Which Sheaffer Converter?

[corgicoupe]

Which is the preferred converter for Targa and Connaisseur: Piston or squeeze, and why?

[mbankirer]

It's a personal preference-thing!

 

I like the piston converters more because I can see the ink level....otherwise, I don't think there is much difference as to capacity, ease of fill. etc.

[Charles Rice]

The standard Connaisseur will not take a piston.

 

Usually for both I used re-filled cartridges. Reason? 1) I have lots of empty cartridges, and 2) the squeeze converters usually leak and the piston ones never fill all the way.

Edited June 21, 2018 by Charles Rice

[Ron Z]

the squeeze converters usually leak

 

I'm not sure that one is worse than the other. I've seen it with both piston and squeeze. If you're talking about leaking sacs, black end converters have a latex sac, which can be replaced with PVC. Red end converters have a PVC sac.

 

If you're talking about leaking around the piercing tube, it could be because the plastic has compressed, so they're loose on the piercing tube. It takes maybe 35-40 seconds in boiling water to fix it. The boiling water softens the plastic and allows it to go back close to its original dimensions, which restores a snug fit on the piercing tube. Just hold the converter at the back end, away from the water.

[Chrissy]

I much prefer piston type converters for Targas. I don't have a Connaisseur, but have seen pictures of the Levenger version with a piston type converter fitted.

[Ron Z]

The Levenger Seas pens are a bit different.

 

When Sheaffer turned the No Nonsense pens into Connaisseurs, they added a brass plug at the end of the barrel, which added heft to the pen - enough that some people have though that they're made of a different plastic, but they aren't. That plug makes the barrel shorter inside, which means that you can't use a piston converter. Side note - a squeeze converter is the same length as a cartridge up to the shoulder, where the end tapers.

 

When they made the Seas pens for Levenger they left the brass plug out. The inside is therefore just long enough that it can take a piston converter. It may have been done because the brass plug would look ugly, or because they had to do it to allow use of the clear converter, which would look better in a clear pen and would allow the user to see the ink.

[corgicoupe]

I replaced my Targa squeeze converter with a piston, so I guess I'll use the old squeeze in the Connaisseur. I just don't want to use cartridges. Can the piston be trimmed to fit?

[Ron Z]

Can the piston be trimmed to fit?

 

Not really. The piston spindle gets drawn up into the knob as it is retracted, and goes nearly to the top. If you cut it off, the piston won't be able to travel all of the way down to fill.

 

Given the price of the red end converters now, it is more economical to resac the black end converters when the sac fails. When Richard Binder and I were in the Sheaffer service center we saw a garbage bag full of the red end squeeze converters on the floor. They told us that was it, all that they had. I gather that Cross is no longer making converters for the legacy (small L) Sheaffer products, so even the piston converters are likely to become scarce.

 

In other words, if you have a Sheaffer converter with a dead sac, don't throw it away!

[corgicoupe]

Fortunately, I have four of those converters. What is the procedure for replacing the sac with PVC. Is it a professional-only job or a DIY?

[FredRydr]

Is it coincidence that my Connaisseurs, Balance IIs and Nostalgia factory stub pens with red-end squeeze converters are all hard starters? I even have a few extra red-end converters; I switch them all around, but there's no improvement. Invariably when I pick up one of these great pens to start writing, I must remove the barrel and squeeze ink into the feed in order to continue for more than a few words.

 

Pardon me if this issue has already been asked and answered.

[pajaro]

Is it coincidence that my Connaisseurs, Balance IIs and Nostalgia factory stub pens with red-end squeeze converters are all hard starters? I even have a few extra red-end converters; I switch them all around, but there's no improvement. Invariably when I pick up one of these great pens to start writing, I must remove the barrel and squeeze ink into the feed in order to continue for more than a few words.

 

Pardon me if this issue has already been asked and answered.

