What's new

Shake bottled ink?

Is it recommended to shake bottled ink before refilling your pen?...do ink components separate or settle?
 
They can and do depending on the ink and how long it’s sat static.

I have a bottle of Noodler’s 5 O’clock shadow (a B&B limited addition). It’s black with green shading. I dipped a piston filler in once and when I started writing it was just an olive color, no black. So those had essentially separated completely.


I shake and remix my inks when I reload a pen so that the suspension I load is as designed by the manufacturer.
 
They can and do depending on the ink and how long it’s sat static.

I have a bottle of Noodler’s 5 O’clock shadow (a B&B limited addition). It’s black with green shading. I dipped a piston filler in once and when I started writing it was just an olive color, no black. So those had essentially separated completely.


I shake and remix my inks when I reload a pen so that the suspension I load is as designed by the manufacturer.

It's easy enough to shake the bottle before refilling, but I didn't know for certain. First fill of my TWSBI Eco I just dipped the pen into a bottle of Noodler's (Liberty's Elysium) and filled it. I'm thinking it's fine as I had just received the ink and it was ptobably sufficiently agitated in transit.
 
For almost all inks, it shouldn't be necessary. For old-school iron galls (DRI/ESSRI) it is inadvisable.

Many Japanese bottles are designed to be inverted before use, not to shake the ink, but to fill the miser in the bottle.
 
I'm a shaker as well. Even with my rather small collection, I tend to shake them up every few months.
My very first bottle of proper ink, Faber Castell Cobalt Blue, definitely benefits from shaking.
 
All of my links are modern, purchased within the last 30 days.

Noodlers (2)
Pilot
TWSBI

I will likely give them a quick shake when refilling.

 
I had a Montblanc lavender ink that separated, overnight, clear water at the top and gloopy jello at the base, it was recalled by me and they cleaned a 146 that had been filled with the gloop. That was the only ink that I was tempted to shake.
 
I had a Montblanc lavender ink that separated, overnight, clear water at the top and gloopy jello at the base, it was recalled by me and they cleaned a 146 that had been filled with the gloop. That was the only ink that I was tempted to shake.

Wow. Just so I am understanding correctly:

The ink was defective and Montblanc cleaned your fouled-up pen?
 
Wow. Just so I am understanding correctly:

The ink was defective and Montblanc cleaned your fouled-up pen?
Yes, exactly that.

This was about ten years ago. I filled my pen in the morning and noticed a string of gloop between the bottle and the pen. The pen didn't write well at all, took it to a Montblanc boutique who studied it, asked if I had been using Diamine ink because the ink view window was stained, I said just MB Lavender, and described the gloop from the morning fill up, they gave me a new bottle of ink and suggested that I threw my bottle away. The pen went to Hamburg who cleaned it and replaced the barrel, all free of charge. A couple if weeks later I heard that there was a recall on MB Lavender.

My original post had an autocorrect error, it said me instead of MB
 
Yes, exactly that.

This was about ten years ago. I filled my pen in the morning and noticed a string of gloop between the bottle and the pen. The pen didn't write well at all, took it to a Montblanc boutique who studied it, asked if I had been using Diamine ink because the ink view window was stained, I said just MB Lavender, and described the gloop from the morning fill up, they gave me a new bottle of ink and suggested that I threw my bottle away. The pen went to Hamburg who cleaned it and replaced the barrel, all free of charge. A couple if weeks later I heard that there was a recall on MB Lavender.

My original post had an autocorrect error, it said me instead of MB

I see, and yes the autocorrect "correction" was what threw me. 🙂

It is amazing how a single "corrected" word can completely bugger up a message.
 
Top Bottom