Makeshift Pen Bladders.

[virgilio]

Thanks SO much for this post. Silly me, I was going to look thru the animal balloons at my local China Mart, but now I will just ask the local tire shop for help instead.

[estie1948]

I did not mean to be offensive, virgilio. There may well be some replacement for the current sac in the future and I hope you are the one who comes up with it and make billions of dollars on it. There seems to have been someone searching ever since fountain pens first arrived on the scene. Different filling systems that eliminated the sac and so on. Balloons are not going to be the answer, I am afraid. For one thing, if you have a steady enough hand, you can pass a needle through a balloon, yes, even the ones that are used to form balloon animals, without popping it. Eventually, even if the balloon did not burst in the pen, ink would leak into the barrel.

 

Again, please do no be offended at the foolish answer I offered. I am an old man and I assure you I have done a great many things exceedingly more foolish than trying a balloon as a sac replacement. That just doesn't happen to be one of them.

 

-David (Estie).

[PaulS]

Was going to say that I didn't think WE had Fords at that time, but am sure we had just about heard of the motor car, I think - 1831 you say? I've not been collecting for long, and when I started I removed sections, cleaned the pegs, applied shellac and fitted a new sac........ and it suddenly dawned on me.............. gosh comma I thought comma that whilst they are indeed cheap, I could end up creating a massive carbon footprint by being complicit in the importation of latex and thereby acting irresponsibly - if I continued to fit a new bladder to each pen................ my small growing collection is somewhere in the region of 400, and is obviously going to balloon upwards (forgive the pun).

 

Of course, you'd never notice the money spent on sacs since they are bought in small quantities, but it does seem rather pointless fitting a new one to every pen, when it's adequate to simply dip test - surely no one actually fits a new sac to every pen they acquire, do they??

 

The problem with our text only communications on the FPN is that, unlike face to face or phone chat, we omit expressiveness, to the extent that others fail, often, to understand our true meanings. Piano for sale, by old lady with worm eaten legs.................

 

Perhaps the Op had intended to visit some remote corner of the planet, and was banking on finding a balloon magician just at the time his supply of sacs came to an end............ perish, the thought.

[inkstainedruth]

I love it when someone jumps in with a "give the guy a break" comment on a thread that has been dead for 5 1/2 years. Nothing like a timely reply.

 

In virgiio's defense, I'll note that he/she doesn't have very many posts yet, and may not have noticed that it's a old thread.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[virgilio]

I am not at all offended, and am not so young myself. I was just trying to be funny. I do think that it is always nice to keep on experimenting, and there is nothing sacred about the Pen Sac Company and their sacs. But it would be very surprising if even the best animal balloon were to be really adequate as a pen bladder, I will readily admit. But it's a harmless diversion to try it and see what happens. Most of my vintage pens (nearly all) have survived a lot worse than a leaking bladder. The balloons will have to be a lot more springy than most of them are to work, of course, but I may find something, even so. I imagine they are 'biodegradable tho, so they will fall to pieces after a feww weeks contact with water.

 

I vaguely remember from chemistry that all sorts of end-hoses are used; I don't remember the technical name for them.. Maybe some of THEM would do the trick.

[gweimer1]

How many sacs do people order at a time?

 

Enough to get the best price per sac. And more than once a year.

[virgilio]

Soooo. Today I got a little bag of 20 animal balloons at Walmart for $1.50. They are sometimes called twisty, twisting or modeling balloons. They are long and thin, and pretty thick, but to look at them I didn't think they would ever have enough spring in them to serve as a pen bladder. However, I noticed some straws right next to them, so I picked a bag of 100 for $2. My idea was to insert a section of a drinking straw inside the balloons to give them enough resistance.

 

This worked fine. With a rubber bladder from the Pen Sac Co, my Marlowe held just 10 drops of ink. But with my jerry-rigged ersatz 'bladder' made of part of a balloon and part of a straw, I had EXACTLY the same result: 10 drops of ink. However, using my fingers instead of the lever to compress first the bladder and then my substitute, the pen held around 25 drops of ink, either using the Pen Sac Co bladder or my balloon/straw combo. But I don't think my substitute would ever hold up to filling with my fingers. Still, this is interesting.

