodlers waterproof inks). I clipped it in between the buttons on my golf shirt while at seminary. In between a couple of classes I was doing some studying and went to make a note. I grabbed the pen and came up with only the cap! I frantically began searching for the rest of the pen, but couldn't find it anywhere. Then something blue happened to catch my eye . . . a big blue spot about 6 inches in diameter on my white golf shirt. I felt around and found the barrel, which had come unscrewed and fallen inside my shirt. The entire contents of a completely full M200 went into the shirt . . . and on my stomach.

Lessons learned:
1. Being neat and tucking in my shirt tail may save me from losing a pen.
2. Be grateful for long breaks in between classes so you can run and buy a new shirt if you have an ink incident.
3. Waterman Florida Blue does wash out . . . of shirts and off stomachs, fairly easily.
4. While avoiding really cranking down on a cap is bad, it IS very important to ensure that you tighten it securely (they're actually a lot more durable that we think).

I used to work with dyes in the QC lab at a chemical company (Coomassie Blue, Crystal Violet, etc). We used Reduran hand cleaner. It worked great in removing the stains from concentrated dyes. I highly recommend it.

At the end of a meeting, I was absentmindedly chatting with my co-workers and just casually put my pen, uncapped and point down, into my shirt pocket, making a nice spreading stain to which someone finally called my attention by shouting, "your pen!" (for the record, Monteverde Regatta in black and white, loaded with plenty of Waterman Florida Blue). Fortunately it was the end of the day and I could get home without too much humiliation, but I'm sure it cemented my reputation as an eccentric who uses "those old-fashioned leaky pens". It didn't leak, it did exactly what it should do in that circumstance--write all over the inside of my pocket!

After a few days of scrubbing with Amodex and soaking in water and vinegar solution, the shirt was fine and I've worn it to work again.

#2 is my favorite! I use the syringe in the kitchen sink. So far, no disasters there.

This was a disaster averted. I was working on payroll... actually, I was obviously multi-tasking, but I managed to move the stack of papers out of the way mostly in time:

Wow! It looks like you spilled about 1/3 of a bottle. Is your desk still brown?

Harry's Inky Commandments:

1) Thou shalt check the soundness of the lid ere shaking an ink bottle vigorously or thou shalt suffer a terrible shame for the unholiness unleashed upon thine skin, walls, carpets, curtains, blinds, bedcovers and sundry items.

2) Thou shalt ensure the cleanliness of thine hands ere resting thine head upon them (when thou shouldst hear the sayings of the wise man at the lectern) or thou shalt carry the mark of thine hand upon thy cheek in shame.

3) Thou shalt not doubt my word when I tell thee that the ink escapeth from thine fountain pen if thou flicketh the pen with vigour, or thou shalt suffer the shame of restoring the cleanliness of the robes of thine erstwhile colleagues.

4) Thou shalt not put ink on thy skin ere unleashing a needle of thy mother upon it or thou shalt carry the unholy mark of thy shame for all of eternity.

5) Thou shalt not let thine fountain pen remain in the presence of the innocent canine or thou shalt suffer a terrible shame for the unholiness unleashed upon thine walls, carpets, curtains, blinds and sundry items.


I'm still working on the other 5 commandments

Inky fingers, stained shirts, flicked a few ink drops, etc. But now I try to be more careful and use a small tray with a raised lip as a refill station, just to prevent the sort of mishaps evidenced in the preceding posts.

I have yet to have a dog-related problem with ink, but the thought of coming home to a blue-splashed dog (and carpet, and walls, and...) does give me pause. it would be funny for the few minutes it took me to total up the damage to the rest of the house.

Living in a farm as a child, I got a hold of my uncle's blue ink bottle and proceeded to "paint" a small white goat. Never seen my uncle laugh so hard telling and retelling the story.

Keep ink away from two & four year old kids! (as though that needs to be said.) I avoided a near disaster when I found my two & four year old happily playing with several new bottles (full to the top) of ink...including bullet proof black. The four year old was just getting ready to unscrew the top when I saved my precious ink, and the floor, and cloths, furnature, &c., &c.

I once made the mistake of taking a Pelikan M150 and a Stypen Up to work. Both have turning knobs on the barrel end, the Pelikan because it is a piston-filler and the Stypen because it has a retractable nib. I leave you to imagine what happened to my khakis when I grabbed the Pelikan instead of the Stypen and extended the nib. . . .
At least it wasn't Noodler's bulletproof in the pen.

Murdoch

Note to self: no piston fillers in the case with the retractables.

Okay, okay...I think the blue goat wins the prize!

