Jump to content

Getting The Maximum Fill


Arkanabar

Recommended Posts

How to get a maximum fill (and why you might not want to)

This is a question that comes up fairly often, although probably not often enough to warrant pinning this post. Perhaps it should be added to a FAQ list.

The most common type of filler is the cartridge/converter pen, and they also typically have the smallest capacity. Most converters are piston/twist converters such as the Pilot CON-40, and I have written with such fillers in mind. These instructions are also appropriate for piston fillers, and I've been able to adapt them to syringe fillers like the Noodler's Ahab and Fountain Pen Revolution Himalaya. Nota bene, they won't work for an Ahab while it still has its breather tube.

This method also requires steady hands and a stable ink bottle. I am not responsible for your spills, messes, or inky fingers. And I generally fill from sample vials, for less cross-contamination of inks, and a better chance at full submersion. If you follow suit, it's probably a good idea to stabilize your sample vial with a disposable cello tape dispenser, LEGO, a sample vial rack, Sculpey, Blu-Tack, some lumber that you've drilled a suitably large hole into, or whatever else may suit your needs.

  1. Advance the piston all the way forward.
  2. Dunk nib in ink.
  3. Pull the piston back perhaps half-way -- far enough to see ink entering the chamber.
  4. Remove nib from ink.
  5. Holding the pen upright, pull the piston all the way back. Your goal is to remove as much ink as possible from the feed, into the reservoir.
  6. GENTLY shake or tap the pen to make the ink fall to the back of the reservoir.
  7. While watching your nib and reservoir closely, slowly and carefully advance the piston. Your goal is to remove all the air from both the reservoir and the feed. Look for ink to start to pool around the nib as it is forced from the bottom of the reservoir into the feed. If this happens while there is still plenty of air visible in the reservoir, repeat the prior two steps.
  8. When this pooling starts, dunk the nib back into the ink and pull the piston all the way back. While your pen is now as full as it gets, you're not quite done yet.
  9. Now you want to desaturate your feed, so it won't drip ink. Pull the nib from the ink, and squeeze at least three drops of ink back into the bottle. If it's a high flow or high capacity feed, you may want to squeeze out four or five.
  10. Turn the pen upright, and pull the piston all the way back.
  11. Wipe the section (I use a damp tissue or paper napkin) and reassemble the pen.

With squeeze fillers of various types, especially aerometric fillers as found on the Hero 616 and Parker "51", dunk the nib in ink, squeeze, wait a five-count, and repeat until no air bubbles come up when you squeeze. This also applies to lever, button, crescent, hatchet, coin, match, bulb, and sleeve fillers, though probably not to Sheaffer's Snorkel and Touchdown pens. Clearing a few drops of ink from the feed remains a prudent precaution.

Not everyone seeks the maximum fill all the time. One reason is that they like to change ink colors a lot, and a maximum fill may still have plenty of ink left in the pen when that itch arises. They may hesitate to return the ink to the bottle, and may not wish to waste it either.

Another is that they may have bought a small sample (2-4ml) of ink, and want to test it in a number of pens. Some people get really particular about testing inks, and may wish to test in as many as five pens, on numerous papers. (See Sandy1's ink reviews, for example.)

Hope this helps!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 7
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

  • Arkanabar

    2

  • Bo Bo Olson

    1

  • Mech-for-i

    1

  • dkreider

    1

Yo....

After all that trouble to max....Pelikan and MB said in my '50's instruction sheets, let out three drops of ink after filling.

Prevents vapor lock as far as I can tell, as rare as it is in a middle wide piston pen.

 

Lots of folks complain of constant vapor lock with converters, balls of plastic or steel or small springs combat that.

I just wonder how many of the vapor lock problems are caused by filling too full?

 

I only have two pens with converters in them....and don't have any problems....but don't worry about filling past the last drop.

....well, I often change inks, and easiest to do that is not to fill the converter or piston pen full. :wacko:

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Very interesting, I came up with an almost identical technique when I got frustrated with the Pilot piston converters. Although, more that once, I have had ink run down my hand if I wasn't paying attention! I tend to switch inks a lot, so I really only do this kind of thing for those little Pilot converters, because otherwise they just run out too fast. I never thought to try this with a piston- or lever-filler etc., I like that idea, especially for small vintage pocket pens. I will give it a try!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yo....

