Thursday 17 September 2009

(9) Thanks, No Thanks!

Thanks
Ravens March - http://dirck.delint.ca/Snorkel%20resac.html

FPN posters discussing making a blind cap seal - http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=119838&hl=snorkel

FPN posters discussing snorkel repair - http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=10770&hl=snorkel+repair

Nathan Tardiff - http://www.enter-net.de/auktion/artikel/snorkel4_e.htm

Pendemonium - http://www.pendemonium.com/penrepair.htm#supplies

Everyone at FPN who answered my endless questions about Snorkels, Talc. &c.

Hilsedwards for encouraging me to write this.

Eckiethump for the pure talc, impossible to get a hold of – no joy even ordering in from abroad!

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No Thanks
Wierd date ordering on Blogger.

(8) Checking the new ink capacity

Checking the new ink capacity
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To be sure the new plumbing was working as it should, I filled the pen, then emptied it into the upturned cap of the ink bottle.

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...Then I used an inkjet syringe to suck up & measure the pen’s expelled ink – about 0.8ml.
I haven't shellaced the barrel threads yet, in case anything goes wrong over the next couple of days testing and use.

(7) Changing the seals & regreasing

Changing the seals
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I changed the seals before the ink sac, because of my impatience getting supplies together. Thankfully, there’s loads of great info on the net on how to do this, so there were no problems. Extend the plunger tube, unscrew the barrel, put a long flat head screwdriver up the plunger tube, and unscrew to remove the blind cap. Push the plunger tube into the barrel and it pops out. Here’s a photo of all the bits. 

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I measured the blind cap screw for future reference, because it’s quite hard to see what size screwdriver will fit it while inside the plunger tube.The head of the screw is about 4mm long.

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Here’s the barrel seal, it just fits in a groove inside the barrel. The blind cap seal itself was in good shape so I didn’t mess with it.

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At the other end of the pen, the point seal came out after unscrewing the nib unit and grip. I poked the old seal out from the back.

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My old seal had the raised nipple facing into the pen, so that’s how I fit the fresh one.

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Tamping down the point seal with the back end of a screwdriver.

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Before putting it all back together, a wee dab of silicon grease on the plunger tube, sac protector threads, spring, and a little on the snorkel tube, away from the feed slits.

(6) Putting the Snorkel assembly back together

Putting the Snorkel assembly back together
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Powdering the new sac with pure talc, kindly donated by eckiethump.

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Because I hadn’t put the snorkel tube back into place, I put my thumb over the rubber bung, then put the sac into the bottle of talc and turned it around for a good coat without it flying everywhere.

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Sac and rubber bung in protector, heating to soften the rubber bung before insertion.

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I heated the rubber bung a little, then put the snorkel tube back in. It took a few adjustments to position it perfectly, heating very briefly each time – I reassembled the pen to make sure it was just so. This meant taking the snorkel assembly in and out of the nib unit a couple of times, so ideally, I should have changed the ink sac *before* changing the seals. You live and learn!

(5) Cutting and fitting the new ink sac

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This is the best method I could come up with for fitting the sac to the rubber bung. To stop it moving about, I trapped the sac in the pages of this research methods book (the same one I had been trapped in all summer, hohoho).

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Then I introduced the eye of a needle to the top of the sac entrance.

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This is a bit awkward to describe. I placed the bottom edge of the rubber bung ridge into the bottom of the sac entrance, and swung it upwards towards the needle, whilst withdrawing the needle.

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Ta-da! The sac in place.

Cutting the new sac to size
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Measure twice, cut once. I popped the new sac into the protector and measured the excess. I needed it to be about 6 cm long.

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Pretty close!

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Still no shellac, I compared the cut sac & bung against the protector. It looks okay!

Shellacing the new ink sac to the rubber bung
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I abandoned the applicator brush in favour or first wetting the lip of the bottle, then lightly rolling the rubber bung along its edge. Sorry about the blur!

