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Hardware Alignment?


kharrisma

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Hi All,

 

Do you take the trouble to align your hardware (nib to fill-lever; fill-lever to pocket clip)?

 

My blue Estie J came with a 9550 nib in it, and I recently scored a 2048 nib that had worn down to a medium; a little work with a nail-buff stick restored it to a fine point, a run through the USC and in it went... and wound up at ninety-degrees to the fill-lever. Being a type "A" I found this annoying. However, being that the plastics of the pen are sixty-seventy plus years old, I'm torn between leaving it as-is, or risking a cracked barrel or section by trying to align the nib with the fill-lever to satisfy my admittedly A.R. tendencies. It works fine without being aligned; it just offends my sense of order, and leads me to wonder how many others feel the same way, and of those, how many of those choose to run the risk and how many chicken out ;)

 

There was nothing wrong with that 9550, other than that I already have one on another pen, and I like the flexies!

 

As far as fill-lever to pocket-clip, I actually LIKE the pocket-clips that can be moved, provided that they aren't too loose; that way I can rotate them around until they align with the fill-lever, and everything aligns nicely.

 

What say you??

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If it was me, I'd probably give the section a wiggle to see if it would come out and put it back in aligned.

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First, I Always use heat to remove and replace Every section. It's free insurance. You don't have to get the material very warm at all for it to lesson

the chance of a barrel crack.

 

IF I am putting a nib in that I Know is going to Stay there awhile, I'll line the nib up with the lever.

On the pens I am either temporarily or chronically swapping nibs out on, I don't worry about the alignment unless I settle on a nib that is going to

Stay in one pen for awhile.

 

Bruce in Ocala, Fl

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1. I have been successful so far in removing and aligning sections to levers. You just have to be gentle, and I use heat sparingly.

2. As far at the cap goes, I've found that the threads in the cap, I believe, are not a single thread, but a parallel and separate set. I've found that with my pens, there's a 1:4 chance of getting it lined up just as it is. B)

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If I've done a re-sac and have a nib I anticipate using for some time, I'll line them up. That doesn't work so well when a nib is swapped out, but I could probably fiddle with it a bit if I were so inclined. Usually I'm not. Clip and fill-lever, however, I've caught myself removing and re-appyling the cap multiple times just to get them to line up.

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When I resac the pen, I "normally" line up the nib with the lever.

BUT with the Esties...change the nib, and the odds likely that the new nib will NOT line up with the lever. At least that has been my experience. At that point, unless the section can easily be turned, I just leave it alone. That is unless my OCD/AR gets the better of me, then the next time that I'm pulling a section on another pen with the heat gun, I might realign the nib with the lever.

 

I read an interesting article/post about a guy that installs the nib 180 degrees to the lever. That way you don't know how off the alignment is; is it 180 degrees or 170 or 190 degrees. It also gets the lever out of your visual when you are writing. Interesting idea.

 

Yes, for my collection pens, I will try to get the clip and lever somewhat lined up. But there you are limited by the threads, so generally close, is normally the best I can do.

For the pens that I use, I don't bother.

San Francisco Pen Show - August 28-30, 2020 - Redwood City, California

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Yeah, I would say to try and see if the section can rotate without too much effort, to get things lined up the way you want them...until I found THE pen, and THE nib combo I wanted, I don't think I would risk a full disassembly/reassembly to cure a case of AR'ness.

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This thread worries me. I have one Estie and I've removed the section repeatedly without any trouble whatsoever. Is that a bad idea? It's not hard to remove and it never occurred to me that it might damage the pen. Is this only for pens where it is hard to remove the section, or is it a good rule of thumb NOT to remove the section on an Estie unless you really need to?

 

Matt

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"Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man." Francis Bacon, Of Studies

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This thread worries me. I have one Estie and I've removed the section repeatedly without any trouble whatsoever. Is that a bad idea? It's not hard to remove and it never occurred to me that it might damage the pen. Is this only for pens where it is hard to remove the section, or is it a good rule of thumb NOT to remove the section on an Estie unless you really need to?

 

Matt

I don't think I would worry...I have a couple that are snug, and I can remove and/or rotate the section without too much effort. I also have a couple that are very tight. I wouldn't be consistently taking those apart just to align a nib.

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I had one that rotated pretty freely. It wouldn't fall out of the body, but twisting it wasn't difficult at all. It was suggested to me to put a thin coat of shellac around the part of the section that fits in the barrel, and let it dry completely before putting it back in. It worked so well, I can't tell now which one it was :)

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When I put a lever filler back together I put the lever between 10:00 and 11:00 when looking down the pen from the barrel end (nib is at 12:00). Its out of the way of my fingers when writing and it saves me from going ocd trying to make everything line up...

 

Brian

One test is worth a thousand expert opinions.

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