Cartridge vs Converter : How to use it.

how to fill a felt-tip pen

The parts of your felt-tip pen

Your felt-tip pen consists of four parts when assembled—the cap, the tip, the barrel, and the ink reservoir. Most reservoirs are either a piston converter or a cartridge . The converter requires fountain pen bottled ink. The cartridge is a self-contained, disposable unit filled with ink. Removing the barrel. First remove the cap. Then remove the barrel by turning it counterclockwise.

1. Filling with a fountain pen converter

Place the converter, tip first, into the bottle of ink until the tip is entirely covered. Twist the piston converter counterclockwise at the top. This forces the air out of the converter. Then twist the top of the piston converter clockwise to draw the ink up into the converter. While holding the tip above the bottle of ink, slowly twist the piston converter counterclockwise until a bead of ink flows from the tip . Gently blot excess ink from the tip with a lint-free cloth or blotter paper. 

2. Inserting a fountain pen cartridge

Remove the piston converter by gently pulling it away from the tip. Insert a fountain pen cartridge into the tip and push firmly until the cartridge seats itself. You will hear a small click. You can easily switch between bottled ink and cartridges by rinsing the nib and piston converter with cool water periodically.

5 Comments

  • Duskkit

    I have a bad habit of drawing on myself with my felt-tip pens and highlighters. Not only is it a waste of ink that I could use much better on paper drawings, but it smears, fades, and washes off so quickly I’m guaranteed to wind up frustrated– even my good waterproof fine-liners, that I use with my brush pens or under watercolor paintings, seem to be water-soluble when applied to skin, or at least not able to bind to it well enough to avoid being scrubbed off with a gentler-than-normal hand-washing. I’m also worried that inks meant for paper aren’t going to be good for my skin, but looking at a finished drawing on my arm is too good of a feeling for me to be able to refrain from it for much more than a month at a time.
    So I’ve been looking for a semi-permanent tattoo pen to try– something equivalent to henna but with a flowing ink rather than an annoying paste– but I’ve generally been frustrated. All of the options I’ve been able to find that have at all decent reviews for the purposes I want (long-term but not permanent drawings, rather than extremely temporary guidelines for actual tattoo artists preparing to make a design permanent and aren’t likely to have too much of a problem with a bit of bleeding or smudging of the temporary ink) have rather unwieldy-looking pens that I wouldn’t want to try to draw with on flat paper, let alone the irregularly curved surface of my skin. And of course none of them are the felt-tips I’d prefer.
    But, today, I did finally manage to find a pen-less bottle of ink that, based on manufacturer description and customer reviews, seems well worth trying. Of course, I need a suitable pen to put it in, so I went looking for a fountain pen/felt tip hybrid and eventually found this site. The product pages for the individual pens were frustratingly confusingly written, at least from my perspective, but after watching this video I think this is likely to be my best option.
    So, probably I’ll order a pen and a bottle of semi-permanent ink soon. I’ll probably fill the pen with some sort of alcohol or other disinfectant before adding the ink, just in case, but after that I should hopefully have a wonderful new black pen to draw on myself with. If the ink works as well as advertised, I may be buying a few more pens to put other colors of ink in a few months after that; though the selection of tips available for these pens is somewhat lacking for that– filling in any block of color even half as large as my pinky requires a broad tip, and the ones available here are what I generally consider fine-liners.
    (Fifty dollar pen, pretty much. Wow! I didn’t notice the price before… One for basic black line-work is probably worth it, but I don’t think I’ll be buying more than that this year, though I may point my mom towards them as birthday or Christmas gifts if I like the pen enough either with the temporary tattoo ink or (if said ink fails) as a fine-liner for my more general art purposes. A quick google search says that most pens with the converter are $75 and up, so this one is pretty cheap for it’s type, but that doesn’t mean I can easily afford it. Probably the lower price here is because it has a felt-tip rather than a metal calligraphy nib? It’s not entirely clear to me whether the converter is included with the pen, but at $3.30 separate I’m not too worried about that.)

    • sales@fluidwritingltd.com

      Hi !
      Thanks for your long message !
      Our pens work with standard water-based ink (used in fountain pens) not sure about other inks… Also the alcohol might damage our tips too, I preferred to let you know before you place any order, certainly do not want anyone to feel disappointed !! Last but not least we did not have skin in mind when we created our pen 😉 so really no guarantee there either. Great day to you and keep on drawing wherever it pleases you ! Cheers, Lorette

  • Daniel Turner

    Hi
    Could you tell me, can I use the refillable adapter in the inexpensive yooth pens?
    Cheers

  • Steve Gunn

    It is not clear whether or not I should draw ink up through the tip (for a yooth), or with the tip removed. That is, do I insert the converter into the ink, fill it and then put the tip or, or draw the ink up into the converter through the tip of the pen.

    • sales@fluidwritingltd.com

      Hi Steve,

      The best is to pump the ink directly with the converter from the bottle ! Stay safe 🙂

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