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Gilrock

Gilrock

Member
Joined
Oct 18, 2011
Messages
560
Location
Tucson, AZ
So I've got my first kitless pen made minus the cap and my ink just arrived yesterday and after reading an online tutorial about how to load ink in a fountain pen I ended up with a big mess on my fingers. The pen I built has a #5 fine Bock nib and housing with a converter attached and I ordered the Private Reserve black ink. The ink looks very watery to me so I'm not sure if that was a good choice or not. And to load the pen the instructions I read made it sound like all I had to do was make sure the feed hole was submerged in ink but that didn't work. I could not get a vacuum to draw up the ink unless I dipped the nib all the way down till the front of the housing was in the ink...not sure if that's normal.

So I got it loaded with ink now and I was letting my friend at work try it out cause I thought it was writing real nice. Well he liked it but when he went to hand it back to me it slipped from his hand dropped back on the paper where he just wrote his name and ink splattered everywhere. The only other thing I did was right before we wrote I had opened it up to show the ink in the converter and it looked like an air gap in the middle of the ink so I held it over a trashcan and moved the piston down slightly and was able to get rid of the air gap without any ink dripping. Not sure if that loaded a ton of ink in the housing or whether I've got the nib adjusted wrong but that ink splatter just didn't seem normal to me...it was just so big of a splash.

Gil
 
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It's inside a plastic bag when not in use so making a cap doesn't solve anything I'm asking about.

Gil
 
Fountain pen ink is just slightly thicker than water. If you had to insert the front of the feed and housing into the ink, then you have an issue where the piston fits into the section. You don't have an air tight fit. You should be able to insert the nib covering the breather hole and draw ink into the piston just fine. Also if you do not wipe down the nib and feed when you remove it from the ink bottle, the feed will be overloaded with ink. Same goes with twisting the piston when it has ink in it. You should never have to turn the piston once it is filled. Your ink works with gravity and capillary action. If you have a feed over full with ink and you drop it, even from just a few inches you will have a big splatter. So double check your fit of the converter to the feed. The little tip on the back side of the feed should fit into the converter and the converter should fit flush against the feed. Your section should be acting as support for the converter and to help hold it in place. It should be a snug fit not overly tight and it most definitely should not be loose. If the converter does not fit flush against the feed, then the ink and leak between the feed housing and the section.
 
Hmm...well I did consider that it might be a problem with my section dimensions so I took everything out of the section and re-assembled the converter onto the feed housing and it still wasn't drawing up the ink with only the feed hole covered. I need to find an expert to visit.

Gil
 
I think all fountain pen users have been baptised with ink at one time or another.
 
I'm new to fountain pens, but I thought one had to go beyond the feed hole to draw the ink. I was recently taught to go much deeper than the feed hole and haven't had issues since. Let me know what you find out and thanks for the thread, it's most helpful.

Regards

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