Developing An Aversion For Lever Fillers?

[Biber]

I find myself developing an aversion (or is it a fear?) toward my lever filler pens. Perhaps it's irrational, but somehow I've begun to think that they're more fragile than they actually might be. And cleaning seems to be a pain. I'm never really sure that I was able to flush them out completely. Have I talked myself into something unfounded? Anyone else feel this way? Maybe I need to pull out my old lever fillers for some daily use to prove myself wrong.

[Bluey]

Maybe they are. At a pen show earlier this year I picked up a lever filler, pulled the lever and it fell off. They're not what I would describe as robust.

 

I'm going to stick to modern pistons and C/Cs to minimise complications.

Edited December 9, 2016 by Bluey

[rwilsonedn]

Lever-fillers certainly aren't as robust as cartridge-fillers--they have moving parts. But they aren't as complex (or as hard to flush) as piston-fillers, and they are far easier to service. They often hold much more ink, and aren't subject to ink getting trapped above an air bubble and causing skipping and stopping.

On balance I prefer lever-fillers, and their variants like crescent-, coin-, and blow-fillers, to anything except eye-dropper pens, which to me are about the best approach. But that's just me.

I would suggest getting out your favorite lever-filler, making a little ritual out of filling it gently and precisely (kind of a Waterman version of Tea Ceremony), and enjoying it. Handled gently a well-built one will last forever with just a new sac every decade or three.

ron

[Bo Bo Olson]

Depends on how well maintained it was....Bluey had bad luck...to buy from someone who didn't care...had not personally re-saced his pen...so didn't see the J-bar was rotted out.

It's like putting a new head gasket on a motor one yanks out to look at.

Part and parcel of restoring.

 

I would expect any properly re-sacked pen to work...The only problem is the new sac's are not quite the 30-40 year sacs of yesteryear.

 

I'm down to four lever....two for my wife....Wearevers... A pencil and ink pen combo....and a turquoise in she likes that color...basic 70's pen...not as robust as a Esterbrook....a DJ Copper and a SJ marbled blue.

Remember when falling down the stairs...don't fall on that Wearever. You can fall on the Esterbrook though.

 

I had some 15 lever pens***...but I grew up with lever pens and the Snorkel...P-51 is a lot more work than a lever pen. It's as bad as one of them Cartridge pens.

 

*** Eventually one realizes one needs too many Esties to have one of each color...then that leads to each color in each size and so on. Single J had four of them.

I also had some nice solid Wearever pens of the late '30-40's. I set them all free.

 

Of course if you have a collection of Venus pens.....remember don't sit down too fast if one is in your shirt pocket........Well they survived often a year of school kid use...so can't be as delicate as I think....a cheap Wearever was the better pen.

Edited December 9, 2016 by Bo Bo Olson

[Margana]

I'm with you. My lever fillers languish in the pen drawer while the easy-to-clean Esterbrooks and converter pens have all the fun. From a repair standpoint, it is so easy to replace a converter when it fails, that I can't imagine going back to a rotation that would favor lever fillers again. Hmmm. Might be time to sell a few now that I think about it.

[JakobS]

For fragility it depends on age, material its made of, and pen condition, while cleaning often depends on the type of ink used. Saturated inks often are more difficult to clean than non saturated, or if dried out ink is in the pen or fresh ink.

 

Esterbrook, though generally cheaply made pens, have very durable levers and J bars, that can handle a good deal of use. They can be easily found with little fragility especially in the Dollar, J, and even the SM deluxe line. I have a Relief 2-L that is 75-80 years old made for Esterbrook by Conway Stewart, and its lever being about half as thick as what you find in the three other lines, does make me feel like it is more fragile, but it holds up well to a lot of use. The Dollar, J's, and SM Deluxe use renew points which can be easily unscrewed from the section, and makes cleaning them out easier than having to use the lever only. The Relief 2-L can only be cleaned with the use of the lever, but cleans out relativity quickly, perhaps also due to a simpler feed.

 

Overall, lever fillers are going to take more time to clean than piston fillers, but only a little, say you only need five rotations of a piston to get a piston filler clean, you may need ten for a lever filler (that does not have dried out ink it it!). Lever fillers are one of my favorite pens, and I think limiting yourself to only one or two filling systems really denies you the ability to write with a whole great mass of spectacular pens whose writing experiences you cannot find with modern pistons or C/C fillers.

 

One trick to cleaning out lever fillers is to open and close the lever slowly so that the pen fills fully with water in each fill. If you quickly fill and discharge the pen the sac won't fully re-inflate, and ink drops hiding farther up in the sac will remain, thus making it feel like the ink will never be cleaned from the pen!

