A good few years ago I got hooked on using a blunt needle syringe (very cheaply bought on eBay and elsewhere) and by now it is not only second nature but veyr quick and mess-free. I truly believe it is the cleanest way to go AND get the maximum fill in a pen.
Tools: blunt syringe (just so you don't poke yourself by accident), two jars - one with clean water, one inky water, paper towel.
1. I pull the converter (or empty cartridge) out of the pen and make sure it is clean if switching inks.
2. Put ink in syringe, fill converter almost totally full (so none squishes out when you reinstall it).
3. Replace converter, thread section back into barrel.
4. Turn pen over and slowly place 5-6 drops of ink on the underside of the tip of the nib. You will see the drop sit on the nib and then wick into the feed with capillary action; wait for each drop to do that before adding the next. This is called "priming the feed" and it will fill the entire working part of the pen with ink.
5. Cap the pen, squirt any remaning ink from the syringe back into the ink bottle, cap the bottle. Wipe syringe and then suck up a full syringe of clean water and expell in the dirty water jar. I have found that with pretty much every ink, 3 times will completely clean the syringe, ready for next use.
6. Put the tools away.
I've meant to record a little video one day, just to show how quick this can be! I get a pen filled in just a couple of minutes, and there is NO wasted ink, no ink on me or the pen parts, and the bottle of ink is never contaminated by a dirty nib.
I hope this isn't too elementary for this group, but I also am copying the text so I can share it with beginners.
Cheers,
Jon
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