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Sheaffer Snorkel Goes Dry Quickly


Jaywalker

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My Sheaffer Snorkel seems to hold little more ink than it would if I were dipping the nib into the bottle. Is this a commonly seen issue?

 

Typically, I'd extend the snorkel until the "click," then drive the piston down one time, pause and extract and retract. Last time I drove the piston down, saw bubble, and paused, then repeated three more times. I saw bubbles each time, but it still dried out quickly.

 

Advice, please?

 

Edited to add: I just redid it, but this time I kept much of the nib under the ink. I still saw bubbles at each repetition. Does that mean I have a leak somewhere?

Edited by Jaywalker
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Snorkels have probably the most complex of filling mechanisms invented so far. There are also a couple of gasket seals, which if worn, will prevent the sac from filling well. The mechanism relies on getting a good vacuum to draw up the ink. Generally you should be able to get around 0.8 to 0.9 ml of ink in a fill. Whilst not huge, this should write a fair while.

 

You may want to look at getting the snorkel fully serviced, not just the sac, but all the seals as well. Or try it yourself, there are kits available on Ebay, and plenty of information on doing the servicing, but you do need a good level of manual dexterity!

Cheers,

Effrafax.

 

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Thank you. I knew something was wrong when I saw bubbles where/when I shouldn't. The pen has worked for seven years without issue so I will have it refurbished. I've contacted Main Street Pens.

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For Touchdown and Snorkel, the vacuum is developed solely by the sac expanding. The sac is compressed by the air pressure around it when driving the plunger down -- at the end of the stroke a hole or ridge lets the air /out/, letting the sac expand. Continual air bubbles would seem to indicated a hole in the sac, so instead of compressing the air just flows through (one would expect bubbles on the first plunge as the sac is compressed). And with no compression, there would be no expansion to draw ink into the sac.

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yeah sac has holed or its fossilised solid

 

don't go submerging the nib whilst activating the plunger when the sac is bad, you'll end up getting moisture into the chamber with steel parts = bad

 

these days I prefer to test Snorks by extracting the sac assembly then applying vacuum at the snork tube. You'll see the rubber shrinking thru the hole at the end. Easiest way to check if sac is still functional before inking.

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don't go submerging the nib whilst activating the plunger when the sac is bad, you'll end up getting moisture into the chamber with steel parts = bad

Thanks. Didn't know that.

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  • 3 months later...

In order to complete this topic, I'll bring it up to date.

 

I sent the Sheaffer to Ron Zorn at Main Street Pens for overhaul and received it back yesterday. It has a new PVC sac and some other minor fixes. Ron advises allowing the pen five seconds to fill because of the PVC qualities. It seems to work fine now.

 

I'll add one other item of interest. When Ron first responded to my email he suggested removing the nib and separating the helical spring so that the ingested ink wouldn't rust it. Apparently, the original springs are better than replacements, so it's worth extra effort to protect them.

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