Sheaffer & standard-International ink cartridges

[CaptJack]

Sheaffer & standard-International ink cartridges

 

I recently put my old Sheaffer cartridge pens back into service
I noticed how hard it was to find the old regular Sheaffer ink cartridges
I learned that some folks were using the newer- shorter- standard-International cartridges
but had to be careful not to drop the pen and dislodge the shorter cartridge

I took an old cartridge and cut a spacer to fit down in the barrel
the spacer is just a smidge longer than 1/2"
..because Sheaffer never thought to make it an even measurement 

 

I recently bought both black & blue- short- International cartridges from an eBay seller in Poland.

He had some interesting things to say about the life of plastic ink cartridges and how they should be stored.
Having old Sheaffer cartridges from back in the 70s, his points were well taken.
The ink in the old Sheaffer cartridges isn't very good!

 

from "inkforpens" in Gizycko, Poland -

"The ink is both acid free and archival safe
It dries quickly and doesn't smear when gotten wet
It is non toxic and pH neutral
Light fast and water based
It won't damage your pen 

This is some interesting information about ink cartridges in general- their longevity.

A fountain pen ink cartridge's shelf life is about three years.
If you'd like to make them last a lot longer- almost forever-

Inks are water solutions and cartridges are made of what seems to be polyethylene.
Over a period of years, water molecules will migrate through the walls of the cartridge.
It has nothing to do with whether the cartridge is sealed properly or not--it will happen anyway.
This situation is roughly analogous to a balloon filled with air.
After several days, air leaks through the rubber, no matter how well it is sealed.
The bottom line is that cartridges have a shelf-life on the order of years.
They should be fine for about 3 years or so at room temperature.
They can last much longer at lower temperatures, but don't allow them to freeze
the water will expand and possibly break the cartridge.
In theory, a way to make cartridges last *almost* indefinitely, would be to store them in a jar filled with water.
This would *essentially* keep the water inside the cartridge in equilibrium with the water outside
i.e. about as much water would leak in as would leak out.
The reason that I said *almost* is that there is a very weak force of osmosis at work.
This is because there is a difference in the concentration of molecules dissolved inside the cartridge
(i.e. the ink and small amounts of other additives) and outside, where there is nothing dissolved).
This force will very slowly pull water into the cartridge as the exact concentrations attempt to reach equilibrium (this is the principal of dialysis).
However, we are now talking about a process that would take perhaps decades.
Also in theory, if the water in the bottle had the exact concentration of large molecules as inside the cartridge,
the cartridge would last more than a lifetime.
Chemistry in (very slow) action."

 

So.. my solution was to fill the bag that the cartridges came in with water
Then put the bag in a plastic take-out container and fill it with water.
Then store it in the refrigerator.

[joss]

I admire your efforts to keep your ink cartridges in maximal health! But the statements of your ink cartridge dealer are quite obscure. I doubt that water in its liquid form is able to migrate by osmosis through the plastic wall of an ink cartridge.

[bsenn]

Something migrates through, as old unopened Sheaffer cartridges I have are dry, or close to it. Adding water results in a useable cartridge.

 

Brian

[CaptJack]

On 6/9/2022 at 3:22 PM, joss said:

 

I think he was just thinking of the best way to store the cartridges for long term.
I know many of my old- unused Sheaffer cartridges from the 60s~70s have lost some of their ink.
and if you use them they seem to have a lot of tiny solids in them and don't flow well.
I have been refilling old cartridges with fresh ink using a syringe.
I have recently bought a bunch of the short- standard/international cartridges, and made spacers for them.
the new ink is a lot better than the old Sheaffer ink!
it's pretty easy to put water in the bag and put the bag in a water filled take-out container in the fridge. who knows? 

CaptJack

 

[Peter_H]

Interesting thread!

 

It would not have occurred to me that a comparatively thick-walled polyethene container would behave like an SPM (semi-permeable membrane), but it would seem that it probably does.  Is the seal at the ‘business end’ of the cartridge made of the same material?  If not, this could be the active zone, although the surface area is very small, so this part would need to be, relatively, very permeable.

 

I have seen the same effect with an old Waterman cartridge, which puzzled me at the time.  I was gifted what was effectively a NOS Phileas, which arrived with a bone-dry cartridge.  It had previously been stored in its presentation box for several decades and so I assumed that some leakage must have occurred, but there was no evidence of staining anywhere.  Now I know!

[Graywolf503]

Sorry to resurrect this old thread but I just saw it.

 

Be careful of osmotic pressure. Osmotic pressure is what causes the water to come out of the plastic cartridge. If you surround cartridge with water, osmotic pressure will cause water to diffuse into the cartridge causing it to dilute the ink and possibly swell the cartridge. You may want to check these periodically and see if they are changing level of ink in the cartridge.  A more common but serious case is where water surrounds cells in our tissues. The water will flow into the cells and cause them to swell and possibly rupture.  Wikipedia has an excellent article on this.

 

Have a blessed day.

[amberleadavis]

@Graywolf503

 

[Ink Stained Wretch]

On 6/9/2022 at 11:31 AM, CaptJack said:

So.. my solution was to fill the bag that the cartridges came in with water

Then put the bag in a plastic take-out container and fill it with water.
Then store it in the refrigerator.

 

I remember this conversation years ago on, I think, the USENET fountain pen group. I think it was Frank Dubiel who talked about this. It works.

[Ink Stained Wretch]

On 6/9/2022 at 4:22 PM, joss said:

I admire your efforts to keep your ink cartridges in maximal health! But the statements of your ink cartridge dealer are quite obscure. I doubt that water in its liquid form is able to migrate by osmosis through the plastic wall of an ink cartridge.

