I repaired my pen and stuck the converter from my other, unrepaired Waterman in it. It is so small, though! I feel this pen thinks a lot of itself and should be holding more ink. The body is metal and the threads have a sealing o-ring (image), so do I need to do anything except fill it with ink and be sure not to unscrew?

The unknowledgeable and impulsive response would be 'give it a try'!

Its bound to make a mess the first time but the worst that can happen is it doesn't seal and make more of a mess! You can make arrangements for a potentially messy job and cleaning ink from a metal and plastic pen isn't too difficult.

Might help to put some silicon grease on the threads for futher sealing.

Go for it! It'll be interesting to see how it works. Might be best not to fill too much the first time.

With the ebonite eyedroppers being produced in India on general sale and the upturn in interest in old pens I'm wondering how long before one of the 'known' manufacturers offers one for sale.

I'm waiting for a cheap, 'no-name' ancient model to arrive from the dreaded ebay to give this method a try. All I need is an eyedropper!


Greg

I thought it was recommended against using a pen with metal parts as an eyedropper. Is it just certain metals? I don't know. Someone want to chime in? Anyway, beware of corrosion

The conventional wisdom is that metal and ink don't mix particularly well (eventually leading to corrosion, as Melnicki noted), but I think your biggest worry will be that ink will most likely leak out of the bottom of the pen, since these weren't meant to be used as ED's. Doesn't mean you shouldn't give it a shot, of course. But if you do fill it, give it a while to make sure there are no leaks from places other than where the section screws into the barrel. Best,
David

Conway Stewart's Great Exhibition is an ED.

Let us know how this project turns out! We've been batting around the idea of making a Yard-O-Led into an ED.