Edelstein Bottles-Form over Function Annoyance

[seimodern]

re CdA boxes..! I hadn't realized the Caran d'Ache boxes were meant to be kept. It sounds like the the design works much better then I'd realized! 

 

And as for the sailor inserts, I keep my Kobe and older sailor bottles together, and had forgotten that they didn't come with the inserts. Thanks for clarifying! I didn't find the inserts very useful in part because a lot of my nibs were too long for that mechanism to be very helpful. That said, I also haven't tried using them in a long time, and maybe should give them another try.

 

 

[A Smug Dill]

42 minutes ago, silverlifter said:

The Akkerman ink bottle …

 

17 minutes ago, silverlifter said:

… after you tilt the bottle and fill the neck, …

 

That's an awesome design! Although I still find it space-inefficient and not conducive to stacking all the same; but that's a first-world problem that only someone with tight living spaces inside high-rise concrete towers, and with dozens or hundreds of bottles of ink on hand, need worry about.

 

24 minutes ago, Mr.Rene said:

Nevertheless you never can get the last drop of ink in any bottle. Reason? Because this is a fountain pen design issue not bottle design at all. Snorkel was a try.

 

A removable ink reservoir (with a self-contained filling mechanism, e.g. a rotary-driven piston ink converter) with a narrow mouth, that can rest against a flat surface to almost provide a complete seal, is a better ‘try’, when the physical geometry of the last drop of ink is likely to resemble that of a flattened hemisphere sitting on a flat base.

[Mr.Rene]

Just now, silverlifter said:

Yes, I have Akkerman bottles, and the whole point is that after you tilt the bottle and fill the neck, you stand it straight up so that you cannot move the marble...

 

Can you load a Video with your expertise filling a pen from Akkerman bottle please.??

Maybe I am doing something wrong...

I expect to see how you get last drop of ink..it will be very helpful to us.

Regards.

[silverlifter]

1 minute ago, Mr.Rene said:

Maybe I am doing something wrong...

 

Undoubtedly.

[arcfide]

Let's define "last drop" and also let's contextualize a few designs. I define "last drop" as meaning that if there is enough ink to get one full fill of the pen, that you can get that full fill or nearly that. This means that it's more like "to the last 1ml or so" in my estimation. The internal ink reservoirs are able to get pretty close to this, IME. Sailor still sells the internal reservoirs as a separate part that you can use. It's also worth noting that many of the reservoir designs are rather specifically designed to fit the pens made by that company. For example, the Platinum reservoir works very well for the nib on the #3776 Century, and is a near perfect fit, and enables a very clean fill. But larger pens that can't fill from the front of the section don't do so well. Likewise, consider that Sailor's pens are able to fill by only submerging the nib a little past the breather hole. Similarly, the depression in the Lamy bottles is okay, and quite good for Lamy nibs, which are often quite small and can fill from a relatively shallow depression, but not as good for very long, large nibs that need to fill from the neck. Something like the inkshot inkwells are very easy to use with larger nibs because they accommodate them better, but I find them easier to use as an external inkwell instead of an internal one. The bottle shape of the Waterman bottles is very well suited to their pens, but probably not as well suited to some others. The same goes for the Iroshizuku bottles, where the larger nibs will still have issues with the design of those bottles, but the more typical Pilot nibs will not. 

 

I think it's worth considering other factors than just filling from the bottle without external tools. I don't think it's really that onerous to fill your last 1ml or 2ml of ink from a bottle using a syringe if you really don't want to transfer it to another bottle or pour into an inkwell, and the tradeoff you might get in bottle attractiveness or storage efficiency or something else might be worth it. I think the Montblanc bottles do an excellent job of achieving a good balance of form and function, while the Lamy bottles are a little unattractive to me but very practical. I find Platinum's bottles practical with the insert for pens that fit the insert, but somewhat boring to have out on the desk. Sailor's bottles are much more attractive and practical from a packing standpoint, but definitely require support to use the last bits, which they provide in their stock lists. 

 

And then there's the issue of the mouth size of the bottle. After filling from a Parker Quink bottle recently, I've come to really appreciate the simple direct practicality of those bottles, and the easy filling that comes from the wide mouth. They even have a sort of retro-industrial chic feel to them that I find quite attractive. 

[bunnspecial]

3 hours ago, arcfide said:

And then there's the issue of the mouth size of the bottle. After filling from a Parker Quink bottle recently, I've come to really appreciate the simple direct practicality of those bottles, and the easy filling that comes from the wide mouth. They even have a sort of retro-industrial chic feel to them that I find quite attractive. 

 

I'm not sure if anyone can beat the Private Reserve "jars" in that respect. Since the neck is basically the same diameter as the bottle, it's easy to tilt pens to extreme angles or stick a converter all the way in there.

 

The newer Lamy Crystal bottles follow this same general design philosophy, but just dressed up a bit.

 

Filling from a converter directly(as suggested above) doesn't really solve things if the bottle is deigned such that if the converter is in far enough to reach the ink. you don't have enough space in the neck to manipulate the filler.

