Blunt syringes work much better when filling eyedropper pens. The glass pipettes are less precise and more prone to leaking. The syringe can be more accurate and easier to clean.

@ChadHerring

Жыл бұрын

And inky fingers are a badge of fountain pen honor.

@pen.venture

Жыл бұрын

I do have some blunt syringes that I use when inking just for dosing the ink volume and not go overboard with 5+ ml of ink :)) I just feel that I will wash the pen way before I burn through that ink :D Inky fingers power ! :D

Thanks for discussing a much maligned fountain pen ink reservoir system. I know some people do not like the Japanese eye dropper system. They think it burps ink. Sure, it can, but if like Namiki the feed and section have a large capacity/buffering ability, and the threads are precise there is little concern. My favorite systems are cartridge converter and the Japanese eye dropper. Both I like simply for the convenience and in the latter case, the ink capacity. Namiki is best at the eyedropper game. Danitrio, for example, sometimes has imprecision in manufacturing that can cause minor problems with leaks in and around the section. I also have an Opus 88 that is nicely made that does not leak at all. For filling I use a plastic Pasteur pipette, which is flexible so can easily put down inside the barrel. I don't fill past the threads and have no issue dripping ink and making a mess while filling. The main concern is burping ink when the ink level gets below about half full. Heat from your hands can expand the trapped air faster than the water (ink), which can cause ink to burp out especially if the section/feed/nib system has relatively low buffering capacity. Namiki Emperor is especially resistant to burping; there is a reason for the huge nib and feed.

@pen.venture

Жыл бұрын

I personally like it dispite having occasionally small incidents that got my hands inky, namiki emperor seems like is much more predictable in the way the filling system is working and I really like that big nib and feeder. Danitrio pens tend to be temperamental, sometimes they work perfect sometimes is like they are having a bad day :)) but I learned to love and accept this. For me burping is not such a big thing, if I could change someting I would like to have the section barrel connection sealed and leak proof - that’s all 😁

Love the capacity of eye dropper pens as they write seemingly forever, especially with flex nibs, or wide stub nibs. I do not like the burps and blobs a nearly empty eye dropper pen can subject my letter or notebook to though. The best compromise seems to be the Opus 88 design that has that plunger that can stop the ink from entering the grip. 👍😁

@pen.venture

Жыл бұрын

The ink volume is rather crazy with eyedropper pens - I always get bored of the ink color before I run out of it 😁 opus mastered the eyedropper filling system and there is a lot of people that can say this after testing them

I like the eyedropper style fountain pen even if I prefer to fill mine with a syringe. For me, it was simply because I wanted a turn of the century vintage Waterman fountain pen. I love it, but I hate it when it "burps" ink.

@pen.venture

11 ай бұрын

Yeah... that comes with this filling system :D occasional burps and blobs of ink coming out :D

I learned to write with fountain pens as a young child in the ‘70s. I hated it and got very messy. I have recently started using them again as a form of post-stroke rehabilitation. I was getting messy from converter filling and was about to give up when I discovered Opus 88. I fill far less frequently and with a blunt syringe. I don’t get messy from having to get ink outside my pen or having to wipe off the section. I don’t need to wait for the feed to equalise or blot off the flooded feed. I’m not looking back.

@pen.venture

7 күн бұрын

:D I started writing with a pen since I was 7 years old :D now im 33 :D and I know the feeling because I often left the fp down for some years like example for collage and that sweet calling back by my favorite fp ... was sooo sooo sweet like seeing an old friend

I do have a factory-made eyedropper fill pen, the MaJohn S-5, a pretty little demonstrator. It shows off the ink nicely without apparatus. But, I too enjoy using many different inks, and enjoy the rituals of filling a pen, which makes one of the great advantages of the filling system a matter of indifference to me.

