FP ink in a rollerball insert?

[chris1729]

I appreciate that I'm crossing pen genres with this topic, but I'm assuming that lovers of fine writing are bound to also own a few roller ball pens.

 

I just ran dry another refill in my Sheaffer Imperial roller, and I got to thinking: Would it be possible to pluck off the little grey cap at the end of the refill, squeeze in some fountain pen ink, and keep writing?

 

My second thought was that there'd probably be some difference in viscosity, and my FP ink might run right through the roller refill. I want to get some feedback before I end up with an inky mess on my hands and a lot of wasted ink. Has anybody ever tried this? It might be a way to save money on refills, and get some pretty unusual colours of ink to come out of a roller.

 

Chris

[chris1729]

Update time: I went ahead and tried it. I picked a bone-dry Sheaffer rollerball refill in a pen that I haven't touched for a long time. I plucked off the little grey cap at the end and dropped in a few drops of regular old Parker Quink. Voila! A fresh new Sheaffer rollerball refill for pennies instead of dollars.

 

There was only a little leaking at first out of one of the "vent holes" in the "section" of the refill, but that stopped once the foam inside got a chance to soak up the ink. It writes perfectly, except that it seems to be laying down ink a bit fast. A thicker ink than Quink would probably be better.

 

Does anybody have a recommendation for an ink that tends to run on the thick side?

 

Thanks.

[gregoron]

You've got me interested in doing this to my Lamy M66 rollerball refill. I'll see if my bullet-proof (i.e. waterproof) Noodler's Ink will work with it. Will post results later...

[graceaj]

Sounds interesting. I might try it the next time my rollerball runs out, but those Parker refills seem to last forever...

[gregoron]

Well, I did it. I opened up the cap on my Lamy M66 refill and used an eyedropper to fill it up with Noodler's Blue-Black ink. Now, the problem is that I didn't clean up my Lamy refill. In fact, it has a tubular sponge inside that is still soaked in black ink when I dropped the Noodler's ink in there. The ink started flowing after a few lines. It is still black, but slowly turning bluish. It's a little too wet for my taste. I'd consider the refill on the broad side rather than the medium it once was. It's very smooth though and it works.

 

PS. In this case, I'd try a fine point rollerball insert to get the medium effect.

Edited September 12, 2007 by gregoron

[chris1729]

We might have just ended the market for rollerball refills here. Pretty soon, pen manufacturers will find it unprofitable to make rollerballs at all and they'll sell nothing but fountain pens.

Edited September 12, 2007 by chris1729

[kissing]

It may interest you that there are in fact several Rollerball pens out there that are actually designed to be filled with FP ink. Some examples are the Rotring RollKulis, Monteverde Mega Ink ball, Schneider rollerballs and some kind of piston-filled ballpoint that was won on eBay not long ago...

 

In my view, initially I thought having rollers refillable like FPs was a magnificient idea. However, upon using some, it occured to me that no matter how smooth they are, they are still ballpointed and do not feel like a fountain pen. On top of that, they don't share the advantages of conventional rollerballs that simply take a new refill that lasts ages. So you end up with something that possibly shares all the disadvantages of FPs and loses the advantages of BP/RBs

Edited September 12, 2007 by kissing

[HLeopold]

It may interest you that there are in fact several Rollerball pens out there that are actually designed to be filled with FP ink. Some examples are the Rotring RollKulis, Monteverde Mega Ink ball, Schneider rollerballs and some kind of piston-filled ballpoint that was won on eBay not long ago...

 

In my view, initially I thought having rollers refillable like FPs was a magnificient idea. However, upon using some, it occured to me that no matter how smooth they are, they are still ballpointed and do not feel like a fountain pen. On top of that, they don't share the advantages of conventional rollerballs that simply take a new refill that lasts ages. So you end up with something that possibly shares all the disadvantages of FPs and loses the advantages of BP/RBs

 

If you are talking about the 600+ lot of rollerball style pens, those are PAN brand. (I have 3 coming to me pretty soon. I expect to turn at least two of them into Esterbrook nibbed fountain pens.

[gregoron]

I tried another ink with another rollerball refill. I filled an A.T. Cross black ink, which is manufactured by Pelikan, into an empty Retro 51 rollerball refill. It writes finer than the Lamy, but this may be because it's a different refill cartridge. I did read from Pendemonium's ink reviews that Pelikan inks are thicker than other ink manufacturers.

 

I also faced that quest for the smoothest type of writing instrument out there and found that the fountain pen is still the smoothest over the rollerball followed by gel ink then ballpoint. The closest pen that mimics the fp is the rollerball in terms of laying down the ink and the writing angle. I achieve this with my Kaweco Eyedropper Rollerball that I fill with Noodler's Ink. The advantage of this over fp's is that I don't have to recap the pen all the time as the ink does not dry out with the pen left uncapped on my desk. This rollerball also writes better angled at between 15 to 45 degrees, similar to a fountain pen, than at the traditional ballpoint writing style angle. I write with it much like I do with my Pelikan. Writing this way could also prolong the life of the roller ball tip, which is a disadvantage to rollerballs since it does have a finite write out amount. This is far less than an irridium tipped fountain pen.

 

As for conventional refills, they do last ages but they cost a lot too. My Lamy M66 refill costs $4.50 online. I can't find them where I am so the cost of postage adds to that too. So instead of just discarding them, it may be better for my wallet and the environment to just refill them with my favorite ink.

 

 

[PAlbedo]

Good idea on refilling rollerball refills with FP ink. I read about it first in this thread

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php?/topic/131791-montblanc-rollerball-refills-in-winter/page__gopid__1743769#entry1743769

 

to which I replied. I don't want to repeat too much but I had comments on refilling montblanc rollerball refills, i.e. 1) how to get the cap off "elegantly", 2)how much ink goes into the refill and 3)how to put the cap back on; to which I suggested pliers, 0.6ml and a hammer, respectively.