 

The water absolutely will go through the polyethylene cartridge wall over time. I've seen it happen over and over again. The reason is that while the polyethylene seems solid to us that's only  because we are huge creatures.

 

It's sort of like having a doorway with a door in it vs. a doorway with a beaded  curtain in it. If there are enough layers of beaded curtain you can't see thought to the next room, just as you can't see through a door. But if you push through you can go right through the beaded curtain. Polyethylene is one molecule attached to another in a chain. And then those chains are cross linked to make denser polyethylene. At the level of a water molecule it's like the water molecule is wiggling through the layers of chains. Evaporation of the water, and any other volatile molecules, is inevitable due to the vapor pressure in the cartridge pushing the water molecules through the polyethylene.

[Graywolf503]

Water and oxygen can go through polyethylene, but  very slowly. I have some older Sheaffer plastic cartridges that have 1/2 to 1/4 of the original contents. If the water didn't go through the plastic where did it go? I suppose one could say that there was a break in the plastic, however I've not been able to see any defect in the plastics of these cartridges, and the cartridges are not completely empty. A simple Google search reveals that water is indeed permeable through polyethylene and other plastics.

 

Water Vapor Permeability of Polyethylene and Other Plastic Materials
R. L. Hamilton

Low-density polyethylene sheathing materials have water vapor permeabilities on the order of 10−8 at 22°C. High-density polyethylenes have permeabilities about one-third to one-sixth that of the low-density polyethylene.

[Ink Stained Wretch]

On 11/9/2022 at 6:39 PM, Graywolf503 said:

Water and oxygen can go through polyethylene, but  very slowly. I have some older Sheaffer plastic cartridges that have 1/2 to 1/4 of the original contents. If the water didn't go through the plastic where did it go? I suppose one could say that there was a break in the plastic, however I've not been able to see any defect in the plastics of these cartridges, and the cartridges are not completely empty. A simple Google search reveals that water is indeed permeable through polyethylene and other plastics.

 

Water Vapor Permeability of Polyethylene and Other Plastic Materials
R. L. Hamilton

Low-density polyethylene sheathing materials have water vapor permeabilities on the order of 10−8 at 22°C. High-density polyethylenes have permeabilities about one-third to one-sixth that of the low-density polyethylene.

 

I have some old Shaeffer and Cross cartridges that have nothing but ink dust in them. I think that if you keep those cartridges for a longer enough time you'll have nothing but ink dust in them too.

[txomsy]

On 6/9/2022 at 10:22 PM, joss said:

I admire your efforts to keep your ink cartridges in maximal health! But the statements of your ink cartridge dealer are quite obscure. I doubt that water in its liquid form is able to migrate by osmosis through the plastic wall of an ink cartridge.

I can attest to that having cartridges that after decades of storage have run totally dry unused. So, it does happen.

 

As for reverse osmosis, shouldn't it be trivial to balance adding salt to the outside water?

[The Elevator]

On 11/16/2022 at 9:11 PM, Ink Stained Wretch said:

I have some old Shaeffer and Cross cartridges that have nothing but ink dust in them. I think that if you keep those cartridges for a longer enough time you'll have nothing but ink dust in them too.

Question: can/does this happen to plastic ink bottles too? Diamine 30 ml bottles, for example, are plastic. Of course it would take much longer to dry out, so would a reasonable preventative action be adding a drop of distilled water every month or two?

[Ink Stained Wretch]

On 2/17/2023 at 11:35 PM, The Elevator said:

Question: can/does this happen to plastic ink bottles too? Diamine 30 ml bottles, for example, are plastic. Of course it would take much longer to dry out, so would a reasonable preventative action be adding a drop of distilled water every month or two?

 

It might, but the rate of evaporation also depends on the plastic. On the other hand, water will find its way through all plastics, I think.

 

As an example of what happens with these things, I have the above-referenced cartridges. They're made of polyethylene and the water has completely gone from the oldest of them over time. The less old ones have an obvious loss of volume. Some years ago I bought a one Liter bottle of Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Black ink. That bottle was also made of polyethylene. I was concerned about losing ink volume from the start. I checked the big bottle, which I hadn't opened yet, after about six to eight months, and it was clearly starting to shrink. Instead of the bottle having straight lines it was starting to get slightly concave on the sides. So in that time it was clearly losing water. Soon after that I squeezed the ink out of the bottle and into a glass, one quart bottle and some smaller bottles that were also made of glass. So adding a little bit of distilled water from time to time might help. You probably should mark where the ink level was the last time you opened the bottle though, otherwise you might end up diluting the ink too much .

[txomsy]

Sorry, but if waper can perspirate, ¿shouldn't air molecules do as well? In my ignorance, to me it looks more like a change in air pressure, from an original lower pressure (which has kept inside the bootle -meaning not even gases crossed) to a higher pressure outside that made the bottle shrink. Or is it there something I am missing in the fluid exchange?

[mrcharlie]

On 6/9/2022 at 11:31 AM, CaptJack said:

I learned that some folks were using the newer- shorter- standard-International cartridges
but had to be careful not to drop the pen and dislodge the shorter cartridge

 

I have so far not ever had an international std cart fall off the section of a Sheaffer pen. I think I would have to drop a pen several feet and have it hit something hard while butt down/nib up to dislodge it. I'd be more worried about damage to the pen than having to re-install the cart. :)

 

On many pens made to take the std cart, there is no rear support for the cart. The way it works causes it to grip the section input tube tightly enough to support its weight, and the Sheaffer section input tubes are very close in diameter to std ones. The old Sheaffer carts did not grip the tube in the same way the recent ones do and std ones do.

 

That said, using a cut off old Sheaffer cart as a spacer to make sure the std cart can't come off is a nice hack.