Transporting Con-50 Converter (Filled) Vanishing Point

[rdh]

Its a bit of a kludge, but you could buy an inexpensive Pilot pen, like the 78G, fill it and switch its filled converter to the VP when you run out of ink. Of course, you could get one of the broad nibbed ones and even use it occasionally, when you want to emphasize something.

 

Dave

[ISW_Kaputnik]

I tried refilling a cartridge this way for a just completed trip. Cartridges are my preference for Vanishing Points, anyway.

 

Instead of squeezing the cartridge and shaking the disk out, I pulled it out with some long needlenose pliers. Not having a wood stick of the right size, a torx screwdriver worked instead. The first try was a misfire, as I pushed it in a little too far, but the second try worked.

 

After leaving it cap side down for a day on a paper towel to make sure the seal was good, I took it with me, and used Private Reserve Ebony Purple (there were a couple of unopened Blue-Black cartridges for backup). I'll definitely do this again. I have about four empty Pilot cartridges with the disks. Just have to decide exactly what I want to put in them.

[snowcandy]

Hope this is not a silly question but would I have to remove the seal from the brand new ink-filled cartridge first if I want to use this resealing method at a later date, or can I just grab a seal from another Pilot cartridge to reseal it?

[ISW_Kaputnik]

Hope this is not a silly question but would I have to remove the seal from the brand new ink-filled cartridge first if I want to use this resealing method at a later date, or can I just grab a seal from another Pilot cartridge to reseal it?

I had 4 or 5 cleaned out cartridges and the same number of disks thrown in a zip lock bag. I just took one of each. Would just suggest testing it as I mentioned above before trusting it to hold.

[lancecreeks]

The idea of switching to using cartridges has been on my mind for quite some time. Just bought a couple of syringes and cartridges to try this out. I'm wondering whether anyone has resealed cartridges with the above method and experienced leaks?

[InkSniper]

Hi,

 

You are fortunate to have a Pilot. It is possible to easily refill and seal Pilot cartridges the original way. What I used to do was use the Pilot Con-20 converter which holds a bit more ink than the Con-50 and a cartridge filled with the same ink I had in the pen. You can take an empty Pilot cartridge, and gently squeeze the tip and tap, and the sealing disc will fall out. You can then refill the cartridge, and tamp the sealing disc back into position. Use an unopened cartridge as a reference of how deep to push the sealing disc. You don't need to use wax or anything special.

 

Here you can see the disc in place in the mouth of the cartridge

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3099/3163483265_557a9023af_b.jpg

 

Here you can see a cartridge that is unopened, and an unopened cartridge with the disc removed

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7321/10709392253_649f2bba1b_b.jpg

 

I hope that helps!

 

Dillon

I just came across this while searching for a way to keep my VP inked while in remote places. Outstanding!

[ISW_Kaputnik]

I've been doing the cartridge resealing trick for a while now since I mentioned trying it some 17 months ago in this thread; it's been quite useful for traveling.

 

Just ran into a glitch, though. One of my Vanishing Points had one of these refilled cartridges in it, and got down to the running on fumes stage, so I put in another refilled cartridge. Different ink, so when I started having flow problems, I thought that maybe the two inks weren't playing nicely with each other. Well, maybe not, but that wasn't really the problem. I pulled the new cartridge out and looked inside. The sealing disk in a Pilot cartridge will turn sideways when you put it in, letting the ink go by on either side. In this case, however, when I pushed it into the pen, it had just gone further down inside the cartridge while keeping its orientation. Some ink had gotten past initially and maybe some was still leaking around the edges of the disk, but the rest was trapped in the bottom of the cartridge. I don't know exactly how many times I've used a refilled Pilot cartridge without this happening, so I don't know how likely this is to happen again, but maybe a reused cartridge can start to get stretched out.

[FOUR X FOUR]

I stopped with the cartridges because I would take out the cartridge that still had ink in it. I would seal it off but after doing this with several different cartridges, it became difficult for me to remember which pen to put them back in. I generally won't use up an entire fill before wanting to change ink, or just clean and put the pen away.

[Ergative]

 

I feel like this too... but all of my pilot cart pens are fine nibs and it will take a long time. Is this a valid excuse to buy that C74 with a music nib that I have been looking at?!

 

Yes.