How about a little discussion away from vintage to the modern incarnation of Conway Stewart.

Kurt,

I can only speak based on reviews that I have read and conversations I have had with owners of modern Conway Stewart pens as my experience with CS pens has been with vintage models.

There were some issues a few years back when the sacs that were installed were unstable and basically became a gloppy mess in a short period of time, on the bright side the repair service from CS was good.

There also issues with the first incarnations of the Churchill (lever filling model) as the lever design caused problems... this has since been corrected.

On thing that really bugged me about the modern Cs pens is that, for a time, they were sealing the sections in with Loc-tite which made correcting the dissolving sac problem very risky for the pen as disassembly had a high potential of causing breakage.

The reports I have heard recently indicate that the newly issued Cs pens are very well made and the production issues that plagued them have been rectified.

They have also changed distributors which appears to have made a positive difference in how much exposure these rather beautiful pens are getting and the service one receives.

I believe that Mary Burke would be an excellent person to comment on this as she represents Luxury Brands, the distributoir for CS pens in the U.S.

I have a pen in for repair now, I hope that it is not a repeat of the multimonth fiasco I had before.

Kurt H

Now why on Earth would they have sealed the section like that? Didn't they anticipate that regular (ie. non-repair) sac replacement would be necessary sometime in the future? Weird....

I don't own a modern Conway Stewart but I would love to get my hands on one in the not-too-distant future---the colours and patterns are to die for ...

Maja -

CS has stopped using Loctite to seal their pens and I think their original intent was to keep people from tampering from the pen's innards...

I had to replace one of those defective sacs a while back and waited to get a written assurance from CS that they would replace the pen if I was unable to open it or if the pen exploded while I was trying to remove the section.

Thankfully, I was able to repair the pen and my record for being able to open "un-openable" pens remains nearly perfect. Your little Wahl was nearly as much a challenge as that CS so I suspect that someone used some nasty adhesive to seal up that little pen and there was some residue that would indicate they used more than shellac or nail polish.

There are reasons to seal the section on a pen; visualated Sheaffer sections need this, button fillers should be tamper proof, if the section fit is marginal, or if barrel/thread cracks need to be stabilized.

Loctite though?

Never.

Let's wait a little bit before doing the thou shall not on loctite.

There are different strengths of Loctite that can be used from a total seal to just holding something in place. We use to loctite the calibration screws on an instrument and I also remember some of the technicians using the stuff for gun sights. If I remember they were color coded. I am sure a little google search might show some more information.


Kurt H

Gonna have to disagree with you Kurt...

Thou shalt not use Loctite on fountain pen sections.

The jury is still out on whether it would have any other useful application in regard to fountain pens since I have had no need to utilize or test it... I have enough different bonding agents here to handle any pen related task and know how they perform.

I am aware there is a range of grades from those that are considered "break" adhesives that require physical force to remove to those forms that require the application of high heat before the bond releases.

In either case, the bonding strength of loctite far exceeds what is required to secure a pen section and the force required to brreak the bond is enough to cause serious risk and damage to a pen.

I used Loctite to secure many of the bolts on my motorcycle and the energy required to undo these bolts was tremendous. This was a good thing as you really don't want parts coming loose at 240 kmh plus.

It's rare for pens to attain that kind of velocity unless they happen to be tucked in the pocket while one is riding.

Hi Keith,

Well, here you go.... You wouldn't want the barrel of an ED to come loose now, in your pocket, while doing 240 km/h +, would you now?

On a more serious note: there are versions of Loctite that are just meant for creating a non-leaking seal, so I would think one could use that...

Kind regards, Wim

Wim - This is probably something that warrants some investigation although without knowing what the long term effects of the non hardening loc-tite are on various materials I would be hesitatat to use it.

And...you don;t want anything coming loose at 240 kmh and folks should know I have only done this under controlled situations (track) on a race tuned motorcycle... I do not advocate speeding like this on normal roads.

Cheers!

Hi Keith,

There is a potential problem with it. Although it is totally non-reactive, as far as I know, it can't be applied very thinly, and it is bright blue, just like the bonding Loctite. But is has been years since I used it, so maybe there are newer versions of this stuff, in a less obvious or bright colour, that can be applied in thinner layers.

Aaaaahhh. Slightly disappointed now. Here I thought you tried this with your 1.5 million kms Nissan, in the middle of town....

Warm regards, Wim

There are methods to apply it just like you would any of the existing materials such as the OMAS stuff. But I see strong opposition to it's use so I'll let it drop.




Kurt H

Picked up a c/c Churchill back in 2000 or 2001 and after 4 nib exchanges from various US distributors and 1 trip to England, it was still a hard starter. It's currently sitting with Richard right now. I've almost gotten so used to not having the pen around that I am having him drive it back up for the Toronto pen show instead of shipping it.