Filling Converter Pen Trough Bottle Or Syringe?

[rb120134]

Hi,

how many guys who own converter fountain pens suck trough the bottle and how many use a syringe? I read that by using a syringe you reduce the risk of contamination. if dipping the nib in the ink bottle would cause fungus and growth, why dont brands like Montblanc and Graf von Faber Castell recommend a syringe instead of sucking out of the bottle?

And are there people here who have always sucked ink out of the ink bottles without any problems?

[sansenri]

your concern is excessive, if the pen is clean contamination by dipping the pen in the bottle is practically irrelevant.

There are reasons to fill the converter with a syringe though, typically when the bottle is almost empty and you cannot dip the pen in...

I just emptied a bottle of Waterman Florida blue this way yesterday.

Remember to push some of the ink back into the bottle through the nib by turning the converter, otherwise your feed will be dry and the pen will not write...

Back in the days when the piston filler pen was invented, no-one had any real knowledge of ink contamination issues...

Dipping the pen in ink goes back centuries...

[txomsy]

Plus, if you fill the converter with a syringe, you must take the converter off the FP, and replace it back. In due time this will strain either the converter, the nipple or both and it will fit more loosely. That may take a few years but, much as it happens with cartridges, it may with converters.

 

NO harm done by syringe filling occasionally, as when a bottle is almost empty. But IMMHO I prefer not to syriinge fill cartridges generally. And, after all, that totally defeats the purpose of a cartridge. For that, it is better to get a large cartridge (twice size) and syringe fill it, that would give you double capacity and be more convenient.

[ENewton]

And are there people here who have always sucked ink out of the ink bottles without any problems?

 

 

I've used fountain pens for more than 25 years and have always filled from a bottle without any problems.

[Pensei]

If you fill from the bottle, does that not make it difficult to make a clean transition from one color to another? It's all a matter of choice, I guess, or as the saying goes, pick your poison. Some people don't care about cross-contaminating by sticking the pen in the bottle, and have done it for decades without trouble. In my case, I've been pulling converters and filling them with syringes for decades, and, likewise, have yet to experience a loose connection.

[Bo Bo Olson]

On the whole ink contamination is a problem I've never had....thankfully.

One checks the bottle when opening it, for gunk or smell or such. As I said, I've been lucky.

It happens, but I don't think it happens often.

 

When filling with a converter (or piston/plunger filler) from an ink bottle, you are also cleaning the feed, running ink up and down it.

 

As mentioned filling from a syringe, means you have to take your converter off the spike, adding wear and tear.....wear and tear to the converter is no big deal.

But wear and tear to the spike is.

 

I use my cartridge pens for inks I have only in cartridges; out side of one or two with converters. I have a lot of piston pens, and 50 bottles of ink and 15 or so cartridge packs.

I do use a syringe to fill old cartridges which I tend to re-use instead of seeing if one of my converters might fit.

 

With no logic, I tend to think re-using a cartridge would be 'safer' than mounting a converter......not really so.....but C/C pens are more my secondary pen use. I'd say I have 50 piston pens and 12-18 cartridge pens.

[ENewton]

If you fill from the bottle, does that not make it difficult to make a clean transition from one color to another?

 

 

When using a pen with a converter, I flush, soak, and dry the section and converter before switching inks.

[Honeybadgers]

I have three pens that I don't fill through the converter/section dipped in the bottle.

 

1.) Visconti divina metro, which has a design flaw that draws ink into a section that is impossible to clean and will eventually ruin the pen. That one gets filled with a syringe.

 

2.) a penbbs in the white ivory wood grain, because it stains very badly, instantly, and requires some simichrome polish to get back to clean. So I just fill the converter from the bottle separately and then insert into the pen. Love the look of that thing, but I wouldn't buy that finish again

 

3.) the Faber Castell loom's section where the cap snaps to is a pain to clean, so I just fill that one's converter separately too.

[Freddy]

Hi,

how many guys who own converter fountain pens suck trough the bottle and how many use a syringe? I read that by using a syringe you reduce the risk of contamination. if dipping the nib in the ink bottle would cause fungus and growth, why dont brands like Montblanc and Graf von Faber Castell recommend a syringe instead of sucking out of the bottle?

