The Pilot Frixion range has exploded in popularity in recent years with more and more people starting to use them for general writing, artwork, and bullet journaling. Due to the rapid growth of the user base of people who use the Frixion as their go to pen of choice, we have also noticed a spike in the number of questions that we have seen about the pen.
One of the main issues that we see countless people having problems with when using a Frixion pen is actually refilling it with ink. We have seen a huge number of people asking how to refill a Frixion pen so we have decided to publish this article to help any of our readers who are having issues. Our hope is that we will be able to help any of our readers quickly and easily refill their Frixion as it can be a little confusing the first time that you do it.
Now, before we go any further, the actual type of Pilot Frixion that you are using is going to come into play for this. There are now four different variants of the Frixion pen on the market but they all tend to follow a very similar refill process, the main thing to check is that you have the correct Pilot Frixion refill for your specific pen model prior to trying to refill it.
Can You Refill FriXion Pens?
This is where the majority of the confusion that we see from people comes in when it comes to actually refilling your Pilot Frixion pen. The majority of people instantly presume that it is a back-filled pen with the refills having to be inserted into the pen from the rear after removing the eraser.
Although this is how you refill a number of competing erasable pens on the market as well as a huge number of regular pens, this is not how you refill a Pilot Frixion. We have even seen reports of people on social media who have damaged their teeth due to trying to bit the eraser holder off the pen when they had to refill it.
The Pilot Frixion range has a well-hidden but easily separable pen barrel with the ink cartridge being easy to remove once separated and the replacement ink refill easily sitting in its place. The majority of people seem to miss this due to the separation line matching up perfectly with the grip rim making it look like it is a solid barrel pen.
How To Refill A Frixion Pen?
Although not essential, the refill process is much easier if you remove the cap of your Frixion pen if you are using a variant of the pen that comes with a cap rather than a clicker system. Once this is done, hold the pen so the nib and grip are in one and and the rest of the barrel are in the other. With a firm grip, start to rotate the barrel of the pen while keeping the nib and grip in place.
As with many other pens, as you rotate the barrel of the pen, the threads will start to appear just above the pen grip as it parts and separates. If you are using a clicker variant of the Pilot Frixion pen then your current ink cartridge may pop out once enough space is available for it to escape the barrel so keep this in mind.
Once you have removed the barrel from your Frixion pen, gently remove the current ink cartridge and replace it with a compatible new one. If you are using a Frixion pen that does use a clicker system rather than a cap, be sure that the nib spring is in place BEFORE you place your ink refill into the pen.
This is a relatively common issue that happens as the spring can sometimes stick to your old ink cartridge and be taken out of the pen with the old cartridge but your clicker will not work without the spring. You can quickly and easily check the front of your empty ink cartridge for the spring though and if you did accidentally take it out, simply place it back in and then put your new refill in to your pen.
At this stage all you have to do is rebuild the pen and place the barrel back onto the threads of the pen around its grip and rotate the barrel in the opposite direction that you did to remove it. If you are using a Pilot Frixion that uses a clicker rather than a cap give it a few clicks to make sure that the nib will work correctly when the clicker is pressed.
Thankfully, the Pilot Frixion refills are build to a high standard and the vast majority of them will work straight away without any problems at this stage of the refill process. That said, some of them can be a hard starter or initially skip after the refill so scribbling on some spare paper for a minute or two maybe required but the majority of the time this will not be required.
Conclusion
That brings our article going over how to refill a Frixion pen to a close. We hope that you have found it helpful and we have tried to point out the differences in the process for a cap based Frixion pen and a clicker based Frixion pen but other than a few small differences, they are both very similar. As we touched on earlier in the article, once you have refilled your Frixion pen, the process tends to become much easier in the future as you know what you actually need to do to refill it.
