I picked up a nice Swan leverless pen at the Northern pen show in England a couple of weeks ago and have just got round to cleaning out the old sac remnants. Can someone tell me how the filling mechanism on the pen works please. It has a twisting end on the barrel and when i look inside there is a metal bar connected to the twist end which comes about half way down the barrel. I can't figure how it would actually depress a sac.

I have several Swan lizardskin pens that are leverless(BTW,lever types are called "self-fillers"). You have to think of the metal bar as a paddle that rotates to depress the sac. You rotate the bar,uh paddle, one way to flatten the sac. This must be done with
the pen immersed in the ink bottle. Then rotate the paddle the other way and wait for the sac to fill up. IMHO,it's not a very efficient filling system.

John

A tthe very bottom of this page, there is a cutaway view of the leverless type: http://www.vintagepens.com/Swan_leverless.shtml
I think that's the type you speak of. This filling system has intrigued me, because it looks so absurd! I'd love to have a look at one up close to actually see it in action.

Patrick

The down side to the twist-filling mechanism is that it doesn't load much ink into the sac. That said, Mabie Todd leverless pens were well-made. My 1060 is my favorite writer.

Does your pen have a necked sac? The Swan Leverless is one of those types of pen that can benefit from a larger diameter sac body.

Martin

Hi Patrick, No its not the one in the cut away with the pressure bar, its the paddle bar type that twists the sac, thanks.

Hi Martin, Have to get back to you about those Rhodia pads . Do you know i have actually been thinking about the sac while in work today, the paddle inside doesn't seem that big so i reckoned on quite a large sac. Will need to get an appropriate sac with neck all mine are standard.

Good link, had not come across it previously.

Paddle leverless are fairly straight forward, apart from taking them apart, any clues, got some need new paddles. Sac gets caught up and left, then whole lot rots. I have a number of calligraphy pens of this type, where ther is no sign sign of the "paddle".

You ok Mark, will pm over the week end.

Eric

I recently bought one of these Swans and the previous owner explained a much better, albeit primitive (and slightly obscene) filling method. That little paddle simply doesn't do much other than leave the sac in a kink. So, assuming your pen has a little hole at the non-nib end, put that entire end into your mouth (not kidding), put the nib into the ink, and blow hard. That will collapse the sac -- you should see bubbles coming up in the ink -- then just take your mouth off the pen while it fills. That works great, though I find it helpful to have a second person there to make sure the pen is deep enough into the bottle of ink.

Gretchen

Sounds like a weird idea but can understand how it would work. Just gotta find someone who will blow my pen now

You're describing a blow filler, patented in 1901 by Seth Sears Crocker and employed on his company's pens. Here's my Crocker Ink-Tite:



This is a later pen (c. 1915), as you can tell by the barrel threads. The original patent shows a cone-cap section, and the cap has a hole in the end so that you can gain extra distance between you and the ink by posting the cap and blowing through it.

I picked up a Swan Leverless a year or so back.

No problems at all - I just had it shipped via Richard

BTW - thanks Richard, it's still a beaut.

Cheers,
Ruaidhrí

There are some truly gorgeous Leverless pens around: