How Long Would A Bottle Last You As A Daily Ink?

[thesmellofdustafterrain]

If you were to use just one main ink for your daily writing, how long would a bottle last you?

 

I know, it's basically asking 'how long is a length of twine'. Size of the bottle, size of the pen, amount of writing.

 

But if you had to guess. How long do you guess it would last?

 

Or would you calculate out: my pen holds this much ink, I fill it once every so many days, and the ink bottle holds....?

 

Or are you in the camp where the idea of restricting yourself to just one ink makes you hide in the corner clutching your knees, rocking and humming to your self in hopes of banishing the evil thought?

 

---

 

Right now I'm on the quest for a daily ink. I love all these different inks I've recently discovered but I want to settle into daily ink monogamy. I'll still use pretty inks for editing and stuff, but trying to decide what ink to use next takes up valuable writing time.

 

So if I usually fill up two pens (cartage converters) a week and a charlie eyedropper every fortnight (that's 2.5 pens a week), how many bottles of ink do I need a year?

 

Just some random thoughts while I procrastinate from editing (I hate editing). I have so much to do and the deadline was four hours ago. And yet, suddenly the question of ink seems the most important thing in the world. Odd how that happens.

[ScarletWoodland]

I'm definitely in the "rocking in the corner" camp lol.

 

Some back of the envelope guesstimation based on your weekly fills came up with around 4-5 x 50ml bottles per year? I'm sure there are plenty of ink monogamous peeps here who'll have a better, first hand idea though.

Edited March 9, 2019 by ScarletWoodland

[jmccarty3]

After trying numerous water-resistant blue-black inks, I have settled on Pilot Blue-Black for the Pilot Custom 823 with fine nib that I use at work every day. Because of electronic medical records (may the fleas of a thousand camels nest in the groins of the programmers who inflict these abominations upon us), I don't get to write nearly as much as I used to. So a 70 ml bottle may last me a year or more.

 

That being said, I had to address about 70 envelopes with invitations to a banquet the other night. I chose a Montblanc 149 with a wet fine nib, and inked it with Montblanc Permanent Blue. The envelope paper was reasonably FPF, and I figure I used about a third of the capacity of the 149 accomplishing this task. I don't have to do this too often, but it was great fun.

[PhotoJim]

I don't use my fountain pens every day - I don't tend to use them at work because clients often want to use my pen - but I'd suggest just getting a single bottle of whatever ink you want to try. That way you'll really know by the time it's time to get more ink if that's the ink you want to "marry". Why get a bunch of an ink you don't end up really wanting to use?

 

Personally, if I were going to switch to one ink, I'd settle in with my favourite colour of Waterman. Their green and blue inks work in just about everything, and I suspect their brown, red and purple are probably equally cooperative so I've got bottles of those colours to try, now, too. That would give me some colour variety - I could see wanting to use a different colour after I finished a bottle. But if I had to use Waterman Florida/Serenity Blue for the rest of my days, I'd be fine with it.

[Maccabeus]

I write exclusively with iron gall; generally ESSRI, which comes in a 110ml bottle. A fill (4ml) of my Ranga 3C will last a fortnight before it needs to be topped off (between 2.5 & 3ml). Now, I'm no mathematician, but if we take 2.5ml/2wk and 3ml/2wk and extrapolate them out we get to 110ml/88wk and 108ml/72wk.

This, of course, doesn't account for ink lost during flushing or filling, so these figures are optimistic. In any event, you're looking at somewhere between a year and 5mo to a year and 9mo for one 110ml bottle of ink.

Like I said, this is pretty optimistic, but a more conservative estimate still lands at about a year per bottle. Not bad for a $24 investment, currency exchange rates notwithstanding.

[thesmellofdustafterrain]

An ulterior motive for asking: I'm at the stage now where I need to write a budget for the next book. I hurt my left hand pretty badly last week, so I won't be able to use my typewriter for a month or so. Typing one handed on a computer is bad enough. That means I get to handwrite the next manuscript with a pen and ink. That means the business can pay for a years supply of ink (one book takes about a year). But how much ink is that?

