Refilling Rollerball and/or Gel Cartridges

[Raynewolf]

Can rollerball or gel cartridges be refilled with FP inks? If so, how's the performance?

 

Spooky P.

 

[jhazelwood]

Can rollerball or gel cartridges be refilled with FP inks? If so, how's the performance?

 

Spooky P.

 

 

I have refilled a few pilot pens that have liquid ink with Baystate Blue, it works like a charm. I use it at work when I don't feel up to looking like a smurf! I manage to get BSB and quink black on me all the time, the more permanent the more likely I am to get it on me.

[Raynewolf]

Well, alrighty then!! I'll have to give it a go!

 

Thank you, Jhazelwood!!

[jdboucher]

Can rollerball or gel cartridges be refilled with FP inks? If so, how's the performance?

 

Spooky P.

 

 

I have refilled a few pilot pens that have liquid ink with Baystate Blue, it works like a charm. I use it at work when I don't feel up to looking like a smurf! I manage to get BSB and quink black on me all the time, the more permanent the more likely I am to get it on me.

 

how would this be done?

[Titivillus]

Can rollerball or gel cartridges be refilled with FP inks? If so, how's the performance?

 

Spooky P.

 

I would think that the tolerances of a gell or rollerball might not be tight enough for a FP water ink. But then again there are some roller pens out there that use FP ink. So I guess it's possible. Probably remove the blind cap and fill.

 

K

 

[jhazelwood]

Can rollerball or gel cartridges be refilled with FP inks? If so, how's the performance?

 

Spooky P.

 

I would think that the tolerances of a gell or rollerball might not be tight enough for a FP water ink. But then again there are some roller pens out there that use FP ink. So I guess it's possible. Probably remove the blind cap and fill.

 

K

 

Pilot Vision elites use a liquid ink, the ink is fed to the rollerball via a fiber tip much like a sharpie. If you pull the very tip of the pen off, the part containing the rollerball, you can remove the felt feeder, then dump the ink. Rinse the felt feeder until it is near white and flush the pen body. The feeder slides into a feed like device. Fill the pen to about 95% re-assemble and use. It is that easy. I will post pics if I can

[Tricia]

I have several roller ball pens that were made to take fountain pen inks. One from Levenger's (a long time ago), a Pilot, and the Monteverde. The latter two both take regular converters, the Levenger's ony takes carts (though I could probably use one of those univeral converters). Not sure about the Monteverde, but the other two look to be regular roller balls, so I would think if you could mod the ink delivery system to take fountain pen ink that it would work fine.

 

One thing to note is that I do have trouble with skipping on very smooth paper like Clairefontaine. The roller balls work great on a slightly toothy paper such as what's in my Moleskines, though.

 

Right now I'm enjoying Nightshade in the Pilot. It's not quite as effortless to write with it as with a regular fountain pen, but all in all it's still easy to write fairly long passages without tiring my hand.

 

 

 

[jhazelwood]

I should add that It is a Uniball Vision Elite, not pilot. At any rate I took some pictures last night on how one of these is put together, kinda tricky to disassemlbe but not too bad.

[wvbeetlebug]

Has anyone tried refilling a Lamy Safari Roller Ball? I'm assuming it is the same technique.

[JJBlanche]

Just tried this with an empty Parker rollerball refill I had laying around. Got a syringe, filled it with Aircorp, inserted into the top of the rollerball cartridge, and filled with ink. Before I could even say "I did it!" the ink started leaking like a sieve from the tip. Oh well, nice thought.

[superbleu]

Just tried this with an empty Parker rollerball refill I had laying around. Got a syringe, filled it with Aircorp, inserted into the top of the rollerball cartridge, and filled with ink. Before I could even say "I did it!" the ink started leaking like a sieve from the tip. Oh well, nice thought.

 

That happened to me the first time I tried to refill a Pilot precise V5 with some old manhattan black.

I poked a hole in the side with a syringe, filled and taped up with some gorrilla duct tape, let it sit for 5 minutes capped and it leaked out the tip.