After all that trouble to max....Pelikan and MB said in my '50's instruction sheets, let out three drops of ink after filling.

Prevents vapor lock as far as I can tell, as rare as it is in a middle wide piston pen.

 

Lots of folks complain of constant vapor lock with converters, balls of plastic or steel or small springs combat that.

I just wonder how many of the vapor lock problems are caused by filling too full?

 

I only have two pens with converters in them....and don't have any problems....but don't worry about filling past the last drop.

....well, I often change inks, and easiest to do that is not to fill the converter or piston pen full. :wacko:

 

Vapor lock happen even with converter half full , I really think it had to do with how converter are sized instead, that little amount of ink coupled with so little volume ( thus weight ) and so much inner surface area simply mean its so easy to just had the surface tension taking over and then of course the air pocket helps

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Touchdown/Snorkel are probably the only fillers I've been exposed to which should be left as "single stroke and wait".

 

But for lever/crescent/other-squeeze-mechanism bladders, I've use the invert&purge for years. It just requires fine control when squeezing the bladder, then turning the pen back down into the bottle without shifting the amount of squeeze until in the bottle.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

After cleaning up your fingers and desk from the ink overflowing your feed, I suggest you purchase a Visconti Traveling Inkpot (or the Pineider Pen Filler). If you can afford the pens, inks, and nicer papers, you can afford one of these.

"Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination."

Oscar Wilde

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For converter equipped pens, you can get a 90% fill by drawing up ink, emptying it back into the bottle, and refilling. Just displacing air in the feed is sufficient to get a nearly full fill. It's a less effective method with piston fillers, as the capacity is larger, but it will still get you a bigger fill there too.

 

Less messy than taking the pen out of the bottle and bleeding.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Most Contributions

    1. amberleadavis
      amberleadavis
      43844
    2. PAKMAN
      PAKMAN
      33494
    3. Ghost Plane
      Ghost Plane
      28220
    4. inkstainedruth
      inkstainedruth
      26627
    5. jar
      jar
      26101
  • Upcoming Events

  • Blog Comments

    • Shanghai Knife Dude
      I have the Sailor Naginata and some fancy blade nibs coming after 2022 by a number of new workshop from China.  With all my respect, IMHO, they are all (bleep) in doing chinese characters.  Go use a bush, or at least a bush pen. 
    • A Smug Dill
      It is the reason why I'm so keen on the idea of a personal library — of pens, nibs, inks, paper products, etc. — and spent so much money, as well as time and effort, to “build” it for myself (because I can't simply remember everything, especially as I'm getting older fast) and my wife, so that we can “know”; and, instead of just disposing of what displeased us, or even just not good enough to be “given the time of day” against competition from >500 other pens and >500 other inks for our at
    • adamselene
      Agreed.  And I think it’s good to be aware of this early on and think about at the point of buying rather than rationalizing a purchase..
    • A Smug Dill
      Alas, one cannot know “good” without some idea of “bad” against which to contrast; and, as one of my former bosses (back when I was in my twenties) used to say, “on the scale of good to bad…”, it's a spectrum, not a dichotomy. Whereas subjectively acceptable (or tolerable) and unacceptable may well be a dichotomy to someone, and finding whether the threshold or cusp between them lies takes experiencing many degrees of less-than-ideal, especially if the decision is somehow influenced by factors o
    • adamselene
      I got my first real fountain pen on my 60th birthday and many hundreds of pens later I’ve often thought of what I should’ve known in the beginning. I have many pens, the majority of which have some objectionable feature. If they are too delicate, or can’t be posted, or they are too precious to face losing , still they are users, but only in very limited environments..  I have a big disliking for pens that have the cap jump into the air and fly off. I object to Pens that dry out, or leave blobs o
  • Chatbox

    You don't have permission to chat.
    Load More
  • Files






×
×
  • Create New...