Bottom of the Ink Bottle

[piembi]

There are two strategies:

 

1 - I keep every 30 ml Lamy ink bottle. As soon as my favourite Visconti blue (plastic bottle) goes down to half it will be transfered into the Lamy bottle. The shape of this bottle allows to fill pens until there is maybe one very last filling left. These few drops go into the sink before I refill the bottle.

 

2 - I use a Snorkel.

[gyasko]

I am sure someone has the answer to this question: what do you do with the ink in your bottle that is at too low a level to fill your fountain pen?

 

It goes in the liquor cabinet for use in cocktails.

[psfred]

Get a Sheaffer Snorkel. Leaves less ink in the bottle than any other pen I can think of.

 

Peter

[Sailor Kenshin]

Plastic pipettes work better than syringes for one-handed use.

[dizzypen]

Plastic pipettes work better than syringes for one-handed use.

 

You know I haven't mastered the art of the pipette. I generally make a huge mess if I try to fill a cartridge or converter with one of those.

[Bipedallou]

I'm glad to see that my question has been well responded to. I guess that many have given thought to the ink left in the bottom of the bottle. I wonder if someone might not design a ink bottle with a somewhat cone-shaped well at the bottom, larger enough and deep enough for the most common size nibs to fit in for the final filling. The ink ultimately left at the bottom on the cone would be so minimal that probably no one would give it a second thought?

 

I still like Islandlife's suggestion, (see his attached pictures). I just hope I can make one myself.

 

Lou

[Sailor Kenshin]

Plastic pipettes work better than syringes for one-handed use.

 

You know I haven't mastered the art of the pipette. I generally make a huge mess if I try to fill a cartridge or converter with one of those.

 

 

It's all in the fingers.

 

Of course, it helps to have one with needle-fine end for the smaller carts. Sailor carts and those with big 'mouths' can handle eyedroppers.

[penicillin]

Lamy has a bottle that does just that: cone in the bottom.

 

M

[encephalartos]

Greg Clark, author of the late lamented Ink Sampler, kept a bottle for collecting all

of those bits of ink. At the time, this was to prove that it's ok to mix different brands

together.

 

So, to be frugal, after syringes, snorkels, tiny vials, have been exhausted, save up

a spare bottle and pour the last drops into it. Greg's ink was also blue-black, if I

remember the article right.

[Mongo]

I'm glad to see that my question has been well responded to. I guess that many have given thought to the ink left in the bottom of the bottle. I wonder if someone might not design a ink bottle with a somewhat cone-shaped well at the bottom, larger enough and deep enough for the most common size nibs to fit in for the final filling. The ink ultimately left at the bottom on the cone would be so minimal that probably no one would give it a second thought?

There are a number of ink bottles that make it easy to get down into the dregs of the ink. The aforementioned Lamy bottle had a cone in the bottom center of the bottle, so that's the lowest point in the bottle. Ink flows down into it, and it's easy to retrieve with almost any pen. Some bottles, like the Levenger bottles, have a plastic well in their neck. You turn the bottle over and then back, and ink goes into the elevated well and can be easily retrieved. Waterman bottles have all kinds of cut flat surfaces on them, so you can stand the bottle up on one of those surfaces, trapping the ink near the corner to be easily retrieved. There are vintage bottles that have traps near the neck that work similarly to the Levenger...perhaps even better.

[penrivers]

In 52 years I used the complete color gamut of skrip inks.

Dont throw away any rest of ink in the bottle. Mix it with other colors, no matter if they are warms or colds.

The result is always an inexpected, irrepetible, misterious universe of sorprendent delicate polichromías.

Greetings from México.

[bphollin]

Add me as another proponent of keeping an "all in" leftovers bottle or transferring to a new bottle of the same color.

[Bipedallou]

Lamy has a bottle that does just that: cone in the bottom.

 

M

 

 

I did not know that. I will have to give Lamy ink some serious consideration when making my next ink purchase.

 

Thank you,

Lou

[jbn10161]

Either pour it into a narrow wide mouth bottle so your pen can drink the last little bit, or throw it away.

 

It's had small pieces of paper and dust added each time you dipped in the nib. It costs only around $10 for however many months it lasts. Maybe there's been some evaporation or change from ambient light, depending on how you keep your inks. Why risk contaminating fresh ink?

[Aissa2]

I just finished decanting ink. I had a little left over and ended up just decanting two colors together. Both were Diamine and in the same family of purple and now I have a full bottle of ink.

[Aissa2]

Either pour it into a narrow wide mouth bottle so your pen can drink the last little bit, or throw it away.

 

It's had small pieces of paper and dust added each time you dipped in the nib. It costs only around $10 for however many months it lasts. Maybe there's been some evaporation or change from ambient light, depending on how you keep your inks. Why risk contaminating fresh ink?

 

You can also use it as a tester with a glass dip pen.

[Aissa2]

I usually just add it to the next bottle of the same ink. But recently, I had a number of bottles of inks with a tiny bit at the bottom, and half a bottle of an ink I didn't like at all. Rather than waste any ink, I just threw them all together just so I wouldn't be dumping it down the sink. What resulted was the most wonderful and dignified blue-black one could imagine. Completely water resistant to (all component inks were Noodler's bulletproofs). But I'll never be able to replicate the ink again. Oh well. I'll just enjoy the 20 ml or so that I have and then have fond memories and journal entries of the mix, which I call "August Midnight (2009)."

 

Doug

 

2 COOL!

[f22pilot72]

add it to the next bottle... if you didn't like the ink enough to get a new bottle, dump it in the sink.

 

"Dump it in the sink," he said with an interrobang?! ...

 

Paddler

 

Paddler, you have answered a question that I've had for a long time yet never bothered to look up: "What is the name of the character that's a '?' combined with an '!'?" "Interrobang" has become the word of the week, as in "Interrobanged!" or "I'll interrobang you if you're not careful!".

 

Expressing my sincerest apology for this pointless and silly post,

Michael

[vickiehof]

I just bought a "Lady" model S.T. Dupont fountain pen which came with 1 1/2 inch cartridges. I also bought the DU90 converter from Joon for the "Lady" but it was too long for my pen. I thought that I would be doomed to buy the expensive 1 1/2 cartridges with boring colors. Thank you for telling me about using a syringe to refill cartridges. Such an obvious concept. Since I work in the office at a medical clinic I told them about using a syringe for ink and I was given a 3ml syringe with a large diameter needle today. It works perfectly. I can just refill the cartridges that came with the pen and get those last few drops from the ink bottles. No inky fingers. Yay !

[Gran]

I don't add the rest to the next bottle, in case there is something in it that I don't want in a new bottle.

 

I pour the rest of an old bottle in a small vial and use it for mixing experiments.