Safely Filling Glass-Nib Pen?

[BrassRatt]

I have a glass-nibbed fountain pen (that I just restored), and I feel nervous when filling it from a glass bottle. The nib is rather long and very fine tipped, and I'm afraid of chipping it against the bottle bottom. What was the practice back when these pens were in general use? Is there a generally accepted safety measure other than transferring my inks into Nalgene?

[Mech-for-i]

What is the filling mechanism on yours ; my past experience with most vintage glass nib fountain pen was that most are eye dropper thus really having non issue with said problem when filling

[eharriett]

I have a vintage glass nib safety as well. I feed it Diamine Registrars. It is my check writing and envelope writing pen.

 

I fill it with a common syringe you can buy at better pen stores everywhere. But a standard Bb eye dropper works just as well.

 

Experiment with how much to fill it at once.

 

Mine is, like all my safety pens, reliable writers. People at pen shows used to caution me not to use them, but I’ve had most of mine changed from cork (which probably deteriorated) to rubber by most of the dealers who had sold them to me and they are among my most trouble free pens universally. I’d say safety pens and Sheaffer Touchdowns (not snorkels) for most reliable pen filling systems.

[BrassRatt]

I should have specified -- it's a lever filler.

 

Clearly, eyedropper filling (plain or safety) does not put the nib at risk from a glass bottle bottom. Wonder how you could have thought I was asking about them?

 

But a lever filler (or any self-filler) has to be dipped into ink up to the section, and then manipulated while held there. See the risk?

Edited August 15, 2019 by BrassRatt

[chromantic]

Hmm, maybe use a glass test tube in a test tube rack? Fill the tube 3/4 or so, enough so that the nib won't get close to the bottom when you fill it. Then pour the left over ink back into the bottle.

[Mech-for-i]

well well , I've seen glass nibbed fountain pen ( vintage ones ) with lever fill, aerometric fill, button filler mechanism, ED, and rarely but do happen to encounter one , a piston fill .. other than the ED , all of them AFAIK, fill from the bottle with the nib all submerged to had the edge of the section included which mean its usually not that shallow either , so I suppose the stupid way to do it properly is to made sure you had enough ink in the bottle so you can fill by not sitting the nib but actually holding it within the ink , of course that's always a 2 hand operation and can be painfully delicate. Some of those filling are just easier, and some not so.

 

The other way I would suggest is to take a small piece of pliable rubber ( artist store , drafting / sketching rubber work well , or just any similar ) and had it speared onto the nib tip and then you can just sit your now protected nib gently onto the bottle bottom and do the filling fairly straight forward ( and still pls do it gently ), of course you will need to remove the little rubber piece afterward and might be some cleaning ( if needed )

[BrassRatt]

I was thinking along those lines -- put a soft bottom in the ink bottle to protect the glass tip. Why would you need to remove the little rubber piece? We know that rubber is safe in ink for long durations (the sac, for instance). A circle of rubber sheet could just live down there until the ink is gone.

 

Another way would be a piece of tubing (rubber, Tygon, ...) that fits snugly onto the section and goes just a bit beyond the nib tip. The tubing could then rest on the bottom of (any) ink bottle while fiddling the filler.

 

Or a short bit of small soft tubing that fits just around the delicate glass nib tip while filling.

 

Starting with a clean spare ink bottle, the bottom could be coated by pouring in some rubber cement and letting it thoroughly dry before filling the bottle with ink. Would gentle heat help?

 

Were there any standard tricks like this, or unlike this, when these pens-at-risk were more widely used? Anybody know the history? Any collectors come across oddities that could have had this purpose?

[Mech-for-i]

Oh of course there is no need to take the piece out if you are thinking lining the bottom of the bottle with say a piece of rubber ; what I am after is a piece of rubber on the tip ( speared onto it ) .. same concept, different execution ... while I had no idea if any old ink bottle with such build in padding ( so to speak ) I do know some industrial ( usually lubricating oil ) liquid container that had a build in bottom riser grid so that any residual is excluded from the piping

[BrassRatt]

Someone on a different thread pointed out a good thing: The Ink-Miser Ink-Shot inkwell is plastic, and conical (so a small amount of ink can be deep enough to reach the section). But there's a multi-step process in using it -- pipette some ink into the Miser, fill the pen, pour the ink back into its bottle.

[BaronWulfraed]

Someone on a different thread pointed out a good thing: The Ink-Miser Ink-Shot inkwell is plastic, and conical (so a small amount of ink can be deep enough to reach the section). But there's a multi-step process in using it -- pipette some ink into the Miser, fill the pen, pour the ink back into its bottle.

 

They also make conical inserts for ink bottles, but the depth of the bottle and diameter of the mouth may be critical (apparently optimized for Noodler's 3oz bottles https://andersonpens.com/ink-miser-intra-bottle-inkwell-black/ may fit others). These function like the Levenger bottle inserts -- turn over to let ink into the insert, then back upright, remove cap...