Alternatives To Silicone Grease In Cc To Ed Conversions

[AndrewC]

I'm listening. Do go on...

[JonSzanto]

See? I knew it.

 

I've often fantasized about switching a trumpet player's valve oil with Loctite. That would be sweet. I should ask Brian Gray about that.

[FarmBoy]

See? I knew it.

 

I've often fantasized about switching a trumpet player's valve oil with Loctite. That would be sweet. I should ask Brian Gray about that.

Percussionists...

[Water Ouzel]

Generally speaking you don't want to convert a pen that has both a threaded barrel and threaded cap into an eye dropper. Ideally you want threaded barrel, and snap/pull caps (like the pilot metro has... but not metal interior).

The Kaweco Sport would be an exception to this rule. The cap's threads seat below the section's threads, so you can't unscrew the section until you've removed the cap. Other than that, though, if'n it ain't got a snap-off cap, think really long and hard before you convert the pen to an ED.

[Water Ouzel]

Percussionists...

Is a drummer a musician?

 

Is a barnacle a boat? (*ducks and runs*)

[perrins57]

I've used PTFE tape with no problems - its a white stretchy tape used to help seal plastic joints in plumbing. Its a little messy removing the old tape each time you open a pen, but I found it seals much better than grease.

[Freedomcoach]

I'm similarly interested in converting my Pilot 78g to an eyedropper but not sure where to get the proper O ring for this. I'm hesitant using an O ring that works for say the Platinum Preppy in the hope it will work for the Pilot so I'd appreciate places where I can obtain one. Thanks!

 

Howard

[FarmBoy]

I'm similarly interested in converting my Pilot 78g to an eyedropper but not sure where to get the proper O ring for this. I'm hesitant using an O ring that works for say the Platinum Preppy in the hope it will work for the Pilot so I'd appreciate places where I can obtain one. Thanks!

 

Howard

Why the desire to convert your pen to an eye dropper?

[KBeezie]

Why the desire to convert your pen to an eye dropper?

Much more ink capacity seems to be one of the obvious reasons, otherwise I can't see much of a good reason to doing so for a pen that wasn't designed for it.

[mhosea]

Perhaps the particular interest in converting the 78g has to do with either 1) the poor performance of the cheapest Pilot squeeze converter or 2) the lack of any converter. It's hard for me to imagine writing so much in one day as to exhaust the contents of one standard Pilot cartridge, however. IMHO, a small syringe with blunt-tip needle for refilling Pilot cartridges would be smarter. If you, say, use Pilot black ink and have some Pilot black cartridges handy, then you can mainly use the bottle for the economy of it but also have a spare cartridge in case you do some marathon writing and run out in the field. You could do the same with an ED-converted pen, I guess, but you can't see how much ink is in the pen, and that's a human factors problem, IMHO. Do you refill it every day? If you run out so infrequently that you stop paying any attention to the matter, you may find yourself unprepared.

Edited January 2, 2015 by mhosea

[FarmBoy]

I see this desire to convert all manner of pens to eye droppers. Often not difficult to do to a pen, but I still ask why. I can only surmise that it is indeed because someone wants to have a large ink capacity, which I do not understand---read on.

 

Seems like you get the following:

 

~25% of the time you seem to get complaints about leaking. This shouldn't be a surprise, most of the barrel-section threads are coarse and not meant to be liquid tight. You can put in an o-ring and sometimes you get a barrel that cracks. You can slather up the threads with sealant and then you get complaints of no flow because grease got in the feed.

 

~50% of the time you see the complaints about wasting ink because of some new desire to change inks well before the pen is empty...go figure.

 

I've seen the 'how do I get the ink stains out of my "demonstrator" barrel' and wonder why.

 

Then you learn about thermodynamics and experience the belching ink problem--hot little hands warm the air in the barrel behind the ink raising the pressure and you get the nice blob of ink. When pen companies made eye dropper (or more correctly barrel reservoir pens) they spent a lot of time trying to make feeds that would capture the ink as it was pushed out and restrict the flow at the same time. It isn't if this will happen, it will happen.

Just my observations, I'm sure there are many many happy people that have made the conversion.

 

But it usually seems to be about having a big ink capacity so if you want a pen with a big ink capacity why not just buy a pen that has a big ink capacity, there are a lot out there though they tend to be vintage pens.

[KBeezie]

I don't know why anyone would consider the "cleaning converter" that comes with the 78G, Metropolitan, etc to be a poor performer, in fact I like them better than the con-20 since you can squeeze more of the sac in one press getting a healthy amount of ink up into the sac. Won't be quite as much as syringe filling a pilot cartridge (~0.9) but certainly more than you'd get from a con-50 (0.6-0.7), but people tend to complain about not being able to see how much ink they have left (if you have to actually check all the time, you're not writing enough).

 

I do find that the desire to ED convert tends to be more for bragging rights than anything else, since a Japanese Fine or EF is going to take a bit while longer to go thru a ml of ink than most western size nibs.

 

Far as your last point about just buying a pen with big ink capacity, probably don't due to not being well versed in knowing what's out there, and the other part is cost (a 78G only costs about $13-15).

[mhosea]

You're right. The cleaning converter should work pretty well. I don't know why the one I used before didn't when I used it, but who knows. My purpose was to tune his nib, not fill the pen.

 

Measuring the ink drawn up into a dry pen, I was getting 0.8ml in my tests with double actuation to saturate the feed, maybe a little more with multiple actuations. The Con-20 was absolutely identical, no discernible difference at all. With multiple actuations to saturate the feed, the Con-50 looked like it was ever so slightly behind, around 0.8ml including ink in the feed. Cartridges hold more, but saturating the feed is not really in the cards then.

Edited January 3, 2015 by mhosea

[OcalaFlGuy]

Pffft.

 

If quantity of ink is really gonna be your nit,

 

Get a Twsbi or a Pel 600+ and just be done with it.

 

No one Needs more ink than that.

 

Bruce in Ocala, Fl

[mhosea]

I'll second the TWSBI as a relatively affordable alternative. I don't think a direct jump to Pelikan 600+ from Pilot 78g is likely to be in the cards for anyone due to the cost. My Sheaffer 8C's (large flat-tops) and oversize Balances hold a lot of ink, too. I paid $60-ish for them probably, but of course everything is more expensive if you buy it in restored condition.

Edited January 3, 2015 by mhosea

[JonSzanto]

I'm going to rule the world with my EsterBlanc...

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb204/EnvoyC/FP/20150102_190707_zpsefvlycik.jpg

[FarmBoy]

I'm going to rule the world with my EsterBlanc...

 

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb204/EnvoyC/FP/20150102_190707_zpsefvlycik.jpg

I am making one of those on Monday...I'm calling it the EverEver ink tank.

[JonSzanto]

I am making one of those on Monday...I'm calling it the EverEver ink tank.

 

Saul Goodman will be in touch with you. Call it whatever you like, just don't call me Shirley.