How Much Ink Do You Use?

[amberleadavis]

I have no clue how much I go through. With about 85 pens inked at any given time, I rotate through most of them at least 2x/wk. But with that many pens to spread out the ink consumption, I don't need to fill up any one pen all that often, and so have no real idea how much ink I go through. Most pens are cartridge converters, but I also have 4 or 5 eyedroppers, several lever fills, and some piston fillers. Each holds a different amount of ink, so that's not even helpful.

85????

 

I am totally impressed. How do you keep them straight?

[IrishEyes]

85????

 

I am totally impressed. How do you keep them straight?

 

Each pen and the ink it's filled with are dutifully noted into my pen and ink journal (very simple--pen description + ink name + date). Every time I change ink in a pen, I write the date that an ink was added to a pen, and what the ink was.

[IrishEyes]

 

THANK YOU for the reassurance that I am not the only person with "a few" pens inked @ the same time! I salute your keeping 85 "@ the ready."

 

Barkingpig (I LOVE your username, btw!), zwack wishes for me to add that, in addition to my 85 inked pens, he has 18 other inked pens at any one time, too. That means that we have a total of >100 pens inked at any given time! We share pens and the ink in them as we wish. He also writes down what ink is in what pen. He doesn't need a whole journal to keep track of them, though, unlike myself .

Edited August 7, 2016 by IrishEyes

[Barkingpig]

 

Barkingpig (I LOVE your username, btw!), zwack wishes for me to add that, in addition to my 85 inked pens, he has 18 other inked pens at any one time, too. That means that we have a total of >100 pens inked at any given time! We share pens and the ink in them as we wish. He also writes down what ink is in what pen. He doesn't need a whole journal to keep track of them, though, unlike myself .

AND another THANKS! I must admit I had made an assumption that you "might" have included your husband's pens in your count. It was all I could do to restrain myself after reading your original post NOT to ink up the probably 50+pens that are "not in use" @ the moment. I had felt guilty last week & cleaned about a dozen that I realised I had not been using (but were inked.)

 

BUT I had felt a bit "left out" reading a member's post from the DC Pen Show & ordered up four new inks from Vanness to "cheer my self." I am afraid I will be "thinking of you" & ink four MORE pens upon arrival of the ink. I try to show some restraint & usually have a few bottles of "new" inks awaiting a favorite pen after cleaning. Perhaps I will change my ways...............THANKS to you!

[IrishEyes]

AND another THANKS! I must admit I had made an assumption that you "might" have included your husband's pens in your count. It was all I could do to restrain myself after reading your original post NOT to ink up the probably 50+pens that are "not in use" @ the moment. I had felt guilty last week & cleaned about a dozen that I realised I had not been using (but were inked.)

 

BUT I had felt a bit "left out" reading a member's post from the DC Pen Show & ordered up four new inks from Vanness to "cheer my self." I am afraid I will be "thinking of you" & ink four MORE pens upon arrival of the ink. I try to show some restraint & usually have a few bottles of "new" inks awaiting a favorite pen after cleaning. Perhaps I will change my ways...............THANKS to you!

 

LOL! Happy to be an enabler. Call on me at any time .

 

I will note, though, that going through my 85 pens a couple of times/week takes some dedication and at least few hours of writing. I can't write for long periods due to CTS in my right hand, but I do love to write, and devote a significant amount of time with my fountain (and dip) pens. I love seeing words, drawings, and pretty (or useful) inks doing their collective "thang" on bright white Tomoe River paper (my favorite, and I use it probably 75% of the time, with Rhodia paper coming into play about 25% of the time). Writing and drawing with all these wonderful pens and inks truly brings joy to my world.

[AndyYNWA]

Not very much...

I would guess 1-2 ml/week. But that's spread out over 9 different pens, i.e. not much ink is used in each pen...

 

I will try to doodle a bit more, because I really love to see my inks in action.

Edited August 8, 2016 by AndyYNWA

[Ramchandra]

On a light day(i.e I am at home) around 1ml

On a normal day( went to class) about 1.6-2.4

And on a hard-core day not more than 6ml

 

I write about 20+ pages when I am at home

When class is on including homework is goes to 30-40 ish pagrd

And on some crazy days I have cleared out half of my notebooks

[Ramchandra]

On a light day(i.e I am at home) around 1ml

On a normal day( went to class) about 1.6-2.4

And on a hard-core day not more than 6ml

 

I write about 20+ pages when I am at home

When class is on including homework is goes to 30-40 ish pagrd

And on some crazy days I have cleared out half of my notebooks

 

Update:

Starded using better paper which costs twice the price after looking as this thread.

