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GASP!! THE HORROR! But please don't be too afraid. Let me explain. I have a bottle of Private Reserve Avocado that I only just opened recently. The smell was immediately awful, like ammonia. So I dug around with a toothpick and found a bit of jelly goop at the bottom. (It was a little terrifying, but fascinating.) I know the immediate response is to dump it down the drain. BUT... I hate to waste ink, and I have a terrible knack for playing with things I shouldn't. So of course I filled up a Pilot Petit 3 with the ink anyway. I know some hearts just skipped a beat out there. But I've had this cheap-o pen (the reason I am experimenting with this one is because of that cheapness) filled and used for several weeks, and have had no problems. No funky stuff growing, no flow issues.. By all means, it works perfectly. I just get a whiff of ammonia now and then in a particularly wet area in my sketching. But I actually don't find the smell to be any more or less offensive than many markers I own. I also have a junker Welsharp mini pen I found at an antique mall that had no cap. I pulled the nib out and decided to use it as a dip nib, specifically with one pen body for this one specific ink, in order to keep cross-contamination at bay. I suppose the point of this topic is to ask whether anyone else out there has gotten use out of their contaminated inks? Do you feel comfortable doing so? Has it worked/not worked for you? WOULD you use it as a dipping ink only? Or am I just a cheapskate with a danger streak? I am by no means telling you to go ahead and use ink that has SitB, that it is safe, blah blah blah. Not in the least. And I surely would NOT use contaminated ink in any of my regular fountain pens. I'm just sharing my experience in living on the edge of inkdom, and that I've been able to use the ink in a limited way to avoid (literally) throwing my money down the drain.

I tried searching for an answer to this and couldn't, so I hope this isn't a repeat thread. I was playing around with my Selectip RB, trying to decide if I could open up the cartridge and refill it myself with fountain pen ink. The gel ink is... not the best. It takes forever to dry, and seems to skip a lot when I use the pen. At any rate, I discovered you can pull the very tip of the refill off easily (and got covered in ink in the process), but I was wondering if anyone else has tried, and how exactly would you get the gel ink out of such a narrow opening? I've yet to get an ink syringe, but it looks like one would fit in to actually do the refilling bit, but I'm at a loss at how to go about getting the gel ink out, other than just writing it empty. Maybe using a syringe to add water, soak, shake it around a bit and suck it back out? These refills are pretty expensive as single units, do-able as two-packs, but at the price, I'd rather get a disposable fountain pen! I actually got this pen (an ATX in Solstice Yellow) to convert into a fountain pen, but I may just go ahead and try to empty/refill the cartridge myself anyway for curiosity's sake. I just had to ask if anyone else out there has tried! Have you? Did it work? What did you do?