Dissection of a Sharpie

I post announcements of my tests on my various Victorian and Steampunk Facebook groups I belong to.  Eviljohn Mays of the Denver Victorian and Steampunk Society suggested I cut open a Sharpie and use a straw to blow the ink around, thus avoiding the streaking problems of The Sharpie Method, test #1.  This is my dissection report of a Sharpie marker.

Here is a picture of a standard black Sharpie marker.  As you can see, it is basically a two-piece shell, the black tip and the gray handle.

Using a pair of standard plyers, I clamped onto the point end.  With my hand, I twisted and pulled off the gray handle.  This revealed the three parts pictured above.  The long black cylinder is the ink.  However, it is not an ink well.  It is an ink-soaked sponge coated in plastic. 

With the aid of a box cotter, and some plastic gloves, I split open the casing to reveal the sponge inside. Seeing it was, indeed, a sponge, I had the thought that I could just run the sponge over the lens, thus eliminating any blobs.

And this is my paper test.  As you can see, the spread of the ink is much more even than had I tried to use the tip of the pen.  If I bend the sponge correctly, it would be wide enough to cover a lens in one sweep, completely eliminating the need for multiple passes to cover the entire surface.  I might, however, need to go over the same lens multiple times to get the darkness I desire.

I would call the dissection a success.  The next Sharpie test will be with a split-open marker on actual eyeglasses.

PS: While I performed this experiment for my own purposes, it would be nice if I could somehow claim all of its expenses on my taxes. Therefore, I have created a PayPal donate button, which appears at the end of this entry. If you can spare a buck or two, I can claim the expenses as a tax-deductable business loss.