Syringe filling of cartridges

[maclink]

Am I being too obsessive wanting my syringe and needle to be absolutely dry before sucking up ink to squirt into/fill an empty cartridge?  What do you do with the ink left in the syringe?  Do you squirt it back into the bottle of ink you took it from or do you discard it?  I don't wish to discard the ink left in the syringe, hence my obsession.  I'm now contemplating getting a 1 ml syringe for purpose so that I can pull up the exact amount of ink for the cartridge and avoid having to return ink to the bottle.  Am I being unnecessarily concerned?  I don't expect to empty these bottles of ink anytime soon.

[irrigger]

this thread might help.  I ordered some and are perfect for refilling of cartridges without a lot of excess ink.

On 2/24/2021 at 1:00 PM, mizgeorge said:

Father Christmas brought me some of these - and I have to say they are much easier to use - the spring means I can do the whole thing one handed, which for someone who spills as much ink as I do is a big bonus!

[amberleadavis]

OH MY those syringes are awesome.

 

I admit for the cartridges I use the little insulin syringes that I bought nearly ten years ago from the local drugstore and I haven't used all of them yet.  They are 3/10 ml and I have to inject ink into the cartridge multiple times but I never have ink left over in the syringe.  Also, I've found that if the ink clogs that little needle, it will clog my pen.  Given that I use glittery ink, the little syringes are useful for predetermining in what pen that ink can be used.  Also, since I bought a pack of 100, I always have a clean one that I can use.  I wash them after each use and let them dry before I use them again.  Periodically, they become hard to use, and that is when I discard them.

[maclink]

9 minutes ago, irrigger said:

this thread might help.  I ordered some and are perfect for refilling of cartridges without a lot of excess ink.

Thanks.  My concerns were actually raised in the thread. 

I thought those syringes you showed were actually actual converters and this is why they have the agitators in them.  However, I can see where they would be mighty handy as cartridge fillers.

[mizgeorge]

They're definitely syringes - I'm still using them daily!

 

Their ability to dispense single drops as well as measured amounts is also incredibly useful for making mixtures, and for adding wettener accurately. I will definitely get more of them in the future.

[Mysterious Mose]

43 minutes ago, maclink said:

Am I being too obsessive wanting my syringe and needle to be absolutely dry before sucking up ink to squirt into/fill an empty cartridge?  What do you do with the ink left in the syringe?  Do you squirt it back into the bottle of ink you took it from or do you discard it?  I don't wish to discard the ink left in the syringe, hence my obsession.  I'm now contemplating getting a 1 ml syringe for purpose so that I can pull up the exact amount of ink for the cartridge and avoid having to return ink to the bottle.  Am I being unnecessarily concerned?  I don't expect to empty these bottles of ink anytime soon.

I recommend putting the ink back in the bottle.  After all, with what could it be contaminated?

 

However, I'm still baffled by the opposite problem.  When emptying the cartridge with the syringe, a little bit of ink remains in the cartridge.  If I then want to use the cartridge with some other ink, the new ink will be contaminated with the old ink!  How to handle this situation?

[vtgt]

I'd rinse out the traces of ink left in the syringe. Life is too short to worry about 0.05ml .

[lapis]

I use only 0.9 mm or 0.8 mm diameter needles (size 1 = 20 G, usually in a yellow box) or size 2 = 21 G, green, respectively) which have as yet never gotten clogged. For syringes, I use either 1-ml (insulin) or 2-ml or even 5-ml syringes and these too have never presented any problems. I chuck out the needles but keep the syringes, washed and dried for any next time necessary.

As Amberlea pointed out, a 1-ml syringe might be best for the simple reason that being very thin and relatively long, you can easily adjust your injection so that practically zero ml remain in it (the syringe). If you have any losses, it'll amount to less than 1 very small drop (about 30 µl).

[Smear]

As a newbie, here, it seems like at least two or three avenues are in front of us for this sort of task.

 

1. Inject ink of a similar color and thereby mixing the old and new colors. This option is not good for the purists or those opposed to mixing. Besides that, if it's a different make, it may not mix well.

