Cross Century Rollerball -- New Refill Won't Fit

[OakIris]

Cross finally got back to me, simply telling me to call them to discuss it. I called this morning and talked to a woman on the phone who mentioned that they revised the section of the rollerball, and the new refills no longer fit the old model (as we have found out). However, she did mention that they can install a revised section onto the pen. That would be much better than having it replaced, as I love the way the pen looks. And, the replacement wouldn't be made in the US. I also mentioned my two seized ballpoints and she said that they can either try to get them working, or install new lower halves onto the pen. I printed out the repair form today ($30 for processing, ouch! some warranty...) and I'll mail it out tomorrow. I'll report back when I actually get the pens back.

That's pretty cool, Derek! Still, with their $30 processing fee, you will have three working pens worth, I would think, a bit more than that, depending upon what you paid on eBay. Hopefully it will be worth it! I will be sending my pen to them tomorrow, too - already paid their $10 processing fee. If the solution Papermate came up with works, using a Parker Gel refill, I will have two nice pens (even though they aren't fountain pens) for $10 - I bought my Cross felt tip pen years ago so its cost doesn't even figure in!

 

 

I still have many of the original Cross rollers, and discovered a Parker Gel refill drops right into the section. By adding an 11 mm spacer above the refill, it fits just fine. The spacer I made was from the protective plastic cap that came on a Schmidt Easy Flow 9000 refill, but anything will work that will fit into the upper barrel. These were great pens, and there's no need to stop using them.

That is interesting to know, Papermate. By "original rollers" are you talking about the old Century felt tip pens, or some other style of pen? Cross is supposed to send me a new rolling ball pen as well as sending my old Century pen back to me, so it would be cool if I could get my old pen to work as well.

 

How are the Parker gel refills?

 

Holly

[Papermate]

These would be the 1970s and 80s Century select-tip pens like those pictured above, which could take the Cross medium-tipped fiber refill, a fine nylon/plastic tipped refill, or a roller ball. A Parker ballpoint gel refill is what I use because they write pretty well, but any Parker style ballpoint refill should work with the spacer.

I have the 14kt gold filled one, a sterling one, a chrome one, a matte black one, and a matte gray one. All were made in the US. The plastic sections vary a little in design, but the ballpoint gel refill works in all.

Edited April 25, 2012 by Papermate

[OakIris]

These would be the 1970s and 80s Century select-tip pens like those pictured above, which could take the Cross medium-tipped fiber refill, a fine nylon/plastic tipped refill, or a roller ball. A Parker ballpoint gel refill is what I use because they write pretty well, but any Parker style ballpoint refill should work with the spacer.

I have the 14kt gold filled one, a sterling one, a chrome one, a matte black one, and a matte gray one. All were made in the US. The plastic sections vary a little in design, but the ballpoint gel refill works in all.

Thanks for the information, Papermate; my pen fits the criteria you mentioned. Sent my pen to Cross yesterday. When I (hopefully) get it back I will check out the Parker refills. I should be able to find something suitable for the spacer.

 

Holly

[Bob Oedeloem]

I had a similar problem of the new Cross rollerball refill not fitting into my older gray Cross Selectip rollerball pen.

 

One trick that solved the problem for me was to gently apply increasing pressure to force the new rollerball cartridge to eventually pop go through the hole. A little tight at first. It will go through and in doing so will force the metal to slightly expand. Slide in and out a few times and it gets easier. Problem solved! You can now use current refills easily!

 

 

[JonDoh]

They changed the refill design when they moved production to China and altered the pen's design. If you send the pen to Cross and pay a $10 fee they will send you the new model.

[Chouffleur]

These would be the 1970s and 80s Century select-tip pens like those pictured above, which could take the Cross medium-tipped fiber refill, a fine nylon/plastic tipped refill, or a roller ball. A Parker ballpoint gel refill is what I use because they write pretty well, but any Parker style ballpoint refill should work with the spacer.

I have the 14kt gold filled one, a sterling one, a chrome one, a matte black one, and a matte gray one. All were made in the US. The plastic sections vary a little in design, but the ballpoint gel refill works in all.

Just got the one on the left in the original picture as a part of an eBay lot. Once again FPN to the rescue. It's like time travel - listening in on old conversations and having your questions answered.

[Melchott]

Very interesting conversation, I have just purchased my first Cross rollerball at eBay, a matt green ATX and I thought that its refill would be standard because I have not received it yet and I was just checking its form on a internet picture.

 

After reading your posts, now I am wondering if Cross refills are universal sized or they are propietary. For what you have been saying I should understand that Cross refills are different from universal rollerball refills then?

[Chouffleur]

And in line with @Papermate's comment of 3+ years ago, a Parker 30526PP replacement refill - blue gel ink - works just fine after you stick in a small spacer.