 

HOWEVER, the pen did not write nearly as wet using the balloon/straw combo, which is a pity. I have ordered some deluxe balloons off of amazon that weigh about twice as much as the Twisty Balloons I got at walmart. I will see how they work, first on their own, and then with a piece of straw.

 

By the way, the balloons without a straw inside did NOT draw up any ink using the lever. As I anticipated, they did not have enough spring to them.

 

What caused the balloon/straw combo not to write as wetly? That is a puzzle. Could the combo not be getting enough air thu the pores? Or maybe, too much air?

 

I may also try some different straws to see if I can get more ink, ideally at least 20 drops.

 

None of this is that conclusive, of course. The balloons probably will not hold up very well in constant contact with ink.

[virgilio]

I forgot to say that the balloons I got at Walmart weigh about 1 gram apiece. The ones I got off of amazon weigh about 2 g apiece. I am hoping that will make a big difference in their ability to draw up ink. If not, at least it will be something better to try with various sorts of straws. Naturally the thicker the better when it comes to resisting water seepage.

 

I just lucky finding balloons and straws of exactly the right diameter. The straws are just a tiny bit smaller in diameter than the balloons, and the balloons fit my pen very well, the equivalent of about a 18 size bladder, altho the pen would probably take a 19 or even a 20. I will probably give up and just get a couple of bladders from the Pen Sac Co people, but it is still fun to play around with this.

[virgilio]

I wonder too if it might not be helpful to insert a piece of a drinking straw inside 'official' pen bladders. That would certainly protect them from collapsing the way they sometimes do. Unfortunately the drinking straws I got are a little too big to fit inside an 18 size pen bladder, which is the biggest I have on hand, but they probably would fit a 20.

 

Just an idea.

[JonSzanto]

I wonder too if it might not be helpful to insert a piece of a drinking straw inside 'official' pen bladders. That would certainly protect them from collapsing the way they sometimes do. Unfortunately the drinking straws I got are a little too big to fit inside an 18 size pen bladder, which is the biggest I have on hand, but they probably would fit a 20.

 

Yes, but the 'pressure' systems (lever, button, and associated pressure bars) were designed to compress a rubber sac, not a (more) rigid straw. You will put undue stress on various areas of the system - make it very hard to press a button filler, and have a higher potential of doing damage to lever boxes and pins.

[Ron Z]

 

Yes, but the 'pressure' systems (lever, button, and associated pressure bars) were designed to compress a rubber sac, not a (more) rigid straw. You will put undue stress on various areas of the system - make it very hard to press a button filler, and have a higher potential of doing damage to lever boxes and pins.

 

Exactly right. I've seen this happen a number of times over the years.

 

The rigidity of the sac is what makes it possible for a pen to fill - the fact that it wants to spring back to its original shape is what makes it possible to pull ink into a pen. This is one of the reasons why I do not use the "super flexible" sacs for snorkels. There's plenty of air pressure to collapse the sac, but the sac is not rigid enough to pull enough ink in for a complete fill.

 

I also question how the balloon will stand up to exposure to ink. Without the proper ingredients, latex products can break down rather quickly and turn to goo. I've also seen that happen on a number of occasions. Latex sacs have a specific formula that helps them to resist chemicals that are most likely lacking in balloons. They're intended for short use, and I hate having to clean goo out of the inside of a pen.

[virgilio]

I do not disagree as to the likely poor durability of balloons, even if they work otherwise. But you never know until you try.

 

However, the drinking straws I used really are no more resistant to pressure than a good, firm rubber bladder. But really good, thick-walled rubber bladders are simply unprocurable nowadays, at least in the US. Most rubber bladders I have seen are far from perfect; they eventually ALSO turn to goo, or turn brittle, or most commonly of all, lose their springiness and collapse.

