Recharging Your Dried Out Fountain Pen

by Tony Thomas

It is hot outside and you know what that means: Your fountain pens will be more prone to drying out.

What do you do with bone dry pens? Conventional wisdom says that you clean them out and refill them with fresh ink. But I have another, more frugal, solution.

When two of my less expensive pens dried out suddenly, I just reached for a syringe and a bottle of distilled water and filled the cartridge or converter up with water. I then dipped the tip of the pens into some water and they wrote perfectly again.

What you have to realize is that ink is nothing more than dye suspended in a water solution. When the water evaporates, the dye is still there in much more concentrated form. When you add water, it dilutes the dye and the pen will write again. Depending upon how much water you add and how much dye is left, it may be more or less saturated than the original color of the ink. But it will write and you will save a bit of money on ink.

And, for me, that is a good thing!