Sheaffer Legacy Heritage Barrel Spring?

[Silent Speaker]

Hello Sheaffer forum.

 

I've been sold a new-in-box legacy heritage fountain pen that has the nasty habit covering my hands with ink every so often. No cracks or anything like that, the pen appears to be in good condition as per the ebay description. What I discovered was that, right at the bottom of the barrel, there is a spring.

 

Now, correct me if I am wrong, but this spring is only supposed to be on the rollerball variant of this model, right? I mean, I did feel some resistance with first screwing the pen back together after inserting the included converter, but just thought that's how it was with this pen as I've never owned this model before. Have I been sold a mismatched pen? Fountain pen section and cap with a rollerball body?

 

What seems to happen is that the spring appears to catch onto the converter piston's turning knob and turns it when the barrel is unscrewed. Due to a lack of an ink window, I do have to unscrew the barrel every so often to check the ink level in the converter. What was happening was I was doing this after writing to see whether or not it needed a topup, putting the pen away, and then getting that nasty surprise the next time I uncapped the pen. I'd rather not have my hands covered in ink anymore.

 

Surely this is not supposed to be happening with this model, right?

Can anyone else with a Legacy Heritage please confirm whether or not this is normal or abnormal?

Thank you.

[Ron Z]

The rollerball barrel has the spring. Because the pens are otherwise identical, all that is needed to convert a rollerball to a fountain pen is to change out the RB section with a nib unit. It is done quite often. If you're using a squeeze converter, the spring in the barrel won't even be noticed. Removing the spring is easy - take a paperclip and bend the very end into a hook, reach down, snag the spring and pull. Or you can use a pair of alligator forceps. The end of the piston converter will now fit into the hole at the end of the barrel formerly occupied by the spring.

[Silent Speaker]

Thank you very much for that confirmation and tip Mr. Zorn!

Removing the spring is easy - take a paperclip and bend the very end into a hook, reach down, snag the spring and pull.

That did the trick!

I was rummaging around the house for something thin and long enough to reach in there to try to yank that spring out; totally forgot about paperclips! It's been so long since I used a paperclip for anything but holding paper that it never even occurred to me. I was fiddling around with thread and an extra long twist tie until I read your reply.

 

To anyone who happens upon this thread in the future and has a similar predicament and doesn't want to fork out for some alligator forceps they might only ever use one or whatever, get the paperclip and do what you've probably done a thousand times during a boring classroom daze and straighten it.

Get some pliers and make as small of a hook at one end as you can. If you don't have pliers it will be a painful job for your fingertips.

Eventually it'll catch and the spring comes out with surprising ease (be careful, in fact mine flew right out onto the floor somewhere and I spent a few minutes searching for the now useless thing).