Four paths out of the low-ink-level conundrum: Part one

A near-empty ink bottle is a lovely accomplishment. You’re nearly complete. You definitely didn’t waste your money on that colored liquid — I tell myself — because you used and/or shared it all. So close. But getting that final fill into a pen can prove challenging.

I recently reached near-empty with Sailor’s Yozakura and Diamine’s Earl Grey.

So: what are my options for getting that final milliliter of ink into a pen? Four paths come to mind, each with pros and cons.

1.  Syringe-fill that converter or pen

2.  Tilt the bottle, aka. the ballerina method

3.  Dunk that converter into the bottle

4.  Decant into a narrow tube

I unpack the first two this week. I’ll continue my thinking for three and four next week.

Path One: Syringe-fill your converter or pen. Open the bottle and leave it on your table, desk or counter. Dip a blunt-tip syringe into the bottom corner of your bottle and engage the siphon. You can even tip the bottle onto one corner to ensure you get every last drop of ink.

Pros. This method works with every ink bottle shape. Syringes leave only a negligible amount of wasted ink. You can easily transport every drop of ink from bottle to pen.

Cons. Patience is required while ink saturates your pen’s feed. And now you need to clean ink out of a syringe.

Additionally, converters may introduce an air bubble where ink leaves the body and enters the feed channel. This is possible when a standard converter’s bottom end (the side that engages your pen’s feed) no longer seals securely.

The ink syringe. For the most favoritest of inks.

Path Two: The ballerina method. Tipping an ink bottle so it balances on only one corner pools the remaining ink along one side of your bottle. This shallow vertical pool of ink may be just deep enough to cover the hole your pen uses to fill with ink.

Pros. You get to fill your pen the way your pen was intended to fill: through the feed. As such, your pen is writing-ready straight away.

Some ink manufacturers even design their bottles with a flat diagonal corner to help with balancing. The ballerina toes of the stationery world.

So graceful

Cons. Careful, secure balancing is needed. A slipped finger, or tipping the bottle too far, could result in ink spillage. Tilting a bottle is safest with tall and square-shaped bottles. Short, squat bottles are quite easy to over-tilt.

I need two hands when balancing an ink bottle. My left hand holds the bottle, with my left index finger holding the pen against the rim of the bottle. My right hand works the pen’s filling system. Teamwork.

The claw grip is delicate. Don’t. Breathe.

This method works well until the second-to-last fill. The pooled ink needs to be deep enough to cover your pen’s ingress.

Well hello, ingress channel

I’m still exploring new methods for getting the last drops of ink into a pen. Is there another method I should try?

This week’s Inked Tines update includes my most recent currently inked writing tools.

Toolset

Pens. No standout combo this week. It happens.

• TWSBI 580-AL (B) — Feed. Wet and generous with sheen. Perfect for ensuring notes remain viewable at odd angles. Lovely green base color. Lecture notes, a letter, and meeting notes.

• Kaweco Sport (EF) — 1/5. At half converter, this pair burps ink after a few words. Air is clearly inside the converter-to-feed line, and I can’t sort where. Meeting notes, scratch notes, pocket notes — always with a quick wipe beforehand.

• Franklin-Christoph 03 (EF) — 2/5. Daily driver. Consistent writer on Rhodia paper. Kiri-same shaded well. Wrote the first time, every time. Well paired. Task management, lesson plans, meeting notes.

• Sailor Pro Gear (Z) — 2/5. An all-purpose pairing this week. Broad, forgiving lines during long writing sessions. True EF lines from the reverse side of this Zoom nib during meetings. And Hisoku’s shading is perfect. Resubscribed. Journaling, lesson plans, and meeting notes.

• ASA Brahmaputra (M Architect) — 1/2. The sharp Kaigelu nib draws a healthy line variation from this M-width architect grind. Moderately wet. Well-behaved, writing every time I uncapped this beast of a pen. Best for careful, thoughtful writing. Journaling and annotating meeting notes after a meeting concluded.

• Narwhal Schuylkill (EF) — 3/5. A beautiful pen and nib pairing. Brane dried immediately on Goalbook paper but took 30 seconds on Tomoe River. Remembering that big difference was a challenge. Journaling and lesson plans.

• Montblanc 146 (EF) — 4/5. The combination of EF nib and bright blue resulted in an all-star accent note-maker. Dry pairing, which would suit marking students’ papers well. Precise, disciplined EF line with infrequent shading and rare sheen on coated papers. I need more time with this combo. Journaling and lesson plans.

