5 Tips for avoiding Inktastrophies

In my 4 years back in the fountain pen hobby since writing with them as a teenager (cartridge only in those days) I've made many mistakes leading to inktastropies such as ruining a piece of clothing, having ink leak in transit to someone, coming up short on bottles because I recycled them, staining a favorite pen with a beautiful but permanent ink, and most recently: regretting that my warning note was not written directly ON an ink sample vial - so that it could have prevented my pen friend's pen from being stained.

So, that's what led me to do this video in the hopes that these tips, some I have been working with for a long time and some I've had to come up with this week ... could help at least one inky person out there to avoid causing or experiencing preventable loss.

Here are the things I talked about:
1. Apron. I have for a couple years now been wearing an apron whenever I work with inks! The aprons I showed that I like best for this are from Canadian Tire store in Canada and they say "Kitchen Style" on the label. I like the colorful camouflage these aprons provide! I've always wished I had a Goulet white ink apron with a blue Goulet ink splat logo but in lieu of one of those - this is what I have.

2. Designate pens for staining inks. This happens naturally unless we think about it ahead of time. In my case, I accidently stained my Lamy Vista (demonstrator) with Noodler's Rome Burning - it is a gold ink that leaves behind purple stains sometimes. A better choice would have been my Wing Sung 3008 which already had a stained feed and clear section. Both of those pens are now my designated tester pens.

3. Individually bag ink samples for mailing. Double bag. This would have prevented additional unreadable labels this spring when 3 blue ink samples I mailed got ruined by one offending leaker vial. Now I use little pill bags and snack bags so that I can "double bag" ink vials. It's bad enough to receive a mess but when you're the one that sent it it feels worse. I'm still looking for solutions on this, as it does seem this can happen even to the experts.

Here are the little pill bags I'm using as a first line of defense when mailing ink samples:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001TIOLN4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

SIDE NOTE: I was laughing because I almost used bad language ... and I blame Pen Boy Roy & Tom and their fun but colorful languaged Pentertainment podcast:
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkLnBvZGJlYW4uY29tL3BlbmJveXJveS9mZWVkLnhtbA/episode/cGVuYm95cm95LnBvZGJlYW4uY29tLzkwMGIwYjM3LTViZDMtMzBjMy1iNjVlLTQyMWFmYzBhOTJiNA?hl=en&ved=2ahUKEwjrs9K4kfHrAhVCIqwKHR38A-oQieUEegQIDhAI&ep=6

4. Save your bottles of all sizes in the event you lose your mind and buy a 16 ounce bottle of ink to share. It's 2nd nature to me to recycle things rapidly but we need to keep plastic and glass bottles handy. Just saying!

5. Do label any possibly staining inks/samples you are sharing with someone with *Caution* on the vial itself in addition to any note you include or letter. This could have saved a pen friends demonstrator this week. So, sender: please consider labeling the vial with something like *caution* or *may stain* and receiver: take a quick look at any review or info from the manufacturer you might find online --- admittedly, I didn't do this with Rome Burning that's why I stained my Lamy. You can learn from me though.

I thought of some more things after I did the video: mainly, use some sort of device to hold your ink samples upright. Here's my tutorial on how to make a pretty simple one or you can find them at Daisco, or dollar/pound stores meant to hold small candles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucCIkzbSXo0&t=29s
Follow me on Instagram for more inky pictures and cat pics plus life in South Texas: https://www.instagram.com/snowball7470/
Email me at chris@inkswatch.com

Видео 5 Tips for avoiding Inktastrophies канала Chris Saenz