Best way to fill a fountain Pen?

[Shave Ice]

I picked up a Lamy Safari (White) and some Noodler's Aero Blue Back ink.
I also got the refill-able cartridge.

What is the best way to fill the cartirdge?

I put the catridge in and twisted it all the way down with the nib in the ink. They I then twisted the other way to suck in the ink. I stuck the whole pen tip in, all the way up past the hole on the nib. It did not fill the cartridge all the way.

It was kind of messy. It took a lot of effort to blot the excess ink from the nib. I must be doing it wrong. Will one of you learned gentlemen tell me the best way to refill a fountain pen?

Thank you.

[red2]

What I have done is take the converter/cartridge-thing and place it directly into the ink. Then I turn it to suck up the ink. Then I put it back in the pen. The messy part here is when the bottle of ink gets lower and you have to put the converter deeper and deeper into the bottle. You end up touching your fingers to the lip of the bottle.

Hope this helps.

Rotring used to make these little ink dispenser that were great. They had a nozzle that you could fit the converter directly on. The nozzle had a straw. The converter would suck in the ink. No mess at all. Alas, I gave mine to a friend as a gift, only to discover that they no longer made this dispenser.

[SilkySmooth]

Either way can be messy. I keep my converter attached to the nib when filling. I also keep a small Nalgene bottle of ink with me just in case I run out.
When I fill the converter, the nib gets drenched, so I use a small cloth (part of a cloth napkin) to wipe off the ink. I then fold up the cloth and keep it in my back pocket. Since you're using Noodlers ink, it shouldn't stain you pants provided that you use a decent cloth and fold the wet side into the middle.


You can buy the bottles here.

http://www.ems.com/catalog/product_detail_square.jsp?PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=8455 24441774183&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2534374302875759&bmUID=1194749338917

==Tom

[jfrancisco]

One hint when filling a piston fill or converter. When you are done drawing all of the ink into the pen, back the converter off about 0.5 to 1 full turn, releasing that ink back into the bottle. Then turn the pen upside down and tighten down the converter. This will draw the excess ink in the nib up into the converter preventing a mess.

I used to have all sorts of problems with my Parker Pens (51, Vacs and Duofolds) dropping large blobs of ink on my paper, just like you are describing. I was advised by one of the repair gurus of the FP world to finish filling my pens this way and I have not had any further problems of this kind.

Hope this helps :thumbup1:

By the way, I'm looking to sell a couple of Parker's if anyone is interested . . .

[Bassism]

These are all good suggestions.
When I'm filling my converter pens, I tend to stop filling the converter just before it's completely full, pull it out of the ink, then twist it to pull the ink back into converter.
Then once I put the converter back onto the pen, I twist it until the ink touches the feed to the nib.
Works for me.