Tip or Nose Cone:Commonly referred to as the tip of the pen, the nose cone is a metal or plastic piece that holds the tip of the ink cartridge in position when the cartridge is extended fo… See more

We know you have a limited lunch break and that surfing the web at work is an exercise in speed reading and snippets, so enjoy this succinct explanation of the complicate… See more

A ballpoint pen works like a bottle of roll-on deodorant. These photos (thanks, How Stuff Works!) illustrate the “point”: Think of the ink as the deodorant—pee-yew! The steel (or eq… See more

The stick pen has the same ball-and-socket (AKA roll-on deodorant) functionality at the tip, but the cartridge is not retractable. The stick pen tip requires no extending or retracting—… See more

Rather than a ball-and-socket system to control ink flow like the ballpoint pen, the fountain pen uses a series of internal channels and air pockets that control the flow of ink f… See more