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Safely Decanting Those Pilot 350 Ml Bottles


Ink Stained Wretch

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So I have a couple of those Pilot 350 mL ink bottles. I looked at one last night and saw how it opens. There's a plastic piece that you have to grab hold of and use to pull out the piece of plastic that's really keeping the ink in the bottle. After that you're relying on the other seal, which snaps down, to really work. Not entirely sure I like that arrangement.

 

Anyway, my question is: how do you safely decant one of those 350 mL bottles? I would be trying to decant the ink into a 10 mL bottle from which I'd take the ink for further use. But looking at the large opening that would result from my pulling that blocking piece of plastic out I have to wonder how I can do this.

 

I suppose that I could try getting a syringe down into the bottle and getting some ink out that way, but that will only get a bit of ink out before the syringe and needle can't reach the ink anymore.

 

I am concerned that I would just spill the ink all over the place if I tried to decant it into a small bottle that doesn't have an enormous mouth.

 

Anyone have experience with these 350 mL Pilot ink bottles?

On a sacred quest for the perfect blue ink mixture!

ink stained wretch filling inkwell

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I just got a bottle and have the same question/ concern.

It seems like there must be something that could be pushed into the bottle that forms a sharp pour spout. Surely this already exists for other kinds of bottles (booze, science, other?) hmmm...

Hopefully someone else already knows this solution.

greg

 

ETA: maybe like this? http://www.lightinthebox.com/stainless-steel-bottle-spouts-spirit-pourer_p1226863.html

Edited by gregamckinney

Don't feel bad. I'm old; I'm meh about most things.

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Shop for 3ml transfer pipettes. They're cheap, plastic, about 6 inches long. Not sure how deep the 350ml bottle is but that will surely get you pretty far before you have to figure out another solution.

 

Edit: I see you can get other sizes too, 7ml would be even better for you.

Edited by majolo
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What about a Turkey Baster... :lol:

 

*picture snip*

Mayybe, but aren't those things usually pretty fat?

 

How about getting a smaller size (Ø ~40-50mm) glass funnel from Amazon or EvilBay?

You do not have a right to post. You do not have a right to a lawyer. Do you understands these rights you do not have?

 

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Pelikan: m600 (BB); Rotring ArtPen (1,9mm); Rotring Rive; Cult Pens Mini (the original silver version), Waterman Carene (ultramarine F)

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Didn't think about a funnel! Still worried about "glugging" (technical term) though. Pour too slow and ink runs back on the underside of the parent bottle. Pour too fast, and glug+splash.

This is why I was thinking about a way to modify the mouth of the Pilot bottle.

However a pipette with a long 'nose' or whatever the skinny part is called would be excellent.

 

greg

Don't feel bad. I'm old; I'm meh about most things.

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I'd do it like this (I know, I know, to each his own and all that)... just take a big 100-250-500 ml glass or PVC or PP beaker or a kitchen measuring jug like this:

emsa-masskanne-superline-049618.jpg

 

and then pour all you need into it and then ditto into the new bottle of your choice. Works all the time and never spashs (if you're careful enough).

 

Mike

Life is too short to drink bad wine (Goethe)

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Didn't think about a funnel! Still worried about "glugging" (technical term) though. Pour too slow and ink runs back on the underside of the parent bottle. Pour too fast, and glug+splash.

This is why I was thinking about a way to modify the mouth of the Pilot bottle.

However a pipette with a long 'nose' or whatever the skinny part is called would be excellent.

 

greg

Hmmh. Yea, that could be possible.

 

My beef with those "usual" bottle nozzles is that in my very limited experience they never fit in a bottle. Bacardi Oakheart has too wide neck. Matusalem 12 too narrow. And so on. I don't know if foil discs like these would work better.

 

This is why people store gasoline / acetone / really-lethal-stuff in Coke / Pepsi bottles and someone ends in hospital or nearest cemetery.

You do not have a right to post. You do not have a right to a lawyer. Do you understands these rights you do not have?

 

Kaweco Supra (titanium B), Al-Sport (steel BB).

Parker: Sonnet (dimonite); Frontier GT; 51 (gray); Vacumatic (amber).

Pelikan: m600 (BB); Rotring ArtPen (1,9mm); Rotring Rive; Cult Pens Mini (the original silver version), Waterman Carene (ultramarine F)

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Go to Ace Hardware and get a 12" piece of small flexible plastic tubing. This can then go onto the front of some ink syringes, so you can reach down to the bottom of the bottle.

 

Otherwise I would just use a pipette, until the pipette could not get down far enough.

Then pour the ink into a regular/smaller ink bottle, and use the pipette or ink syringe from the small ink bottle.

Edited by ac12

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I'd do it like this (I know, I know, to each his own and all that)... just take a big 100-250-500 ml glass or PVC or PP beaker or a kitchen measuring jug like this:

emsa-masskanne-superline-049618.jpg

 

and then pour all you need into it and then ditto into the new bottle of your choice. Works all the time and never spashs (if you're careful enough).

 

Mike

 

That was my first thought too, and then I wondered what I must have missed. Heck, you coud syringe out of a jug into the smaller bottle if you wanted. It is just ink right? Not radioactive material?

