What Pen Have You Converted To An Eyedropper?

[kemuri]

Well, I "discovered" that the M nib, in an asian fountain pen like the Prera, is equal to a F nib in an western pen. Or something like that! The chart I have that shows this comparison wasn't reliable...

Anyways, I'd like to try a Prera with a more broad nib but couldn' t find one anywhere.

The F nib is easy to find though...


-kemuri

You can get a Prera with a CM (calligraphy medium) from JetPens. Or you can get a Plumix with a Medium Flat italic nib and switch out the nib into your Prera.

I saw a video from the Ink Nouveau (Goulet Pens) where he shows how to do this.

Do you think it worth a try?

-kemuri

I did mine and it works very well.

Hey, Thag! What about the nib from the Pilot 78g?

For me it's going to be easier to find the Pilot 78g than the Plumix.

I saw some pictures of the the 78g nibs and they look very much the same.

Do you have any 78g?

As always... thank you very much!


-kemuri

[kemuri]

Well, this is the Prera as an eyedropper:

IMG370.jpgIMG372.jpgIMG373.jpg


-kemuri

[UK Mike]

As I am never more than about 15 feet away from an ink bottle when I am writing I can conceive of no circumstance when I would want to return to the 19th Century idea of an eyedropper.
Technology has moved on.

[thagbert]

Well, I "discovered" that the M nib, in an asian fountain pen like the Prera, is equal to a F nib in an western pen. Or something like that! The chart I have that shows this comparison wasn't reliable...

Anyways, I'd like to try a Prera with a more broad nib but couldn' t find one anywhere.

The F nib is easy to find though...


-kemuri

You can get a Prera with a CM (calligraphy medium) from JetPens. Or you can get a Plumix with a Medium Flat italic nib and switch out the nib into your Prera.

I saw a video from the Ink Nouveau (Goulet Pens) where he shows how to do this.

Do you think it worth a try?

-kemuri

I did mine and it works very well.

Hey, Thag! What about the nib from the Pilot 78g?

For me it's going to be easier to find the Pilot 78g than the Plumix.

I saw some pictures of the the 78g nibs and they look very much the same.

Do you have any 78g?

As always... thank you very much!


-kemuri

Yes that's correct. I did get a 78g and yanked the nib and put it in my Prera. But the nib is a gold color. Does not match the silver trim on a Prera. So I got the Plumix and yanked the silver nib and put it in the Prera.

I believe the nibs are identical. Only differing in name. I haven't stuck a caliper on it yet to measure it.

[thagbert]

Well, this is the Prera as an eyedropper:

-kemuri

What ink did you put in it?

I have Diamine Syrah in mine.

[kemuri]

Thag,

The ink is Sheaffer Black.

Didn't have the opportunity to try many inks yet. Any advices about it?

-kemuri

[thagbert]

Thag,

The ink is Sheaffer Black.

Didn't have the opportunity to try many inks yet. Any advices about it?

-kemuri

I would suggest this thread to explore popular inks. Noodler's inks are very popular. Although I am not sure that you have access to them in South America.

Diamine and Pilot inks are also very popular.

What Are Your Top Five Inks?

[kemuri]

As I am never more than about 15 feet away from an ink bottle when I am writing I can conceive of no circumstance when I would want to return to the 19th Century idea of an eyedropper.
Technology has moved on.

Then why to use fountain pens? We have rollerball pens nowadays.. technology has moved on...

-kemuri

[kemuri]

Thag,

The ink is Sheaffer Black.

Didn't have the opportunity to try many inks yet. Any advices about it?

-kemuri

I would suggest this thread to explore popular inks. Noodler's inks are very popular. Although I am not sure that you have access to them in South America.

Diamine and Pilot inks are also very popular.

What Are Your Top Five Inks?

Nice thread! I'll read it.

The most common inks I can find around here are the Sheaffer's, Quink Ink (from Parker), Waterman and some Chinese ones (Hero, for exemple).

Never saw a Noodler's or Pilot for sale in any store... These we have to buy from Ebay.


