Hi All,

I've had a bunch of incomplete Conklin Crescent Fillers around for a while - they showed up in pen lots over the years, and I've been freshly frustrated, with each new arrival, to discover that I still didn't have the parts necessary to assemble a complete pen. (How many infinitely subtle size variations were there, anyway?)

Well, I recently acquired a nice Conklin 20P that needs a new front end, and I was delighted to discover that I had a donor pen with the requisite parts in place. This morning I opened up the new 20P to check out the barrel, and I was surprised to find that the center portion of the barrel's crescent slot - the portion that cuts through the indented area where the locking ring goes - had narrowed just enough to prevent the crescent from passing through.

There's nothing complicated, I reckon, about the fix here: I'll carefully file away enough material to open up the slot. But I haven't noticed this phenomenon before in any other crescent filler (Conklin or other), and I was wondering whether this was a common issue.

Thanks!

Jon

You are in better luck with tigh that a lose one
Sorry I do not know about that but would be happy to buy some parts from you.
Would be nice to do a photo of the pen. Tks

Rather than file away, look to see if the wall of the pen has pushed in a bit around the slot. I suspect that it has. Rather than file, warm the barrel just a bit and lift from the inside. To avoid popping out the chasing don't over heat, but you should be able to warm it enough that the rubber will soften enough to push it out to spread the slot to take the crescent.

Hi Ron,

Thanks so much for the tip. It worked wonderfully - just a few seconds with the heat gun (I shielded the other parts of the pen) and a moment or two of gentle upward pushing, from inside, with the back end of a dental pick.

I'm so pleased to have had such an elegantly simple alternative - and so glad I posted a question before starting to saw away.

Cheers,

Jon