The other day I was browsing the many pens on ebay when I saw a black rubber Conway Stewart 475 that needed a bit of repair in that the nib was bent and it needed a new sac. I saw that the bidding was low and not amazingly lively and so I made it my mission to buy that pen . Anyway I received it in the post yesterday and was very excited, I opened it as soon as it came through the letterbox. The nib was indeed bent and unusable and the pen contained no sac! I washed it, soaked the nib section, scraped the old sac glue stuff off and scrubbed the inside of the body and cap that were full of old blue ink. I dried it all with a hair-dryer on the lowest setting (almost cold) and then carefully polished the clip and lever trying not to get polish on the rubber. The nib required a lot of careful bending and dip tests (a very frightening experience ) and I seem to have got it working fairly smooth with a little tooth it has to be said. All I need to do now is order a sac to put in it. In total from ebay the pen cost approximately £13 ($26), is that good for this pen?
I do have a few questions though, firstly is there a standard way to align the body and nib on a CS? What I mean is should the lever be in line with the nib or should I be lining up the imprint on the side or what?
Secondly the body is a loose fit on the section, when I put it all together again what could I make it tighter with? I would prefer not to permanently seal it as I think I may fill it with the sac directly and not the lever as the lever seems so delicate!

I may put pictures up soon.

Congratulations on a fine pen! The BHR CS475 is, perhaps, not considered to be one of the rare/esoteric/colourful/huge pens around but a fine pen nonetheless. Is this your first hard rubber pen? Give it a rub and sniff(!) and you'll experience that acrid smell of desire!

For a pen requiring so much work £13 isn't too bad, but your careful restoration will have increased its value.

Not sure there is a correct rotation of the section, my personal habit is to line the nib with the lever. With a button fill the next in priority is the engraving.

You may find that a bit of gentle use of micromesh may help knocking the rough edges off your remodelled nib. Eventually lots of use will be the only answer.

Any pics of your pen?


Greg

Sorry for the late reply I was waiting for the stuff I ordered to repair it to arrive but it has not come yet so I took a picture anyway.



Yes this is my first hard rubber pen, I rubbed it and it indeed smells acrid
I have ordered some micromesh so I will try that when it comes, thank you for the information.

Well, Lozzic, it looks to be in superb order, the nib looks perfect in the picture, well done!

I have mentioned before how I find caps without the gold band(s) to be particularly elegant, yours is certainly no exception. Its a great pen, especially being HR.

If the section is too loose in the body you can use a little shellac (the stuff used to fix the sac in place, can buy it from Litchfield Pens) which is inert to the rubber.

Keep the hard rubber away from anything wet, I have found that rubbing a smear of 3-in-1 oil can help keep it nice and black.

Hope you enjoy your pen!

Greg

Yes I like pens that have little trim and I agree they are very elegant . I received the sacs, shellac and micromesh today and put it all together and polished the tip of the nib, it now feels much smoother. I do have one problem though and I cannot judge since this is my first pre war non eye-dropper and that is when held vertically nib pointing down ink appears to build up and drop out of the pen... I am using Pelikan Black which I understand has good flow properties, could that be the problem or is this just a symptom of such pens? I cannot judge since the other pens I have recently purchased are Parker 51s which are obviously a totally different design and pre WW1 eye-droppers which I know suffer from problems anyway. Having said that I used Pelikan black in the eyedroppers too so maybe it was the culprit there as well.

Thanks for the all the help and info