@pen.venture

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for sharing! For me big volume eyedropper pens sort of cured me of constantly changing inks and washing the pen every day and at every single ink change :D

You sold me my first eyedropper: an Opus 88 Fantasia, and I've loved them ever since :) I have honestly had more trouble with plain old converters deciding to leak, or not flow properly leading me to twist the knob to force some ink out. Sure you run the risk of more spillage when filling an eyedropper, but once it's done you don't have to re-fill for many many months. Compared against the puny converter ink capacity, you are opening your ink bottles and messing around much more often than with eyedroppers. The only eyedroppers I have had leakage issues with are those without shutoff valves, so maybe Japanese eyedroppers are better in this regard.

@pen.venture

Жыл бұрын

Happy to hear about this :D Eyedropper system is a very simple and rudimentary system that has all the chances to work well, I've seen with other types of systems, the more parts there are, the more of a probability it wont work properly. If the pens are worked with small tolerances - it will not leak that is what I've seen and tested on my own pens

I draw and can sometimes empty a converter on even an A5 doodle, so I like eyedroppers a lot 👍

@pen.venture

Жыл бұрын

That's a great idea! :D and for drawing I imagine eyedropper is the way to go

@MummyBrown

Жыл бұрын

I second this. They are so messy they are almost fun for sketching! I have an Akkerman Zebra G nib eyedropper pen and I really love it, but it takes a “different” kind of mindset to embrace the headache that sometimes goes with using eyedropper pens.

Really, about the only times I get into trouble with eyedroppers is when there's "high maintenance ink" involved. These are inks with "shimmer" or "shine" or "metallic" in the names and WAY too often have particulates floating in them. There are already people who needlessly worry about some particulate, but love the glittery nonsense, so it carries market value... The problem of course, is clogging. If there's particulates, then the feed can clog with them... some are worse than others. Generally it's not destructive, but taking apart the pen to clean it out is almost impossible without wasting ink or "risking contamination" when you pour ink back into a bottle or jar... You CAN of course, keep a few smaller jars or "pots" of ink, so the risk of contamination goes down, but then you trade for a further risk of spills... Otherwise, mostly, I love them for the volume of ink. AND no, it's not because I do so much writing, though I probably take more "hard-copy" notes than most... I'm an artist and I like to SKETCH with ink... and specifically fountain pens, largely for the variation of lines you can get as EASILY as you can vary them with a fountain pen. BUT when you can sit for hours at a time, sketching and hatching or cross-hatching for both shadow and texture, you're GOING to burn through quite a bit of ink... If you're going to sketch "in the field" or take your art "on the road" then you're going to want a pen with quite a bit of range... BUT you do NOT want to be troubleshooting and "farting around" with it outside... SO simplicity and reliability HAS to be a part of the package... AND that's the other dubious limit I put on eyedropper pens... I avoid pens converted outside their original manufacturer. I don't mind a kit that the manufacturer offers, but when a pen from Company A has been "Converted to Eyedropper" in some limited edition by Artist/Engineer B, there's almost always a tolerance and compatibility something "issue" and the invitation to idiosyncrasies that I just don't need... Personally, from paint to leather dye, I've done so many different kinds of art that inky fingers or palms is the LEAST of my troubles to speak of... HOWEVER, O-rings and plastic threads pretty universally DO last longer and function better (especially for sealing well) with a very light coating of Silicone Grease. I don't even bother asking or looking it up anymore. The Grease is inexpensive and lasts "for g** d*** ever" in the tube... I just dab a little paint brush into the stuff and slather a coat to all the threads and make sure to hit any O-rings I can find... AND then ink up and move on... It can help make the grease more even if I paint it on and then put the pen back together before re-opening JUST to add the ink, which also allows me a minute "worry free" to put the grease container and paint brush away... or even exchange for the ink and eyedropper/syringe... before I'm back to try to fill ink without too much mess. Meh... Generally, unless something goes wrong... there isn't anything a napkin or the corner of a paper-towel won't clear right up... There are a few individual models/makes that I might find issue with, and it's just my experience so far, but more pens in the $50 and LOWER price ranges tend to be the less troublesome, even at some sacrifice of volume... Nothing against the idea of getting a "behemoth ink cannon"... BUT it's still only a pen. As much as I can appreciate a masterpiece of art, this is a utensil "first" to me... SO past a certain point (and your judgment IS your own judgment) there is also just wasting money to show off. ;o)

My wife will soon bring me back from Japan a new Namiki Emperor Vermilion. I still have to wait a few more weeks until the end of her vacations there. In the meantimes, I would love to watch your review of this classic grail pen. Thanks for your communicative passion of fountain pens.

