Friday, February 27, 2009

How to revive a pen

I’ve ran out of my favorite felt-tip pens and I haven’t got the resources to buy a new one, so when I was writing a draft on my journal, I had no choice but to use a cheap ball point pen. A felt-tip pen is quite expensive, a little over P300. Well, very affordable if you have a job, but quite a luxury if you’re jobless. So I found myself writing a draft of a short story using a regular and cheap ball point pen. And this said pen was still part of the pens we were supplied with in the office where I used to work 3 years ago. So the pen was quite old, and at my first attempt to scribble (my penmanship is so awful with a ball point pen that it is often mistaken as that of a child’s who is still learning to write) all I got was an invisible scratch on the paper. The initial ink has probably dried out or the ball point got stuck, with the pen being old (not to mention cheap) and all. But there’s this trick that I’ve learned way back in high school to revive an old pen. This works only with ball point pens, and I’m not sure if some of you guys know about this trick, but it’s still worth sharing, anyway.

When I was in high school, I used to hang out at my mom’s food house at the airport and wait tables there whenever I had the time to spare. It’s a great way to earn some extra cash, and most of the foreign passengers are great tippers, so really get to earn some cash. And I enjoyed people-watching back then. I used to make up stories in my mind about the food house costumers, the passengers coming in and out of the city. And I generally enjoyed being able to meet different people from all walks of life. I particularly enjoyed listening to the stories of the airport porters, guards, and drivers (I definitely think that that one can learn a lot from these kinds of people) who used to hang out at my mom’s food house while waiting for the passengers. So one summer, while waiting for costumers, I was out on a table hanging out and talking with one of the airport porters. I always had a pen and notebook ready to take orders, so as we were talking, I tested the pen I grabbed from the counter to make sure it works. It didn’t, so I stood up to go get another pen, but the porter, Manong Letlet, stopped me and said he could resuscitate the pen. So I sat back and watched as he taught me the trick.

When a pen that hasn’t ran out of ink yet does not write when used (am I making sense?), it is possible that the ball point just got stuck, or a part of the ink has dried out. All you have to do to save yourself the trouble of buying a new one and end up wasting a perfectly useful pen and cause havoc to the environment (haha, but it’s true), is to heat up the pen’s tip. You’ll need a lighter or some matches to do this. Just touch the pen’s tip to the flame for a second or two, and viola! The pen will function again. If it doesn’t work on the first try, repeat the procedure. Just make sure not to let the pen come in contact with the flame for too long or else it’ll melt.
Just a simple tip from your friendly neighborhood Super JJ! An earth-saving tip a day keeps global warming at bay! (Err?)

2 comments:

  1. well my pens where really really old. a new in box pack maybe more than 15y/o and i ruined the first 3 i touched to the match. then i tried a newer more expensive pen and it didn't have any platic on the tip like the ball point. then a poof of air came out of the pen tip as i heated it up. It never started writing or it hasn't yet or it was completly empty. but this new in box pen just started working after scribbling and continuous scriblling.

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  2. ok i got it now. lightly touch tip to flame then scribble scribble scribble. got the other 4 to work and just ruined 3 ahah thanks!

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