[weemeng]

Can rollerball or gel cartridges be refilled with FP inks? If so, how's the performance?

 

Spooky P.

 

I tried it with a Pilot techmatic refill and a China made Montblanc rollerball refill.

 

For the Pilot techmatic, I filled it with Pelikan Fount ndia ink when it had about 10mm of ink left. Just pull the front out, fill ink in the back of the tube till it is full and push the nib portion at the back. It writes very very wet at high angles. At low angles, it's ok.

 

For the China made Montblanc refill, it had a fibre tube in it. I immersed the tube in Kin's ink (China made India ink), cleaned the outside and re-assembled. Works very well thus far.

 

For another China made refill, after a few weeks of intermittent use, the ball tipped popped off. Ink then started to flow down slowly but surely.

 

I'm now waiting for my Pilot V5 Hi-techpoint to empty before trying to refill it but from the looks of it, getting the nib/feed assembly out is going to be quite difficult as it seems to be held in place by some shrinkage of the section.

 

rgds

weemeng

[wvbeetlebug]

Yesterday my sister and I were trying to refill her Lamy RB refill with some good ol' Diamine Med. Blue ink. If you put too much in the refill sponge while in the tube by syringe it will drip out of the end. She just informed me that she tried another method I suggested which was to just let the sponge soak in a small vial of ink and that worked like a charm.

 

I guess the key is allowing the sponge to absorb no more than what it can hold.

[PavalonTech]

Agreed with wvbeetlebug - I refilled my waterman refill with parker quink. If I fill it up to the brim it will just keep dripping until the levels in the sponge is neutral. (There shouldn't be ink rolling up and down the sides of the pen. For the first few pages it will just leave thick lines but gradually it becomes more consistent.

 

I think it also starts to build up when the temperature gets hotter as well. So beware of keeping the pen in your pocket after a refill.

 

Not bad for a recycle The refills cost 10 dollars each a pop considering how a bottle of ink would go for that price...

 

 

Cheers!

 

[Iridium]

As described by others, refilling rollerballs with fountain pen ink can often work, but I bet this wouldn't work with gel refills, which seem to be technologically much more like ballpoints in most respects. The ink has to be far more viscous, have very specific physical properties (e.g. thixotropic), and it must be free from air pockets. Fountain pen ink would probably flood out of gel refills, but you're always welcome to find out for yourself through experimentation.

[Eternally Noodling]

Just tried this with an empty Parker rollerball refill I had laying around. Got a syringe, filled it with Aircorp, inserted into the top of the rollerball cartridge, and filled with ink. Before I could even say "I did it!" the ink started leaking like a sieve from the tip. Oh well, nice thought.

 

That happened to me the first time I tried to refill a Pilot precise V5 with some old manhattan black.

I poked a hole in the side with a syringe, filled and taped up with some gorrilla duct tape, let it sit for 5 minutes capped and it leaked out the tip.

 

 

Try Heart of Darkness...and be certain to only fill enough to saturate the sponge in the chamber (and if there is an open chamber, use rubber cement to seal back the plug in the back of the cartridge or barrel - or make a rubber stopper plug if the manufacturer wanted to insist that you send the poor thing to rot a million years in some land fill!). Duct tape does not seal ink, as it will often permit a seepage. If it is beyond saturation...tap the rear until ink stops flicking out, then re-seal the end plug. Eventually the roller will wear out, but usually only after about 22 to 25 refills! I've tested many on writing machines. The Kaweco ink ball pens were retrofitted as eyedroppers (well over a thousand) before we discontinued that...their base cost kept going up and you can only work for free for so long....before you have to eat something to keep from passing out!