 

At university, I went through at least two bottles of ink a year, often more. But I can't remember how big a bottle or what kind of ink - the stationary shops only had one kind of ink on their shelves back then, so I just got what was going.

 

Looking at this video he says that the converter holds about .7ml. At a guess, I'm going through 1.5ml a week. so right now I'm going through between 75 and 80ml a year. Does this sound about right for annual ink consumption?

[Houston]

I don't use my fountain pens every day - I don't tend to use them at work because clients often want to use my pen - but I'd suggest just getting a single bottle of whatever ink you want to try. That way you'll really know by the time it's time to get more ink if that's the ink you want to "marry". Why get a bunch of an ink you don't end up really wanting to use?

 

Personally, if I were going to switch to one ink, I'd settle in with my favourite colour of Waterman. Their green and blue inks work in just about everything, and I suspect their brown, red and purple are probably equally cooperative so I've got bottles of those colours to try, now, too. That would give me some colour variety - I could see wanting to use a different colour after I finished a bottle. But if I had to use Waterman Florida/Serenity Blue for the rest of my days, I'd be fine with it.

 

Sometimes you read something on FPN that just completely resonates. I'm with you, PhotoJim -- except that I do use my pens every day. But if I had to back off to one ink and one ink only for the rest of my days, relying on it to work in all my pens without hassle, not too wet and not too dry, it'd be Waterman purple/Tender Purple. Sometimes, I wonder why I have a couple of drawers full of other -- almost all purple -- inks. I have so much ink, now, that there is no possibility I'll use it all in my lifetime, even though I write a lot and I'm not yet a particularly old human.

 

Have I stopped buying ink? Nerp.

 

Those Waterman inks, tho... They're not show-stoppers, but they are so darn solid, and such reliable, no-worries performers.

 

the-smell-of-dust-after-rain: I'm afraid I've got no help for you. I love getting to the end of a bottle -- it feels like a triumph over modernity -- but it happens so rarely, I've stopped anticipating it!

[Scylax]

I would think you also need to factor in that you're likely to waste at least a small amount of ink in any flushing and filling you do - even with one ink you're likely to need to do that at least a few times in a year. Also I would imagine you'd likely get a bit more waste if you have to buy several different smaller bottles than if you can buy one bigger one (for example, diamine comes in 80ml bottles and you might even scrape by on one, and you could get a smaller 30ml bottle if you needed to top up for really not much money which you probably wouldn't mind paying yourself. But if you use DA Document ink for permanence which comes in 35ml bottles, and is much more expensive, you'd want to claim enough to last, and therefore would probably want to claim three or four.

[sciumbasci]

110mL of ESSRI lasted me about one year and half of main ink, daily use, in two different pens.

[nibtip]

Rough estimation not taking account of pen cleaning etc...

I write about 10 A5 pages ( 40 meters of hand writing ) everyday. That is 0.65ml as an average of most of my pen's ink consumption.

I will write an article on this subject someday. I have done tests months ago.

That is 20ml per month. Therefore a bottle of ink lasts 2 months for me.

But since i change inks and colors very frequently, there is some loss which i don't care at all of course.

Inks, even the most expensive inks, are very cheap. It would be ridiculous to weep for one or two cents per thoroughly filled page.

Paper is more expensive, relatively.

[Houston]

Rough estimation not taking account of pen cleaning etc...

I write about 10 A5 pages ( 40 meters of hand writing ) everyday. That is 0.65ml as an average of most of my pen's ink consumption.

I will write an article on this subject someday. I have done tests months ago.

That is 20ml per month. Therefore a bottle of ink lasts 2 months for me.

But since i change inks and colors very frequently, there is some loss which i don't care at all of course.

Inks, even the most expensive inks, are very cheap. It would be ridiculous to weep for one or two cents per thoroughly filled page.

Paper is more expensive, relatively.

 

I think your last point is a great one. And I'd be interested if you ever write that article!

[PhotoJim]

 

Sometimes you read something on FPN that just completely resonates. ...

