What’s your favourite that you want to share? Let’s hear them!
My absolute favourite hack is for people who don’t own brass shims to floss a nib that has collected a lot of paper fibre. If you get mail with a plastic window, you can carefully trim a strip long enough that you can hold between your fingers so there is tension. This is often enough to floss a tine.
If you’re an occasional sample user that tends to forget about using them, have a nice eyedropper in the collection. I’m not a huge samples owner and a little forgetful, I found my samples started evaporating before I finished them. Things changed when I got an Opus 88 Demonstrator. Now when I get a sample from a local swap meet, I can drop 3.56ml into the tank, so often that’s an entire sample.
For people who don’t have anywhere to grab a single blunt nose syringe for a reasonable price, go to your local pharmacy and see if they can sell you a single syringe with a gauge of 23 or lower. I found larger pharmacies and ones attached to hospitals have a larger selection. When you get home, carefully grind down the sharp bit using a sharpening stone or a patio stone. Once that’s done, give it a rinse by running some dish soap and water through it and you are good to go. It might be a little awkward to ask for a single needle, but if it makes you feel better, you can always tell them you need a blunt nose syringe to transfer liquids into a small container and can’t find one so you’re making one yourself.