[Inunu]

I am not a fan of submerging nib and feed into inks.

Mainly because I care about the ink too much, and I play with cheap pens and mica powders...

Can you imagine a $3 pen, messing around with your $16 bottle?

 

The Pelikan Edelstein bottle has a lowest point to collect ink.

With its wide neck and short bottle design, it is very easy to pick up last few ml using a syringe or an eye dropper.

Then, remove your nib section, and transfer ink into that hole.

Bring the piston down a bit to draw ink into the chamber, and repeat.

I tend to take my time to fill it nice and clean.

If speed and convenience are your priority, that would be a different story.

 

Wider opening & lid is handy, although a bit more likely to collecting dust / fiber, especially when having carpet. It's a good trade-off.

But I have to confess, these Edelstein's wouldn't be with me if that was the design...

[N1003U]

On 5/4/2021 at 5:47 AM, bunnspecial said:

Aside from the obvious of just syringing ink out when I want to use it, does anyone have any tricks for filling from even a half full bottle of this ink?

 

Thanks for the rant, bunnspecial. I am with you on this point of the Edelstein bottle design as it relates to using Edelstein bottles for direct filling.

 

To be fair, designing a bottle that makes it easy to get almost very last drop out without an eye-dropper or syringe, and is still practical/economical is perhaps not all as easy as one might think, especially if someone's idea of "attractive"  is an additional design constraint (e.g., symmetry, continuous curves, etc.), though I think some manufacturers do bottles better than others.

 

The traditional 30ml and 60ml Pelikan bottles are for me at least "reasonable" in their design. When full, they are deep enough for any nib I have (what is the size of a MB 149 or Pelikan M100x?), and they continue to work reasonably well when the level gets lower (down to maybe 1/4 full) by tilting the bottle about one of more principal axes sticking as much of the feed as possible into the ink. Of course, depending on the size of the nib involved, there will be a level below which direct bottle filling is no longer feasible, no matter how the bottle is tilted or the feed positioned (for which cases I keep an Ink Miser handy).

 

I contrast this design of the traditional 4001 bottles with the newer Edelstein bottles, which, while I find artistically attractive and somewhat resistant to tipping, seem to be ingeniously designed to make direct filling out of the bottle difficult. Yes they have a wide mouth, which enables tilting of the bottle and/or pen when the ink level gets lower, but the bottom of the inkwell seem to be ingeniously shaped so that no matter how the bottle is tilted, the ink doesn't get deep enough to cover the feed for direct filling.

 

I consider the Edelstein bottle design deficient, but I like a few of the Edelstein inks well enough that I am willing to deal with it. If ability to direct fill out of the bottle were a higher priority for me, I would avoid Edelstein inks. Fortunately for me, the bottle design is only a minor consideration.

 

Thanks again though for the rant. I wish, too, that Pelikan had come up with a better bottle design for their premium inks.

[sansenri]

On 5/4/2021 at 6:31 AM, Detman101 said:

I spy with my good eye...a Delike pen container!!

clever Dill! I've got the Delike container too!

[inkstainedruth]

11 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

That's an awesome design! Although I still find it space-inefficient and not conducive to stacking all the same; but that's a first-world problem that only someone with tight living spaces inside high-rise concrete towers, and with dozens or hundreds of bottles of ink on hand, need worry about.

I store them in the original boxes -- that way I can pack them more efficiently in the storage boxes I use (and it also provides an extra layer of protection from light).  

Of course I tend to store other brands of in the original boxes whenever possible (unfortunately, some brands don't come in boxes).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[sansenri]

On 5/4/2021 at 3:19 PM, mhguda said:

What a marbelous idea.

Actually, one I may try with my single Edelstein bottle...

Marbelous indeed, I must have those glass marbles my kids used to play with when young, somewhere...

My Sapphire is running low too!

[mhguda]

It's always good to have (all your) marbles. Now we see what all they come in handy for!

I won't claim the ones destined for ink bottle filler have been with me that long, but I have had them for a while now, mostly for decorative purposes...

[sansenri]

It's nice to have well designed bottles, that help you in the filling maneuvers, however when you really reach the bottom, your best bet is a syringe...

I've used a syringe to fill my cartridge Pelikan for endless years, it's not difficult and you can really get at the very last drop.

So when the bottle gets low I use a syringe and fill converters with it. Not a big issue. Piston fillers can get at the full bottles (even pens have their privileges...)

[chromantic]

This problem isn't restricted to Edelstein bottles, I've been syringing Kana-cho into a sample vial for a couple  months now as the level in the little squat bottle got too low. I've also been doing that with my Stipulas as, while the level in the bottle may be high, , the tall neck makes it awkward to lower the pen down into it without my fingers rubbing the rim (especially when filling the tiny M3xx's); the dark brown glass doesn't help, either. The roomy Stipula box, however, lets me leave the vial in it.

 

I'm surprised pen manufacturers haven't copied Sheaffer's Tip-dip feature.

[bunnspecial]

8 hours ago, chromantic said:

I'm surprised pen manufacturers haven't copied Sheaffer's Tip-dip feature.

