Maybe put a piece of scotch tape over the ink outlet holes, like HP ships
them with?

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Regards,
Carl Ijames

wrote in message
...

I have an Hp ink jet printer that uses two cartridges. There is one three
color, and one black cartridge, a number 21. Ninety five percent of any
printing I might do is in black, but the problem is I rarely have to print
anything. So the printer sits idle covered up, sometimes for months and the
cartridges dry up. I've boiled these up and refilled them several times, and
although this restores operation it is always a messy pain in the ass job.

Today I had to print a 150 page document, and rather than use my wife's
laser printer and then have to listen to her complain about the toner being
low, I fired up the HP. Of course the cartridges were set right up solid.
After cooking hem for awhile I got the color one going, but rather than re
inking that one I concentrated on the black. I finally got the ink running
out of it after simmering it over the stove for about an hour. In the
interim though I got impatient and ****ed off and just tore into a new
cartridge to get the job done.

So now I have to put the printer away again for only God knows how long and
it would be nice if at least I could count on the new black cartridge to
still be alive when I next try to use it. I realize that these damned things
are going to dry up eventually but is there anything that can be done
perhaps in the way of storing the working used cartridges to prevent this,
or at least prolong the inevitable? Thanks, Lenny