Surprised? Well keep reading and I’ll explain exactly how to use 0CBF to refill and refresh any colored marker you have.
Believe it or not, you can refill and refresh any color Copic marker the first time it runs dry with 0 Colorless Blending Fluid, without changing the original marker’s color or value. It sounds unbelievable, I know, but I have used this technique on colors ranging from the lightest B0000 to the darkest C10, and it works perfectly every time. And yes, it will work on that pesky E00 that you keep running out of.
This is the cheapest way to refill any marker you have, especially if you buy the large bottle of 0CBF. The standard bottle of 0 Colorless Blending Fluid costs around $6 to $8, and will refill up to 12 Sketch markers. But Copic also sells a 200 cc bottle of 0CBF for around $15 retail, and that bad boy will refill and refresh up to 120 markers. You can’t beat that with a stick.
To understand why this works, we need to take a look at how a Copic marker is made.
Anatomy of a Copic Marker
Every Copic marker type is composed of seven individual parts:
- Two end caps
- The plastic marker body, with molded chisel nib holder
- Removable gray colored fine nib holder
- Two replaceable nibs
- Felt inner tube for holding ink
When the marker is all put together, the removable nibs touch the ink reservoir tube and suck the ink from the tube when you are coloring. Copic ink is composed of finely ground color particles, suspended in 77% ethyl alcohol (ethanol). When a marker runs dry, all the alcohol that suspends the pigment particles has been used up. At that point, the marker is technically out of “ink”, but is it really out of color?
Nope. Not by a long shot.
You see, that felt tube that holds the ink is super fibrous. Because the color portion of any Copic ink is made of actual particles, millions of these color particles get trapped in the fibers of the tube. They are still perfectly good color particles, they just don’t have any more liquid to get them moving through the tube and to the tip of your marker.
So, by refilling your marker the first time it runs dry with 0 Colorless blending fluid instead of the marker’s specific Various Ink refill color, you can flush those particles through the tube and have a perfectly usable marker without changing the color or value at all.
I know I know, it doesn’t make sense. It seems like the color would be lighter. It’s not. There are so many trapped color particles in the tube that the color stays perfect.
Look, it works. I promise. And you’re gonna love it.
So give it a try. I know you have at least one dead marker that you went out and bought a new replacement for.
Oh, and one more thing
As awesome as this method is, you can’t use it every time the same marker runs dry. This technique works for every color, but only on the first, fifth, and tenth refill. In between, it’s best to refill your marker with the appropriate color of refill ink at least 5 or 6 times to reload that felt tube with unused color particles. So go on now and refill those dead markers and tell me what you think!