Notebooks. Work bujo. Rhodia Goalbook (A5). Eight more pages added to my work bullet journal. A two-page weekly, three pages of lesson plans, another of lecture notes, and finally two pages of meeting notes. Next week will begin on page 38.

The broader Franklin-Christoph EF on this week’s daily driver wrote far more reliably in the Goalbook. Task management, as a result, was far more enjoyable. As it should be.

Accent notes with lesson plans leaned on three separate pen and ink combos. The Narwhal outlined a tidy lesson analyzing the first act of Henrik Ibsen’s Enemy of the People as a primary source. The Bock EF laid down a true-to-size EF line width. Happy surprise.

The Montblanc outlined a similar lesson for Act 2. My princely EF nib struggled to keep up with Rhodia’s absorbent paper. Scratchy, with uneven dry spots at the middle of long lines.

My Sailor lent a fun, generous B line to my third lesson outline. A guided analysis of both acts, assessing how Ibsen assumes either knowledge or ignorance of facts motivates the town’s unwillingness to fix their spa’s contaminated water. Smooth sailing with the Zoom nib. Hisoku’s even shaded as expected.

Don’t you love it when a plan comes together?

Journal. YT Bindery Yu-yo (A5). Six new pages, all of which house longform reflections, this week. I have officially entered the fourth signature of this little notebook, and so a tad over 60% full.

Tuesday’s entry was written with the ASA — a tree branch of a pen — which I had kitted out with a Kaigelu M architect nib and Diamine’s lovely shader, Eau de Nil.

The entry’s ending poem is a powerful short work by a new-to-me poet named, Elad Nehoria. The poem sits with the pull-and-push between setting professional priorities and your own standard of being productive. Powerful writing. Written with the Montblanc (EF) and Sailor’s searing 441.

My second and last entry this week was recorded on Thursday evening. The night’s writing was driven by my lovely Sailor Zoom nib. I knew I wanted to free-wheel and reflect without a plan. Those moments are ripe for a round nib that writes well, even when you distractedly rotate your pen’s angle to the page.

And a couple of annotations and amendments added to the margins with my entertaining Narwhal combo. Living it up.

Written dry. The turquoise TWSBI is now down to only the November Rain sitting in its feed. November Rain’s sheen made this pair my lecture note workhorse. The clouds, they are parting.

Considering an ink shift experiment a la Inkxplorations

Newly inked. With seven pen and ink combinations that write, I had all the options I needed this week. That, friends, is a successful currently inked palette. Sweet.

The collection

Incoming / new orders. I am three weeks into a pen-and-ink buying embargo. No new pen or ink additions this week. Success.

The goals of my embargo twofold. The most important is to make the DC Pen Show more exciting. Avoiding purchases in the three months leading up to the show ensures I can walk into Falls Church with a healthy budget line.

An embargo on new orders also helps me to prioritize my wish list. I get excited when I discover a new pen or ink that’s in my aesthetic wheelhouse. Waiting until after the initial excitement fades is a strong check on whether I really want to make the purchase. Self-imposed self-control.

Outgoing / trades or sales. No outward movement this week. Silence can be comforting.

Currently reading and listening

Fiction. I read three more chapters of Mariel of Redwall this week. I sit one scene from completing chapter 21.

Mariel and her party are well into a revenge mission. Traipsing through dangerous woodlands, making friends and taking names. An easy read — well-suited to late nights before bed.

Nonfiction. I’ve started teaching an elective on the purpose of schools in the United States. To a single student. This young person is an advanced reader and thinker; unafraid of complex ideas. The topic was his idea. Teaching is awesome.

Any discussion of the purpose of schooling should, I argue, begin with whether you are convinced that what you learn belongs to you or, alternatively, whether what you learn belongs to your community. Is learning, in other words, a private good or a public good? Deep stuff.

We read two essays by David Labaree together, totaling 13 printed pages. I used my trusty Blackwing Natural and two colors of Mildliner. Grey for Labaree’s argument. And dark blue for interesting passages. Modeling a strong reading habits.

And they all fit in this fun pen case — a gift to me from the knowledgeable pen reviewer, Chris Rap

Music. My teaching and lesson planning soundtrack was more involved than typical. I’m starting to feel better as my recovery proceeds. I opted for Message to Bears’ energy as a result.

Guitar driven with simple vocals, used like instruments within Alexander’s arrangements. And heavily populated with calming nature sounds. Strong focusing music.

The second track, Wake Me, is a great experimental listen to see if Message to Bears is for you.

My editor tells me this is the end of the post. Thanks for joining in :)