Celluloid Feed Setting

[Ernst Bitterman]

I was asked lately to put a new point in a de-nibbed Waterman Skywriter. This took more than the usual amount of work; apparently the point has been out long enough for the section to shrink to fit the feed by itself.

 

...and in the course of working on the problem, I find that the feed itself is made of celluloid. This befuddles me, and I want to check with the collective intelligence about how to proceed on setting it, because as things stand the point/feed gap is enormous.

 

My first instinct is to proceed as one would with a rubber feed, but gently, on the basis that damp heat will certainly deform celluloid and at a lesser temperature than rubber calls for. But since this is an entirely novel situation, I hesitate for fear that the feed will shrivel to a nothing.

 

Informed opinion? Shared experiences?

[Oruc Gazi Kutluer]

Celluloid is roughly sensitive to heat, you can reform celluloid by heating it. I generally put the feed in boiling water and check continuously if the material is flexible enough.

 

Do not use any kind of flame, etc.. You may burn it... Boiling water is enough to get rid of the gap between feeder an the nib.

 

I hope this helps..

[Ron Z]

Good question. If it were a modern feed you would use boiling water. If hard rubber, most certainly dry heat from a heat gun, but you know that. Celluloid will cloud if exposed to warm heat like steam or boiling water. Get it too hot with dry heat, and it can ignite.

 

But if you use heat at a distance and allow extra time for it to warm, in other words, don't try to heat it too quickly you can heat celluloid to the point where it turns soft. I don't have to go into specific applications, but I'm sure you can think of a few. There a fine line between hot enough and too hot though. I don't think that you'll have a big shrinkage problem if you're careful because you don't have a hollow tube to collapse or shrink.

 

Note - I think that Ernst can handle this because he understands the materials and does a lot of pen repair. I wouldn't recommend this for the average amateur. With this you'd be getting into the zone where even advanced pen mechanics get a bit nervous.

[Ernst Bitterman]

Thanks, Ron. I really wasn't expecting something exotic in a Skywriter, and this one set me a set of roller-skate-equipped stilts, figuratively speaking.