 

Those Waterman inks, tho... They're not show-stoppers, but they are so darn solid, and such reliable, no-worries performers.

 

(raises a dram of scotch for a toast)

 

Green might be my equivalent to your purple. I love green ink.

 

I have quite a bit of purple ink too (Caran d'Ache Storm and Mont Blanc Purple) which I admit that I quite like, which is why the bottle of Waterman Tender Purple arrived yesterday. (I was running out of red ink, and thought my next red should be Waterman Audacious Red, since I've had such good luck with blue and green). And while I enjoy dalliances with other inks (hello, Diamine Majestic Blue; greetings, Sailor Green; salutations, Private Reserve Shoreline Gold), I seem to keep going back to the Waterman ones.

 

I'm glad I don't have to settle on just one ink - I enjoy the experimenting, and I love the physical bottles and how they differ from company to company [a stupid thing to love, but there it is]... but if I did, it'd definitely be Waterman. I'd be a lot happier just having one brand than one ink, though.

[PhotoJim]

I would think you also need to factor in that you're likely to waste at least a small amount of ink in any flushing and filling you do - even with one ink you're likely to need to do that at least a few times in a year.

 

Assuming a person uses more than one pen, this is fairly easily avoided. I tend to flush and clean my pens when I run out of ink. Technically I'm wasting a little bit when I clean a pen at this point, but very little.

[Karmachanic]

Paper and nib width are also relevant to this subject.

[wallylynn]

After not writing for a long time, I've restarted studying foreign language vocabulary and been writing about a page a day. Being generous, 1ml per fill per week. So... 50ml a year?

 

If I had to restrict to one ink, it'd be a traditional Iron-gall ink. Waterproof. The color change and shading keeps things interesting.

 

If I had to restrict based on price, I'd get a bottle of Noodler's, and dilute. Often, I'd write my pen dry away from home, refill with tap water and keep writing. Obviously, using a dry pen with a fine nib can stretch that out too.

 

Paper is free. I take it from the recycling bin next to the printer/copier and use the back sides.

[ehemem]

I used to write a lot, and although I used Japanese fine, rather dry nibs, I would go through 70ml in a month easily.

[Intensity]

Can't even imagine how long it would take, maybe a year. That's because I don't write so much anymore. I type very quickly and spend a lot of time at my computer, and writing is only a hobby nowadays. I use inks for the joy of seeing different hues and textures on paper, as art, not for practical purposes.

 

I imagine back when I was a university student, I could go through a bottle of [black] ink per month (I liked using fine tip black gel pens on printer paper for homework and lab notebooks, though ballpoint was in rotation as well). To be honest, I think if I had to take a lot of notes on unpredictable paper and do a lot of math/physics problems again, I'd probably still use gel pens with permanent ink, like Pilot G2 refills, for their ability to dry quickly, write well on any paper, and be water resistant, as well as gliding easily enough on paper to lower muscle fatigue.

 

Fountain pens are more deliberate, require paying attention to the pen. With more simple gel pens, I forget the instrument and just focus on the writing.

[thesmellofdustafterrain]

 

Fountain pens are more deliberate, require paying attention to the pen. With more simple gel pens, I forget the instrument and just focus on the writing.

 

That's interesting. I find it's the other way around. But I've been writing almost exclusively with a fountain pen since I was a teen, so I don't have the muscle memory for these other types of pen.

[Intensity]

I think it's mostly because with a gel/felt tip/ballpoint pen, orientation of the pen is completely irrelevant, ink flow is constant, no pooling to worry about, nothing springy, etc. Just reliably even, especially with non-ballpoint.

[thesmellofdustafterrain]

I think it's mostly because with a gel/felt tip/ballpoint pen, orientation of the pen is completely irrelevant, ink flow is constant, no pooling to worry about, nothing springy, etc. Just reliably even, especially with non-ballpoint.

 

What is this pooling people keep talking about? I only ever get a line or a dot with a fountain pen. Is it the places where the ink makes the line darker?

 

I had a quick google for 'pooling and fountain pen ink' but couldn't find anything.

Edited March 10, 2019 by the-smell-of-dust-after-rain