# Explain fountain pen refilling please!



## Joe S. (Sep 27, 2012)

I've seen "piston style converters for fountain pens" at several vendor's sites. How do these things work? And how do you fill them? (I'm new to this whole fountain pen thing.)


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## Andrew_K99 (Sep 27, 2012)

This link may help, there are quite a few different filling methods for fountain pens.

Vintage Fountain Pens Filling Instructions: The Basics

AK


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## IPD_Mrs (Sep 28, 2012)

The piston style converters that most of us have on our sites are made so that they either screw in or press fit onto the feed. If you think about how you would press a cartridge onto your pen, these work pretty much the same for installation. Filling is quite easy with these.... While on your pen, You simply twist the end of the converter to get the plunger all the way to the nib end (expelling the air that is inside) then you insert the nib into your ink bottle to a point where the ink is just level or slightly over the top of the section.  This allows the ink to be drawn in through the nib and feed without also sucking air into the pen when you fill it.   While holding the nib into the ink you twist the piston turning knob the opposite direction in order to pull the ink up through the nib and feed and into the converter (replacing the expelled air). You can then remove the pen from the ink and wipe off the section/nib with a soft paper towel and replace into your pen body and write on!  Careful not to hold the paper towel against the feed or nib for more than a mere second as it will wick the ink out.  It is only the briefest of swipes with the cloth that is needed to clean the excess ink off.


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## Joe S. (Sep 28, 2012)

IPD_Mrs said:


> The piston style converters that most of us have on our sites are made so that they either screw in or press fit onto the feed. If you think about how you would press a cartridge onto your pen, these work pretty much the same for installation. Filling is quite easy with these.... While on your pen, You simply twist the end of the converter to get the plunger all the way to the nib end (expelling the air that is inside) then you insert the nib into your ink bottle to a point where the ink is just level or slightly over the top of the section.  This allows the ink to be drawn in through the nib and feed without also sucking air into the pen when you fill it.   While holding the nib into the ink you twist the piston turning knob the opposite direction in order to pull the ink up through the nib and feed and into the converter (replacing the expelled air). You can then remove the pen from the ink and wipe off the section/nib with a soft paper towel and replace into your pen body and write on!  Careful not to hold the paper towel against the feed or nib for more than a mere second as it will wick the ink out.  It is only the briefest of swipes with the cloth that is needed to clean the excess ink off.



Still working on terminology here, the section is the part that you screw in/out of the pen, right? In the case of the mag. graduate pen, the magnet part?


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## IPD_Mrs (Sep 28, 2012)

Joe,

The section is usually known as the part that you hold when writing which the nib and feed fit into.  In the case of most of the pens made by folks around here it also does screw in and out of the pen body.  Know, though, that the section can also be press fit into the pen body (for example as in the vintage Esterbrook pens.)

Hope this helps!!

  Linda


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## paintspill (Sep 28, 2012)

this is a little video i did for my customers, not sure if your using the same type of pen but if you are i hope it helps
fountain pen - YouTube


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