 

I don't know what is going on with those pens, but I found two new new 1960s school pens in translucent green and red, and I bought two red end converters for them. These pens start every time, using Sheaffer blue black or Montblanc Midnight Blue inks. I would have sooner expected trouble with my pens than for you to have had hard starts with yours.

[Ron Z]

Is it coincidence that my Connaisseurs, Balance IIs and Nostalgia factory stub pens with red-end squeeze converters are all hard starters? I even have a few extra red-end converters; I switch them all around, but there's no improvement. Invariably when I pick up one of these great pens to start writing, I must remove the barrel and squeeze ink into the feed in order to continue for more than a few words.

 

Pardon me if this issue has already been asked and answered.

 

It is coincidence. More likely a feed issue than a converter issue. I haven't had flow issues with any of the red end Squeeze converters. But Sheaffer Balance, NN, Connaisseur, Prelude, all used the same feed - and there were flow issues with some of them. Sometimes I have to replace the feed, sometimes cleaning in a special solution resolves the problem,

[JonSzanto]

If you're talking about leaking around the piercing tube, it could be because the plastic has compressed, so they're loose on the piercing tube. It takes maybe 35-40 seconds in boiling water to fix it. The boiling water softens the plastic and allows it to go back close to its original dimensions, which restores a snug fit on the piercing tube. Just hold the converter at the back end, away from the water.

 

You know, Ron, I think I love you, in a pen-repair-guy kinda way...

[pajaro]

 

You know, Ron, I think I love you, in a pen-repair-guy kinda way...

 

I could go along with this. Ron's posts have helped me a lot.

[FredRydr]

It is coincidence. More likely a feed issue than a converter issue. I haven't had flow issues with any of the red end Squeeze converters. But Sheaffer Balance, NN, Connaisseur, Prelude, all used the same feed - and there were flow issues with some of them. Sometimes I have to replace the feed, sometimes cleaning in a special solution resolves the problem,

 

I used a bulb syringe to force my flush solution mix through the nib/feed/section units (in both directions to be sure) rather than simply squeezing their converters to pull plain water from a glass. After rinsing, I filled them with different inks and I've been writing with them for a few says, just to be sure. How embarrassing! The maligned red-end squeeze converters are innocent. Thanks, Ron!

 

You know, Ron, I think I love you, in a pen-repair-guy kinda way...

 

Um....

[welch]

 

You know, Ron, I think I love you, in a pen-repair-guy kinda way...

 

Just repeating a story: at the last NYC Pen Show, Ron re-sacced an Onoto Penmaster without looking and straightened its clip, all while joking with a nervous barely-teenager who had come to Ron's table with his parents and an old Pelikan 100 but who was almost too bashful to say what he wanted.

[inkstainedruth]

 

Just repeating a story: at the last NYC Pen Show, Ron re-sacced an Onoto Penmaster without looking and straightened its clip, all while joking with a nervous barely-teenager who had come to Ron's table with his parents and an old Pelikan 100 but who was almost too bashful to say what he wanted.

 

That sounds like Ron, all right....

I had him work on a pen for me at some show or other (I think it was the first year I went to the Triangle Pen Show). While he was working on my pen, he had someone come over to talk to him about PCA business, and then some guy had a question about getting something of his repaired, and Robyn was trying to get Ron's attention to talk to the guy about what the guy wanted and to get him onto the waiting list. And all this while, he's working on MY pen, mostly by feel.... I seem to recall it was the 51 Vac I'd found in the wild for $25 US at a little antiques place outside Fairmont, West Virginia, because one the things Ron also did was open up the tines a bit (the nib was an EF and kinda scratchy until he worked on it. That's now the pen I use when I have to do research and take copious notes -- a pen that holds a huge amount of ink and is an EF nib to dole the ink out in a stingy but well-behaved fashion....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Ron Z]

One's mind gets trained in multi-tasking when working in radio. When I started in the 70s, automation was just coming in. In a combo operation (i.e. you were both the talent and engineer), the guy on the air was responsible for everything that went over the air. Getting the next "event" (next item to go on the air) cued up, 3 or 4 events deep if possible, clearing the teletype and getting news ready, maybe recording a commercial during a program, all the while answering the phone and trying to sound intelligent when you opened the mic. It's work that I miss, but live operation is rare today. Most stations are fully automated, voice tracks laid down sometimes days in advance.

