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April 2024

Fixing dried out ballpoint refills

Ballpoint pens do dry out if you don't use them for a couple of years. You will notice that ballpoint pens stop gliding nicely before they dry out completely. They can still be used to write something but the ink does not flow easily and you have to press the pen a bit onto the paper to get it to write. It is in this stage of the drying out process that you can revive the ballpoint refills easily. They will be like new. Note that this method can not fix ballpoint pens which are actually empty or ballpoint pens that have been droped on a hard surface such that the tiny ball on the tip has been damaged (has a dent). However most ball pens simply dry out and you don't have to throw them away. You can fix them.

You need a jar with a metal lid and that jar needs to be high enough for the ballpoint refill to stand upright in the jar.

Four ballpoint refills soaking in benzyl alcohol and iso-propanol
Four ballpoint refills soaking in benzyl alcohol and iso-propanol


If you have spare refills that you don't use immediatly then seal the tip with a bit of bee's wax. Bee's wax is more sticky than parafin wax and seals the pen well. It slows down the drying process and prevents air from getting in. That's important if you store the pen refill horizontally or even upside down. Take a tiny chunk of bees wax between your fingers until it is warm and soft. After that stick it onto the tip of the ballpoint pen refill. You need to take the wax off before you install the refill back into a pen.

Sealing spare ballpoint refills with bee's wax.
Sealing spare ballpoint refills with bee's wax


Benzyl Alcohol is a common techincal solent available at any lab-supply store. If you have difficulties getting Benzyl Alcohol then you can also try just Isopropanol or Ethanol however Benzyl Alcohol works better. Note that it has to be an alcohol. Paint thinner will e.g not work. This procedure works for real ballpoint pen ink. Gel ballpoint refills contain a different kind of ink and this procedure will not work for them.

For a chemist alcohol is not a problem. It's a solution !

References

Ballpoint inks are proprietary and it's rarely disclosed what's inside but over the years some of that information has come out. It's also possible to simply test if a given solvent dissolves the ink by drawing a line on a short paper strip and then dipping one end of that paper in the solvent you would like to test. If the ink moves as the solvent climbs up to the line then it's a solvent that works.


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