Strange Observation of Ink in Ball Point Pen

[Borek]

Remember I live good 8000 kilometers away from you, this is so far that it makes strange things to time.

Actually these with balls were earlier than those just sealed. One day there was no ball in the cartridge, that was a shock I am still fighting PTSD.

 

[Danger]

Remember I live good 8000 kilometers away from you, this is so far that it makes strange things to time.

Actually these with balls were earlier than those just sealed. One day there was no ball in the cartridge, that was a shock I am still fighting PTSD.

Man, every time that you post, I stop and wonder why it is that North Americans ever started telling Polish jokes.

 

[JDługosz]

The "cartridge pen" inserts are not pressurized!

I use, almost exclusively, refillable cartridges called "converters".

When ink is drawn out due to capillary action, air gets in the same way. A sudden drop of pressure, like in air travel, will make the pressure of the air in the ink sack / cartridge to squirt out the ink.

Some pens have snorkels which serve to equalize the pressure. But that is by no means necessary for them to work -- it just makes them easy to fill.

 

[sophiecentaur]

So the air must come in around the sides of the ball? The issue is what forces are making it happen when upside down.
The only difference between the situations upside down and right way up is the difference in hydrostatic pressure, remember. Adhesion and cohesion are independent of gravity.

Also, if you store cheap pens 'ball upwards' they soon refuse even to start to work. There must be a lot more leakeage round the cheap ball.

 

[sophiecentaur]

Ball...? Stopper...? What on Earth are you referring to?
This must be some newfangled version of the thing that I'm talking about. Mine used a totally sealed plastic tube. There was an input needle built into the base of the nib, which punctured whichever end of the tube you inserted. (The best analogy that I can think of is the vacuum blood-sample needle setups that you use in a medical clinic.)

All the kids use the ball/stopper kind these days. Are you sure you're not referring to the Charles Dickens / Bob Cratchett type quill pens which you use on a high stool in Mr Scrooge's Office?

 

[Danger]

All the kids use the ball/stopper kind these days. Are you sure you're not referring to the Charles Dickens / Bob Cratchett type quill pens which you use on a high stool in Mr Scrooge's Office?

Enough out of you, you young whipper-snapper.
I had to use these damned things in school from '65 to '67. At that time, they were absolutely the only option between fountain pens and ball-points. Believe me, I would far prefer that the school had mandated even the cheapest ball-points over those crap cartridge things. I suppose that it was economically significant that we students paid more than $1.25 for those damned pens and a 5-pack of cartridges, rather than the school system shelling out $0.10 each for ball-points.

 

[sophiecentaur]

I left School some time before that, actually, so I must have missed the 'puncturing' variety. It was only about 20 years ago that I started teaching and came across the 'ball' variety. Despite quite a neat design, kids are quite capable of getting in almost as big a mess as they / we used to with conventional fountain pens with a squeezy bulb and a bottle of Parker Quink Blue-Black.

 

[JDługosz]

I generally use Private Reserve brand ink, which is washable. I know I might make a mess, some day, and plan accordingly. Only drawback is getting notes rained on...

(I'm currently writing with a Pelican M600 filled with Visconti brown that has a tiny bit of blue-black added. It has a built-in plunger, not a cartridge at all.)