Evaporated Ink Cartridges --Can I Use?

[ppdiaporama]

Today my wife found a bunch of old Sheaffer ink cartridges from her caligraphy pen from the late 80s or early 90s.

 

All are half-evaporated.

 

Can I use them? Should I dilute?

 

Just want to be sure before I start playing around

 

Thanks ... Pat

[usk15]

I'm usually fill them with distilled water, give them a good shake.

[dcwaites]

There were a number of us who bought job lots of Parker Penman Sapphire cartridges from eBay vendor Pokydady a few years ago.

When I got mine, they had lost about 30% of the volume of water. I reconstituted mine up to 100%, and compared the result with an untouched bottle of the original. They were, as far as I could tell, the same.

 

Just use distilled water and you should be fine.

[graystranger]

usk15 is right. You can put the cartridge in your pen to puncture it, remove it and fill with good water (distilled or good quality tap water) and you will re-constitute the original ink. Only water has evaporated from the cartridge. The plastic is porous, though it takes a few years to lose much of the water. You will probably need an ink syringe to do this easily. The opening is quite small.

 

The concentrated ink may write OK, but it will take much longer to dry on non-absorbent papers like Clairefontaine, Rhodia, Tomoe River, etc. due to its higher than normal saturation. The ink will also dry in the nib quicker and you may see intermittent ink flow and start problems.

[ppdiaporama]

Thanks for the quick replies ... I'll add distilled water to my grocery list!

[bob_hayden]

I have LOTS of these old Sheaffer USA ink cartridges and I use them all the time without trying to dilute them. You might want to clean your pens more often if you do this, though. Mine get cleaned very regularly, whatever ink I use. I do not see much color change. I have been using these inks for for 50+ years and know then well. I'll bet that at 50% evaporation they still carry less of a dye load than many inks made today;-)

[Sasha Royale]

Yup. Plastic is water-proof. That means liquid water, rather than vapor. That is the reason my unopened jug of distilled water is half empty. Don't squeeze the cartridge. It will crack. Install the cartridge, then remove. Fill to 75% with clean water, mixing well. A syringe works well.

 

When empty, cartridges can be refilled with ink (syringe), and re-used. You will know when to discard, when the seal is loose.

 

Write with joy.

[bob_hayden]

Actually, cartridges that crack when you squeeze them seem to be a recent invention;-) I have never had this problem with the old Sheaffer cartridges, and the Parkers have walls so thick it is hard to squeeze them enough to do much damage. But cheap international cartridges? Watch out

[Bo Bo Olson]

Some old cartridges have a line not quite all the way at top. I use that when I put water in to fill it up as a place to stop.

 

I lucked out with some '80s-90's Pelikan cartridges back when they made many, many colors.

One of the things I think the new owner who saved the company stopped doing as soon as he no longer had to worry about Geha cartridges that use to fit Pelikan...Pelikan never fit Geha.

 

 

Parker Penman Sapphire, the re-filled the same....Still got a couple left some great poster gave me. I now have or soon will have papers that will be good enough. Got to look up what is the now substitute. They were still debating that the last time I thought of inking a pen with it. It would make me feel better in using them, if I knew there was something that replaces it.

 

And I'd once had Sheaffer cartridges for an old Calligraphy set, that needed water added.

 

As far as I can tell the water evaporated, not the ink.

[Pensei]

I had the good fortune to find in the basement two Parker Penman Sapphire cartridges in the original box from a pen I had just taken out of the box and started using more than 30 years ago. I had forgotten I had the box, much less that it contained the now Unicorn-status cartridges. It would be wonderful if someone could post a picture of a Parker cartridge at the "factory setting" of fullness, or a precise description of where the line is. If no one finds that convenient, I'll just use the 75% suggestion made by Sasha Royale.

[LizB]

Resurrecting an old thread, rather appropriately about resurrecting old ink cartridges. Sheaffer ones again, I've had these for ages but never really looked at them, but noticed today that they are inks that are no longer available readily, so of course I shall have to resurrect them. I have added tap water to the first one, but shall maybe try and find distilled water if I plan to use the rest.

 

 

I have Burgundy, Lavender, Peacock Blue, Emerald Green and Grey.

Edited June 21, 2017 by LizB

[bob_hayden]

Ooo...I love ALL those colors! You are lucky to have them. (I have some stashed away too;-)