New Kaweco Sport Converter: The Nightmare Continues

[Astronymus]

An alternative would be a precisly cut piece of foam rubber behind the cartridge in the free space of the barrel. This would have the same effect not pushing to hard but securing the cartridge.

[OakIris]

^^^Good suggestion, Astron! Thank you! lol - I suppose you could even use a stick...

 

Holly

[Astronymus]

Yes, but a stick is too stiff. You don't want to damage the thread. But any elastic material should do it. In case of an emergency just use gummi bears. The plus is you always have a ration of sugar with you. The pen might need some cleaning afterwards.

[Flounder]

Ooh, I like your thinking Astron! Or a tiny, rolled up cheat sheet for exams!

[aeba]

A stick is fine. After you get the length exactly right. For international cartridge, and Al-Sport it's somewhere around 13mm.

 

Edit: Meh, I was bored (again), and happened to have "Original gourmet"-brand lollipops around. Better than Chupa Chups, because the stick isn't hollow like in Chupa Chups making it easier to cut with pliers. The "stick" should be something like 9-10mm long (my caliber is out of batteries (again), so a navigator's triangle has to do)

 

Edit2: And since everyone is sooo interested, 400mg ibuprofen tablets are too fat to fit in the barrel.

Edited July 8, 2017 by aeba

[Astronymus]

Edit2: And since everyone is sooo interested, 400mg ibuprofen tablets are too fat to fit in the barrel.

WTH?

 

*lol* I cant change the H for an F in "edit-Mode". What the heck?

Edited July 8, 2017 by Astron

[aeba]

WTH?

 

*lol* I cant change the H for an F in "edit-Mode". What the heck?

They would have been easier to file down to correct length, and they are closer to correct length to begin with.

[OakIris]

LOL, aeba! I will have to see how many baby aspirins might work to fill the space in the barrel in order to secure the cartridge to the section. Of course, you would have to glue the aspirins together or else they wouldn't stay in place, and you would have to seal the aspirins so the glue wouldn't cause them to disintegrate and... Never mind, a stick is easier.

 

Not sure why you say a stick - or something similar - would damage the threads, Astron. The stick wouldn't come in contact with the threads and, since you would cut it to the exact length you would need, the barrel and section would screw together normally, no strain on the threads. I am not actually planning to use a stick, but they are readily available.

 

Anyway, now that I am not focused on using a spring, I will check to see what else I might have around here that would be suitable to use.

 

Holly

 

[Flounder]

Holly,

If you're cutting the spacer precisely and will always be using the same carts, then there'll be no strain on the threads.

 

Pretty much anything would be fine in that case, even an empty cart cut to shorten it!

 

However, something adjustable or compressible (such as a spring) would be a bit better as international 'standard' carts aren't actually all that standard in length. My Diamine carts are appreciably longer than my supermarket no-brand cheapies, 38.19mm versus 37.03mm.

 

ps - if any non-Sport users are reading this, I feel it's fair to say mine seems to have no issue with carts loosening off.

[senzen]

Finally got some silicone grease for a Platinum converter, which immediately got better; dug out the nightmare midget aka Kaweco Sport, disassembled the converter, put some grease on the piston walls, threads, stalk; I've long give up on this pen, but with a leaky Laureat and hard to start Platinum Cool, it's my third fountain pen failure, out of 21 odd pens. At least I don't see any ink on the stalk, for the moment. In case it helps anyone else.

[tinta]

I accept the fact that some of my pens will be used with cartridges............. There are enough selections in standard short international cartridges that I don't feel deprived.

I agree with the above statements.

 

No need to force the issue of fitting converters that may be poorly designed or manufactured. I went through three of these infernal Kaweco mini converters. None of them worked.

 

Diamine sells cartridge sampler packs chosen from a surprisingly large variety of ink colours, available in international short carts. There are surely some of those that'll please.

 

Most European pen manufacturers have a small collection of international short carts. Maybe not the most exciting array of colours, but enough to keep me interested.

 

Another option is of course to refill cartridges from bottled ink.

[bobje]

Cyber6 in post no. 13 offers a useful solution — creating your own cartridge bulb filler. It’s fun to make and offers the largest ink capacity you’ll get with a Kaweco Sport, without converting it into an eyedropper.

[Gasquolet]

I like this game - I want to join in!

 

My Brass Sport with broad stub has been uninked for ages and I recently took delivery of some Robert Oster Bronze so with that metallurgical mis-match in mind I thought I'd do a little test.

 

Of my 4 sports, 3 have the squeezy bulb filler, like an aerometric without the cage and bar. This lasts for ages with the EF nib on my most used Sport, I have a few cartridges in my bag in case it runs dry anyway.

 

I normally squeeze these in the bottle 4-5 times and end up with the ink exactly 50% up the side of the bulb. Seems to be the same for all of them. Not good for clean fingers when the bottle gets low though.

 

Well, according to my drug dealer scales, from empty this gave a fill of 0.6g of ink in the brass sport.