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I used the book & needle method to pop the ink sac into place. I couldn’t get pure talc for a while, so the shellac had days to dry.

(4) Making an ink sac spreader

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Before cutting the new sac to size, I had a few shots at attaching it to the rubber bung (without shellac). This is all new to me and I found it pretty fiddly and difficult.

Making a Sac Spreader
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I don’t have a sac spreader, but copying the design of the one on sale at pendemonium, I had a go making one. This section is one of those tangents you can probably skip reading, because it turned out to be a fruitless enterprise!

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Here’s a (sort of) straightened out paperclip.

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A twist in the middle…

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Twist again…

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More twists…

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Last twists…

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The finished sac spreader. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the ink sac on the rubber bung using this at all, not once. Maybe the genuine article is better!

(3) Shellac practise on a rollerball pen

Practise run shellacing the screw threads on a rollerball
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While waiting for the sac to dry, I started playing with the shellac. I bought this little 10ml bottle of “High Quality, Shellac Ink Sac Cement” on eBay, the seller described it as having “a release temperature of 140 degrees F” [60 degrees celsius] suitable for securing sections to barrels. To see how much is needed, drying time, strength, ease of removal &c., I wanted to try it out on the threads of this roller ball.

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The bottle top has this applicator brush attached to it, which is a bit too big to be honest. It could do with about half the number of bristles. Oh and it looks & smells like a cheap cocktail.

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A light coat was a tad too much, the shellac got past the threads. I’m glad I did this dummy run before inflicting this kind of treatment on the Snorkel! I put it aside for 30 minutes.

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Here’s a shot showing the roller pen and snorkel nib section. Although the thread sizes are different, the diameter is about the same. I decided I’d only apply the shellac to the top half of the snorkel’s threads come the time, to lower the chance of shellac creeping past the threads (as happened to the roller pen). I didn’t want it super strong, just enough so that it doesn’t unscrew as the snorkel tube is extended.

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After half an hour, I could see the shellac was still wet through the transparent plastic!

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It felt pretty solid after another 30 minutes.

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I got the hairdryer out and heated up the threaded section. It came apart easily after a short time heating. Satisfied that it would be fine to use on the snorkel’s threads, I figured the new sac would be dry enough and stopped faffing around :)

(2) Preparing a new Ink Sac

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The new ink sac
Here’s the new sac. I opted for the standard, non-thin-walled type. It’s quite a lot longer than the old one, so needed to be cut shorter. But how much? I only had the one replacement.

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The old ink sac was about 5.9cm long. A little was still stuck to the rubber bung, around 3mm. Start-Run-Calc, I needed the new sac to be around 6.2cm long.

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This is the new ink sac, I wanted a dry run fitting it to the rubber bung before cutting it to size and shellacing. There was a kind of dust or powder inside that I couldn’t photograph. Is this normal? I’ve never fitted an ink sac before and haven’t come across anything about powder inside the ink sac. I decided to clean it out in case it clogged up the pen’s feed on reassembly.

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I flushed the new sac in water. I couldn’t take a photo and squeeze the sac at the same time, but by bringing up water and then squeezing it out, a heck of a lot of powdery stuff came out of the sac. I’m glad this wasn’t in the pen for first inking.

(1) Disassembly

Disassembly
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Here is my Snorkel in all its glory. Maybe a bit staid to some, to me this pen has arresting looks. Nothing screams ‘the jet age’ more than that steel cap with its bold striations. When I made my bid, it was a choice between a second hand, engraved snorkel or bidding high and early for a NOS pen & pencil set auction ending 20 minutes before my last exam. As it was, I got the used one.

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As you can see, this was a pretty old pen. The nib unit and barrel started unscrewing the first time I extended the snorkel – which moved very stiffly. Whatever shellac or section sealant was used to secure it had turned to dust, just like my Targa. I thought the snorkel unit was fine when I bought it, but it soon ran out of ink!  On disassembly, the spring stayed in the barrel, but to my relief there was no corrosion either on the spring or the sac protector.

