Eyedropper Lamy Safari?!

[punchy71]

I was thinking of getting a Lamy Safari and I was under the impression that they take either a cartridge or a converter, but then I ran across

on YouTube that shows an "Eyedropper Lamy Safari"! I didn't know Lamy made an Eyedropper version of the Safari? I would much rather have the Eyedropper version if they do. Can anyone explain this?

 

Thank you

[Brian C]

He turned a regular cartridge fill Safari into an eyedropper. He's wacky like that. He'll post soon to explain i'd wager.

[txinsk]

The eyedropper conversion is easy to do, the only issue I see is that the Safari has the 2 ink windows which are huge holes in the pen body. With the converter this is not a problem, as an eyedropper this makes for a comically messy scene. How did he plug them?

 

Rick

[uzkntuocmw]

The rollerball body doesn't have the holes.

[JonSzanto]

IIRC, the only way to do this is to order a new barrel for a rollerball model from Lamy, and use that with the fountain pen section and nib, as the rollerball barrel tube doesn't have the 'ink window' openings. I did look at one time, and think they were about $20 from the US distributor, which immediately put an end to my interest in that.

 

If the holes were small there are a few clever ways to seal them up (which I've done with some Hero pens) but these are way too big.

[Aysedasi]

At the risk of making myself out for a fool, why would anyone want to bother.........?

[JonSzanto]

At the risk of making myself out for a fool, why would anyone want to bother.........?

Hey, it's a fair question! Since I considered doing it for a moment, I'll tell you why:

 

The only Lamy I got was a Vista, which is the same pen in clear acrylic, which by any other definition would be a demonstrator. I really like the way my ink looks in the clear barrel of my TWSBI 530, so I thought it might be fun to make the Lamy like that, but it wasn't worth the money.

 

As for the others, I've done: the very easiest conversion is the lowly Platinum Preppy: you could do it simply by taking out the cartridge and putting silicon grease on the section threads, though I like putting a rubber o-ring on there for security. Total cost: $0.25 for the o-ring. I bought 4 or 5 Preppys to try ink samples, and making them into ED pens makes it real easy: squirt the ink in there, close it up and write. Want to change to another ink? Open it up, flush out the old ink, dry, and in with the new. Not to mention seeing the ink color and level through the body.

 

It really is mostly just a fun project and something to tinker with. I also wouldn't use an ED pen except for around my home (I don't work in an office), because if you might run out of ink out in the world it is a heck of a lot easier to change a cartridge on the go...

[andybiotic]

Watch_art (who I am very sure IS the one in the video) and I have already posted separate reviews / step-by-step guides in the past converting the black safari in the video and a demonstrator Vista (by me) into a functional eyedropper with instructions on how to seal the holes as well as test trials on the converted pens. You should search for them here.

Edited August 7, 2011 by andybiotic

[myyrkezaan]

At the risk of making myself out for a fool, why would anyone want to bother.........?

 

More ink in the pen, one of his video comments said he modified the feed so his B nib wrote even wetter.

 

As for refilling on the go you could get a traveling ink well.

[maxh]

IIRC, the only way to do this is to order a new barrel for a rollerball model from Lamy, and use that with the fountain pen section and nib, as the rollerball barrel tube doesn't have the 'ink window' openings. I did look at one time, and think they were about $20 from the US distributor, which immediately put an end to my interest in that.

 

If the holes were small there are a few clever ways to seal them up (which I've done with some Hero pens) but these are way too big.

I saw a thread on here about someone who just plugged the holes with, I believe, transparent epoxy. It's not a perfect solution, since it gets fingerprints on it before it can cure, and I suspect if it were done with the Vista there would still be an obvious difference between the epoxy and the rest of the barrel, but it certainly can be done. Of course, with the Vista the ink windows aren't as important, so the rollerball barrel is perfectly good, but with the opaque barrels it is useful to have an ink window, especially with an eyedropper -- you can't just remove the barrel to check the converter anymore!

 

At the risk of making myself out for a fool, why would anyone want to bother.........?

Because it's a fun project. Why would any more reason be needed?

[andybiotic]

I saw a thread on here about someone who just plugged the holes with, I believe, transparent epoxy. It's not a perfect solution, since it gets fingerprints on it before it can cure, and I suspect if it were done with the Vista there would still be an obvious difference between the epoxy and the rest of the barrel, but it certainly can be done. Of course, with the Vista the ink windows aren't as important, so the rollerball barrel is perfectly good, but with the opaque barrels it is useful to have an ink window, especially with an eyedropper -- you can't just remove the barrel to check the converter anymore!

 

That was me, but too bad I think the pictures in the post are gone... I uploaded them onto the forum instead of linking them from photobucket or something and you can only upload about 1mb of photo here so...

 

Yes, I epoxy glued the windows and the end of the barrel with a little piece of acetate / clear plastic cut to the exact size. There were no leakage but I do recommend a little bit of silicon grease on the threads. Other that that it works great!

[watch_art]

HAA! I love being the subject of discussion.

 

Yes, I took a regular Safari barrel and plugged the holes with slow cure 2 part epoxy weld from the auto store. Yes I did modify the hell out of the nib and feed to make it write a river. If I had used carts I would have gone through them in a couple of minutes. What a great pen that was. Gave the durned thing away. That triangle grip just didn't do anything for me.

 

Here's the original thread that I started about it - inspired by the clear eyedropper from even earlier - that had such pretty green ink going through it.

 

I used scotch tape to hold the epoxy up into place. Worked beautifully.

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php?/topic/155616-lamy-safari-eyedropper/

 

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4029/4631670663_a3f99a297b_o.jpg

 

 

...and it NEVER leaked even a little bit.

Edited August 8, 2011 by watch_art