|
Inexpensive, nonfading permanent ink
ballpoint pens |
|
Inexpensive, nonfading permanent ink
ballpoint pens Many a time we have been disappointed to find a nearly illegible
specimen or microslide label that we had been sure
would tolerate time's abrasion and ultraviolet. A Rapidograph-style
drawing pen is tedious to load with ink via pipette or syringe, leaks, picks
up link in the tip, and is expensive to use if one resorts to ink cartridges.
There are several ball point pens on the market that advertise themselves as
being permanent ink pens. These are moderately expensive, however, and they
seem to congregate at home instead of waiting dutifully on the lab bench.
I've used a fountain pen with India ink, but the ink needed to be diluted or
the pen jammed. A new solution is to buy a ball point pen clearly to control the
delivery of fluid ink by the series of disks near the writing end. Some are very cheap, such as the Beifa "Tank" pen found in "dollar
stores" at three for a dollar. The ink is already touted as
"permanent" but one can remove the point stem with its disks with a pliers, and replace the ink with India ink (e.g. Rapidograph ink which comes in a small squeeze bottle
with a narrow tip), then shove the stem back into the pen. I've been using such for quite a while and it has not jammed. It
is a pleasure to assure oneself that one is using genuine permanent,
non-fading India ink.
Expensive Uniball permanent ink ball point,
and cheap Beifa Tank pen.
Remove the stem and
point with pliers, and refill with genuine India ink. |
|
|
