Inky T O D - How Long Does Any One Ink Stay In Your Pen?

[wallylynn]

I put Rome burning into my pen sometime during pandemic. Every few months when it got thick, I would suck up plain water to rehydrate it. Been using that same fill for over a year.

[Penguincollector]

What a fun thread to revive! I’m a constant pen and ink changer for the most part. I rarely fill a piston filler or aerometric up all the way, and cartridges/converters migrate from pen to pen at times. The last piston filler that was filled all the way was the Wing Sung 699 in late November and that was cleaned out earlier this month. I have a few pens with Parker cartridges and short international ones inked and will have to note how long they last respectively. 

[chromantic]

Basically forever since I usually match an ink with a pen. Might take a couple tries if the original one doesn't gel.

[inkstainedruth]

Well since originally posting to this thread, I ran Waterman Mysterious Blue through the Red Shadow Wave Vacumatic for something like three years without flushing it or doing any sort of maintenance....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[peroride]

Before finding this thread, just a few minutes ago, reinked the MB 149 Curved with Namiki Black for the 2nd time. I have many pens inked some lasting out 2 months as was the case with the MB 149 (last Feb). It took a while to find the right ink for that pen after using 4 MB inks and not satisfied with water resistance.

 

I've come around to keeping all expensive/precious pens perma-inked, favoring easy maintenance/some water resistance ones over ink-xotica shimmer,glitter, saturated messes that go into dip nibs, eyedroppers or less expensive pens. I test different stable inks before finding permanent matches, but open to critique! Some of them currently inked listed below.

 

I've given away some of the higher maintenance 'messy' inks but kept those attached to memories or with a nice bottle, but if I would have an FP do-over I would stick with plain boring inks as I find that works for lazy me.

 

Some perma-inked:

• Conid Kingsize - Pilot Blue Black, the ink stains the ebonite feed an attractive purplish hue 
• Pilot Yukari Royale - default Pilot Blue, this plain blue is underrated.
• Pilot 74 SFM - Pilot Iroshizuku Hotei-son 100th Anniversary, also perma to Custom Urushi
• Pilot Capless LS - any Pilot Iroshizuku, current: Murasaki Shikibu (actually has water resistance)
• Sailor KOP - any dye based Sailor/Kobe current: Blue Black
• Scribo Feel Foglia - Scribo matching Verdi Bosco (not water resistant but maintenance is easy)
• Opus 88 Omar with Regalia Labs Sequel - Pilot Blue Black

Still searching

• Diplomat Nexus Blue - Pilot Iroshizuku Asa Gao
• Desiderata Pen Company Soubriquet: Cocobolo - Pilot Iroshizuku Murasaki Shikibu 
• Pelikan M605 Back Tortoise - J Herbin Perle Noir (also for all vintage lever fillers)

Anything goes

• Pilot Varsities - Noodler's Proctor's Ledge and Noodler's Tiananmen Red
• Opus 88 Koloro - Pilot Iroshizuku Fuyu-gaki
• Opus 88 Opera - Noodler's Heart of Darkness
• Platinum Preppy 02 - Noodler's X-Feather Blue