I was in one of my classes (a Math class to be precise), and was using one of my pens to write down notes. Suddenly, I found my notebook splattered with ink. Turned out my pen deposited all its ink on my notebook. And I was sitting next to my crush. Oh, the shame!

Reminds me of college days, in the 70's. My "friend" and I had finished with homework for the evening and had moved on to, er, more recreational activities. Imagine the romantic potential of inky blue handprints all over each other! Mmm! And the explanations to classmates the next day...

Veering a bit closer to present day reality, another friend-of-a-friend has a papermaking business, with barrels of blue indigo, normally sealed tightly to avoid oxidation. She also has a white Persian cat, who comes into the studio regularly. OK so far? Well, one day, she's dyeing paper with the indigo, has the barrel top off, and Fluffy comes in to investigate. She hears a jump, a shriek and a wet plop! behind her. Turning around, she finds Fluffy swimming around in the indigo, its nose barely out of the vat. For weeks afterwards it was the bright blue cat with a white snout.

I was looking at my inks and dropped a sample bottle or Caran d'ache Storm, which for some mysterious reason cracked when it hit the off white CARPET spraying ink all over . I got most of it up with hydrogen peroxide and carpet cleaner and my wife gave me a dirty look when she found the remains of the spill but helped me get the rest up with the carpet shampooer. Did i mention we're trying to sell our condo?

I'm just glad it wasn't a bullet proof ink

The blue cat and the blue goat are the best so far!

And from lifting out the cat, what about her hands and fingers?
Or, was she already wearing gloves for the work she was doing?

And where was kitty put to dry out so the ink didn't get all over the house when kitty walked around?

Having read through this thread, I think my own experience is unique enough to share. Luckily (and I'm crossing my fingers here, hoping this doesn't tempt fate) I've only had a couple spill incidents so far.

First was trying to fit a long international cartridge into a Reform demonstrator. From a test-fit, it looked like it would work, but as I screwed the section down, it became obvious that the cartridge was just a little too long for comfort. Of course, the cartridge had been pierced by this point, and it was firmly wedged into place.
After a few attempts with fine tweezers failed to dislodge the cartridge, I had the brilliant idea of poking one tine of the tweezers in at an angle and prying the cartridge out. I didn't think ahead to possible results, though, and also failed to move to a non-carpeted area. The cartridge dislodged with some pressure, and proceeded to fly several feet into some tan curtains, leaving droplets as it went. Picture a crime scene, with Pelikan royal blue in place of blood, and you'll have a pretty good picture of what happened, and the feelings I had.
Luckily, some carpet cleaner took the stains right out, and in 15 minutes or so, no signs remained. The worst part was that I cracked a piece from the pen barrel, though a bit of epoxy fit it back. Lesson learned, though - always test-fit with an empty cartridge.

My second incident is more pedestrian, but it involved some P.R. Fiesta Red ink and light brown carpeting. The carpet cleaner took most of the stain out, but a but remains to this day. Luckily, the carpet is old, so the damage done is minimal, and mostly to my reputation...

Best,
Jon

Picture the scene, a devoted father spliting work/office to time with home working to allow more time to raise his three rather "active" read monster sons at the time 10, 7 and 5 years. Father is draftsman/engineer designer by trade, set up a wonderful dark room/ drafting office at home with strict instructions and practical demonstrations "never ever touch...." I think you get the drift.
Father took delivery of a complete array of Rotring pens, Rapido mat seems to ring a bell, plus large bulk depensers of inks. I seem to recall them being .75 litre - therefore significant volume. Well- oldest son persuades middle son to enter the sanctum and let loose the family red setter......not so bad but not good either......oldest climbs up and obtains vast oceans of inks !!!! Red setters don't like being sprayed with ink, middle son thinks it is hilarious to see dog floundering around in pools of viscous drafting inks and proceeds to add more and more ink and to encourage the dog to chase wildly around room. The result is was nothing short of Jackson Pollack. Not good....... .

If memory serves Dad spent two months or so cleaning the office. I'm sure Murphy never got over the shock of his ink shower. I still remember the endless baths and showers to try and clean us up. I'm sure the black, blue and red inks would have left us deeply stained...
I am astounded my dad did not loose his mind raising us. He retired on the 7th july 2008, thanks dad for everything. You are an amazing father, I miss you every day(he is at home in the U.K ,I 'm in the U.S.A) .

Stubnut.

Right into the sink, rinsed multiple times, then left to drip for awhile to think on its misery...

Oh boy! I can just picture that. Cats hate baths!

