Pilot Crystal Demonstrator, eyedropper?

[pepe]

Hi, Dear FPN´ers,

 

I bought by Speerbob a Pilot Crystal demonstrator.

 

Perhaps you can help me with my question.

 

Could this pen work also as an eyedropper pen? Because it has two threads in the barrel, it seems you can remove the converter and inject ink direct from the upper thread.

 

Am I right?

 

Thank you for any advice.

 

José

[donwinn]

If you want to do this, you will need to seal the threads at the barrel tip as well as where the section screws onto the barrel. I did it to one I got from Bob some time back, and it worked well, after I sealed both sets of threads with silicone grease. You could probably use silicone sealant for the barrel tip, but why complicate things?

 

The only issue is the blessing and the curse. The blessing is you can see exactly how much ink you have in the pen. The curse is that it is difficult, if not impossible, to remove the last of the ink, if you desire to change color of ink. Same issue with an opaque pen, but with an opaque pen, you don't have to look at the mess. The pen has that nice, soft, fine nib, with a touch of flex, which lends itself well to eyedropper use.

 

Donnie

[Dillo]

Hi,

 

I would advise you to be careful because the pens sometimes grow cracks. To use this as an eyedropper, you mush seal the end of the pen, with silicone grease or other ink-tight seal. Then you fill the barrel, use silicone grease, and screw it on.

 

Dillon

[enricof]

Going to receive my first EDs.

 

May be a silly question, but where do you find silicone grease?

 

I was thinking about that very thin silicone tape (rolled like office adhesive tape, used to seal water threads).

 

Thanks - Enrico

 

Hi,

 

I would advise you to be careful because the pens sometimes grow cracks. To use this as an eyedropper, you mush seal the end of the pen, with silicone grease or other ink-tight seal. Then you fill the barrel, use silicone grease, and screw it on.

 

Dillon

[fatehbajwa]

Try a scuba diving/marine supplies shop online or otherwise.

[bedlam]

OR go to any of the pen stores that also have repair supplies, Pendemomium comes to mind.

 

Buying from a pen specialty supplier can be a lot easier than the weird looks you get when buying stuff made for one thing and using it for something else altogether, even though it may be the exact same product. For example, when I was looking for spark plug pliers to use as section pliers and the ones they had at the local auto store were cheap with thin arms and plastic jaws, they wanted to know why my car project was so prissy that their pliers wouldn't do. I think if I had told them I wasn't working on a car but a fountain pen they would have socked me. Or laughed real loud and pointed and that might have been worse.

Edited September 13, 2008 by bedlam

[fountainbel]

What about installing a thin section O ring behind the barrel blind cap to seal it ?

This is a permanent solution, no need to apply silicone grease there

Emptying the pen completely will be easy after unscrewing the blind cap & blowing on the barrel (over the ink bottle !)

Francis

[Alexei]

You can definitely turn these pens into eye droppers. I recently converted 3 of them over the period of a month and am so far pleased with the results. The only thing that came up was a few minutes ago, a small drop of ink started forming at the nib and eventually ended up on the paper. This happened twice and I figured that some air was getting into the barrel so I removed the nib/feed section and re-greased the threads and that seemed to fix the problem.

 

If you are going to use silicone grease, notice there are 2 sets of threads. The main section is the nib/feed and body connection, and the second is at the end of the barrel (blind cap). I'm not sure why they made that part screw off; it seems vestigial to me, but those threads should be greased as well. You should be able to fill the barrel to almost 3/4 capacity. Last week, I got the bright idea I might be able to fill it almost entirely by unscrewing the blind cap to inject more ink into it with a syringe (so it wasn't vestigial at all!), but when I attempted this I couldn't figure out why the barrel wasn't filling?! Then I noticed all of the ink that was flowing freely out of the nib and collecting in the cap! So I think the only way to fill the pen is by unscrewing the nib feed section...

 

You can keep the aerometric converters on the side so that you can use them when you have to flush out the pen if you don't have a bulb syringe to do this.

 

I have to look into O-rings as a more permanent solution to the conversion. I remember looking for them online, but when I tried a search, there were hundreds of hits, so I got overwhelmed and gave up. There must be a model number or some reference to which would be suitable for the task. Does anyone know what I should use?

Edited September 18, 2008 by Alexei

[fountainbel]

Hi Alexei,

O rings are specified by their inner diameter & the section diameter of the rubber profile.

An O ring having an inner diameter of 6mm and a rubber profile section diameter of 1mm is specified : O ring 6x1.

The inner diameter should fit tight on the male thread, so when the male thread of your pen is f.e. 6.5 mm, you should install an O ring having an inner diameter of 6.0 mm.

I would suggest to limit the section diameter to1mm, so the O ring will not bulge out when tightening the blind cap.

I can determine a suitable O ring for you if you specify the diameter of the male thread;

Please also specify where you live, so I can look alternatively for an O ring in inch or millimeter.

Francis

 

 

 

I have to look into O-rings as a more permanent solution to the conversion. I remember looking for them online, but when I tried a search, there were hundreds of hits, so I got overwhelmed and gave up. There must be a model number or some reference to which would be suitable for the task. Does anyone know what I should use?