Ultimate Guide to the Platinum Preppy
Ok, so the Platinum Preppy is one of the most popular entry-level fountain pens around thanks to its refillable nature and sub-$5 price point. Itâs a great little pen, and with a little tweaking itâs incredibly versatile with a massive ink capacity.
Those three pens are my three Preppies. All three have had these mods done to them, and see frequent usage. First up, the supplies youâll need:
Youâll need the following:
A Platinum Preppy fountain pen, uninked
A vial of silicone grease, or some silicone-based grease (like Cube Lube)
Some ink, in the color and brand of your choosing
An eyedropper, syringe, or pipette
First step is the eyedropper conversion. The Preppy normally takes either the proprietary Platinum converter, which is twice the cost of the pen (Ten dollars?!?!) or proprietary Platinum cartridges. Iâve already ranted at length about why you shouldnât use cartridges here, so Iâm not going to go off on that tangent again in this post. Needless to say, both those options are less than ideal. Thus, the eyedropper conversion. This allows you to fill the entire body of the pen with ink, giving you up to 5mL ink capacity (compare to .5mL cartridge or .4mL converter), and you donât have to waste money on extra crap.
What you do first is apply silicone grease to the threads of the pen on both the inside of the body and outside of the section. Follow the arrows in the image above.
This provides a watertight seal that ensures no leakage in or out. Essential to the whole conversion. And itâs pretty much the only major change this converstion takes. If you have a small O-ring handy, you can apply it on the section, but itâs not necessary.
Your pen should now look like that once screwed back together. The silicone fills the gaps in the threads, creating that necessary seal. You should feel a difference when you tighten the pen back together. Do this to spread the grease out through the gaps, and then take the pen back apart.
Remove the nib and its channel from the feed by gently pulling it out. It shouldnât take much force. This allows you to do a modification to the feed that dramatically improves the flow.
The nib can be removed from the channel by sliding it off the front of the feed part. This may take a bit of leverage on the tabs holding the bottom of the nib on. Thereâs also two gaps behind the nib where you can push the nib off.
If allâs well, you should have the channel sans nib, like the above photo. What you do next, is cut the recessed channel deeper all the way from the back to the tip where the nib sits. A few runs with a knife will open that channel up just a bit wider, which will help the flow. Seriously, my fine nib Preppy was useless till I figured this out. It wonât make much of a visible difference, but youâll notice when you write. Once thatâs done, put the nib and channel back together, and back into the feed.
Now to fill the pen. This is where the âeyedropperâ name comes from. Take your penâs barrel, hold it vertically, and drop ink into the barrel. Fill it to right below the start of the threads, as in the following picture.
That is just about as full as youâll want to get it. If you reach the threads, you risk ink leaking as you tighten the pen back together. Once itâs full, screw the section onto the barrel, as so.
That is a filled, sealed, modded Preppy, nearly ready to write. Hold the pen nib-down, cap-on, for a few seconds, and then set the pen down horizontally for a few moments. This allows the ink to saturate the feed and prime the nib. Once thatâs done, youâre all finished and ready to write!
Look at that. Eyedropper-filled, flow-modded Preppy all ready and working. You should be here by now. If you have any questions, please ask. Iâm more than happy to help you out however you may need it.