 

One alternative is to buy the cheap Hero 616 imitations on amazon for soemthing like $12 for a pack of 10, and cannibalize their plastic bladders. They are too small for use with a lever, but work perfectly well with the included metal frame, and they seem to last forever. The barrels and caps also fit my Italian Scolastica fountain pens, so I find them very useful for parts.

 

I will post again after I have tried the better-quality balloons I recently ordered from amazon.

[virgilio]

The Pen Sac Co bladders, while certainly not junk, will sometimes not stand up to heat; some of them turn to goo and collapse just sitting on a shelf in the summer, even tho I never let the room get that hot. Others don't, I'm not sure why; maybe I got a bad batch. I would not buy a large quantity ahead, just what I needed for the next few months, unless you live in a cooler climate. Or maybe store them in a very cool place.

[virgilio]

I wish I could buy things off of amazon.in (India). So far all the stuff I've tried to buy (ink, for instance) won't ship to a US address. I bet someone in India sells perfectly good rubber bladders for 10¢ or so apiece, maybe less.

 

Or off of amazon china, if I could get the site to work on my mac.

[virgilio]

I have noticed over the years that bladder pens generally write wetter than cartridge or piston-fill pens. I think it has something to do with the air pressure; the bladder seems to promote ink flow, while more rigid, air-impermeable ink storage systems seem to retard it.

 

Of course the nib and especially the feed also play a role.

[virgilio]

Or to be more precise, bladder pens seem to write wetter at first, and then drier, whereas pens with a rigid ink container are more consistent, and only get dry near the very end of their ink supply. Could it be that the air in the bladder left after filling has a decreased density as the ink is used up, and so decreases the air pressure inside the bladder and produce less ink flow.

 

Against theis theory: my rubber balloon/drinking straw bladder wrote drier than the rubber bladder, even tho it too was filled by suction, and happened to be about the same size; it also held the same amount of ink.

 

Maybe there is some sort of infiltration of air from the outside in the case of the rubber bladder, that is largely absent in the case of the more rigid balloon/straw combo. That would increase the air pressure in the bladder and lead to greater ink flow.

[lallin]

JOSEPH_WALLACE patent 2356109.pdf

virgilio, on 27 Oct 2016 - 18:18, said:

I wish I could buy things off of amazon.in (India). So far all the stuff I've tried to buy (ink, for instance) won't ship to a US address. I bet someone in India sells perfectly good rubber bladders for 10¢ or so apiece, maybe less.

Or off of amazon china, if I could get the site to work on my mac.

If cheap is what you are looking for, you probably could make your own using scavenged respiratory therapy tubes. I believe they are the same material Inkograph used to get through rubber shortages of WW2. See attached patent application. I have found many of these still in usable condition in Inkograph pen; though I do replace them, rather than risk future failure to save $2.

[virgilio]

Thanks for the tip. I will look into it.

[lallin]

lallin, on 27 Oct 2016 - 19:28, said:lallin, on 27 Oct 2016 - 19:28, said:

JOSEPH_WALLACE patent 2356109.pdf

If cheap is what you are looking for, you probably could make your own using scavenged respiratory therapy tubes. I believe they are the same material Inkograph used to get through rubber shortages of WW2. See attached patent application. I have found many of these still in usable condition in Inkograph pen; though I do replace them, rather than risk future failure to save $2.

There is an example of one removed from a mid-40s Inkograph posted on flickr.

https://www.flickr.com/x/t/0094009/photos/20493029@N03/30145133903/

Edited November 4, 2016 by lallin

[virgilio]

Very interesting. I had already thought of using rubber tubing, which is actually a LOT better quality than most pen bladders I have seen, as far as the thickness and elasticity is concerned, but I couldn't figure out how to seal one end off. There is probably some glue that would work, but I haven't found it yet. Shellac is hopeless, and so is several other glues I've tried. Maybe you could melt the rubber with a heat gun.

 

However, I am just going to try inserting some of the tubing inside the end of a balloon, instead of the straw insert, and see how much ink that will draw up.