I'm new into the world of vintage fountain pens and ink. For years, my fountain pen was a Sheaffer No Nonsense and I used a syringe to fill the cartridge from a bottle. But now I am finding some of these pens have really big nibs and I'm wondering what do you do when you still have ink in the bottle but can't dip the nib in far enough to draw. The syringe won't work for these lever or vacuum fillers. Seems to me, flat bottomed bottles and pointed nibs aren't a good combo. Be better if bottles also had pointed bottoms. Anyway, aside from buying another bottle of the same ink (which I may not want to do), any suggestions on how to get the ink from the bottom of the bottle into my pens?

Chris

Decant into a small vial or a 35 mm film canister. You might also use a MB bottle as an inkwell, they are designed to allow you to maximize ink withdrawal.

Buy an old Skrip bottle with the built-in inkwell. Pendemonium frequently has them.

Other old bottles with built in inkwells include Parker Penman and Levenger inks.

You may be able to find small Nalgene bottles that will work.

The ink trade vials that you can get here from Dillo work well.

If you buy ink samples from James at Pear Tree Pens, keep the little bottles after you've used the sample. They work very well.

Lamy bottles also have a dip in the bottom, but I don't know if really big nibs will work well in them.

I'm pretty impressed with the ink sample vials, too. If you could mount a rubber/silicone stopper on the end of them you could really suck up every last drop!

Neill

Visconti ink also comes in intriguingly-shaped glass bottles designed to maximize the amount of ink you can get out of them. You can buy refills in plain old plastic, too, so it isn't always hideously expensive.

Thank you all very much for the suggestions! Another member sent me a pm with this link: http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/in...showtopic=70184 -- apparently this discussion occurred before! Got some good suggestions there too.

Thanks again!

Chris

The ultimate "get the last drop out" weapon is a Sheaffer Snorkel.

Peter

Either that or a syringe with a blunt needle, like James of Pear Tree Pens sells as his Write Fill kit. I just got one of those today, and it was deucedly effective.

Thanks Peter! I just got a snorkel and that was also suggested in the other thread. I think the snork will take care of my problem.

As for a syringe, I have one of those too (sister got it years ago for me from a vet, has a horse needle). I use it to fill cartridges. Can't see how it will work for lever or vacuum fillers, but I could use it to fill up my old cartridge Sheaffer No Nonsense.

Thanks for the tips!

Chris

I found that a Parker "51" is a good close second to a Snorkel for getting the last ink out of a bottle-- you only need enough fluid to cover the 'intake' at the front of the hood.

Have a dump bottle...........

I end up with interesting and unique inks.........