Stupid Pen Tricks

For reasons unknown, Pilot no longer sells G2 extra-fine (.5mm) purple refills, but (as of today) one can still buy the plastic body pen with that refill. Amazon also sells 6 and 12 packs. So I ordered a 6 pack, figuring that would be enough to get me to a visit with St. Peter, as the most use I get writing is the NYT crossword (pencil on Friday and Saturday; at least in the crossworld I'm not a masochist).

Well, boy howdy, not what I was expecting. They arrived in an anonymous plastic baggie, not the normal blister pack. Hmmm. And, what is more disturbing, they didn't come with the nib beenie. Say, what? The refills I've gotten before, in the blister pack, have a dot of some sort of dark plasticy cap over the nib to reduce drying out. The top/back of the G2 refill has a hole in it to permit ink flow, but both of my G2 Limited (the fancy metal body jobbie) pens had some sort of grease inside when I went to change refill. Another Hmmm. Turns out, the G2 refill has a plug atop/behind the ink to either/both stop the ink from running out the barrel or drying. Letting my fingers do the walking through the Yellow Googles turned up many reports that this plug fluid leaks. And it's sticky, at least when it finds its way into the pen barrel. Lots of Dawn to get rid of it.

But what to do with 6 refills without condoms?? I seriously doubt they'll last more than a year or two without drying to useless, much less the time it'll take me to see St. Peter, assuming I don't get hit by a truck driven by a sub-GED MAGAmoron shortly. What to do? What to do??

Well, turns out, again, that I've used a substance called Shoe Goo, available at most megaMarts. It's avowed purpose is to repair shoe surfaces, as you might expect. But if you dip the nib, before use of course, into the bubble of it and let it cure for a day or two, you get a nice homemade condom for your refill. I tested on an old, nearly empty refill, and it sealed and the goo hardened well enough to pull off without damaging the nib and writes just fine. At least, for the ones I've tried this on.

This trick should work with any metal tip refill. Just don't leave the refill sitting nib end up while the goo cures, since there's a chance it will migrate into the barrel in the space between the nib and ball. Don't you just hate migration?