I got a CA 101 from Brian recently. As everyone knows, there's no carts that now fit Esties. So I decided to do an ED conversion on this pen.

It came with a 1551 medium nib. Not unusual.

I tried filling it with Skrip Red (the Slovenian ink). Not unusual.

I successfully turned a Sheaffer Javelin and an early version of their Cartridge Pen into trouble-free EDs. So I figured the CA 101 would do likewise.

Nope.

The nib gushed ink and blobbed big puddles of it on the paper and my hands when writing.

I swapped nibs and tried a 9550 extra fine. Same thing happened.

So where did I go wrong? Skrip too thin? Estie nibs not condusive to ED use? Or operator error?

If ink is gushing out odds are that air is getting into the barrel. Check the tightness of the threads. Teflon tape might be a solution or something like Tryphon's section sealant. Check for other holes, breathers, cracks, etc.

Of course, some air has to get in through the breather hole in the nib. Maybe it is just too darn big?

I'm not familiar with anyone turning these into an eyedropper but if you can stop the excess air from getting in, then maybe the ink will flow.

Just guessing... have fun!

Andy

if this is the fatter of the cartridge pens - you actually do have a cartridge choice. Sheaffer carts. If you puncture a sheaffer cartridge (make sure to get in the center) with a fairly thick punch (or if you have a Sheaffer cartridge pen, just use it to puncture the cartridge) this will fit in the CA 101. this is what I use rather than trying to convert it or make a squeeze converter like I had to on their narrower cartridge pens.

Randy-

Did you fill the breather hole in the barrel? That sounds like that's the culprit.

Best-
Brian

As for Andy's suggestion, I'm using silicone grease on the threads.

As for Brian's suggestion, I tried emptying out some of the ink and sealing up the little pinhole near the threads at the toip the barrel. Still blobbing ink.

Again, ink too thin, nib flow too great or operator error?

Did you put silicone grease both barrel/section AND renew point/section joints?

BTW, be careful with silicone grease, if it gets into the feed channels, writing will be erratic.

I tried KCat's suggestion, and that seems to work.

I took a pre-punched old-style Sheaffer ink cartridge from one of my pens and put into the CA101. It popped on just fine, the ink stopped gushing, the pen wrote without incident and the problem appears to be solved.

The CA101 appears to be the only cart filling Estie this trick can be tried on. The Sheaffer carts are too wide for the Sixties-vintage Dollar Pens.

Of course, if anyone else wants to try the ED experiement on their own CA101, by all means do and report back to us.

Either that, or stick to the A101, the aerometric fill version of this pen and a pretty good late model Estie in my opinion.

I agree, the A101's are great pens. Not "great" in the sense that a parker 51 or Sheaffer PFM are "great", but durable pens you don't have to worry about banging up. I took one to Mexico once because I figured if the security personnel were going to inspect it, evrything on the 101 series are screwed together. No worries about cracking a barrel by pulling on a friction fit section, dropping the pen and having it damaged, etc.

They don't win a whole lot of points in the beauty pagent side of things, but they are still pretty nice.

Best-
Brian