Don’t throw out that PITT pen just yet!
Are you as a big a fan of the Faber-Castel PITT brush pens as I am? Are you tired of wondering what to do with them once the tip becomes unpointed and frayed, even though there’s still plenty of ink left? Wonder no more! Watch this quick video I made and get a little more life out of these handy pens.
One thing I forgot to mention in the video: be careful not to spill.
And a bonus question: why is PITT capitalized?
Cool. I don’t use mine nearly as often as my other PITT pens, but if it ever becomes frayed like that, I’ll know what to do.
Unreal. I don’t know how many PITT pens I’ve tossed out because I considered them “dead”. Thanks, Adam! This is a fantastic tip.
Pigmented Ink Tip … something? This is perfect timing for this post, my pen is just about dried up.
Best
Tip
EVAR!
Seriously, why were you taking pens apart?
A tip tip!
SON OF A GUN! I use these things all the time, and I’ve got a stack of about thirty of them with plenty of ink and worn-out points. I mark the old ones and use them when I WANT a slightly more unpredictable line, or when I don’t want to have to handle the pen as gingerly as I do the new ones… but this is a great, uh, pointer. Gotta try it! Thanks so much!
Hi,
Stefanie Lang at http://www.faber-castell.de just answered my question regarding the name PITT:
»(…) Für den Namen “PITT” gibt es 2 Erklärungen:
vom engl. Wort “pit” bzw. “pitt” für “Grube” abgeleitet, denn die meisten Materialien diesen Segmentes wurden damals unter Tage abgebaut oder aus dem Italienischen, denn “il pittore” bedeutet Maler. (…)«
which means the name is not an abbreviation (my first guess) but just »a name«. It could refer to (engl) »pit« (because most of the basic materials were formerly won by mining; by the way, they produce PITT drawing chalks, too) or (ital.) »il pittore« = painter. Therefore, no real reason for capitalization … maybe it just looked nicer this way, or it was easier to print the name on the pens in small grades.
cheers, Achim
Thanks, Achim!
& @xadrian: rrllmm over on flickr said she has been able to replace the ink in them with copy toner, so I was trying to figure out how to get it in there. I don’t have any copy toner, and I wonder how effective it would actually be, but thought I’d have a look anyway since the one I was experimenting on was so haggard.
Yeah a couple folks at Penciljack have been saying they’ve been putting ink in the arse end of these already. I’m like you, though. I must be using them wrong because my tip is always shot before I’m out of ink.
And no that’s not a euphemism for anything.
Cool! I ‘ve been pouring all kinds of things in the back of my PITT B-pen, but i always stopped using them because of the tip. I noticed that this trick works for lots of felt pens (for example stabilo’s pen68, but u ll need smthng stronger to pull the tip out)
>my tip is always shot before I’m out of ink.
Listen, that happens to everybody at one time or another.
I’m in the tip-wears-out-first camp as well, but it’s interesting to know that there’s a way to get ink back into these things. Man, this post is saving me a lot of money on pens- I’ll have to go check out Penciljack as well. Thanks for the additional clue!
you just saved me so much money i could cry.
i too mark the pens and use them for fills etc…wow…glad they are all in a cup on the bookshelf!
Adam,
Great tip!
How did you film this? Did you have a webcam on a small tripod and then ‘hug’ it to get your arms around to the paper? I want to do some ballpoint tutorials but I haven’t worked out how to film it so anyone could see what I’m doing.
Thanks!
I used a tripod and knelt behind it. I did this on a night-table. Another trick I learned that I’ve used in a couple of videos is to set up a tripod in front of me on the table and tilt it right over the paper. It films me upside-down, but then I rotate the image in movie maker.
sweet !!
Thanks, Adam! I go through dozens of these excellent brush pens, and in one bold stroke you just doubled the life of these things. An excellent post and a nice short to-the-point video. Thanks again!
I became a member to give you a hug. OOO
I tried it with a bunch of Pitt pens I had but the ink had all dried up on every one of em. :(
Hmm — getting a red X. . .
That was great. Thanks so much for the tip. I have used 1000’s of these markers and they are all sitting in boxes where I tossed them. So now no ordering more for quite sometime. Now I can use the money saved on some of those new Big Pitts.
The Big Pitts haven’t hit the market in USA yet, but I wonder it their brush nib design will be the same to allow this reversing tip to work. With some luck, Faber Castell might have improved the nib making it bigger and stronger for them