-kemuri

[Hjorlejf]

Just one. It is an old Sheaffer student pen with a fine nib that used to belong to my father. Apparently he used it for the majority of his high-school career. Using the word "converted" may be a stretch though, as there wasn't much converting to be done - the pen forms a very tight seal without the use of silica gel or o-rings that many people use to complete an eyedropper. In this case the conversion consisted of simply removing the cartridge and filling the barrel.

[Moxoftritonytes]

I have converted a Lamy Edition 2000 into an eyedropper after the really flimsy piston mechanic inside broke repeatedly. I ripped everything out and filled the barrel. I didn`t need to use silicon grease at all. It now holds 2ml of ink instead 1.4ml and writes as good as before.

[fncll]

Once, trying to be subtle in a meeting, I unscrewed a Pilot 78G in my lap to put in a new cartridge and only, as ink dumped on my crotch, did I remember I'd made it into an ED. Not the best time in the world when it came my time to present to the group.

I was into EDs for a whole. Converted many pens. But the blobbing issue became too much for me. Even though I was/am careful not to store them close to my body, eventually I get a burp and I became tired of checking non-transparent pens to be sure they weren't getting low and become even worse.

I also found that in transparent pens, ink gets into strange and hard to remove places. One of my Pilot Plumix pens has some kind of inner sleeve around the feed. Once ink gets in there it's impossible to get out!

[ThriveToScribe]

[QUOTE=fncll;38708]Once, trying to be subtle in a meeting, I unscrewed a Pilot 78G in my lap to put in a new cartridge and only, as ink dumped on my crotch, did I remember I'd made it into an ED. Not the best time in the world when it came my time to present to the group.

How frustrating and embarrassing for you.
I wonder how long-ago, original eyedropper fountain pen writers managed this problem. Perhaps they owned only one good fountain pen? Someone on the list mentioned a week of eyedroppers and then a week of converters. But my memory and concept of time would probably cancel out that solution!

[jde]

One of my favorite topics here: ED'd pens! Hope it's not too late to chime in with me own experience here. (Have been on hiatus from the forums, ya know?)

I've 6 pens used as eyedroppers: 3 Edisons, 2 Danitrio Sho-Hakkuku, and 1 tiny Shawn Newton pen. All 6 can still be used as c/c pens so I don't call them truly "converted." Just versatile. The Edisons & Danitrios are my every day writing pens.

In over 4 years of ED'ing pens, the only pens I've had leak, burp, blob or leak was a Platinum Preppy and a Noodler's Ahab. I've successfully ED'd many more pens than what's left in my collection. Your average pen barrel across manufacturers will take 3ml of ink. BTW.

My pens endure the humidity of KY as I walk all over town with them in the summer, and the cold winter months as well. I've flown with them, rode with them... lalalalala.... No burp, leak, blob or whateverelseitmight do. (My worst experiences with blurps and blops have been with vintage Pelikan and Sheaffer pens. But ya can forgive a vintage pen, I think.)

I've ED'd all sorts of pens, even a famous metal sectioned pen involving a complicated protection scheme that somehow didn't make it fun anymore. So unless I do it again, I won't say more about it.

Never have ED'd an ebonite pen that wasn't an urushi pen, and I've heard many a tale about some plain ol' ebonite pens burping. But I don't know from experience.

Re. the Pilot Prera: take care with the metal band at the end of the barrel. I had ink seep through one. (Aquarium silicone gel can be your friend, too.)

Re. being scared of not being able to see ink in an ED'd pen.... I can't see the ink in 4 of my ED pens. The other 2: 1 has an ink window, and the other is translucent. It doesn't deter me at all to have a solid barrel full of ink...

Personally, honestly, I think this is where it depends on what kind of time you spend with your pen. I will write for hours at a time with an ED pen. (That's why, of course, I like 'em as I can go for several days without running out of ink.) I know my pens very well and have a good sense of when they're going to run out of ink. Maybe once I opened a barrel having forgotten there was ink, nothing spilled out, I just recognized it, and put it back together. But haven't done it again. I might, but c'est la vie!

