A couple of months ago at Pen Night we received a tutorial on converting fountain pens to become “eyedropper pens,” where the entire barrel of the pen is used to hold the ink, rather than a cartridge or converter. The benefit of this conversion is a pen that can hold much more ink; good for Antarctic expedition journalling, etc.

This conversion obviously requires the barrel to be watertight, and, to this end, I acquired an O-ring from the Bookmark ($1 plus tax; an excellent value).

What I neglected to note, however, is that the J. Herbin pen I selected to convert has a tiny hole in the bottom of the barrel. And so, when I syringed in the Sunshine Yellow ink, it immediately drained out (fortunately I was able to slurp most of it back up).

I got in touch with PenChalet, where I’d purchased the pen, and they confirmed it’s not a defect.

So now I’ll have to figure out a way to seal it up.

Stay tuned.