@pen.venture

Жыл бұрын

Sounds great! The Emperor I got, its been inked ever since - and this just proves how nice is as a writer and impressive as a stance among my 90+ pens that are in my collection. Ill get to review it soon :D noted

Good video. Thank you. I have a Kaweco Frosted Sport that I have converted to an eye-dropper. I'm pleased with the result.

@pen.venture

11 ай бұрын

Great to hear! Enjoy it :D

The main drawback of eyedroppers is that they are expensive. Since they are considered niche specialty pens, they often come with a price tag. There are some affordable ones, but those are mostly plasticky low-grade nibs and poor esthetics. Two exceptions are the Sports series of Kaweco, which you eyedrop using silicon grease at the thread, and the Divine Design Eyedropper. Both come with good quality Jowo nibs, which is a plus. The DD has exceptional esthetics since the pen comes in beautiful colors that are enhanced by paired ink color visible through the large transparent mid part of the barrel. It does not look like a transparent plastic pen though. Size, girth, build quality and prize are also excelent. At 60 € it is hands down my favorite pen. Unlike the beautiful but expensive japanese models, you use it and carry around, no worries. 😊

@pen.venture

3 ай бұрын

:D well - a Japanese shut of valve ebonite pen, that usually comes in urushi, tend to cost a lot. The affordable ones are different to these top models. I think some nice value can be found also with Eboya with this style of a system but minus the makie and urushi work

Oddly, my Opus 88 eye dropper pen has been a workhorse daily carry for nearly three years. No leaks, only one hard start when I forgot to turn the stopper knob. It writes like a dream, has a medium nib filled with Noodler’s American Aristocracy. No hate, only love for this one.

@pen.venture

Жыл бұрын

Thank you for the feedback Michael :D

I love eyedropper (syringe?) filled fountain pens. I'm less likely to get inky fingers with them than converter/piston/vac fillers (either filling or cleaning). I use an ink syringe (rather than an actual eye-dropper), and always use a dab of silicone grease on the threads (even if they have an O-ring). With the exception of my Opus 88 Jazz, all of my eyedropper pens are conversions. My EDC pens are a couple of pocket pens which I've eyedroppered; a Gravitas in stainless steel, and an Ensso in titanium. BTW - all of the crap you hear about not eyedroppering "metal" fountain pens comes from people with no background in metallurgy; "metal" is a very broad term covering many different pure materials and alloys. The only "metals" (commonly used in fountain pens) I would seriously worry about eyedroppering are most alloys of aluminum, brass (which is a copper/zinc alloy) and copper (although there are some alloys of copper - e.g. Monel - which are extremely corrosion resistant). And before some chemist or metallurgist throws a fit about the term "corrosion resistance" - that also is a broad term covering many different materials and conditions. One final tip for eyedropper conversions: if you're converting a pen with a screw-in nib housing, don't forget to put silicone grease on the nib-housing threads as well as the section threads.

@pen.venture

Жыл бұрын

Hey there Daniel - thank you so much for the insight, I was suspecting that not all metals are that corrosion sensitive but I would gladly put everything in one big melting pot like if its metal ... dont let it touch ink :D I use a lot of silicone grease on the threads but now I would like to carefully remove some of my danitrio o rings and go at a local market shop where they have hundreds of thousands of o rings for sale and just buy some that are just like them, some thicker and just experiment to see if I find something that is sealing the threads a bit better