 

Not bad. Except my trick is then to hold the section nib up and with the ink fill in the lower end of the convertor, squeeze again with the nib over the bottle before redipping and allowing it to fill up to about 80% of the bulb.

 

Again onto the tiny eBay scales and they tell me I have 0.8g of ink now.

 

Because I am obsessive, I have a record of what most of my pens hold, measured on the same scales, so hopefully for the sake of comparison normalising most of their inaccuracy.

 

Most of the pens I have with standard international convertors or equivalent measure 0.8-0.9g of ink in a full fill.

 

So ignoring all the errors in this futile exercise, not least SG of the ink involved, dubious Ebay drug dealer scales, only reading to one decimal place etc etc...

 

I've concluded I still like my Sports with their squeezy convertors. I still use cartridges in one or two of them for ease. I find both the squeezy convertor and cartridges a secure fit though I like the idea of a sprung stick - just because it pleases me.

 

For more fun; comparing an empty and dry Kaweco cartridge case with full Kaweco carts; Königsblau, BB, Summer Purple etc, I got a weight difference of 0.8g each time suggesting they do hold a bit more ink as a standard international convertor, but only by the amount retained in the section/ feed when filling...

 

Oh, and the Oster Bronze is great:- Somewhere between Diamine Safari and Sailor Riku-Cha but better behaved than either.

[senzen]

I salute the effort of those who can create their own converters, I don't have the manual abilities or patience for that; frankly if I had to stick to existing cartridges or had to resort to syringes to refill cartridges I would only use one or two pens, not the 21 I use... The pens are just the excuse to use all those amazing inks.

 

The silicone seems to have done the trick, I dismantled the pen since Poppy Red was coming out too dark, refilled... No leaks, good flow. I pressed on the nib since it was coming out too light, which immediately bent, but managed to bend it back... Writes smoothly (which I have to admit it has always done), the ink now looks as saturated as I thought it should. So success at last! Even if I came out thinking Kaweco's nibs must be made of gold plated tin, not even steel, but as long as it works, I don't really care. Particularly good news since I finally gave up on my Waterman Laureat, and again, this Kaweco was a gift.

 

Stock up on silicone grease!

[tinta]

 

I am aware that, if you can find the right size spring, you can use this to hold the cartridge in place; I just haven't gotten around to doing the research - no local spring store around here, lol. The point is, really, that none of my other fountain pens, pocket pens or not, have ever had a problem with the cartridges or converters coming loose from the section. What is up with that, Kaweco?!? Rather unacceptable, especially with pens in this price range.

 

Holly

This just may be the right size & softness of spring you want.

 

Kaweco Dia2s come with a loosely coiled "soft action" spring that one is supposed to drop into the bottom of the pen's barrel barrel. Then one inserts a reserve cart "backwards", finally screwing on the pen's section (with its cartridge installed).

The spring takes up some space at the back of the barrel. It prevents the spare cartridge from ratting back & forth inside the barrel.

 

This set-up keeps a short cart firmly in place, providing space for a back-up cartridge, with the spring in the rear keeping everything in place. I have full confidence that the front cartridge won't work loose inside.

 

The Dia2 has a much longer barrel than an AL-Sport. It can store two short carts (back to back) + the spring.

I wonder if the rear spring from a Dia2 may comfortably fit behind a single international cart in an AL- Sport model.

 

You could contact a Kaweco dealer in the USA & request a spare spring for a Dia2? Kaweco in Germany is also very helpful with sending parts.

 

This spring may be just the ticket.

Edited December 15, 2017 by tinta

[kulms]

i hate the kaweco piston converted never got it to work for me

[Brandywine]

Instead of having a spring custom-made or buying another pen to get a spring

I suggest you look for an old and cheap ballpoint pen, disassemble it

and take the spring that's round the refill mine.

Works fine in my Kaweco ...

Edited January 2, 2018 by Brandywine

[MilanKov]

I have the mini piston converter for mine EF al sport. And it works but you cannot fill it completely to use it in Al sport. So when I have tried it, I was able to fill to just 3/4full so it could fit in the barrel so all in all the converter has roughly half of capacity of standard ink cartridge... That is useless I mean in work day usually go through half a cartridge worth of ink. I am thinking of buying the squeeze converter to fill it with syringe for bigger ink capacity, as Al sport cannot be converted to eyedropper.

 

Cheers Milan

[suman5492]

I agree about the Kaweco converters - hopeless. I tried their new mini piston-type & got ink leaks behind the seal on 2 of them. I do have one of their old-style squeeze converters with metal press bar (á la Parker 51 aeromatic style) & it works very well, but they're hard to find, Best converter I have is a home-made squeezy one, made by my partner.

I also do as others do & use refilled cartridges.

Please tell me how did you make the squeeze converter at home?

[suman5492]

Just thinking about reusing the kaweco cartridge that came with my skyline sport, how many times can I reuse if filled with a syringe? I mean some of the cartridges tend to crack at the mouth. Almost all of my LAMY cartridges and several other brands have cracked after reusing for a couple of times.