Skyline 'Curved feed'

[joss]

When replacing a rubber sac of a Skyline Standard fountain pen, I found a flat piece of "J curved" flexible plastic in the rotten sac. At that time I could not identify this alien piece of plastic. About one year later I discovered a similar "J curved" piece in another Skyline. In this case, the piece of plastic was loosely stuck into the feed. In both cases, the Skylines were the earlier version with visulated section and without a breather tube (or at least no breather tube present). The pens were acquired from different sellers but the plastic pieces are completely identical so it is not likely that they were home-made by a creative repairer.

 

I then thought that this piece of plastic might be Eversharp's "poor man's" imitation of a Lucky Curve feed but I am not sure about that. I can not find any reference to a possible curved feed in a Skyline.

 

Can anybody comment on this or had a similar experience?

 

This is how it looks like:

 

http://i851.photobucket.com/albums/ab73/JDM_15/Eversharp/Luckycurvefeed0a.jpg

 

http://i851.photobucket.com/albums/ab73/JDM_15/Eversharp/Luckycurvefeed2a.jpg

 

Thanks and best regards!

[gyasko]

That's the famous ink wick found in the earlier versions of the Skyline. I have a couple wicked Skylines myself.

[Kelly G]

Are these pre-breather tube?

[gyasko]

It seems that way, but there may have been some overlap.

[BearsPaw]

I have a Skyline I found on eBay that feels like it has one of these "ink wicks," so I was glad to see this thread because I didn't know what it was. Do you notice that it affects your ability to flush it? For some reason this is the second hardest to flush of all my pens. (The hardest being a Parker 61.)

[freehand]

It's quite close to the setup on a Wahl Oxford with a firm/fine nib that I'm restoring. Once I got the ink residue out, the wick or hockey-stick or whatever it is came out, and re-inserts with ease.

[klangbogen]

I also found one of these "hockey stick" wicks on an Oxford. I wondered about it too. I am glad to see that the wick seems to go with the feed, and nib, and has been found on other Oxfords.

[joss]

Many thanks for the helpful comments on this entry.

 

I did not notice a flushing problem but I can imagine that when the pen is in use for some time, the ink wick is released from the feed. I understand the idea of an ink wick but I do not understand why Eversharp designed such a loose fitting. Once the wick is released, it floats freely in the sack and maybe this is the reason of the flushing problem.

 

In the mean time I found a brief reference on this Skyline ink wick on the website of David Nishimura (www.vintagepens.com/skyline.shtml). There appear to have been two variants of this 'tail': the first one is the flat piece of celluloid described above and the second one is a short and curved breather tube with a long open end.