 

Mine took hours and hours of painstaking craftsmanship using precious rare Amazonian hardwoods and obscure woodworking tools.

 

Well, about three minutes using a small-diameter chopstick and the nippers on a needle-nose pliers. But it was artistry of the highest order, nonetheless. ;-)

[Melchott]

Thank you for the advice Chouffleur, I will try to do that with my poor craftmanship ;-)

[Miyuki]

This is an old thread, but I feel like it has a really complete list of information about these pens and their refills. I'm working on installing a replacement refill and I just learned (via testing) that the Fisher Space Ball Refill #SSBR-4B refill fits perfectly. You just have to remove the spring at the end and it writes well. Of course if you push too hard the refill retracts from the spring at the end, but that happens with the original Cross refill too.

 

It doesn't look like Fisher makes them anymore but I saw some here and there. People might have more success finding those than the Cross refills. In terms of things it's not a true fix but Fisher refills are pretty smooth. I just thought I'd pop in and share my new info.

Edited December 8, 2017 by Miyuki

[RollingBall]

I have a gold-filled Cross Rolling Ball pen from the previous century, engraved with my name. I recently bought refills at Staples, 8523-2 manuacture date 0517 and found that they would not go all the way into my pen. I was considering using 250 grit or finer sandpaper to hone out my pen's nib or to decrease the diameter of the neoprene tubing on the refill. But I got another set of refills from Amazon that have a manufacture date of 1116 and they fit fine. The packaging of the ones that don't fit looks genuine, so I don't think it's a counterfeit.

 

After reading the posts here it seems that refills manufactured after 2012 weren't workig for some people. So it seems that Cross refills 8523 for rolling ball pens may or may not fit older Cross pens, regardles of their touting ISO standards on the packaging. I turned up this forum with a web search and this thread tells me that I am far from alone and that people have had this problem for years. But it seems that refills from some sources do fit older pens.

 

I will volunteer a solution that I was planning, but haven't tried yet: get 250 grit or finer sandpaper from the hardware store and use it to reduce the diameter of the neoprene sleeve to the point that it will go into you pen.

 

I do wonder why Cross uses the same product number, 8523-1 and 8523-2, for refills of pens that call for that product number for the correct refill. AND they call out "Per ISO standards" on the back of the packaging. Maybe it's not "International Standards Organization," but perhaps "I Suppose, Offhand."

Edited December 14, 2017 by RollingBall

[Donald2]

They probably do that because everything that they make now is made in China. Nothing is made here in the USA any more.

Edited December 20, 2017 by Donald2

[RollingBall]

They probably do that because everything that they make now is made in China. Nothing is made here in the USA any more.

There may be something to that, because good manufacturing practices, which are specified in ISO standards among others, include requiring that specific attributes that are necessary for a product to be useful are met. For a Cross rolling ball refill, the most critical measurement is the largest diameter of the tube near the point, which must fit inside the tube in the pen with very little slack. The maximum diameter would be the minimum diameter of the pens for which the refill is intended, possibly plus a tiny amount for minimum clearance to allow for temperature range and such - perhaps 0.1 mm. Some, or even most, newer refills won't fit many rolling ball pens. I suspect that the Chinese manufacturers weren't given this specification, or, if you are correct, relax this specification or ignore it.

[Donald2]

And the Chinese should not ignore it. They should also manufacture rollerball refills to fit all the older Cross rollerball pens. If the idiot who used to be CEO at Cross didn't move manufacturing overseas to China, we wouldn't have this problem. Cross gave no regards to the American consumer when they decided to leave for China. They screwed us all.

[RollingBall]

And the Chinese should not ignore it. They should also manufacture rollerball refills to fit all the older Cross rollerball pens. If the idiot who used to be CEO at Cross didn't move manufacturing overseas to China, we wouldn't have this problem. Cross gave no regards to the American consumer when they decided to leave for China. They screwed us all.

I'm not inclined to assume that it was the Chinese contractor that ignored the spec; that rarely happens because the product is often useless (as it is in our case) and they are there to make money. When knockoffs are involved, it happens because the knockoff people don't have the product spec, just reverse-engineering, and if they miss something the result is worthless. That's why I assumed the product that didn't fit was a knockoff, and examined the packaging pretty thoroughly. It looks like real Cross packaging, but that isn't 100% proof that what's inside was built to Cross specifications. But I think that it is a Cross product.

 

That leaves us with the possibility that Cross did not provide the manufacturer with the specifications. If the new Cross CEO wasn't familiar with all of his products, he may have just sent a couple of samples over and told the contractor to duplicate them, rather than sent a spec from Engineering. That's no better than a knock-off. Hanlon's razor tells me that this is a likely process. Fillers from some manufacturing dates work in my pen, some from other manufacturing dates do not work in my pen.