Edited December 10, 2016 by JakobS

[Bluey]

Depends on how well maintained it was....Bluey had bad luck...to buy from someone who didn't care...

I didn't buy. It happened at the show.

Edited December 9, 2016 by Bluey

[Bo Bo Olson]

Jacob that is a great trick.

 

Easy to clean converters ...take out converter...take out and fill needle syringe, purge twice to four times.

Take rubber baby bulb syringe. fit over spike....squeeze lots of times....refilling water as needed.

 

Use of horrible expensive cartridges...always were and still are over expensive....lack of colors. Tiny converter that is smaller than your sac. So many converters have vapor lock and don't work well.

 

Lever perfected in 1912...well, perfected as soon as Waterman put the lever in a small coffin.

Lever pens....light and nimble....something to write with 8-10 hours a day.

Many C/C pens are heavy.metal ...Large clunky pens. Bling more than usable.

 

I was shocked when I found out my P-75 could actually use a converter and it used a cartridge too. I could never afford rich man's cartridges...even if I did have a silver pen.

It was perfectly balanced...and standard sized.

I knew how to use one...just like a P-51.... I had to have tossed the free cartridges out with the box...that was long before converters were invented....and still not perfected!!!

 

 

IMO having lived through the start of cartridges that as a school kid I could not afford....and how fountain pens almost died.....everyone could afford 10 cents for ten BP refills or the Bic....

Because of cartridges....working folks couldn't afford them, so no longer had a need of a fountain pen...when .. A Jotter refill was then and is still too expensive too. E5+...Schmidt is half that price and IMO over expensive. So Bic won!!

Edited December 9, 2016 by Bo Bo Olson

[praxim]

I suppose piston or cartridge is more practical. However, I bought lever (and plunge) fillers as well as piston and cartridge pens, therefore I use lever (and plunge) fillers as well as piston and cartridge pens.

 

Descartes has nothing on me.

 

 

 

Edit: by cartridge I mean converter. The cartridges which came with some pens will go away with them, eventually.

Edited December 9, 2016 by praxim

[Bo Bo Olson]

Bluey...he still didn't care. Too many pens...too little time...but any one who has had a few old Lever pens can tell when the lever is too stiff, or going past 90 degrees or the sack is cracking or has cracked from age.

PP shade tree mechanic....not professional. Even if it was a cheap Arnold or Wearever, he should have checked it because only fools try to sell junk at a pen show. ...

 

It is harder to tell with a 60 year old sac...that it's dying because it's not sucking much ink.

Yes, I know most sacs only lasted 30-40 years but this one...sat in a drawer for 30 years. After a couple of years it started failing. By then I knew from here what was the problem.

 

New sacs don't seem to last as long as the old ones.

 

Bluey was that the only lever pen you've ever handled?

[ISW_Kaputnik]

Most of my favorite vintage pens are lever fillers, but it's not because of the filling mechanism, it's because of how the pens perform as a whole. I treat them gently, and don't obsess over whether I've gotten every last trace of ink out of the pen. I think that I get them clean enough not to have the sac petrifying again before its time.

 

Vintage pens often have interesting nibs, and I'm partial to old celluloids. A lever filling system may not be optimal, but it usually works well enough.

[ac12]

Nothing wrong with a lever filler.

I find they are generally faster to clean than a piston filler.

- One lift of the lever to empty, lift and release to fill.

- Use the salad spinner to dry all of my pens of remaining ink/water.

 

- You can't see the inside of some/many piston fillers, so no different than a lever filler.

- There are inks that I will NOT use in a lever filler nor a piston filler.

[Arkanabar]

I had some trepidation when I thought to carry my Estie J/SJ (not sure which, sad to say); I worried that the lever would not remain snugly against the barrel, allowing it to snag while being inserted into a pocket. I got in the habit of taping my lever down with scotch tape.

[Bluey]

 

I find they are generally faster to clean than a piston filler.

- One lift of the lever to empty, lift and release to fill.

- Use the salad spinner to dry all of my pens of remaining ink/water

I don't think I would agree.

 

I have several aerometric fillers laying in the drawer and they are worse than death.

They may appear to be quick and economical to clean. Aafter all it's just a case of submerging under water and then squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze..., much the same action as it is with lever fillers. The problem here is that even after several minutes of that there is still plenty of ink left.

 

Some aerometrics can be disconnected from the pen, in which case they will be the same as converter, but I've not heard of many that can. I suspect it's the same with lever fillers.

