How to Refill a Fountain Pen

Refilling a fountain pen is easier than you think. Follow these steps to carefully refill your favorite fountain pen.

1. Disassemble and clean your pen according to manufacturer instructions.
2. Select the ink for your fountain pen’s refill.
3. Protect your table’s surface with a towel or newspaper.
4. Carefully dip your converter cartridge or pen nib into ink reservoir and refill. (A piston converter twists) (A squeeze converter is squeezed)
5. Reassemble your pen and perform tests on scratch paper.

What kind of ink is best to refill your fountain pen?

Not all inks are capable of refilling your fountain pen! Do some research before you go and fill your fountain pen with any old ink from the local Hobby Lobby. In fact, if you choose wrong, you’ll destroy your fountain pen for good!

You can always play it safe and purchase official replacement cartridges from your pen manufacturer. But if you want to choose your own ink, Sailor ink has served me especially well over the last few months. The possibilities really open up when you choose your own materials. Especially if you use waterproof inks for watercolors and ink washes.

Set up for the refill of your fountain pen.

You want to avoid any ink spills if possible. Before taking everything apart, lay down an old rag or a paper towel. In this tutorial you’ll see my awesome blue Lamy Safari pen. Lamy makes awesome introductory level fountain pens a range of ultra premium pens as well.

Every pen is a little bit different, but you should generally expect a similar procedure with whatever pen you have. Remove the cap, unscrew the barrel and separate it from the reservoir. Then you can pull out the cartridge.

This is a good time to clean your pen. Especially if you are switching colors or brands of ink. Get a simple cleaning solution made specifically for fountain pen maintenance. Before running solution through the pen, simply run warm water. If you have a very expensive pen made from rare materials you may not want to use warm water.

I recommend a piston converter. It is like a syringe with a screw instead of a plunger. Simply twist to move liquid in and out of the chamber. You can also fill the converter with water/cleaning solution and twist it to force water through the barrel of your pen and out from under the nib. If the barrel is clean, I shake it out and blow it slightly. Dry it out to the best of your ability.

When your pen is dry, you can remove the nib by wrapping a piece of tape around it and carefully pulling it off. Clean and excess or dried ink off the nib and put it back on your pen.

Refill the converter with ink.

Now that your pen is cleaned, you can refill you converter. Make sure the piston is all the way at the bottom of the converter. Dip the end of the converter into your ink well and twist the piston so it fills will ink. Replace the piston into the barrel of the fountain pen and let gravity take care of the rest.

Some fountain pens are slightly different. Rather than dipping the piston, you can actually dip the nib into the ink well and twist the piston for the same effect. Just wipe the excess off the nib/pen when you do this. This is more common in higher end pens.

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Take your refilled pen out for a test drive.

Make some marks with your pen and get the ink flowing. Some simple hatching or doodles should get the creative juices going. Depending on how you use your pen you may refill it fairly often. I refill my pen about every two weeks.

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What sets fountain pens apart?

Fountain pens were all the rage before ball point pens took over. But why are they making a comeback? For starters, improvements in the craft are allowing them to leak a lot less than they used to. Fast drying inks that don’t clog have also come a long way in recent years. But the biggest reason for the comeback is probably just hipsters wanting to set themselves apart(haha).

I really enjoy carrying my fountain pen to and from the office everyday. This pen is kind of like an accessory to my smart phone in the way it’s always near. I can’t explain why I love doodling with this pen. Maybe it’s because it takes a lot of TLC to keep one of these pens going for a long time.

I’m sure if you get one, you’ll feel the same!