I Finally Made A Piston Filler.... Only Took 11 Years

[jj9ball]

Here is my first ever piston filler. I have been making fountain pens for the better part of 11 years and have been making them from scratch for the last 8. I have always wanted to start making piston fillers but never wanted to take the time to go through all the design, fitting, mistakes, failures, headaches, and on and on that it would take to produce one. This pen took me about 12 hours to make (compared to my normal 3 or so). I have 2 extra piston mechanisms, 1 extra housing, 1 extra section, and 2 extra knobs (all mistakes). My bench looks like a pen part graveyard. I settled on 1/4 x 20 threads for the mechanism and I realize and knew before I did them that they are too fine. I was more worried about proving my concept than refining it from the start. I have to thank jalbert who has posted some amazing work on here over the years. This design is largely based on one he posted about 4 years ago. The pen came out a bit heavy at 60 grams, but its great news for me because its my new everyday carry and I LOVE heavy pens. I could've just as easily made the parts from aluminum but I do like the weight so here we are. The mechanism itself is fairly straight forward consisting of only 3 parts - a housing and knob assembly, a captive screw held on the bottom by an oring, and a piston mechanism. I am really only patting myself on the back for one thing and that is the knurl job. This is the first time I have gotten knurls to come out where they didn't look like someone ran them over with a car on a gravel driveway. I also incorporated rings for the first time on this pen. I finally got a disc cutter and am loving the idea of making my own rings from nickel silver. Before anyone says anything I know I mixed metals by combining brass internals with silver externals. I would love to hear everyone's opinion. I feel like I just climbed over a really big hill in my penmaking journey. Thanks for looking.

[Inspector]

I tip my hat to you. Quite and accomplishment!

 

Pete

[Shaggy]

Gorgeous pen! I love that blue.

[Holon]

Amazing pen! Nice acrlylic, but the piston mechanism is gorgeous.

[Aditkamath26]

Amazing job! I love the blue material. I've got a question though. Wouldn't ink corrode this piston? It looks like brass to me and isn't that a concern?

[jj9ball]

Amazing job! I love the blue material. I've got a question though. Wouldn't ink corrode this piston? It looks like brass to me and isn't that a concern?

It is now that its been brought up by you and a couple of other people. The good news is that this is my new everyday carry pen. I plan on testing both how tight the fit on the piston is and if it leaks as well as how durable the materials are and if they interact with the ink. I have some Delrin coming that I plan to use on my next build. This should hold up a little better to the ink. The biggest thing I think I might keep metal is the coupling screw that I made for the top of the pen. If I made this from acrylic there is a good chance it will crack and break. The outside is around .480 and the inside is .375 meaning the wall thickness is really only about .047 or just over 1mm... pretty flimsy if you use plastic. So I will probably stick with some sort of metal for that part and will try plastic for the rest. Thank you very much for the feedback. I appreciate it.

[jj9ball]

Amazing pen! Nice acrlylic, but the piston mechanism is gorgeous.

Thanks a bunch I was happiest with the outcome of the metal parts.

[jj9ball]

I tip my hat to you. Quite and accomplishment!

 

Pete

 

 

Gorgeous pen! I love that blue.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

[SoulSamurai]

The pen looks lovely, and the piston looks perfect!