With a lever-fill pen, you can
tell you need a new sac if it's at all
difficult to lift the lever (and don't try too hard-- as I said
elsewhere
breaking the lever is
extremely bad business) or if there's any kind of crunchy or rattling
noises from
inside the pen. A button-fill or crescent-fill pen will have similar stiffness and
noisemaking issues.
The first thing to do is to pull the section free of the barrel, and
here is the trick-- without harming the barrel. Frequently
this is not a big problem, as many sections are just simple
friction-fits and it's not much more of a challenge than uncorking a
sparkling beverage to get it free. The best action is to pull
firmly away from the barrel, with a very little
rocking motion to help
"walk" the section out of place. Sometimes it is necessary to
soak the pen in very slightly soapy water, but don't cover more than
the section and the joint, but be careful with this--
there are some very old and very pretty pens made with a
milk-based plastic (honest!) which does not enjoy a soak, and will
be irrevocably
damaged by long immersion. Also, use only cool water as there
are old plastics and ink components which can react poorly to heat.
...unless of course the section is fixed in place, in which case the
adhesive is usually released by judiciously applied heat.
However, some of these prefer a dry-heat, as from a
heat gun (in the old days, a skilled man used an alcohol lamp--YIKE!),
while others prefer a moist heat. Some are made of celluloid,
which will burn quite fiercely if it ignites. Worried yet?
Some firmly stuck sections may need a set of special pliers
to get them loose, although a lot of pen fanciers view these as
a last resort, due to the danger of applying too much pressure and
smashing the section to powder. Even if it remains in large,
non-powdery fragments, it doesn't leave much of a useful pen.
Caution!
Once the section is free, if fate is kind the mummified sac will drop
out easily. It may be stuck to the inside of the pen by the
last of the ink it had in it, or rust, or other informal
adhesives. It is well to get this all out, as it both takes
up space in the pen (reducing space for ink) and generally has nasty
sharp edges (not good for a new sac). These have to be worked
free with tools that won't scrape up the inside of the
barrel. Generally, the pressure bar should be taken out and
given a good cleaning and inspection.
99% of them are, if not good as new, still in fine shape for their
intended function.
There will usually be some chunks of sac stuck to the inner end of the
section, which is called the nipple (younger readers may take a moment
to giggle). These need to be cleaned off to provide the new
sac a good surface to stick to. When possible, I stick to my
own thumb-nail as a tool for clearing these bits off as a way of
avoiding damage, but sometimes a small knife is required. If
so, work from the joint-end of the nipple. Some also
suggest a flat file as means of cleaning off the nipple.
However you approach it, make sure the material removed is old sac and
not nipple.
Once things are cleaned out, you need to get a new sac of the
appropriate size. If several are on hand, you can just guess
at it by sliding several in to see which has the best
diameter. There is a fairly comprehensive chart on this site.
Don't worry about the slightly esoteric
numbers, as anyone you might order the parts from will have them
sorted by the same system. There is some debate whether one
should use rubber or silicon sacs-- the former are both traditional and
more pliable (less stress on filler mechanisms), but the latter is
essentially a lifetime material and doesn't contain sulfur to discolour
vintage plastics. I am in the silicon camp myself, having a
horror of ambered pens, but I wouldn't insist that I'm right.
The sac is stuck to the nipple with either orange shellac or rubber
cement. The cement is in all honesty a jury-rig measure-- it
works, but in a limited way. Silicon sacs prefer shellac, and
it's what I use. I actually ordered mine in as part of a load
of different supplies from a pen-part specialist, but one can get the
right stuff at a wood-work supplier's, where the smallest quantity
available will be about a seventy-year supply for this
purpose. Do not, by the way, think, "Oh, that sac's on plenty
tight. I don't need to stick it down." Plenty tight is not
an equivalent to water tight, and without
the latter you'll get ink in your pocket if
you manage to get it in the pen at all.
Whichever adhesive is chosen, be cautious in application so as to not
get any into the space above the feed-- if ink, which is supposed to be
there, can clog a feed, imagine the trouble any kind
of stickum can
cause. Have a look at the image to the right....
Once the sac is in place, leave it alone to set
for at least a
half-hour (overnight is ideal). Before I go on I usually dip
the point of the pen in water and give the sac a squeeze, just to make
sure it's
taking in fluid and keeping it in place. A little bit of
talcum or graphite powder is usually applied to the outside of
the sac
to make sure everything moves together freely. Graphite is
messy but easy to find at hardware and automotive stores-- it's used as
a lock lubricant. Talc is emphatically not
available at drugstores-- there you find materials very like talc, but
they
almost always have fragrances and oils added which can damage either rubber
or old plastics, and sometimes are based on corn starch which
turns to goo if it gets wet. It may be available at billiards
suppliers, and can certainly be found at the specialist pen suppliers
in the
links. Talc is the traditional preference.
After powdering the sac, return the section (and any mechanisms you
might have taken out) to the barrel. Most pen-makers tried to
align the lever with the top of the nib-- you can do the same.