2. Flush the old cartridge, and give it ample drying time (days) by exposing to air, and gravity to the extent possible.

 

Option 2 seem like an obvious choice. Anyone?

[amberleadavis]

9 minutes ago, Mysterious Mose said:

I recommend putting the ink back in the bottle.  After all, with what could it be contaminated?

 

However, I'm still baffled by the opposite problem.  When emptying the cartridge with the syringe, a little bit of ink remains in the cartridge.  If I then want to use the cartridge with some other ink, the new ink will be contaminated with the old ink!  How to handle this situation?

 

 

I use a larger syringe for this, I inject soapy water, then suck it out and then I keep doing the same with clean water until the cartridge is clean.

[amberleadavis]

1 minute ago, Smear said:

As a newbie, here, it seems like at least two or three avenues are in front of us for this sort of task.

 

1. Inject ink of a similar color and thereby mixing the old and new colors. This option is not good for the purists or those opposed to mixing. Besides that, if it's a different make, it may not mix well.

2. Flush the old cartridge, and give it ample drying time (days) by exposing to air, and gravity to the extent possible.

 

Option 2 seem like an obvious choice. Anyone?

 

 

I think you got it!

Welcome aboard!

[chromantic]

With practice, you'll eventually be able to "eye-ball it", drawing in a reasonably close amount to what you need. Try going a little low 'til you get the hang of it, you can always add a tad bit to top off. Really no reason not to put excess back in bottle if you rinsed the syringe well after the previous use but also no reason not to squirt it down the drain if it's just a smidge, unless you're filling an entire 10cc syringe to fill a 1.2 cart, then put it back in the bottle.

[alexwi]

7 hours ago, maclink said:

Am I being too obsessive wanting my syringe and needle to be absolutely dry before sucking up ink to squirt into/fill an empty cartridge?

Yes, you're being overly obsessive. It's very unlikely that you'll notice a change in the ink's shade due to this.

 

When I use a syringe, remaining ink goes back in the bottle. Have been doing this for years.

 

Alex

[A Smug Dill]

7 hours ago, maclink said:

I'm now contemplating getting a 1 ml syringe for purpose so that I can pull up the exact amount of ink for the cartridge and avoid having to return ink to the bottle.

 

Considering the ballpark capacity of most commercially available ink cartridges, I cannot imagine why using a 1ml syringe would not be the default choice. Using whatever happens to be on hand, without delay or incurring further acquisition costs, cannot be reasonably expected to be the best fit for purpose, I'd say.

 

That said, if you're prepared to do multiple draws and transfers from the ink bottle for a single fill, I don't see why one cannot use a 3ml or even 5ml syringe to fill a cartridge without drawing more ink than is required; it's just a conscious trade-off between convenience (and avoidance of costs) and precision.

 

7 hours ago, maclink said:

Am I being too obsessive wanting my syringe and needle to be absolutely dry before sucking up ink to squirt into/fill an empty cartridge?

 

I don't think so. If I bother to fill a fountain pen with a particular ink, then I want the product of writing with that pen and ink to be as ‘true’ to said ink's characteristics (including but not limited to colour and shading) as possible, so why wouldn't I want the syringe and needle to be absolutely dry, so as not to dilute or contaminate the ink that will be in the pen's reservoir?

 

After flushing the syringe and 14-gauge needle (together, and then separately) first under the tap, and then with pressurised jets of demineralised water, I then flick dry the pieces as much as possible, and dry of the last of the moisture off the insides of the syringe, and the connector on the needle, with a pointy-tipped rolled-up strip of low-shedding (effectively leaving no lint) paper towel, and dry the inside of the needle with pressurised air (i.e. with the cleaned syringe itself, or a separate and dry bulb syringe).

 

7 hours ago, maclink said:

What do you do with the ink left in the syringe?  Do you squirt it back into the bottle of ink you took it from or do you discard it?

6 hours ago, Mysterious Mose said:

I recommend putting the ink back in the bottle.  After all, with what could it be contaminated?

 

I'm largely with Mysterious Mose on that, although it depends somewhat on how much is left in the syringe; one droplet's worth is probably not worth the effort.