And are there people here who have always sucked ink out of the ink bottles without any problems?

Converter or whatever filler I'm usin'.....With out any problemo.......

No syringe...only for shootin' the big H.....not for suckin' ink.........

Fred

Edited July 29, 2019 by Freddy

[Karmachanic]

I don't fill piston fillers with a syringe either

[Bo Bo Olson]

I don't fill piston fillers with a syringe either

[SpecTP]

the only time I ever use a syringe is when refilling a cartridge. I always refill the converter directly from the ink bottle without any issue.

[BaronWulfraed]

I don't fill piston fillers with a syringe either

 

You mean you don't take the nib unit out of your Pelikans to fill?

[txomsy]

 

NO harm done by syringe filling occasionally, as when a bottle is almost empty. But IMMHO I prefer not to syriinge fill cartridges generally. And, after all, that totally defeats the purpose of a cartridge. For that, it is better to get a large cartridge (twice size) and syringe fill it, that would give you double capacity and be more convenient.

Sorry, that should have been not to fill converters.

[sansenri]

If you fill from the bottle, does that not make it difficult to make a clean transition from one color to another? It's all a matter of choice, I guess, or as the saying goes, pick your poison. Some people don't care about cross-contaminating by sticking the pen in the bottle, and have done it for decades without trouble. In my case, I've been pulling converters and filling them with syringes for decades, and, likewise, have yet to experience a loose connection.

 

free to do so, but if the pen has been thoroughly cleaned the risk of contamination is remote, I prefer the piston action (piston, converter, lever filler, push button, etc) if possible, on the other hand I have been filling cartridges for decades with a syringe (particularly in my student years, for economy reasons...).

[txomsy]

On the issue of contamination... piston fillers are a good case in point: they have been around for about a century and continue being very popular. If dipping a pen in the ink had been a problem, they would have been phased out long ago.

 

As I have mentioned elsewhere, I have ink bottles dating from the 80's... which have been in use since then (colours that I seldom use) and despite opening and closing, dipping and re-dipping over the years, have yet to contaminate. I'm talking of about 10 bottles.

 

Of course, YMMV, specially in wetter and warmer climates.

[Arkanabar]

I only use my syringe to refill international cartridges. (Platinum and Pilot carts can be refilled with 3mL disposable pipettes, and I don't use Parker or Sheaffer carts). When I'm using a converter (or self-filling pen), I fill from a sample vial, which is in turn filled from bottles using 3mL disposable pipettes.

But for quite some time, I filled from bottles. I did my best to rinse my pens clean (within the limits of my equipment and patience) when changing inks, but I wasn't too careful about it -- less so than I would be now.

But I've never had issues with mold in my pens. If you keep your inks shut tight and well away from any live plants, you are unlikely to have issues. The vast majority of inks, especially from American, European, and Japanese makers, contain biocides to kill small inoculations of colonizing microbes.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Just read your signature, ......."""Shading is the result of varying amounts of a relatively unsaturated ink in your writing. Where there is more ink, the line is darker and more saturated. Your writing shows some variation in shade. Some people find themselves unwilling to use or buy any ink that doesn't shade. The effect is enhanced by a sloped writing surface (causing excess ink to all flow in the same direction) and paper that is relatively slow to absorb the ink, giving it time to puddle.""""

 

I've just gone from wanting a real nice classy slope to needing one.

 

Quite well written. I though living in Europe have other inks in mind. Noodlers is expensive imported ink. Japanese inks are now cheap at E22; they use to be only E-70 a bottle until a couple years ago when Amazon started flying it in.

I refuse to buy E-20 inks....and I round up with MB, which was once affordable....19=20 in my books. No more MB inks.

 

Green....I remember thinking who needed a green. In the middle of chasing purple, I got a half bottle of the old Brilliant Green 4001 for an Euro...WoW a lively shading ink (still like it better than the new dull dark 4001)...........within the next year bought 14 green-greenish inks........now have 19...All mainland European.