My favorite inks are Pilot, Sailor, Waterman, Platinum. Haven't had any barrel staining issue, even with the translucent pen, but I do use a barrel brush when I clean my pens. And mostly my inks are boring blue and black, so take the staining thing more seriously than I do, okay? Some inks, we all know, will stain.

Before I ever bought my first pen I knew I wanted to ED (it was a Dantrio c/c Sho-Hakkuku)... I asked everyone I could find who had one who had ED'd it. Because of course I didn't want to deal with a burping pen. Those folks were very reassuring.

But of course YMMV because we have different pens, different inks, different practices. And so we take the preponderance of the evidence about any particular pens, ay?

My intention here is only to be reassuring and encouraging for those who want to try.

Cheers, my dears,
Julie

Edited to add: I also use F and EF nibs which could make an experiential difference as well.

Edited to add new thought: Re. some of that burping/leaking... if a pen has a screw-in nib unit, some silicon grease can also be applied on the threads of the nib unit. See Brian Gray's video, at about 5:00 minutes in for a clear instruction on how to do that.
http://youtu.be/6hC2Y3TCEuE

[fncll]

But of course YMMV because we have different pens, different inks, different practices. And so we take the preponderance of the evidence about any particular pens, ay?

My intention here is only to be reassuring and encouraging for those who want to try.

Interesting observation about the nib size. I wonder if that was a big factor. Not all of my pens burped, by any means. But it was enough that I stopped with it. And I actually like switching inks *more* often than I used to. I get distracted easily by shiny ink

I heartily encourage experimenting with making EDs too!

[CapeClear]

Lovely post Julie. I'm currently using a Vista and a Kaweco Sport (clear body) as EDs. I fly through ink as they both have 1.5mm stub nibs. So far so good, used every day and no burps or leaks.

[alisyedz]

I also have a couple of Lamy Vista's and Lamy Safari's converted to eyedroppers. They never have any burping issues surprisingly.

I've also done ED conversions on Kaweco Ice Sports, and Noddler's Ahab. And have seen burping issues with both when the ink reservoir is 2/3rds empty.

I also tried to do an ED conversion on Pilot Parallel pens, but found that the barrel has a taper at the end and the ink (xFeather) likes to get stuck back there and you have to shake it.

I'm also an italic nib person favoring either 1.1 or 1.5 nibs and the added ink capacity can be a blessing at times.

[Tony Rex]

From now on, I'll just dump any leftover ink into it.

Edit: not a good idea afterall .. Slip cap means ink bomb

[jde]

But of course YMMV because we have different pens, different inks, different practices. And so we take the preponderance of the evidence about any particular pens, ay?

My intention here is only to be reassuring and encouraging for those who want to try.

Interesting observation about the nib size. I wonder if that was a big factor. Not all of my pens burped, by any means. But it was enough that I stopped with it. And I actually like switching inks *more* often than I used to. I get distracted easily by shiny ink

I heartily encourage experimenting with making EDs too!

Yeah, burping is no fun and while I might tolerate a little from a vintage pen, I can't deal with it in a modern pen that I use all the time! Also, as alisyedz wrote: having to shake is also a pain!

Not so much the nib size, I think, but the feed influences.

From now on, I'll just dump any leftover ink into it.

Tony! Beautiful!

CapeClear: thanks for kind comments. Love stubs, too!

I feel compelled to add I've never used a vintage eyedropper pen because I've assumed they will burp on moi. The vintage pens I've used with burping issues were piston- or vacuum-fillers.

[UK Mike]

As I am never more than about 15 feet away from an ink bottle when I am writing I can conceive of no circumstance when I would want to return to the 19th Century idea of an eyedropper.
Technology has moved on.

Then why to use fountain pens? We have rollerball pens nowadays.. technology has moved on...

-kemuri

Because the Rollerball is a clear BACKWARD step. I despise them.