 

There have been pictures here of a new Sheafferr bottle that is already shipping or will soon be that has that feature.

 

I think maybe Anderson pens has it? I know I've bought a couple of other bottles of Sheaffer ink on Amazon in the past couple of weeks that were in the conical bottles. Unfortunately too the new one is 30mL. The conical bottles are 50mL, while most of my old Inkwell bottles are 2oz(save for the 4oz bottle of Blue-Black).

 

Unfortunately too, the inkwell is made in such a way that I've never really been able to fill anything other than a Snorkel or a loose converter from it. I'll be interested to see if the new one is different, but the photos I saw looked very similar to the old one.

[chromantic]

The Tip-dip is a pen feature, not a bottle feature. It's a hole through the center of the feed where the ink is drawn in (this same hole is where the snorkel protrudes in the Snorkel models). Most other pens, and previous Sheaffers, have the intake at the base of the feed at the section so that you have to submerge the whole feed up to the section in the ink to drawn it up. Moving the intake to the end of the feed by the nib meant only the end needed to be submerged, making the process cleaner. The Snorkel was based on the Tip-dip design.

[A Smug Dill]

On 5/5/2021 at 6:51 PM, arcfide said:

Let's define "last drop" and also let's contextualize a few designs. I define "last drop" as meaning that if there is enough ink to get one full fill of the pen, that you can get that full fill or nearly that.

 

With all due respect to your exploration of the idea, it is not quite how Platinum ‘defines’ the Last Drop feature in its 2021-2022 Catalogue:

 

 

Edit: OK, I just found Platinum's description of the Last Drop feature in English:

 

 

On 5/8/2021 at 3:44 AM, chromantic said:

The Tip-dip is a pen feature, not a bottle feature. It's a hole through the center of the feed where the ink is drawn in (this same hole is where the snorkel protrudes in the Snorkel models).

 

Sounds similar to Platinum's Last Drop feature shown above, which is also a pen feature and not a bottle feature.

 

I'm in agreement with the school of thought that failure to extract the ‘last drop’ of ink from a bottle is primarily a limitation of pen design and not bottle design. In particular, to be fit for purpose, a fountain pen ink bottle need not be designed to work optimally with all fountain pens of any make, design and vintage; it's the pen that needs refilling, and it's up to the pen design to make it easy for the user to accomplish that with whichever ink containers the user is expected to use or encounter.

 

That said, never mind any considerations for (say) Montblanc or Pilot pens; if Pelikan Edelstein bottles and Pelikan (say, piston-filled) fountain pen models don't work well together, then that's a problem of Pelikan's making — with or without the user being pen-centric in his/her thinking (on account of, what, the pen is more expensive than a bottle of ink?).

 

Edited May 9, 2021 by A Smug Dill

[bunnspecial]

1 hour ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

That said, never mind any considerations for (say) Montblanc or Pilot pens; if Pelikan Edelstein bottles and Pelikan (say, piston-filled) fountain pen models don't work well together, then that's a problem of Pelikan's making — with or without the user being pen-centric in his/her thinking (on account of, what, the pen is more expensive than a bottle of ink?).

 

That in and of itself is a problem. I have not been able to satisfactory fill an M800 from a half-full bottle of Edelstein.

 

Montblanc hasn't exactly been innocent in this easier. The "heel" of the shoe has been tweaked several times over the years, and a big 149 nib needs a bit of finagling to fill from the current bottle if it gets down a bit. I have much older shoe bottles(maybe 80s-90s, not sure what the exact timeline on them is) where a 149 nib is fine as long as there's enough ink to fill the "heel" completely. 149s and M1000s have very similar nib sizes and ink depth requirements for filling, so even though I agree that a pen company's only real responsibility is their own pens, it also becomes annoying when it stretches to other makes that have similar nibs/feeds.

 

Without using a Snorkel or another part, hood and semi-hooded nibs have to be the champions in all of this. A Parker 51 will fill as long as you cover the end of the hood completely. The MB 14/24 is similar, although needs a bit more ink since more of the hood is exposed. The Lamy 2000 is an interesting one since, even though it is semi-hooded, it draws ink through the hole at the back of the section. If can fill from a surprisingly low volume if you're able to tilt the pen to a fairly extreme angle., but that's also not always possible depending on the bottle.

[Runnin_Ute]

The Levenger bottle is one of the best I have used. It has an internal reservoir that is filled by tipping the capped bottle upside briefly to fill.

[Mercian]

Rohrer & Klingner make a little plastic insert that can be put in to the top of their own ink bottles. It is called an 'Erka-rapid'. It enables one to collect all the ink in to a 'cup' at the top of the bottle. I have found that I can get the nib of my Pelikan M805 in to one and still draw-up ink.

Here in the UK, they can be bought from TheWritingDesk.
On the page for the Erka-rapid - linky! - TWD say that the Erka-rapid will also fit in to the top of Edelstein bottles.
So, they could be 'just the ticket' for those of us who use Edelstein inks (I'm certainly hoping so! 😁)

Slàinte,
M.