Eyedropper pens is asking for problems all by itself. Unless you need an absurd amount of ink, which I don't think there is for anyone, given this serious design problem, it should not be used by anyone. There was a great design made by Pelikan, these pens were called Level. It had big tank and small reservoir. If you ran out of ink in reservoir, you simply only had to turn a valve , pour ink from the big tank and close a valve by turning the knob back. It had also unique and very clever filling system on the end of pen, with a special bottle that you had to squeeze to fill the big tank. It was really a great pen but had major quality issues. Section was cracking, probably because of one plastic glued to transparent part and tensions in that area. Even without dropping that pen ever on floor etc. I have such pen, it's unrepairable. Then they made second model, better, but was I think very shortly on market and was expensive. Maybe some day they will come back to this idea. Probably no one cared about such big amount of ink anyway. You can find it second hand on internet, but often without filling bottle , without which it's pretty useless.

@pen.venture

9 ай бұрын

this is a lot of valuable info - thank you :D

I don't really like eyedroppers. But I use them. I have a pocket pen that's an eyedropper and it actually works very well for its job. I like the ones best that have a plunger inside that helps regulate ink flow. But I generally avoid them.

@pen.venture

Жыл бұрын

If only they wouldnt be so nice looking (my Danitrio pen fleet :)) ) - I like them a lot, I only get nervous each time I open the cap to write with them and I have to check if they have ink on the section threads :D

I love having inky fingers. Fun! I’m watching this video because I am having ink flow interruptions with my new Opus 88 mini eye dropper pen. I keep the valve open and have stored in a container, nib down. I’m so frustrated with my first eye dropper pen. It wasn’t addressed so this video didn’t help me. 😢

@pen.venture

Жыл бұрын

:)) im anxious thinking it would look not that professional on the camera with inky fingers :D get some warm water and flush it a few times :D

8ml depending on nib would last between 8 days and 8 weeks for me. I write a lot, 25 pages on both sides in a day at times. Japanese Fine nibs I burn through a milliliter in a few days.

@pen.venture

8 ай бұрын

uhhhh thats a lot of writing :D congrats

@nope8535

8 ай бұрын

@@pen.venture OCD is useful at times....sometimes.

HEY! I do also have my fingers full of ink traces .. or large spots of them ... so don't worry, everything is just perfect!! There is nothing to say against them!!

@pen.venture

Жыл бұрын

Inky fingers or not - I still like these fountain pens and there shouldn’t be a shame to have inky fingers, at least when I get to adjust and test well over 5 10 pens per day 😁😆 I just don’t want to give someone reason to point this up

Wear if possible thin rubber gloves to avoid stained hands.

@pen.venture

4 ай бұрын

I would but its just impossible to adjust nibs with my fingernails and pull them apart while having rubber gloves on

I hate the burps. I get tired of the ink long before it runs out.

@pen.venture

6 ай бұрын

couldnt be ore short ... and more on point :)) im with you on this

I liked this video, but I was amused at the messiness he reported from filling the pen using the glass eyedropper. Lol, where I live, I routinely fill it without spilling or touching one drop, with no tissue at hand. In fact, the pros amongst us used to pour it from the bottle directly without using the pipette, again with no tissue/paper towel. It is much cleaner than filling up the converter fountain pen which would need you to wipe the nib..

@pen.venture

Жыл бұрын

well - that's how it is :D I need to practice more

What is the Geha? pen please it’s lovely.

@pen.venture

Жыл бұрын

please let me know what you are referring to, Geha?

@minutescenes

Жыл бұрын

@@pen.venture the “head”-size pen you have in this video… “gang ha”?

Great you showed all your gigantic pens. Yes, please do a review of the Namiki Emperor. Eagerly waiting for the video. You know I never miss your video Emy.

