Con-70 Filling Tips Help Please, Pilot Custom Heritage Posting Nib

[Intellidepth]

I have a uni exam in just over a week and will be trialling my Pilot custom heritage posting nib fp under real exam conditions (yes, I'm practicing with it, it's my favourite uni pen).

 

When I refill, or try to, it the converter hardly fills. When it does, it's full of air bubbles. What am I doing wrong please? Or is there some trick I should know?

 

Seems to be writing fine, but I want maximum ink in that converter for the exam (3 hrs of writing). I've already figured out I can't fill the converter separately without the section/nib unit attached to eliminate bubbles like I can with Lamy converters.

 

Details: I finished an Iroshizuku ink blend, rinsed converter and section/nib unit with lots of distilled water (that con-70 is a pest to get clean!) shook out water vigorously, dried it off a bit, and put in Sailor Blue Black (apparently permanent) with a manuf date of May 2008 (bought new at full RRP just a couple of weeks ago from a retail fp store in Brisbane, Aus.) Sailor Blue Black is going to be the everyday ongoing ink for this pen.

 

Thanks!

[Notgatherox]

 

Good luck for the exam.

 

 

 

~Epic

[Algester]

ahhh Sailor inks and the COn-70 arent the best of friends yes its normal you will get a lot of bubbles but I find out Iroshizuku Take-Sumi flows good inside the converter as I see it swirling inside the converter as you use up the ink but you will have problems with the "thicker" inks which is where Sailor normally falls under

[Intellidepth]

Thanks Algester. I was after a permanent ink... Didn't realise it was thicker.

Thanks Lord Epic, will look at that now. Edit: apparently I need to be quick with that button, not slow and cautious. Will empty it tomorrow and try again. Thank you

Edited May 20, 2015 by Intellidepth

[PAKMAN]

Took me forever to realize going slow doesn't work with these converters. Fast pumps gets the best fill.

[Ink Blotto]

Sailor Blue Black is one of my favorite inks, at the moment at least. I've found the Sailor ink bottles to be a little shallow to fill my CH91 with CON-70 easily, even with the plastic insert Sailor uses. Putting the ink in an ink sample vial has made it a lot easier because I can submerge the nib deeper. There are still a few very small bubbles but I think that's inevitable with the CON-70.

 

IB

[PabloAU]

Fast pumps gets the best fill.

Yep. Fast stroke with a pause at the top & bottom to allow movement of ink and air.

 

I've found the Sailor ink bottles to be a little shallow to fill my CH91 with CON-70 easily, even with the plastic insert Sailor uses. Putting the ink in an ink sample vial has made it a lot easier because I can submerge the nib deeper.

I've found this to be the case also. Sailor's shallow bottles are nice and stable stable, but hinder more than they help for filling IME.

 

The other thing to check is that the converter is fully seated on the nipple. The Pilot converters will feel secure before they're fully seated and sealed. Give it a good shove to be sure.

[nibbling]

Yeap the con70 stores a lot of ink but is annoying in the number of bubbles generated.

[Frank C]

I recently purchased all the Deep Dark Inks from Cult Pens in the UK. I took my handful of Pilot Custom 74 Demonstrators to test them. Two of the converters just didn't fill. I thought that I would have to rebuild them as in this topic:

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/236385-pilot-con-70-disasssembly-some-pics/

 

I watched Lord Epic's post of Brian Goulet on the Con-70. In the past,I had never really paid much attention to how I pressed the plunger to fill the converters. This time I did it quickly; I even said, "BAM" a few times. I kept pressing until I no longer heard bubbles gurgling. Both of the balky converters were filled to the brim. There were a few micro-bubbles in one of the converters, but that doesn't really matter.

 

Thank you all for helping me with this. I am still looking for an excuse to take apart, i.e. "ruin", one of my Con-70 converters.

[Algester]

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/274975-con-70-you-have-been-defeated-pita-to-clean-you-say/?do=findComment&comment=3133507

further disassembly of the converter... NOT FOR THE WEAK OF HEART

[Frank C]

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/274975-con-70-you-have-been-defeated-pita-to-clean-you-say/?do=findComment&comment=3133507

further disassembly of the converter... NOT FOR THE WEAK OF HEART

 

I guess that I may be weak of heart. I have been avoiding taking one of my Con-70s apart.

[FOUR X FOUR]

I guess I'll have to go get a couple of con 70s out of the trash. I couldn't get them to work, so I threw them in the trash. Then I thought, I'll ask this question. Then I figured that this very question has already been asked. I was right, it has. Thanx for posting the vid, Lord Epic.

[Algester]

after a lot of observation I concluded that thick inks arent for this converter... :< as thick inks will have problems that is normally associated with hard starting and pen shaking

[Zanshin]

 

Thank you all for helping me with this. I am still looking for an excuse to take apart, i.e. "ruin", one of my Con-70 converters.

 

That excuse will happen as soon as you want to change inks. The CON-70 is a huge pain to clean as ink travels up that thin metal tube into the area behind the plunger. As soon as you think it's clean more ink will come down into the main chamber. I've given up using the CON-70 in my Falcon as that's a pen I try new inks with so each fill is a different ink and it takes far too long to clean all traces of the previous ink out.

[Frank C]

 

That excuse will happen as soon as you want to change inks. The CON-70 is a huge pain to clean as ink travels up that thin metal tube into the area behind the plunger. As soon as you think it's clean more ink will come down into the main chamber. I've given up using the CON-70 in my Falcon as that's a pen I try new inks with so each fill is a different ink and it takes far too long to clean all traces of the previous ink out.

 

For the most part, I am a one ink, one pen, person. I do have a couple of stained CON-70s, but I just put in either the same ink or a similar color ink, and don't worry about it, too much. I have tried to unscrew the CON-70, without any success. I think that a heat gun would be the next step—I just haven't taken it, yet.

[Intellidepth]

The pen worked wonderfully for the exam and the quick fill technique halved the bubbles. Thank you. It lasted the 3 hour hand-written exam too which was great. It had the perfect nib (posting) on it as the people who prepared the papers didn't leave enough space for us to handwrite our answers even in tiny writing . The posting nib meant I could write up around the edges of their questions lol.