I can definitely see myself doing this...

This isn't too dramatic, but on Saturday I was putting the converter in my Waterman Phileas, so I discarded what I thought was an empty cartridge by throwing it in to the bathroom trash can. Unfortunately, two things did not go to plan. First, the cartridge still was about half full and, second, the cartridge hit the edge of the trash can, causing it to bounce and spin wildly, thereby spraying ink on the wall. Luckily it was Waterman Black, so some Comet with Bleach cleaned it up pretty quickly (AKA it was gone before anyone else saw what I did ).

A couple of weeks ago I got my Pilot Custom 823 clear from Ujuku and I also saw a Visconti traveling inkpot on the sale board. Well I heard that a traveling inkpot is the best way to ensure that the pen is completely full so I jumped at it. Well I didn't want to ink my most expensive pen to date with any old ink so I ordered some Iroshizuku fuyu-syogun from Ujuku.

Well the ink arrived today so I came home from work and (with incredible foresight) took my shirt off as it's a bit warm. I filled the inkpot to the line, pulled the plunger out of the 823 and put the pen into the pot. I turned the whole thing upside down and marveled at the lack of leak with this contraption. I pushed the plunger in, the inkpot shot off the top of the pen and coated my hands, ample paunch and bedroom carpet in gray.

No one told me that you're supposed to keep hold of the inkpot AND the pen... or maybe they did and I just didn't read the instructions...

It was a long, long time ago, when I was still in primary school. In those days, a little more than half a century ago, we still carried our ink bottle to school and back home almost every day. By then, I was in grade five (or six). I already had graduated from dip pens to a fountain pen.

On that fateful day, the snow plow had gone down the streets just before the end of the school day, depositing a fresh layer of snow on the snow banks, that kept growing as we were well into a Quebec City winter. I remember it was already dark outside. On our way back home, my brother and I could not resist the urge to slide down this alluring little mountain. We only noticed the disaster when we arrived home. By then, there was nothing to be done. The Waterman blue-black ink had somehow leaked out of the bottle, and had lined the interior of the school bag. The schoolbook edges had soaked the ink, as had the notebooks. My brother and I had a hard time explaining how we had to slide down these little mountains of snow, as we were not allowed onto these snowbanks in the first place.

We were not allowed to join our friends outside after school for a few days, to play hockey or other winter activities our imaginations invented all the time. I had to suffer the humiliation of carrying my ink-tainted schoolbag, a testimony to my bad behaviour, for the rest of the year. I still had to do my homework that night. I'm sure I was scolded for being a bad influence on my brother, who got off more lightly than I did, since I was the one to blame, being the older of the two.

Fernan

Based on the story you told, he may well be thankful he has an ocean between you and him!

I have a Visconti traveling inkpot as well, and am just waiting for the day that I'm at the office, decide to refill a pen, and have the seal not quite seal completely as I turn it upside down...I have taken it through airport security dozens of times, without ever once removing it from my bag and putting it in a Ziploc (I am sure that would engender more questions anyway). I have my explanation ready for the TSA: "It's ink--not anything dangerous, but if you try to open it here and now, you're going to make a hell of a mess."

I only have two minor incidents.

The first was when I was filling up a pen with Baystate Blue in my new apartment. I forgot that BSB stains ceramics and turned my sink blue. Luckily, you can't tell anymore unless you look really close.

The second involved a Platinum Preppy filled with with Noodler's Nikita. I was taking calculus notes, as I love to do, in bright red ink when I noticed my hand was red. I looked at the barrel of the pen and there was a small drop of ink on it. I wiped it off, kept writing, and noticed my hand was getting covered in ink. More drops on the barrel. I wiped it off, started looking at it, and the pen barrel had cracked in three places, emitting tiny droplets of red ink. I had screwed the barrel on too tightly after filling it and caused tiny cracks. Oh well, it was a free pen and I didn't ruin my notes.

I love this... It's an ink rocket!

I have never had an accident that was "my fault", but they never are, are they?

I received a 32oz bottle of red Quink in the mail. These have large bodies, but narrow necks and a small nozzle that you unscrew to pour the ink. Well, this ink had somehow become pressurized in transit and when I opened it up, ink sprayed everywhere within about a 3-foot radius. It wasn't a fountain or anything, but more of a mist with splatters in the immediate vicinity. Luckily, it was in my pen work area, so a few stains were no big deal. Nothing was permanently damaged, but I sure learned my lesson about opening ink for the first time after shipping!

I'm really hoping the indigo vat was not one of the fermented urine types of vats....eeeew!