@pen.venture

Жыл бұрын

Coming soon! It is recorded and edited - just waiting to publish it :D

I had few of those, and my main two issues with them you didn't list: 1. Not an issue with Opus88, PenBBS or Namiki: if the pen barrel is thin enough to transfer heat from your hand, like a Noodler's Charlie or other cheap Indian pens, you have an air bubble pushing out ink after less than a minute of just holding the pen in your fist. I have "solved" that when it happened by holding the pen upright in my fist, letting all the expanding air escape through the feed for 30 seconds while the ink and air match my skin's temperature and only then turning it down for the writing session. 2. Not all conversions suck, PenBBS, Ranga and others design the pens with gaskets, thin long threads and all in advance so you can officially fill the body directly, but what the system is missing is finer control, i.e. there is no way to prime the feed like with a piston (Even a vac or a Japanese back plunger can help). so I only use a strict body filler if there is an amazing nib on it, like some of my 100-120 year old flex Watermans and such, or if I am using slightly thicker ink like shimmering and such. The only exception: my PenBBS 471 is always in my pocket attached to my wallet, because it is so damn small and convenient.

@pen.venture

Жыл бұрын

:D my ebonite pens that are eyedroppers area kind of thick and dont transfer the heat from holding them, I vent noticed any burping ink but In regards of using them in the office where the temperature is varying up and down quite a lot (it is big window building and summer days are a mess when the AC is not On and sometime I forget to program it - while nights are cold) - the main thing that bugs me is the ink on the cap threads slowly getting there while pens are sitting in my pen rolls

now ... you do know my love for eyedroppers. That said I think that if you go in the eyedropper you should go in the demonstrators direction/way (that way you'll know when your FP is full, never put ink above the rod shutoff end of the rod) the most hate you said comes from the reason that you put to much ink inside the FP ... if its transparent you wouldn't put to much ink inside the barrel so it will not leak. as for the that rod its not for the amount of ink coming to the nib ... its just a shutoff rod to obturate the ink going to the nib. Imagine you go to airplane and the pressure from that is making you loose 8ml of ink inside your bag. i don't think it regulate nothing. Of course its gets dry because the ink will not flow from the body. But as much as i know/think its just a shutoff rod with a rubber gasket ... do I press "comment"...well

@pen.venture

Жыл бұрын

Hehe :)) i know you dig eyedroppers left and right - the thing is that with my eyedropper pens , they dont have the rod blocking the Ink form getting in the feeder, it sits further up in the barrel and it just regluates the air-Ink exchange ratio, hence the Ink comes out with the shut Off valve closed in storage but strangely , they ar dry sometimes at writing the first worlds.

@jonandresen1483

Жыл бұрын

@@pen.venture All your pens should be shut off when everything is closed down. Namiki and Danitrio both are shut off valve systems. Open the valve to let air into the barrel or shut it off to keep the ink in the barrel. Helps when traveling or just tossing the pens in you bag. There is no need to open to write every time--there is some ink sill in the section. Sometimes Danitrio are not machined/assembled perfectly so the rubber stopper falls short of the section preventing it from functioning as a shut off valve. Also, the valve is binary, it either lets ink flow to the section or it does not. Open a little or a lot there is no difference in ink flow.

@pen.venture

Жыл бұрын

I’ll have to check and see what is going on with them, for me the ink that gets in the section threads is happening also in storage without thossing them or moving them - with the valve closed , the only variable being the office temperature since hot in the day (I have my AC turned on once I get in the office) and cold at night

@jonandresen1483

Жыл бұрын

@@pen.venture That is the imprecision in the Danitrio fit between section and body combined with an old, twisted, fouled, or wrong size o-ring. Try replacing the o-ring. Silicone grease might help but probably not.

One major disaster cured me of eyedropping.

@pen.venture

11 ай бұрын

this is a story that we need to hear :D

@ichirofakename

11 ай бұрын

@@pen.venture Nothing special, it just leaked heavily into the cap. I opened it and blammo! Ink bomb. Hasn't everybody done this?

I am too much of an ink tart these days. I get bored of inks too quickly, hence I am a converter man these days.

@pen.venture

Жыл бұрын

I can relate :)) I always get bored of a ink - long before I run out of it

@cincudan2079

Жыл бұрын

@@pen.venture Am I the only one freak that use one color for 5 years? 😳

Hate....sorry guys...I just enjoy fountain pens that drink the ink

@pen.venture

Жыл бұрын

:)) well with a eyedropper for sure you have plenty of ink - combine that with a fat juicy wet nib... and the result is sublime