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Possible To Fully Fill Twsbi Eco?


Kalikrates

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This is probably a very naive question, but I have gotten hold of a TWSBI eco which is the very first piston filler I try (and by the way, great nib for the price), so please bear with me.

 

When I fill it, the piston sucks ink from the bottle but it also sucks air, i.e., like half of the barrel gets filled with ink and the other half is empty (or in other words, the ink level goes up slower than the piston, for every 2 mm that the piston goes up, I get 1 mm of ink).

 

Its this just a physical limitation with piston fillers and "just the way it is", or am I doing something wrong and the barrel should fill fully?

Edited by Kalikrates
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Are you completely submerging the pen into the ink all the way past the flared out bits of plastic on the section? If a part of the feed/nib are not completely in ink it can and will bring in some air as well. Also after filling it, try expelling the ink you just drew in (keep the pen submerged to the section) all the way and then re-fill to get the extra air out of the section.

 

Hopefully that will help. I was able to get enough ink in my Eco so that there was only a small bubble of air that rolled around: I quite liked the effect.

 

Let us know if that helps!

 

~AK

Whenever you are fed up with life, start writing: ink is the great cure for all human ills, as I found out long ago.

~C.S. Lewis

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Oh, I see! That was indeed the problem. In fact, the root problem is that I have a bottle of ink that is probably not optimal for this kind of pen. It's Platinum Blue-Black with a plastic reservoir. I was filling from the reservoir, which didn't let me submerge the pen much.

 

Now I removed the reservoir, that allowed me to submerge it deeper, and with that, I filled like maybe 85% of the barrel, there is now only a little empty fragment at the top.

 

I suppose with a taller bottle (this one is rather low) I would be able to fill even more, anyway the current level is quite fine.

 

From this, I assume that a drawback of this type of pens is that they are not very good when one has little ink remaning, right?

 

Thanks a lot for the help!

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If you want to fill the pen to the maximum then you need an ink bottle that can allow the nib to be fully immersed in the ink such as the Lamy bottle.

 

You are still likely to have air in the pen. Pull the nib from the ink and hold the pen so that the nib is upright, twist the knob so that the ink moves up and pushes out the air, put the nib back into the bottle and trun the knob the other way. the pen will now be full.

 

However. The twsbi holds a lot of ink, even with some air in it, you may want to think 'do I really need the extra 1ml of ink that this double filling is going to produce?'

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The least messy way Ive found is this:

 

1. With piston down, submerge entire nib and feed into the ink and raise piston up slightly above halfway.

 

2. Remove pen from ink and continue to raise piston all the way so that the ink in the feed is sucked into the reservoir.

 

3. Turn the pen so that the nib points upward and move piston toward the nib to expel air.

 

4. With air expelled, reinsert nib and feed into ink bottle and raise piston all the way.

 

I find that skipping step 2 will leave ink in the feed and when you go to expel air it will bubble or blow ink everywhere. By not getting the maximum possible fill on the first insert, you leave enough room in the piston movement to suck the ink out of the feed.

 

This works on all my piston pens and my conid.

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The least messy way Ive found is this:

 

1. With piston down, submerge entire nib and feed into the ink and raise piston up slightly above halfway.

 

2. Remove pen from ink and continue to raise piston all the way so that the ink in the feed is sucked into the reservoir.

 

3. Turn the pen so that the nib points upward and move piston toward the nib to expel air.

 

4. With air expelled, reinsert nib and feed into ink bottle and raise piston all the way.

 

I find that skipping step 2 will leave ink in the feed and when you go to expel air it will bubble or blow ink everywhere. By not getting the maximum possible fill on the first insert, you leave enough room in the piston movement to suck the ink out of the feed.

 

This works on all my piston pens and my conid.

+1 This is exactly what I do when filling my Eco. Also, don't forget to de-saturate the feed with a tissue/cloth to prevent the pen from burping/dripping after filling. 😉

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Good ideas ! However, wear an old shirt and work over a sink, when doing this.

 

Personally, I never do . Half full is plenty of ink. One can always return to the bottle for more.

I enjoy the ritual of filling my fountain pen.

Auf freiem Grund mit freiem Volke stehn.
Zum Augenblicke dürft ich sagen:
Verweile doch, du bist so schön !

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I suppose with a taller bottle (this one is rather low) I would be able to fill even more, anyway the current level is quite fine.

 

From this, I assume that a drawback of this type of pens is that they are not very good when one has little ink remaning, right?

 

When you have very little ink remaining you can:

  • Use it in another pen
  • Transfer it with a pipette or syringe (I've done this even with an Eco, just have to remove the nib and feed first)
  • Decant it into a smaller container like a sample vial and fill from there
    • Something like the Visconti traveling ink well would allow an even better fill - if it works for your pen.

Note that fountain pen converters (of the piston variety) behave exactly the same way and so will have the same problem. Sac fillers have the same problem just mechanically different (in other words, they also make it difficult to expel 100% of the air). Ditto vacuum fillers. Other than eyedroppered pens, I'm not sure any of them make it easy to expel 100% of the air. (And I don't think you need to do this. But some do get better fills than others. FWIW, in time, one gets over the "need" to have a "complete" fill and it becomes not worth the bother to fill to extremes. :) )

Edited by LizEF
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  • 2 months later...

The least messy way Ive found is this:

 

1. With piston down, submerge entire nib and feed into the ink and raise piston up slightly above halfway.

 

2. Remove pen from ink and continue to raise piston all the way so that the ink in the feed is sucked into the reservoir.

 

3. Turn the pen so that the nib points upward and move piston toward the nib to expel air.

 

4. With air expelled, reinsert nib and feed into ink bottle and raise piston all the way.

 

I find that skipping step 2 will leave ink in the feed and when you go to expel air it will bubble or blow ink everywhere. By not getting the maximum possible fill on the first insert, you leave enough room in the piston movement to suck the ink out of the feed.

 

This works on all my piston pens and my conid.

Awesome! Thanks for the tip!
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  • 3 months later...

I got an ink miser in the clear version which tapers in. No lid, but a really good way to fill fountain pens.

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  • 1 month later...

I like to leave a bit of air in there. I figure if there is shimmery stuff in my ink then when I move the pen around it has a little room to slosh around to mix. If it's completely full then moving the pen doesn't really mix the ink inside. I intentionally want a little bit of air but I'm new to this so I don't know if there is drawbacks (oxidation, pressure changes etc.)

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even a half fill on a piston filler is 2-4 converters' worth of ink. You should never stress about more than a half fill.

Selling a boatload of restored, fairly rare, vintage Japanese gold nib pens, click here to see (more added as I finish restoring them)

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  • 11 months later...

TennesseeTrash, thanks for the tips. I have 5 Ecos in one case that I regularly carry around (different colored inks, of course). Altogether, it's a ridiculous amount of ink. I do also enjoy the pens when they are about half-full; just the fun of watching the ink slosh around.

 

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