Miller Royal

October 31, 2014

In order to make a flange-like ring to be trapped with the bushing, I rolled the rim (like a condom).
http://s30.postimg.org/nkojmqma9/w_IMG_compl2.jpg

I had a really good laugh when I read about 'rolling the sac like a condom' - it made my day!

So please allow me to solve this riddle: this filling system is really simple - a primitive but effective rip-off of Parker's Vacumatic simplified to the point of being confusing

Here are some step-by-step instructions on how to get these beauties up and running - I also attached some diagrams to help you visualise the procedure below which seems to be a bit intimidating but is in fact less than a 5 minute job:

1) The proper way to repair this pen is to use an ordinary sac, BUT:

- the metal flange that appears to be 'fixed' inside the barrel is held there by the remains of an ossified sac and this flange, as well as the remains of the sac first need to be removed.

- to remove the flange, do some soaking first, and then (assuming you also removed the section) try to use a wooden dowel of the right diameter to knock the flange out from the side of section opening.

2) once you've got that covered, remove the remains of the ossified sac from the barrel,

- get the plunger through the metal flange (wider part on the tapered end, narrow part to go through towards the top of the flange)

- cut off most of the sac (leaving a short sac/diaphragm of about 2 cm) and lubricate it

- slip the diaphragm on the tapered end of the flange, to cover the wider part of the plunger (you do this as you would when putting on a Vacumatic diaphragm, but without flipping it on the other side)

3) Use a bit of Vac lube to get the plunger, sac and flange into the barrel. The flange will sandwich the sac between a step in the inner barrel wall and the edge of the flange - the sac will then be securely clamped once the plastic/bhr threaded collar is screwed back in, just like in a Parker Vacumatic.

Et Voilá! All done.

Hope this helps

i.

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Edited October 31, 2014 by ihimlen

October 31, 2014

Huzzah!

November 2, 2014

Great! nice job.

November 3, 2014

i.

Thank you for your guidance. I had a non functional Hoover that I had restored like you describe above except that I didn't take the flange out and had the sac pinched between barrel step and the threaded sleeve. With that approach it wasn't maintaining pressure. With your instructions I was able to get it working in 10 minutes. Now I have a beautiful pen with uncommon filling mechanism.

November 3, 2014

Great! I'm really happy to see that my post could be useful to the point of actually fixing one of these pens This filling system is not very common but it's quite effective (boy, these pens really suck...ink!) and can usually be found on some Danish pens (Miller Pen, Hoover etc.) as well as some Italian pens (I had a Zemax with this system but unlike on the Danish pens, the threaded collar is secured by a pin so one must be careful with these and remove the pin before attempting disassembly). A more advanced Vacumatic-style system can be also found on Osmia 94 pens, this one is even more odd than the Danish variant...

i.

Edited November 3, 2014 by ihimlen

April 8, 2016

Thanks very much for this info in this discussion!

I've just taken apart a Miller 698 with the same filling system. This page is going to help a lot!

Cheers

-geoff

March 6, 2017

Great! I'm really happy to see that my post could be useful to the point of actually fixing one of these pens This filling system is not very common but it's quite effective (boy, these pens really suck...ink!) and can usually be found on some Danish pens (Miller Pen, Hoover etc.) as well as some Italian pens (I had a Zemax with this system but unlike on the Danish pens, the threaded collar is secured by a pin so one must be careful with these and remove the pin before attempting disassembly). A more advanced Vacumatic-style system can be also found on Osmia 94 pens, this one is even more odd than the Danish variant...

i.

Here, three years later, I have a Fulgens Stilnova (Italy, about 1950) that had me completely puzzled. Your explanation and diagrams showed me exactly what I need to do...Now it is all apart and my next step is to clean all the ossified sac from the inside of the barrel without damaging anything! Thank you!

March 11, 2017

Following up to my previous post, I was able to drive the tapered metal "flange" out of the barrel, then cleaned the debris on the flange and inside the barrel leftover from the old sac. With some experimentation, I found that a #16 latex sac would stretch over the flange and also has sufficient lengthwise stretch to allow for full movement of the plunger.

I glued the sac to the flange using shellac and allowed it to dry overnight. The flange/sac combination slipped into the barrel with only a little effort. The plunger, with its screw-in pushbutton, slipped thru the opening in the flange and into the tip of the ink sac. I screwed the threaded insert into the end of the barrel and gently tested to see if everything would stay together - and it did! A test with my finger over the open end of the barrel showed that there was definitely some vacuum.

Since the original Fulgens nib was badly damaged, I found a Warranted #8 nib in my parts bin that was a good fit on the feed and reassembled the nib/feed/breather tube into the section, then screwed that assembly into the barrel. A water test showed that multiple presses of the pushbutton gave a very good fill and that the ink capacity is quite large.

A small fill of ink...and it writes!

Someone in the past chewed on the blind cap, so I used some micromesh to minimize that damage, then polished the entire exterior with Micro-Gloss liquid abrasive. This pen looks really nice, and I like the over-the-top clip, which is spring loaded - an improvement on the Eversharp Skyline design.

I am not sure that I want to spend the money to get the original nib retipped, so perhaps I can find someone in Italy who might happen to have a suitable replacement.

Thanks to all who posted in this thread, and especially to ihimlen, who provided the key diagrams that helped me understand exactly how this filler system works. Here's an exploded view of the pen, including my replacement ink sac.