Results are that the ink useage is down by a lot

Was only able to use 0.8ml in the last 2 days

[eharriett]

Not counting the work pens or the emergency always inked eyedroppers, I try to have 3-5 pens inked all the time. Cause you just dunno what you feel like at that moment. And regardless of filling system, I try to finish off one each week. That way when the mood strikes, I can fill another pen with the ink I desire in the pen I want to write with without guilt that I have too many pens inked up.

 

That’s why my Ahab has Purple Heart in it right now and I just finished off my Eversharp that had Walden Pond in it.

[displacermoose]

Not counting the work pens or the emergency always inked eyedroppers, I try to have 3-5 pens inked all the time. Cause you just dunno what you feel like at that moment. And regardless of filling system, I try to finish off one each week. That way when the mood strikes, I can fill another pen with the ink I desire in the pen I want to write with without guilt that I have too many pens inked up.

 

That’s why my Ahab has Purple Heart in it right now and I just finished off my Eversharp that had Walden Pond in it.

Work pens and emergency pens never count.

 

I typically go through a converter or two each week. I usually have five non-work-or-emergency pens in rotation: three for my pen case and one for each of my story notebooks that have pen loops.

[Arkanabar]

I reckon the best way to carry an emergency refill of ink is in a second pen, especially since I tend not to use cartridges or cartridge pens. I have a Pelikan M200 I got in the mid-to-late 90s. It's my first Pen of a Lifetime, and I don't think I have EVER written it dry in only one day.

Rehydration is my most common response to running out of ink, especially since, as I said, I don't use much (I don't even remember the last time I used up a bottle of ink), and most of my inks are both dark and saturated. Furthermore, dehydration often plays a significant part, perhaps as much as 25%, in my pens running dry. I'll put some water in a medicine souffle cup, or the cap of my pen, or even in the palm of my hand (Hero 616 only!) and do a very short fill, enough to get me to where I can do a proper refill.

I have no problem with using a cartridge that has a different ink from the one I just ran out of. (I don't use Baystate, IG, shimmer, glitter, or nano-particle inks.) And I do have a sample vial to refill my work pen if the ink that just ran dry in it was too diluted to bear up under another rehydration (as with the current fill of my Hero 616, Noodler's Walnut so dilute it's unsaturated and shady).

[Ink Stained Wretch]

I reckon the best way to carry an emergency refill of ink is in a second pen ....

 

Maybe. I use cc fillers a lot. Of course when I'm home I can just refill the pen with ink. But I also go to meetings. For those I have a pair of Kaweco Sport fountain pens. I have one of the discontinued "Metallic" version of the Sport and one of what I call a hybrid with the nib/feed/section of a "Metallic" and the barrel and cap of an "Ice" version of the Sport. I started taking only a pair of "Metallic" Kaweco Sports to meetings with me. Those sports are made of very strong plastic and they can survive sifting down to the bottom of my bag full of stuff related to the meetings, having stuff piled on top of them and not breaking. Unfortunately, the Kaweco Sport will only take a short international cartridge. So two of them is a good idea, in case I run one out of ink during a meeting, which has happened.

 

I have also had one misbehave and the other run out of ink. In that case I can swap the short international cartridge that still has ink in it into the still functioning pen. So I guess that's a version of your second pen strategy.

 

 

Rehydration is my most common response to running out of ink ....

 

Lately I've been getting a lot of pens drying out through water loss. I am just not writing as much as I used to, apparently. I usually clean the nib with a very wet cotton swab and that tends to rehydrate enough of the ink in the ink channel to get the pen writing again, and if not I refill the pen. When I'm at a meeting the sopping wet cotton swab can work, but I'm not bringing ink bottles with me to meetings.

 

 

And I do have a sample vial to refill my work pen if the ink that just ran dry in it was too diluted to bear up under another rehydration (as with the current fill of my Hero 616, Noodler's Walnut so dilute it's unsaturated and shady).

 

Wow! You must have really diluted the ink in that pen many times. Noodler's Walnut is a brown ink that's so saturated that it's almost a black ink .