How to Fix Your Pen – The Ink Bubble Resolved

Tips — 20 December 2009

The Air Bubble in the Ink Cartridge is Fixed - The After Picture

A few days ago I posted a question to see if anyone would be able to offer suggestions on how to fix my pen, and there were a ton of good suggestions. The problem was that the pen had an air bubble in the ink cartridge and the ink stopped flowing, but there was still a bunch of ink left beyond the bubble so I didn’t want to waste it.

There were 13 responses to the question, and all of them were great suggestions that sounded like they would probably work, but I was most intrigued by the whole centrifuge concept. Unfortunately I dont own or have access to a centrifuge, and thats where Steve came in with his great suggestion:

I too thought of the centrifuge idea. Don’t have one? No problem!
1) Tape/zip-tie the refill to a spoke on your bicycle tire (have the tip pointing outward, of course).
2) Go for an intense ride! I mean really go for it.
3) Done.

Initially I thought to myself “nah, that wont work” but I figured that it would be fun to try, and who cant use some exercise, right? Since I usually ride my bike indoors with an indoor trainer, I figured this would be an easy test to try out. So as suggested, I taped the refill to the spoke of my rear tire with the tip pointing outwards and started pedaling. I cant really put my finger on the exact parameters that did the trick, but I rode with the ink cartridge taped to the spoke for 22 minutes and 3 seconds at an average of 15.3 mph, and a max of 23.2 mph. The 23.2 mph part only lasted for about 10 seconds though, I’m not exactly Lance Armstrong.

Air Bubble in an Ink Refill - the Before Picture

So as promised, there is a prize awaiting Steve for his suggestion, so if you are reading this Steve, here is a list of things for you to pick from:

1. A Moleskine Volant Mini Notebook in lime green

2. A Stainless Steel Sharpie

3. One Yellow 3M Post it Flag Chisel Tip Highlighter

4. One blue Sharpie Grip Pen

Let me know which of these you would prefer, and send me an email (see the About / Contact tab above) with your mailing address.
Thanks to everyone who commented and had suggestions, they were all great suggestions, and hopefully others with a similar problem can put some of them to use to fix their pens.

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OfficeSupplyGeek

David

Good to hear you got it fixed! I must remebmer this for the next time I get a bubble.
http://arpelia.blogspot.com Marte

I love that, it’s such a MacGyver way of fixing your pen
Aaron

@Marte No McGuyver would have made the refill into a bomb and just blown the whole pen up!!!!
http://www.robotninjamonsters.blogspot.com/ Alberto

Very creative solution and good for your health to boot!
http://aim-write.com Mark Keating

I suppose the FPN Salad Shooter pen centrifuge would have worked too, but it would be much harder to work Lance Armstrong references into that post.
http://www.officesupplygeek.com OfficeSupplyGeek

@David – Hopefully you wont have to use the technique, much easier to NOT end up with an air bubble.

@Marte – I was going to say that at least I didnt have to blow anything up to do it, but Aaron beat me to it.

@Aaron – I was actually a little concerned that if anything went wrong, the ink would spray all over the room and make a mess, not quite blowing it up, but similar result.

@Alberto – yep, it was helpful to have some additional motivation for getting on the bike yesterday.

@Mark Keating – Thanks for pointing that out, I just searched and saw it. I probably would have went with some sort of Bugs Bunny reference instead of Lance Armstrong.
http://journalingarts.wordpress.com/2010/01/03/the-sixth-carnival-of-pen-pencil-and-paper/ The Sixth Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper « Journaling Arts

[...] Supply Geek shares an unconventional method to remove an air bubble from his pen refill in How to Fix Your Pen – The Ink Bubble Resolved. Find out how he did it at the Office Supply Geek blog. "The Air Bubble in the Ink Cartridge [...]
http://diysara.wordpress.com sara

omgosh that is brilliant!

you should put this on instructables!!!
nbutler

Course, if you’re lazy, and/or your non dominant hand needs something to do while your dominant hand is busy with another pen, you could just spin that cartridge on the top of whatever surface you’re using at the moment… but, this might be rather slow going…
http://www.officesupplygeek.com OfficeSupplyGeek

@Sara – Thanks…but I cant take credit for it. It was a suggestion from one of my brilliant readers.

@nbutler – That might work as well, but I agree, it could take a lot longer…if you want to test and let us know how long it takes, I wont stop you.
bikeless

i didnt have a bike to tape my pens to – and honestly, i was pretty sure we dont need that much force to get the ink moving. i figured i might as well try to recreate a similar force by tying the pen to a string and just do the helicopter thing (dont know how else to explain it – but im sure everyone knows what i mean). except i didnt have a string.

so i used a rubber band – slipping it into the pocket clip. it only really took three or four circles to move the ink! it was so easy that i was sure i can use the same process by using the rubber band on the clip of a pen cap that is removable – without the pen flying off, and leaving me with a pen cap with an attached rubber band. and it worked! INCREDIBLE! no tape, no bikes required. youd need tape for pens without pocket clips, but definitely NOT a lot of tape. a surprisingly small amount of force is needed to make this work!
bikeless

PS. for removable pen caps with the pocket clips, make sure the cap is on the back of the pen (ie: the pen is open) when you do the helicopter move – the force will push the ink toward the pen point. if you do it backwards with the pen cap covering the pen point, the ink will probably fly out the opening in the back.
spiffytomboy

- aw, too bad i was a bit slow in seeing this! – back in art school, my copics and prismacolor markers (and other various pricey pen/markers) would start to dry out and/or skip. a professor taught us this really cool trick: just take the skinny, long plastic bag the newspaper came in, put the pen in. tie it off and TWIRL TWIRL TWIRL with all your might! Untie, put down a couple paper towels (especially for markers) and carefully open the cap over it [in case the trick "worked a little bit too well"] tada!
Guest

I used the same idea but Duct taped the pen to my car tire. Problem fixed itself by the time I hit dunkin donuts.
Anonymous

Now in concept I can get behind that…but I am pretty sure your auto insurance company would frown upon taping anything to your car.
Anonymous

Now in concept I can get behind that…but I am pretty sure your auto insurance company would frown upon taping anything to your car.