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Here’s the snorkel assembly; the snorkel tube, and the sack protector. I thought I was being clever wrapping electrical tape at the end of the tube, to mark how far the tube extends into the sac protector. Of course, it slid off as soon as I picked it up after this photo was taken!

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Abandoning the electrical tape idea, I set the snorkel assembly against a ruler. The snorkel tube extends a little over 4 cm from the sac protector (for my pen, anyway).

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This photo shows how the top slit of the snorkel tube is positioned more or less in alignment with the the bottom edge of one of the key in the sac protector.

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There’s a few divergent views on internet guides how to take the snorkel assembly apart. De-crimp the metal with a dental pick some say. Use heat say others. This was an easy decision for me; the metal is catwalk model thin, and I don’t have a dental pick. I took my pens out of their stand, plonked the snorkel assembly in it, and turned on this hairdryer.

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After a short heating session I gave a cautious pull on the snorkel tube. This resulted in sore fingertips from the heat (never done this before), and the snorkel tube yanking clean out of the assembly. I will admit to a school-girlish shriek of dismay at this point.

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I ploughed on for the sake of science and measured the accidentally extracted snorkel. I’ve read somewhere that the secondary feed has to extend from the snorkel tube into the sac somewhat to ensure proper ink flow. Mine protudes about a millimetre.

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Scrolling through my multitude of bookmarks on the subject of snorkel servicing, I reckoned it might have been a blessing that the tube came out on its own. Some advised using a metal tube inserted at the top sac protector hole to push out the rubber bung at the bottom of the sac protector, of a specific diameter, to avoid damaging the secondary feed protruding from the snorkel tube. As this was no longer an issue, and I don’t have such a tube, I resumed heating the sac protector with the hairdryer.

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Here’s a shot of a hot sac protector and a long shank screwdriver I introduced to the hole in the top of the sac protector to persuade the rubber bung to extricate itself. I wrapped some electrical tape on the head of the screwdriver to avoid piercing the bung, instead of bending the head over (I didn’t want to ruin this screwdriver). The thought occurred to me much later that a small allen key might have been better, because the electrical tape kept coming off the screwdriver and getting lodged inside the sac protector.

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I’d never done this before and found the results of the hairdryer remarkable. Heat had a very great influence on this bung coming out. Cold, it felt like hard plastic. Hot – 10 seconds under the hairdryer – the bung felt like malleable rubber and I was able to push the bung out with no brute force whatsoever!

I was really happy about this, beforehand I was reticent and quite sceptical of both my ability and the really thin metal to withstand crimping and decrimping over years of future sac replacement. Now it appears that, at least for this snorkel, I’ll never have to stress the steel. This shaky photo shows the bung halfway out. As the bung cooled during the photo being taken, it reverted to its previous hardness and would not budge till warmed up again.

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The old ink sac remained inside the sac protector. I thought I had the perfect tool to light this photo, a little light bulb wired up to a 9 volt battery that I couldn’t find during my Targa repair. I found it this time around, but the photo still isn’t that clear! I pushed an earbud (q-tip) with one cotton bud cut off at an angle between the sac protector and the sac, and then rotated the sac protector around the earbud to loosen the old sac from the interior walls of the protector.

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Then I gave up on the earbud and pulled the sac out with a little pair of tweezers. I had read that this can be a real problem with old ink sacs and was surprised this one came out with no fuss. The photo shows an exploded view of the sac protector and its innards.

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Here’s a close up of the old sac. This is my first sac change and a weird one for me. The first 1.5 cm of the sac is cracked, hard, and strangely discoloured. Then it’s flexible and black between the 1.5 and 2.5 cm marks. Then from the 2.5 to 4cm marks, it’s hard, cracked, and strangely discoloured again. From 4cm to 6cm, where the sac is shellacked to the rubber bung, it’s flexible and black again. What witchery is afoot here? Vade retro, Satan!