Multiple Inks and pens

[ac12]

Positional.

In my pen cup I have paper tubes. This FIXES the location of all of my pens. So the relative position of the pen in the cup tells me what color of ink is in the pen. My black ink pens are together, my green ink pens are together. And I have a particular ink order; blacks, greens, blue, reds.
Similarly I have a pocket protector that I carry my carry pens in; greens, grey, blue. In this case the pen color also matches the ink; green ink pens are green, and the blue ink pen is blue.

[SIR]

I prefer not to keep out of use pens inked, but sometimes it is necessary such as for having a ready pen to sign cheques equipped with a suitable ink.
I would regard myself very much more of an ink collector than a pen collector, so having empty pens facilitates filling the right pen with the right ink at the right time; I also quickly deplete a pen's fill of ink with 'handwriting' practice .

[StWm]

You can tell you are sick when you get to the end of this thread and all that stuck with you is "Buy Black Swan in Australian Roses"

[Runnin_Ute]

Hi all and a noob question.

How are multiple inks used i.e.: do you have one pen for one colour or do you empty, clean and re-fill one to a number of pens? I was kind of thinking a range of the same cheap pen with a colour in each (in addition to my ED pens and inks) but how do you know what ink is in what pen? Clear window, pen colour, etc.? I guess I'm really asking is how do you forum members manage all your inks?

Cheers.

It gets tricky sometimes. Right now I have 14 inked.

Yesterday I filled two pens with different inks than what I previously had in them. I also took one out of the inked pool and cleaned it.

Afterwards I wrote a list. Name of pen and what nib, and ink - with that pen and ink.
Not long ago, I had about 18-19 inked. I really need to cut it back even more.

Right now I have two with turquoise (one an iron gall) , two with brown, two greens, a violet, three blues, a blue black, a gray, a orange and a dark red. I rarely keep the same ink in the same pen. I have a Parker 51 Special, that in the 9 months or so I have had it has had one of typically one of two inks in it. Most of the time it has been Waterman Serenity Blue, but once or twice I put a blue black in it. (Diamine) One of the inks I changed yesterday was one I had in two pens. I had Diamine Saddle Brown in my TWSBI Eco 1.1 stub and my Pilot Metropolitan M. I changed it in the Eco.

[VegHead]

Well, I only planned to have a few pens originally but the FP bug has well and truly bitten and I'm afraid I'll soon be labelled a collector lol. For my pens that will not be doing the bulk of my writing (my Visconti LE Daintree is for that) I have ordered another two translucent Lamy Safari's with converters, making three in total. That should solve what's in what for the time being. After that I'll be using a list or log as you above have mentioned. I don't have a lot of inks (yet) - Diamine Red Dragon, Snake Ink's Emerald Boa and Everglades Ratsnake, and Visconti Blue and Sepia. I'm unable to source and Noodlers inks here in Australia unless I'm willing to pay through the teeth for postage from the US which is a great shame. I have a trip up to Brisbane in July and they have the best pen shop Down-Under so I'm going to check out the Sailor 1911, Onoto Magna and a Pelikan Souveran.

[Pira]

Right now I have 16 pens inked. Truthfully, it's a few to many.

I need to figure out a way, system something so I only have about 8-10 inked at any one time. Or use them more.

*chokes* .... been there. Done that. Finally worked my bay back down to a pair of pens inked-up at any one time. I tend to write letters with dip nib these days in part because I like that I can randomly choose any ink and switch from page to page (usually as the letter becomes run-on over the course of a week, the ink colour changes when the date I'm writing does).

However to answer the original question ~ I keep a dated notecard with pen/ink sample on my desk to track what ink is in which pen.

...for the record, I the same with my watercolor palettes and have a list & samples of what dip nib is in which holder.