Do Eyedroppers Leak ?

[Patrick L]

Do fountain pens designed specifically to be eyedroppers leak ? I never purchased a eyedropper in my life , and wonder if they do actually tend to leak sometimes. I understand that they can hold a big amount of ink and I do wonder if this might cause a blot of ink to suddenly appear on the paper. I do have Fountain pens with big ink capacities like the Pelikan M800 and do notice that if I fill these fountain pens completely with ink after each filling , I will experience ink leakage , which is something awful. I therefore have to remove a few drops of ink after each filling, something that I don't like but which I have to do. It would be therefore interesting to know how pens designed specifically to be eyedroppers (some of them are from A+ brands and are very expensive) perform as far as ink leakage is concerned.

All the best

Patrick

[Chi Town]

What you need to do with an eye dropper is is seal the threads up with silicone so that they do no not leak, but be careful in the type of silicone that you are using! It must be a food grade qualityso as not to ruin your pen......

[hari317]

Do fountain pens designed specifically to be eyedroppers leak ? I never purchased a eyedropper in my life , and wonder if they do actually tend to leak sometimes. I understand that they can hold a big amount of ink and I do wonder if this might cause a blot of ink to suddenly appear on the paper. I do have Fountain pens with big ink capacities like the Pelikan M800 and do notice that if I fill these fountain pens completely with ink after each filling , I will experience ink leakage , which is something awful. I therefore have to remove a few drops of ink after each filling, something that I don't like but which I have to do. It would be therefore interesting to know how pens designed specifically to be eyedroppers (some of them are from A+ brands and are very expensive) perform as far as ink leakage is concerned.

All the best

Patrick

Hi Patrick,

 

The fins in the feeder have the purpose of buffering excess ink flow caused by fluctuations in the ambient temperature and pressure, the excess ink will be held in the fins, without the fins, the excess ink will simply drop to paper resulting in a blob/burp.

 

When you fill a piston pen like the M800, these fins get full of ink, thus defeating the very purpose of their existence. To make them functional again, either you have to wick away the excess ink using a cloth held to the fins after filling or drop back a few drops of ink into the ink bottle.

 

an eyedropper pen with a nice modern finned feeder and the joints nicely sealed with silicone grease will be leak proof. Of course, you have to observe precautions of carrying the pen point up, but this applies to every pen.

 

HTH

 

Hari

Edited August 7, 2014 by hari317

[Vlad72]

I still didn't get an eyedropper either, but isn't it better to leave room for a few millimeters of air?

[RMN]

Yes, there must be some air.

 

Same as with a bottle.

 

Fill a bottle with water to the brim. Place a peace of paper over the mouth, sealing it. (is that correct English, the mouth of the bottle?)

Now carefully put your hand on top of that paper and turn the bottle over, mouth down. Remove your hand. The water will stay in the bottle.

 

Now repeat the process, but leave just a bit of air on top. Now the bottle empties.

 

This is because to flow out of the bottle a vacuum will be created, but as water cannot expand well there is no flow. Air does expand, resulting in flow.

 

That is why most instructions to fill a piston filler tell you to let about 5 drops out again after filling.

 

D.ick

[rwilsonedn]

What Hari said, as usual.

Eyedroppers do not inherently leak: they can leak, but for specific reasons. For that matter, any fountain pen will leak if there is air in the ink chamber, you warm that air, and for whatever reason the expansion of the air forces enough ink into the feed to overwhelm the ink collector. On some pens, like vintage eyedroppers with huge ink chambers and simple feeds, it is easy to do that. On eyedroppers with good ink collectors it is hard to make them drip. On, for example, a piston-filler with a modern ink collector it is much harder, but still not impossible--hence Hari's explanation about releasing a couple of drops from the pen after filling.

And by the way, no, you don't need air in the ink chamber for the pen to function.

ron

[de_pen_dent]

IME, they leak like an NSA agent in Russia - at least the cheaper ones. Better ones, not so much, as said above.

 

Never had a leak with piston or plunger fillers, though.

Edited August 7, 2014 by de_pen_dent

[tmenyc]

D.ick,

I love the analogy, and yes, it is the mouth of the bottle. My experience with eyedroppers is that they will all leak at some point. The pushing out a few drops is very important.

Fill it, put the siliconed section on top and as you start screwing it in, turn it nib down over the open ink bottle. keep turning the section in, and as it compresses the inside air, a few drops will be expelled.

However, when the ink runs down almost all of the way, and less far down with less sophisticated pens, the risk of a blurp drop grows with each use, because air pressure is steadily equalized. The only eyedropper I've been able to use down to the last drop without a leak is my Kaweco Sport classic, which I converted to ED to hold more ink. As I recently told Hari, on my clear Wality, I know to a hair's breadth the fill line where a blurp will happen...although that can be accelerated by playing with the pen (it's not possible to avoid playing with a clear barrel and ink sloshing aroudn in there) or if you have warm hands, since heat expands ink.

 

Tim

[Polanova]

Based on my limited experience, they don`t leak more than my lever-fillers.

My Franklin-Christoph P40 Eyedropper has never leaked in spite of being hurled about in my bag for 6 months.

For many months I keep a couple of 100 yrs old FILLED eyedropper pens LYING on my desktop.

You`d expect them to leak - but they don`t.

[Dillo]

Yes, there must be some air.

 

Same as with a bottle.

 

Fill a bottle with water to the brim. Place a peace of paper over the mouth, sealing it. (is that correct English, the mouth of the bottle?)

Now carefully put your hand on top of that paper and turn the bottle over, mouth down. Remove your hand. The water will stay in the bottle.

 

Now repeat the process, but leave just a bit of air on top. Now the bottle empties.

 

This is because to flow out of the bottle a vacuum will be created, but as water cannot expand well there is no flow. Air does expand, resulting in flow.

 

That is why most instructions to fill a piston filler tell you to let about 5 drops out again after filling.

 

D.ick

 

You don't actually need any air in there, and this is why.

 

The bottle and the pen are actually quite different. Gas is relatively compressible. Liquid is not. This makes for something quite important. When you leave the air gap in the bottle, the air can be compressed and can also expand quite easily. The force needed to hold the card causes the air to expand and allows the water and card to both fall out. You did get this part right.

 

In the case of the pen, there are capillary forces that pull the ink out of the pen unlike with the bottle. The capillary forces pulling ink out of the pen create a vacuum that pulls the air into the pen. If you want to test this, fill a clear pen completely with water leaving no space for air. Put the pen nib down on a piece of cloth and watch. You will see air bubbling into the reservoir of the pen in short order as the liquid is wicked out and air goes in to replace the liquid lost.

 

The instructions to drip ink back into the ink bottle for self-filling pens is, as Hari mentioned, to clear the excess ink out of the feed of the pen. The purpose is not necessarily to create an air bubble in the reservoir of the pen. If I'm using an eyedropper where the ink is placed into the barrel and grip section is screwed into the top, I always fill it all the way.

 

Typically, with a well-designed eyedropper, you shouldn't expect any leakage in most circumstances. However, the ink reservoir is very large and the pen is mostly empty, you might see some leakage due to some changes in air pressure. I think Tim mentioned this.

 

Dillon

[bone215]

my cheap preppy eye dropper hasn't leaked in the two and a half years I owned it.

[Patrick L]

Thanks to all of your for your kind and great replies.

Cheers.

Patrick.