Refills drying out

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keithbyrd

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I have a customer who has bought about 20 pens from me over the years all exotic animals that he has hunted and I made pens out of the antlers and horns. The pens normally set in a collector case and he occasionally gets one out to sign a contract or something unique but they get very little use. He put new refills in all of them about a year ago but they have all dried up. So my question is what is the shelf life of Schmidt 5888 rollerball refills?
Have any of you had this problem and is there a way to fix it?
Thanks for your advice and insight!
 
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I cannot speak the the technical shelf life per the manufacturer specs.

Are the pens laying on their sides when they are stored? My experience is that when ink cartridges are stored with the tip down they do not dry up as quickly. An occasional one will dry up or leak but generally they last quite a while. The cartridges I have had laying on their sides do dry out faster. Maybe advise him to store the pens different if possible since he doesn't use them consistently.
 
This actually could be a very good topic and not just for that particular refill. One of those topics that probably would need contacting manufacturers. I hope maybe some has done some study on this and report their findings. Maybe there is no real answer or maybe it is just different type of inks. Think about it. Pen kits are stored on shelves and in boxes and not stood up wise as mentioned and does this lead to less life of refill. It is not like you can shake the refill like a paint can. Now to counteract this, most refills come with a seal on the tip so that can be a point about storing especially rollerballs. I hope we can get some valuable info here and maybe the vendors can contact their sources to help make this one of those library threads.
 
This just happened to me yesterday. I had to write a quick note. All pens in my desk stand are vertical, pen tip down. None of the 5888 or G2 pens with refills less than a year old would write. A slimline with the kit 10+ year old refill wrote without a hiccup. P900 ballpoints are similar to 5888 in 'not writing' abilities.
 
An advantage of ballpoints: can be fitted with pressurized ink refills (fisher) 100 yrs shelf life. Dunno if theres a rollerball like that..
 
It also depends where he gets his refills from, I find the generic refills supplied with kits and the cheap replacements obtained probably from China all contain a small fraction of ink compared with in my case genuine Parker refills.

Mind you I had a few boxes of genuine Montblonc rollerball refills that all dried out in their boxes.

I also found Monteverde refills to be quite reliable.
 
SabertoothBunny said:
I cannot speak the the technical shelf life per the manufacturer specs.

Are the pens laying on their sides when they are stored? My experience is that when ink cartridges are stored with the tip down they do not dry up as quickly. An occasional one will dry up or leak but generally they last quite a while. The cartridges I have had laying on their sides do dry out faster. Maybe advise him to store the pens different if possible since he doesn't use them consistently.
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most are standing up with the cap at the top so tip up. Displaying them with the cap down would look somewhat out of place!
 
Paul-H said:
It also depends where he gets his refills from, I find the generic refills supplied with kits and the cheap replacements obtained probably from China all contain a small fraction of ink compared with in my case genuine Parker refills.

Mind you I had a few boxes of genuine Montblonc rollerball refills that all dried out in their boxes.

I also found Monteverde refills to be quite reliable.
Click to expand...
These are all Schmidt 5888 supplied by me!
 
jttheclockman said:
This actually could be a very good topic and not just for that particular refill. One of those topics that probably would need contacting manufacturers. I hope maybe some has done some study on this and report their findings. Maybe there is no real answer or maybe it is just different type of inks. Think about it. Pen kits are stored on shelves and in boxes and not stood up wise as mentioned and does this lead to less life of refill. It is not like you can shake the refill like a paint can. Now to counteract this, most refills come with a seal on the tip so that can be a point about storing especially rollerballs. I hope we can get some valuable info here and maybe the vendors can contact their sources to help make this one of those library threads.
Click to expand...
I went to one of our main suppliers and was told it would be best to contact the manufacturer!
 
keithbyrd said:
most are standing up with the cap at the top so tip up. Displaying them with the cap down would look somewhat out of place!
Click to expand...
IMO, this is the reason. I would think that if the tip is up, depending on the length of time it is in that position would allow the ink and the air space would eventually exchange places. They haven't "dried up". It just takes a while for the positional change between the ink and the air space to happen.
Perhaps a better idea would be to build this customer a horizontal storage display. Or perhaps get a little fancy and build a rolodex type display that would store them flat.
Either that or store them with the cap posted on the back end and the tips down. This would probably create it's own problem of leakage.
 
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