 

For those of you who hate it when your marker goes dry - we make an ink for that too (called "Black Mamba")...and it is NOT water based (writes on glass, plastic, everything an all purpose marker writes on). However, you'll have to e-mail the distributor and/or your retailer....because it can't be used in fountain pens and I don't think they want to stock an ink made exclusively to refill all purpose markers! It can ONLY be used in the non-toxic model sponge chambered friction fit section markers you see everywhere (Staples, Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe's, etc...). It has no other purpose...unless one wanted to use it with dip pens upon glass or plastic sheet (though it evaporates fast!). Just another way of making a penny look like a dollar. ;-)

[nsw]

Just tried this with an empty Parker rollerball refill I had laying around. Got a syringe, filled it with Aircorp, inserted into the top of the rollerball cartridge, and filled with ink. Before I could even say "I did it!" the ink started leaking like a sieve from the tip. Oh well, nice thought.

 

That happened to me the first time I tried to refill a Pilot precise V5 with some old manhattan black.

I poked a hole in the side with a syringe, filled and taped up with some gorrilla duct tape, let it sit for 5 minutes capped and it leaked out the tip.

 

I have tried successfully to fill my Pilot V5 with fountain pen ink. In fact I managed to fill another one with Indian ink. Both pens work reasonably well!

This is what I did:

 

1. Remove cap at the back of the pen with a small flat-head screwdriver.

2. You will be able to see a wall within the pen body that defines the ink chamber when you peer through the back of the pen. Pierce a small hole using a syringe needle through that wall to allow access into the ink chamber.

3. Insert a rubber washer (or in my case some dried up silicone) into the pen body to be adjacent the wall so as to seal the ink chamber. Now you are ready to fill the pen with ink.

4. Hold the pen UPRIGHT, i.e. with the nib pointing upwards. Insert the needle of an ink filled (with your favourite fountain pen ink) syringe through the rubber washer and hole to reach the ink chamber. Inject the ink into the ink chamber. Note that there is a small air vent at the nib end of the pen and if you don’t hold the pen upright, ink injected into the ink chamber will flow out from this nib end.

5. To hold the rubber washer in place, I stuff some crushed paper into the pen before inserting the cap back into the pen.

 

See the attached drawings.

Refilling_Pilot_V5.pdf

Edited November 12, 2008 by nsw

[lovemy51]

i refill my MB rollerball and works fine (i believe i did the same to a pelikan RB)!!!

[someonesdad]

Here's one thread on refilling a Staedtler rollerball; I've done it with FPN brown ink and it works nicely. If you can pull the rollerball tip out of the pen in a similar fashion to the Staedtler Liquid 7 pens, you should be able to refill them. For example, the Uniball Vision Elite pens should be refillable.

[nsw]

Just tried this with an empty Parker rollerball refill I had laying around. Got a syringe, filled it with Aircorp, inserted into the top of the rollerball cartridge, and filled with ink. Before I could even say "I did it!" the ink started leaking like a sieve from the tip. Oh well, nice thought.

 

That happened to me the first time I tried to refill a Pilot precise V5 with some old manhattan black.

I poked a hole in the side with a syringe, filled and taped up with some gorrilla duct tape, let it sit for 5 minutes capped and it leaked out the tip.

 

I have tried successfully to fill my Pilot V5 with fountain pen ink. In fact I managed to fill another one with Indian ink. Both pens work reasonably well!

This is what I did:

 

1. Remove cap at the back of the pen with a small flat-head screwdriver.

2. You will be able to see a wall within the pen body that defines the ink chamber when you peer through the back of the pen. Pierce a small hole using a syringe needle through that wall to allow access into the ink chamber.

3. Insert a rubber washer (or in my case some dried up silicone) into the pen body to be adjacent the wall so as to seal the ink chamber. Now you are ready to fill the pen with ink.

4. Hold the pen UPRIGHT, i.e. with the nib pointing upwards. Insert the needle of an ink filled (with your favourite fountain pen ink) syringe through the rubber washer and hole to reach the ink chamber. Inject the ink into the ink chamber. Note that there is a small air vent at the nib end of the pen and if you don’t hold the pen upright, ink injected into the ink chamber will flow out from this nib end.

5. To hold the rubber washer in place, I stuff some crushed paper into the pen before inserting the cap back into the pen.

 

See the attached drawings.

Pictures of the Pilot V5 pens I filled with fountain pen ink

Ends of the pen showing the silicone seal