The Air Pen

The Air Pen is one of those products in which, initially, one can see only limited use. I rank it alongside my lathe, which, when I first bought it, seemed only of use for the odd turning job. Many years later, I would be forced to admit, that I cannot be without my lathe and have lost count of the crazy things which have been made on it, or with it's assistance!

Such is the Air Pen! It is one of those tools that rapidly become indispensable, so great is it's versatility.

So what exactly is the Air Pen and what does it do? Just why does it become so indispensable after such a short while?

In essence, the Air Pen is not unlike the draughtsman's pen, in that it uses a tube of known diameter through which it dispenses the colourant. (You can't just say "ink", here, for as becomes rapidly apparent in use, the Air Pen can, and does dispense all kinds of liquids!)

However, that's where the similarities stop, for unlike conventional pens, the Air Pen uses compressed air to provide the necessary colourant flow through the tube. As supplied, the Air Pen is connected to a small, quiet, mains driven compressor, which provides the air to force the colourant out of the tubular delivery tip. This compressor is quite small, has little vibration, and runs at a relatively low noise level. This means that, unlike, say, airbrush compressors, you can actually have it on the table where you are working, without undue fuss or bother. Furthermore, it will cause no nuisance to others working in the same environment.

The body of the pen, itself, is little more that a black plastic tube, some 100 mm. long and a little over 20 mm. in diameter. It is what fits into this body that makes the whole tool so versatile!

The colourant container is not unlike a small hypodermic syringe in appearance, having a graduated body to allow more accurate measuring of the fluid and a plunger to suck it up. A soft silicone rubber nose piece fits round the nozzle which in turn, allows the whole container to be a tight push fit into the end of the tubular body. At the tip of the fluid container, is the small spout which the dispensing needle fits. Once again, the ancestry of the needle owes much to the medical world.

One other part makes up the complete Air Pen, and that is the "bung" that fits into the rear of the fluid container. This bung effectively prevents any fluid from running out of the rear of the pen should it inadvertently be held nose up. (In use, the pen should always be used, "nose down").

However, this bung is made from a flexible foam, and should be kept free from colourant at all times in normal use, for the air needs to pass through it, in order to allow the pressure to push the colourant out of the end of the needle. Accidentally getting the colourant on the bung, is no big deal, however, as long as you realise what you have done and take the necessary steps to clean it as soon as is convenient.

So what about in use? Well, simple and effective is the answer!

Plug the entire fluid cartridge (that is the fluid container, it's rubber collar and the needle tip) into the body of the Air Pen, plug in the compressor and away you go!

An important point: There is a small air bleed hole in the top of the body of the Air Pen, conveniently located just under your forefinger. Placing the forefinger over this hole, closes off the bleed and diverts the air pressure into the fluid container, thereby forcing the colourant out of the tip of the needle. At this point, you just write with it like a pen-with the notable exception of the fact that YOU control the fluid flow, as you write!

Of course, this all sounds a bit too easy but then all of the World's best inventions are essentially simple! The benefits, here, concern the wider thinking amongst us.

For instance, each fluid reservoir comes complete with a pair of end caps, one to plug over the nozzle, (once the needle has been removed for safety), and one to plug the rear end of the barrel.

This, in essence, means that in repetitive use, each colour may be stored in it's own "cartridge", safe from spillage and evaporation. Furthermore, there is a wide range of different needle diameters available, which in turn offers the user the ability to not only draw lines of varying widths but the ability to quickly swap needles, to change the line thickness during work.

The Air Pen makes an excellent tool for fabric decoration, for now you have the best of both worlds, the hard edge, (and of varying widths, to boot!), and the soft edge.

Whilst we were initially playing at fabric painting, my wife was producing a wedding anniversary cake, and quickly saw the potential of using the Air Pen in this particular environment. Like most new "toys", it took her a few moments to get the consistency of the icing correct, but the end result was devastating and so quick!

Perhaps less obvious is that the Air Pen can cope with most liquids, and although one tends to think of it as a writing tool, on a variety of different substrates, and with a variety of different colourants, it takes a bit of "left handed thinking" to envisualise other, less obvious uses. Adhesives is just one such area where it was found to be really excellent. The finer needles gave really precise control and application of liquid glues for the assembly of plastic kits, often a messy job with glue straight from the tube, which has lead many of us to try to apply it with the tip of a pin. No more hassles on this score! Simply decant your glue into one of the fluid containers and leave it there, just plugging it into the Air Pen, as and when it is needed.

In similar vein, but in larger scales, one of the regular tricks used by the flying modellers, in their quest for "fake" rivets, is to use drops of PVA glue to represent rivet heads. Utilising the Air Pen as a means of applying the PVA, offers a great deal more control over the positioning and size of each "rivet head" and makes the whole job that much easier.

In fact the more uses that one finds for the Air Pen, the more the degree of control becomes apparent. This latter point was brought most noticeably to my attention, when I caught my wife sneaking it out in her handbag, one morning, recently. She does some voluntary work with the sick and elderly, locally, and had discovered that one of the elderly ladies who she was visiting, was extremely artistic. However, creeping arthritis had left her in that most frustrating situation where she could no longer grip a paint brush properly. To everybody's surprise, she could manage the Air Pen perfectly well and had found a new source of inspiration to re-kindle her artistic endeavours.The more that I use it, the more new uses become apparent. One neighbour discovered it to be a much more simple way to decorate eggs!

Many crafts will benefit from the ease of fine line drawing that can be achieved with the Air Pen, and to date we have yet to find a colourant that cannot be reduced to a suitable consistency to pass through it's needles.

Only time will tell whether the Air Pen will become one of the established tools, to be found in every hobbyist's tool box! Isn't it time that you had one in yours?