[maclink]

3 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

After flushing the syringe and 14-gauge needle (together, and then separately) first under the tap, and then with pressurised jets of demineralised water, I then flick dry the pieces as much as possible, and dry of the last of the moisture off the insides of the syringe, and the connector on the needle, with a pointy-tipped rolled-up strip of low-shedding (effectively leaving no lint) paper towel, and dry the inside of the needle with pressurised air (i.e. with the cleaned syringe itself, or a separate and dry bulb syringe).

 

This was my preparation in absolutely identical fashion.... short of the demineralised water part.  I use tap water only.

 

I agree that with a 1-3ml syringe, I can easily pull up a precisely measured quantity of ink to minimise the amount of ink I need to squirt back into the ink bottle.

[Arkanabar]

Ai yi yi...

I have no problem getting hold of whatever syringes and needles I want (nursing school, yay).  But I don't bother.

 

I do my mixing with disposable 3ml bulb pipettes, marked at every 0.5ml.  Since nigh unto all of my mixing these days is with water, that suits me fine.  And pipettes are fine for refilling the Pilot and Platinum cartridges that make up the vast majority of my cartridge use.

 

For you precision freaks out there, by all means go for 1ml syringes, as they are marked for every 0.01ml (or 10 microliters if you prefer), and use them to measure with absurd levels of precision the exact capacity of your favored cartridges.  Be aware that the numbers will eventually rub off.  Luer-lock is probably preferable to insulin or TB syringes, as the needle can easily be screwed in or out.  Blunt needles used for drawing medications from vials are no doubt to be preferred by most.  If you want crazy narrow-gauge needles like on the insulin syringes (that is, 28-31G), they do make those for other subcutaneous injections (e.g., heparin).  The needles are usually much shorter than those used for intramuscular injections, rarely more than 1/2".

[KellyAnnD]

I bought LOTS of syringes so I would always have a clean, dry one on hand.  Any leftover ink I've taken up in a clean, dry syringe I send right back into the bottle and then I clean the syringe thoroughly, dismantle it and allow it to dry for many days before using it again.  How can this be worse for the purity and longevity of your bottled ink than filling a pen with an installed converter by dipping the nib into the ink, pumping ink in and out several times with the piston or bladder until the converter finally fills, and then dropping a few drops back into the bottle, especially if you are changing ink colors and your pen is not scrupulously clean?  The day I discovered filling converters with syringes was a happy day indeed. 

 

Those spring-loaded syringes do look wonderful, but I don't have any trouble operating a standard syringe with one hand...yet.

[bunnspecial]

On 4/30/2021 at 9:40 PM, Arkanabar said:

 

For you precision freaks out there, by all means go for 1ml syringes, as they are marked for every 0.01ml (or 10 microliters if you prefer), and use them to measure with absurd levels of precision the exact capacity of your favored cartridges.  Be aware that the numbers will eventually rub off.

 

Disposable plastic syringes are not exactly high precision measures either.

 

Hamilton microliter syringes are where it's at. The smallest I've used had a max volume of .5µL(no, that's not a typo) with a precision of .01µL. The typical one I use regularly is 10µL with .1µL graduations. I have some up to about 500µL, and of course precision declines in larger sizes.

The really small ones-say 5µL and smaller-typically use a "needle in plunger" design where the plunger is precisely machined to fit inside an equally precisely made needle. The glass syringe itself holds nothing but just provides graduations. That eliminates the syringe "dead volume" in the needle. A Hamilton #700 10µL cemented 2" 26 gauge #2 point syringe(PN 80300) holds roughly .1µL in the needle. Yes, that's strange I know that, but at my last job I use to buy 3-4 boxes of 6 of those at a time and the number of syringes of that PN I've handled in my time since undergrad through my current professional life is easily in the range of several thousand.

 

Those sort of syringes can be really handy for exact ink mixing in small volumes...

[inkstainedruth]

Threads like this one remind me of why I use converters instead of cartridges now.  

Recently I picked up a Sheaffer school pen for cheap, and tried reconstituting the ink in the attached cartridge with one of those pipette things.  It was not a happy experience....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Arkanabar]

The only cartridges I will attempt to refill with a pipette are Pilot and Platinum.

 

eta:  I don't think I'd use a syringe like this one, either.