Another thrifty find

A well used tool of mine in the craft room is the Micron Pen.  I love the jet black ink the fine nib sizes.  What I don't like about them is they dry out if you leave the cap off and they are not refillable (I have tried)  so that leaves me with buying a set or two a year.  I can usually get a set for around $15.00, which isn't a huge amount of money, but it seemed I could do better in the cost/use area.
Having these fine point pens is important if you work with digitals, draw to make digitals or even do a lot of traditional stamping.  I do all three. I would like to do all three with the same ink.

This Ink:


This crossing over would allow me to have the same reaction of ink/paper/coloring.  It would allow me to correct a printed image and not have to worry if my coloring is going to have a bad spot because the image inks were different. I now use this ink as ink in my stamp pads , my printer and now my drawing pens!

I went to ebay to search out drafting pens ( really thought this was a very clever idea) and found a good set of pens for a great price!

I found a German set of Alvin Refograph pens.  The listing said 3 were unused and two were used.
I took a chance and for 16.99 total I purchased the set.




I knew two of them would need to be cleaned and I really wasn't sure if they were cleanable, India becomes chunky over time and exposure to air.  The resins in true India ink cause this to happen.

I got the pens in a few days and went to work:

I soaked them in Denatured Alcohol ( using a solvent to dissolve solvent base ink)


after soaking and rinsing, I tapped them out as per instructions:




I emptied cleaned and refilled the ink bottle with my printer ink.  The India ink had become like jello.



Gave each of the pens a firm shaking to get the valve in the nib chamber moving in the ink.

 they all worked!!


There is a big difference between these pens and the micron.  With the micron you are delivering your ink to paper using a fine nylon tip.  With the drafting pens (any brand) the ink is reaching paper via a tiny metal tube.  If you have ever used a crow quill pen for ink drawing - that  is what it feels like.

they are now sitting on my desk ready for use

you can purchase drafting pens in singles or sets, if you like fine line anything, give this a try, they are really great!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you are having a great weekend!
Ginny M





Comments

Carolyn said…
Ginny, you are amazing and so full of tips for us. When you use the inkjet ink on your stamp pads, does it smear with watercolor inks?
OR, does it act like archival ink?

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