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I'd do it like this (I know, I know, to each his own and all that)... just take a big 100-250-500 ml glass or PVC or PP beaker or a kitchen measuring jug like this:

emsa-masskanne-superline-049618.jpg

 

and then pour all you need into it and then ditto into the new bottle of your choice. Works all the time and never spashs (if you're careful enough).

 

I'd thought of something like that, but this introduces an extra container which will waste a bit more ink when I move the ink from it to the small bottle.

 

And when I say a small bottle I'm talking about a 10 mL bottle. The mouth of the bottle is about half an inch wide. And getting the ink from such a temporary container to the small bottle is another hassle.

 

I have 3 mL syringes and blunt needles, but the needles are only about 1½ inches long. I can get some ink from the top of the 350 mL bottle but then I have the problem of getting the rest out, and into a small 10 mL bottle, by some other means.

 

I suppose that after the ink level gets too low to be accessed by the needle that I could tip the bottle and get the ink out by applying the syringe and needle to what gets close to the mouth of the large bottle, but my coordination is not that great anymore and I'm concerned that I'll have the bottle slip and start spilling a lot of ink all over the place.

 

This ink was expensive, to me, and I'm looking to not waste any more of it than is absolutely necessary.

 

The flexible plastic tubing sounds interesting except that managing that plastic tubing while it has a column of ink in it sounds a bit challenging.

 

Thanks to everyone who's trying to help. And I'm just wondering what the idea is behind the design of these bottles. I remember the old one quart Sheaffer Skrip bottles. They had a pour spout on them that really made it possible to fill something like a 10 mL bottle easily and without waste.

On a sacred quest for the perfect blue ink mixture!

ink stained wretch filling inkwell

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How tall are these bottles anyway?

 

Good question.. I'll go look.

 

[sound of feet padding out to the other room - sound of feet padding back from the other room]

 

They're about 8 inches tall, that's to the top of the cap. The ink level is somewhat lower than that. Yeah, I can see that a 1½ inch needle isn't going to get much ink out of this bottle.

On a sacred quest for the perfect blue ink mixture!

ink stained wretch filling inkwell

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I'm going to try a 10" glass dropping pipette once my new Nalgene bottles get here (to have somewhere to decant to.)

greg

Don't feel bad. I'm old; I'm meh about most things.

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I'd set up a siphon -- get a few feet of flexible tubing, even narrow width will be fine. Run the tubing into the ink, as deep as you want. Set up your bottle to fill at a lower level than the big bottle...on the same table will probably be lower enough, since the filled bottle is so large. With one end submerged, suck on the open side to get the siphon drawing, and as ink runs over the top edge of the full bottle, point the tube into the bottle to be filled. When it's filled, pinch off the hose, raise the open end above the large bottle, drain the excess back in, and you're done. Works like a charm.

 

Tim

 

 

A friend wrote off-board to comment that getting the ink out of your mouth takes an extra minute. This is indeed true, and it is generally avoided by actually paying attention to what you're doing. If you need to try it more safely first, use gasoline and pretend you need to fill a lawn mower from your car.

Edited by tmenyc

Tim

 timsvintagepens.com and @timsvintagepens

 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

I'm going to try a 10" glass dropping pipette once my new Nalgene bottles get here (to have somewhere to decant to.)

greg

 

 

How did that work out, Greg?

 

Just seeing this thread today. You guys make me feel SO lucky that I've not had an accident.

 

Been using these 350ml bottles for three years or so. I decant into a 30ml Pilot bottle. Meaning, I just pour. Haven't had a spill, but I'm slow.

 

When I want to go to a container smaller than the 30ml bottle, I use a pipette in the 30ml bottle to transfer to the other container.

 

InkStainWretch: Going from the 350ml to 10ml does sound challenging!

 

Going to get me one of those long glass pipets Greg mentioned.

...writing only requires focus, and something to write on. —John August

...and a pen that's comfortable in the hand.—moi

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I have a 350ml bottle of the blue-black and I just pour it from the large bottle into an old Private Reserve bottle from which I can fill my pens. Haven't had a problem with the pour.

Favorite pen/ink pairings: Edison Brockton w/EF 14K gold nib and Noodler's 54th Massachusetts; Visconti Pinanfarina w/EF chromium conical nib and Noodler's El Lawrence; Sheaffer Legacy w/18k extra fine inlaid nib and Noodler's Black; Sheaffer PFM III fine w/14k inlaid nib and Noodler's Black; Lamy 2000 EF with Noodler's 54th Massachusetts; Franklin Christoph 65 Stablis w/steel Masuyama fine cursive italic and DeAtramentis Document Blue; Pilot Decimo w/18k fine nib and Pilot Blue Black; Franklin Christoph 45 w/steel Masuyama fine cursive italic and Noodler's Zhivago; Edison Brockton EF and Noodler's El Lawrence; TWSBI ECO EF with Noodler's Bad Green Gator.

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cjr, you must have a steadier hand than I do. I wouldn't dare try pouring from the 350ml.

 

jde, I haven't tried yet. Too many other inks in the mix at the moment to play/ prioritize the Pilot B-B. I'll be sure to report back when I do.

 

Best Regards, greg

Don't feel bad. I'm old; I'm meh about most things.

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