 

The beauty of a piston(at least those that can be disassembled such as Lamy 2000, Pelikan and the TWSBI by unscrewing the nib or nib section) and C/Cs is that they can be thoroughly cleaned within seconds by pressing your finger under the tap to direct a strong jet stream of water into the piston or converter. It takes less than 15 seconds to do completely and thoroughly.

 

That would be impossible with most lever fillers

Edited December 10, 2016 by Bluey

[Russ]

I didn't appreciate lever fillers until I began using Ecclesiastical Stationers' iron gall ink. I don't have to lubricate pistons, and since the old lever fillers use a friction-fit feed I can easily clean them out in a few minutes. Most of the piston and converter-fed pens have feed collars or press-fit feeds. Levers are simple and easy to use and repair.

[Runnin_Ute]

Lever fillers and I have a love/hate relationship. I love them because they are interesting, and I hate them when it comes time to clean them - at least compared to a modern c/c or piston filler pen. I have 5 Esterbrook J series pens (red SJ, black LJ, green, gray and black J) Now to get the copper, blue and red in the J........

 

Are lever pens the easiest to clean? No but they aren't the most difficult either. For ink testing I mostly use C/c pens, and sometimes a piston. At least for initial testing.

 

The aerometric is a different animal altogether. I love them because they (my P51 Special) have such a large collector it seems like it will write forever. Problem is, it takes forever to clean out. So it gets one of two or three or four inks and just those inks. Even though I think it could handle others.

 

Right now I have 10 pens inked - 1 lever, 1 aerometric, 4 piston and 4 cartridge/convertor.

P51 Special - Noodler's Black (aero)

Esterbrook J - Blackstone Daintree Green (lever)

Lamy Al Star - Blackstone Barrier Reef Blue- c/c

Pelikan M200 Cognac - Diamine Saddle Brown c/c

Pelikan M200 old style cap - KWZI IG Turquoise piston

Parker 45 Flighter-Pelikan 4001 blue black c/c

TWSBI Eco Diamine Classic Red piston

True Writer Silver Anniversary - Levenger Pomegranate c/c

TWSBI 580 - Diamine Sherwood Green piston

Platinum 3776 Century Bourgogne - Blackstone Red Cashmere c/c

 

In the 18+ months I have had the P51 this is the first time I haven't had Waterman Serenity Blue, Diamine Blue Black or Diamine Sherwood Green in it. And the Sherwood has only been in it once. Mostly Serenity Blue.

Edited December 10, 2016 by Runnin_Ute

[pajaro]

The only thing about lever fillers is that I tend to get the lever end underneath a fingernail. Beyond that I am neutral.

[kestrel]

I use my lever fillers because I enjoy the nibs and the celluloid or BHR. Cleaning is a bit more challenging than many other filling systems but not an issue. Most lever pens are reasonably robust but I have had multiple issues with vintage Conklins because the small loop on the lever that slides onto the clip on the pressure bar erodes until it snaps. Other than that, no problems. I still prefer crescent filling systems to piston or C/C when I can find them.

[PS104]

I tend to avoid them. However I grew up using Esterbrooks in grammar school and still have a great fondness for them. I now have a dozen+ and like their tactile feel and using them. Brings back my long-lost youth

About the 7th or 8th grade I 'graduated' to a Snorkel. This was my last dalliance with fountain pens. In high school it was ball points only

Yes. I'm irrational.

[Bo Bo Olson]

I'm glad the aerometric filler problem was addressed.

 

I having grew up as a school kid with a couple of lever pens...never worried about catching the lever on or in my shirt...

They never squirted as good as cartoons. .

 

Unfortunately @ 1960 those dammed expensive cartridge pens were all one could buy in the blister pack....or it was 'higher status' than the Wearver/ ugly pastel Esterbrook with the metal top....(that one I had...not a pretty one)...so was bought at the beginning of the school year.

 

 

 

 

So from the posts...one can see a lever filler is a good solid pen, worth having, and not troublesome...should it have been refurbished lately. The same can be said of cork gasket piston pens.

Other filling systems have problems too.

 

Lever pens work better and are less trouble than C/C pens with their converter hunt for one that don't skip. Faster to load....and so on.

Lever pens are all light, nimble and well balanced...solid enough in first&second tier.

Too many cc pens are Large pens...so are clunky.

 

Two Large pens that are not clunky....are the thin Snorkel and the thin ended P-45, a now CC pen but originally there were no converters.... neither of whom I ever suspected of being Large....as long as my Safari.