[inkstainedruth]

One's mind gets trained in multi-tasking when working in radio. When I started in the 70s, automation was just coming in. In a combo operation (i.e. you were both the talent and engineer), the guy on the air was responsible for everything that went over the air. Getting the next "event" (next item to go on the air) cued up, 3 or 4 events deep if possible, clearing the teletype and getting news ready, maybe recording a commercial during a program, all the while answering the phone and trying to sound intelligent when you opened the mic. It's work that I miss, but live operation is rare today. Most stations are fully automated, voice tracks laid down sometimes days in advance.

 

And what's worse is that so many stations now are pigeonholed into "formats" by the parent companies, who I think hand the playlists over to the DJs. I really miss the station in NYC I listened to in high school and over the summers in college. Got into an argument with a DJ in a club as to whether they actually HAD a playlist, because it sure seemed as if they played whatever the heck they wanted to whenever the heck they were in the mood. He said "No, they have a playlist -- EVERY station has a playlist. It's just that THEY have a BIGGER playlist...." Sadly, I found out last Thanksgiving that a few years ago they switched formats and are now "Adult Contemporary" (it used to be "AOR", or what is now depressingly called "Classic Rock" -- but back in the 70s and 80s it was just "FM radio" -- as opposed to AM radio which were mostly Top 40 stations). I'm not entirely sure what constitutes "Adult Contemporary" -- but I'm betting it does NOT include The Rolling Stones, The Doors, Love or an entire weekend of just Beatles music (including German language recordings of some of their early singles). Nor would it likely include a lot of what would nowadays probably be called "Prog Rock". And they CERTAINLY would not be playing some of the obscure stuff that I learned about from listening to WNEW-FM in their heyday (the closest equivalent I've found is the Deep Tracks station on SiriusXM -- but one of the DJs there from about a dozen years ago was the brother of WNEW-FM's program director....

People keep telling me about Pandora. But the only way I'd hear some of the really weird stuff I like is to set up my own Pandora channel, and that sounds like too much of a PITA. Just easier to track down CDs as I can and throw them onto the car stereo instead, since I always found I got more bang for my buck on buying LPs rather than singles: "Hey, I really liked that song. and I bet that the rest of the album can't TOTALLY suck...." -- and in the case of one album I got my brother to get me, I thought it was worth getting for the one song that got airplay, even if the rest of the thing DID suck -- which it mostly doesn't (except for what I can only describe as "the obligatory 60s 'drug' song -- every album had to have one..." ).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Ron Z]

DJ? I have news for you. The DJ that sits in the studio/control room running things is for the large part, a thing of the past. Some things are live, but most of it is not, except perhaps in some stations in major markets. Even the small network I worked for in Syracuse only has a live body in the studio from something like 4-7 in the afternoon, and a few hours Saturday and Sunday morning. Even the morning guy does his show from home 90 minutes to the south.

 

I was in the Clear Channel AKA I Heart Radio studios in Boardman, OH 3, maybe 4 years ago. Seven radio stations in the building, and only one was manned and live. The rest were full automation, with DJs voice tracked, and even commercials produced in another market and sent by FTP to the local servers. Even the news room complete with desks with mics was empty. Most of the people in the building were office staff, a few sales people, and the engineers. Many stations don't even have an office - just a transmitter shack at the tower. K-Love and Air1 are satellite fed with what is called a studio waver so no "meaningful presence" in the community required, meaning no office or staff.

 

Anyway, that's hijacking the thread.... not that there is a lot to say about Sheaffer converters, other than grab them when you see them, because I don't think that Cross is having any more made.