What's Up At Christof's

[Azuniga]

C.

Congratulations !

 

Once you start writing with an UHU you will be very pleased... it is a wonderful pen and the two step mechanism is for me among the very best. I would have loved to add some pictures including a Nobel (all black) and there are also some tortoiseshell really beautiful... but in a few minutes I am flying to Madrid for the pen show in a few days... when I am back I will add those pictures.

 

Regards

[christof]

The restoration has been finished. Successfully!

 

 

And here's a picture of the process:

 

 

To remove the mechanics properly, I had to build a special tool:

 

 

Unfortunately, the two step mechanism can't be photographed. It's hidden in the blind cap...

 

 

But I'll try to do a quick sketch when I find the time...

 

C.

Edited November 12, 2015 by christof

[markiv]

Beautiful pen - resourceful restorer

[christof]

Finally found a matching box and ballpoint pen to my first generation Lamy 2000 fountain pen! FPN is still a good place for great finds and deals...

 

(...even though you have to look very close between all this Italian LE stuff which is flooding the classifieds currently and which definitely doesn't match my taste.)

 

 

 

C.

Edited November 14, 2015 by christof

[christof]

...and here comes the promised sketch of the UHU two step mechanism:

 

 

While unscrewing the blind cap, a hidden thread engages at the piston rod after few turns. Only then, the piston rod is firmly connected to the turning knob and the piston gets moved.

 

Nice. I like that.

 

C.

 

PS: now at the classifieds...https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/classifieds/item/36789-uhu-vintage-german-fountain-pen-ca-1950/

Edited November 16, 2015 by christof

[fountainbel]

...and here comes the promised sketch of the UHU two step mechanism:

 

 

While unscrewing the blind cap, a hidden thread engages at the piston rod after few turns. Only then, the piston rod is firmly connected to the turning knob and the piston gets moved.

 

Nice. I like that.

 

C.

 

PS: now at the classifieds...https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/classifieds/item/36789-uhu-vintage-german-fountain-pen-ca-1950/

Well done Christoph !

UHU made excellent pens, surely comparable in quality with Montblanc, Soennecken and Pelikan

The system on the early- larger- UHU piston fillers featured also a filling knob engagement system but was much more complicated.

See the attached sketch of a pen with a broken barrel I've repaired.

I've also attached a picture of my UHU pens

Best regards, Francis

http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h89/fountainbel/Repaired%20Vintage%20fountain%20pens/P1000467.jpg

 

http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h89/fountainbel/Repaired%20Vintage%20fountain%20pens/P1000469.jpg

[christof]

Thank you Francis.

 

Difficult to understand why these pens are that complicated designed....(I am not sure about if I completely understand your drawing. But that's not the problem of the drawing...)

I absolutely agree with you that the quality of UHU is equal with Pelikan, Soennecken and MB.

You have to know that I like engineering like that, but honestly, I can't see any reasonable reason for mechanisms like that.

For simple minds like me, Pelikan did it best: only few parts, no tools needed for disassembling and no metal parts (which could corrode). But this is just my own private opinion.

 

BTW: You have a really nice collection of UHU. Congrats. The star is of course the "Bernstein" Noblesse! What a pen! But the green pen on top looks completely different than the others...?

 

Thank you for sharing this with us.

 

C.

[christof]

And, to round off the topic of UHU, I think it should be mentioned here (al least for the non German speaking) that UHU ist the German name for the "Eurasian eagle-owl", the biggest owl of all.

So, what we have is another bird, besides Pelikan, Swan, IBIS etc...

 

If you want more informations, have a look at here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_eagle-owl

 

 

C.

[fountainbel]

Thank you Francis.

 

Difficult to understand why these pens are that complicated designed....(I am not sure about if I completely understand your drawing. But that's not the problem of the drawing...)

I absolutely agree with you that the quality of UHU is equal with Pelikan, Soennecken and MB.

You have to know that I like engineering like that, but honestly, I can't see any reasonable reason for mechanisms like that.

For simple minds like me, Pelikan did it best: only few parts, no tools needed for disassembling and no metal parts (which could corrode). But this is just my own private opinion.

 

BTW: You have a really nice collection of UHU. Congrats. The star is of course the "Bernstein" Noblesse! What a pen! But the green pen on top looks completely different than the others...?

 

Thank you for sharing this with us.

 

C.

Hi Cristof,

I fully agree the early UHU piston mechanism is rather complex.

UHU most probably wanted to avoid any infringements with the Pelikan patents.

So they avoided using Pelikan's differential piston movement - fine pitch threading in the filling knob creating fast displacement of the piston in combination with large pitch threads on the piston spindle.

At that time most filling systems also used a loose "screw-on"blind cap, and i expect UHU also wanted a solution featuring a fixed blind cap.

This - most probably- brought them to this complex design.

On their later piston fillers - like the Elite you have - the system was simplified although the basic principle remained.

FYI, the pen of top on my picture is not a UHU, sorry for the confusion I've caused ….

Francis

[FredRydr]

Christof,

 

I've been away from your thread for some time. I'm blown away by your photos, and by Francis's schematic drawing (I failed to pry a drawing from him years ago).

 

Fred

[christof]

Thank you Fred - always nice to hear from you.

c.

[christof]

Have I already mentioned how happy I am with my current photo setup?

Yesterday evening I decided spontaneously to take a picture. I took the pen, the SD-card and went upstairs to the studio. 5 minutes later the picture has been uploaded to the Ipad, cropped in "snapseed" (a fantastic and free photo processing app) and uploaded to flickr. This took all in all about 10 minutes. Voilà:

C.

[tmenyc]

Christof,

 

Has your setup changed significantly? What are you using now? I'm using LED lighting here at the office as a transition from tungsten to speedlight, in a lightbox like yours. Curious to know what's changed with your setup.

 

best,

 

 

Tim

[christof]

Tim

There has nothing changed. Still the same old box, speedlight and diffusor. Even the same old D80.

That's why I am so happy!

C.

[christof]

Lately, I had to clean up the mess on my working space at the office and stumbled over this:

 

 

Probably exactly 6 years of writing.

 

C.

Edited November 25, 2015 by christof

[clear1]

I took the pen, the SD-card and went upstairs to the studio. 5 minutes later the picture has been uploaded to the Ipad,

 

Wow, how did this part done? D80 to ipad directly?

[christof]

 

Wow, how did this part done? D80 to ipad directly?

 

This way:

 

http://www.gadgetreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Apple-Lightning-SD-Card.jpg

[clear1]

 

This way:

 

Oh, wow. I had no idea there was such a thing.

 

World changes so fast.. Thank you!!

[Dickkooty2]

 

Oh, wow. I had no idea there was such a thing.

 

World changes so fast.. Thank you!!

He may be a US comic strip writer/science explainer, but Randall Munroe has a dedicated following.

 

He has a book out today that could include Christof's "This way" photo as a minimalist explanation of a quick upload.

 

http://xkcd.com/thing-explainer/

 

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj157/dick168/ThingExplainerCover_zps3dw1hsqt.png

 

I just sent a copy to my PhD computer scientist/architect son in the hopes of better intra-family communications!

[christof]

 

 

He has a book out today that could include Christof's "This way" photo as a minimalist explanation of a quick upload.

 

 

I should have mentioned that it's not my picture. It's loaned from here: http://gadget492.rssing.com/chan-10746734/all_p1.html

 

C.