This is the best fountain pen accessory AND it only costs $1

plus: it's "check out my SoundCloud" for introverts

This is a spring-loaded ink syringe. It costs a dollar.

This syringe holds about one converter’s worth of ink.

You can use it to fill up cartridges, converters, and any pen with a captive filling mechanism (including pistons, if you can remove the nib unit) easily and without wasting a bunch of ink.

Using this syringe means you’ll never again have to tempt fate by shoving a pen into a mostly-empty bottle (of saturated blue ink) that you are holding at a precarious angle over your (amazingly absorbent, white) kitchen counter.

You just suck up the last bit of ink with this thing and put it in the pen.

It also means you’ll never overfill the syringe, have the plunger get stuck, and spray ink everywhere—unlike these larger non-spring-loaded versions sold by pen retailers.

this one is much worse

To use this, you put ink directly in the cartridge or reservoir instead of shoving the pen into the bottle. Don’t fill it all the way to the top—make sure to leave a little room for the feed.

You can then either wait for the feed to saturate on its own (like with a regular cartridge), dip the tip of the nib in ink to get things going, or use the converter to put a drop of ink into the feed, like in this GIF.

this pen was already inked so I’m over-saturating the feed but you get the idea

(Note I’m using a converter to do this, not the syringe. The syringe will make a huge mess.)

When you’re done, you can take the syringe apart to clean it. The blunt-tipped needle pops out and the back part screws off so you can rinse it in seconds.

In addition to filling a pen, you can use these syringes to quickly wash cartridges and converters for re-use.

This is my favorite tool for pens. I think I’d been using and collecting fountain pens for three or four years before I got one, and I can’t recommend it enough. Mine came with a pen I got from Tom’s Studio (review). It’s held up for going on three years. I think it’s starting to go, but that’s a terrific run.

You can get these for $1 from AliExpress.

Or 5 for $5 from Amazon.

Or 3 for $6 from Goldspot.

It doesn’t matter if you pay $1 or $2 for it. Worth it either way.

Other stuff

HELLO, NEW READERS: Welcome to my dumb pen blog. It is mostly about pens and handwriting. I try to resist the urge to make it about writing itself since there are already a million blogs about that, but sometimes that happens anyway because all writers are required to talk about writing constantly, including me. It’s “check out my SoundCloud” for introverts.

Here are some of my favorite posts to get you grounded:

1. PARROT PEN: The BENU Parrot is the perfect pen for chaotic business dominance. This blog exists so I had a place to put this review of a pen that looks like a parrot. Like it has the head of a parrot on it and you have to wring its neck to use it. Whatever you are thinking, it’s more than that. Just click on it.

2. MERRY CLIPMAS, YOU FILTHY ANIMALS: Review: small town pen. A review of a LAMY pen written like a film treatment for a Hallmark Christmas movie, except the main character falls in love with a pen.

3. FLOPPY FISH PEN: Extra Fine Writing explains: The best fountain pen for beginners. One of last year’s top achievements was getting this review included in Google’s AI summary for beginner fountain pens. If you are unfamiliar with the Visconti Iopenna then you’re about to have a really good, really weird day.

4. A GIF OF TWO SHARK PENS FIGHTING: The Jinaho 997 fountain pen looks like a shark and costs $4 what else do you want. Includes a picture of my giant The Meg poster, signed by the director. He also directed Cool Runnings.

5. DIGGY DIGGY HOLE: The Ryan Krusac Dragon Slayer is to fountain pens what Italian dwarf metal is to music. This blog also has a secondary beat of reporting on power/symphonic metal shows. Read to the end for a nice GIF of Giacomo from Rhapsody of Fire hugging the dude standing in front of me.

OWL IN A TRENCH COAT: And speaking about talking about writing, I’m working to land the plane on this story I’ve been writing real-time for a writing contest. After spending a year working on my first novel it is really enjoyable to just haphazardly crash through a fun story as I go. I think I’ll wrap this up in the next two weeks or so. Catch up here.