Finned feeders for Indian eye dropper filled pens.

[aemitsavla]

I had purchased some ebonite feeds for my Airmails from penhouse.in The feeds were reasonably priced and I believe hat they can easily replace plastic feeds of most of the pens using # 5.5 and # 8 nibs

 

The Link for the feeds:

 

https://penhouse.in/pen-spares/feeder.html

 

PS No affiliations with penhouse.in apart for being their occasional customer.

 

[hari317]

1 hour ago, aemitsavla said:

I had purchased some ebonite feeds for my Airmails from penhouse.in The feeds were reasonably priced and I believe hat they can easily replace plastic feeds of most of the pens using # 5.5 and # 8 nibs

 

The Link for the feeds:

 

https://penhouse.in/pen-spares/feeder.html

 

PS No affiliations with penhouse.in apart for being their occasional customer.

 

Hi, these are ordinary ebonite feeders without much buffering capacity. 

[aemitsavla]

16 hours ago, hari317 said:

Hi, these are ordinary ebonite feeders without much buffering capacity. 

Thanks for your prompt n expert reply. Can we increase the buffering capacity of a feed? if Yes, how???

[hari317]

Just now, aemitsavla said:

Thanks for your prompt n expert reply. Can we increase the buffering capacity of a feed? if Yes, how???

Kindly read the extensive inputs provided by sniyogi ji in this thread. 

[Abhik]

Excellent post and photos. I always face some problem for my Ratnamsons gold nib pens (no.32 & 15).

Frustrated I haven't touched them for years! 

Now I got a clue how I can try to fix those. 

Thank you All.

[hari317]

On 8/23/2022 at 6:52 PM, Abhik said:

Now I got a clue how I can try to fix those.

you can send them to me!

[MidSouthern-Dad]

Thanks to Sniyogy for his fantastic solution to increasing the buffering capacity of ebonite feeds!  I practiced on a feed with a razor saw, and it did look ugly!

However, what I discovered is that If I make the cuts only to the back part of the feed, which will be hidden in the section (housing), it seems to work just as well to stop burping! 

 

I had modified a Fountain Pen Revolution 5.1 mm flex nib feed to fit a TWSBI 580, with FPR 5.5 flex nib.  However, I had issues with burping when the pen was half empty.  Having made the cuts only to the back half of the feed, it doesn't burp any more.    So far, I can flex fully, and there is no leakage.  I will let you know if this lasts to the end of the ink in the pen.

 

[Abhik]

On 8/25/2022 at 6:57 AM, hari317 said:

you can send them to me!

Thank you Hari! I will do that this year December.

[Aravind_A_2310]

.I finally got my hands on a coping saw, and I've now cut a fair no of feeds by now... Some successful, some... Not so much... 

 

Today marks the maiden voyage of one of my successful cutting attempts.. on my airmail 71 JT with a JoWo medium ... I've cut both the bottom and sides as much as I could without ruining it's structural integrity... As a cautious measure, I also heat set the feed... I'll keep updating in the coming weeks, till it has either burped, or I run out of ink... For now it writes like it should... Smooth and wet

 

 

I hope for the best..

 

Regards

Aravind

[hari317]

1 minute ago, Aravind_A_2310 said:

.I finally got my hands on a coping saw, and I've now cut a fair no of feeds by now... Some successful, some... Not so much... 

 

Today marks the maiden voyage of one of my successful cutting attempts.. on my airmail 71 JT with a JoWo medium ... I've cut both the bottom and sides as much as I could without ruining it's structural integrity... As a cautious measure, I also heat set the feed... I'll keep updating in the coming weeks, till it has either burped, or I run out of ink... For now it writes like it should... Smooth and wet

 

 

I hope for the best..

 

Regards

Aravind

Seems to have come out well. 👍 

[sniyogy]

On 8/31/2022 at 7:15 PM, Aravind_A_2310 said:

.I finally got my hands on a coping saw, and I've now cut a fair no of feeds by now... Some successful, some... Not so much... 

 

Today marks the maiden voyage of one of my successful cutting attempts.. on my airmail 71 JT with a JoWo medium ... I've cut both the bottom and sides as much as I could without ruining it's structural integrity... As a cautious measure, I also heat set the feed... I'll keep updating in the coming weeks, till it has either burped, or I run out of ink... For now it writes like it should... Smooth and wet

 

 

I hope for the best..

 

Regards

Aravind

Looks good! Thanks for the update.

 

[Aravind_A_2310]

47 minutes ago, sniyogy said:

Looks good! Thanks for the update.

 

After much trial and error, I found out that cutting a bit from the sides before going from the bottom helps to get a straighter cut... I held mine by wrapping the base with a piece of rubber glove and holding it tightly with a pair of pliers, and resting it on the corner of a flat table... Not the easiest or the "proper" method, but I don't have a vice at hand, so this was the next best thing... Plus cutting from the sides means there is more surface area for the ink to buffer... At the cost of some rigidity, but I beleive I found the sweetspot with this one... 

[Avishek]

On 9/1/2022 at 8:37 PM, Aravind_A_2310 said:

After much trial and error, I found out that cutting a bit from the sides before going from the bottom helps to get a straighter cut... I held mine by wrapping the base with a piece of rubber glove and holding it tightly with a pair of pliers, and resting it on the corner of a flat table... Not the easiest or the "proper" method, but I don't have a vice at hand, so this was the next best thing... Plus cutting from the sides means there is more surface area for the ink to buffer... At the cost of some rigidity, but I beleive I found the sweetspot with this one... 

If don't mind can you show your equipments used to accomplish this perfect feed channel widening. 

[Aravind_A_2310]

7 hours ago, Avishek said:

If don't mind can you show your equipments used to accomplish this perfect feed channel widening. 

I really wish I could... The thing is, I'm out of station at the moment for a few weeks... Would you be okay if I post it when I get home around next Friday or Saturday...

 

In the mean time, Here's the link for the coping saw I bought...

https://amzn.eu/d/6OrnkS2

 

use the 2/0 or 3/0 blades for deepening the fins...

 

For more details, please check @sniyogy's posts in the previous pages in this thread...

 

 

[Avishek]

10 minutes ago, Aravind_A_2310 said:

I really wish I could... The thing is, I'm out of station at the moment for a few weeks... Would you be okay if I post it when I get home around next Friday or Saturday...

 

In the mean time, Here's the link for the coping saw I bought...

https://amzn.eu/d/6OrnkS2

 

use the 2/0 or 3/0 blades for deepening the fins...

 

For more details, please check @sniyogy's posts in the previous pages in this thread...

 

 

Absolutely no issues at all, take your own time. 

[Aravind_A_2310]

A quick interim update:

 

I've been using the pen for a while now, and whilst I've not completely emptied the barrel, the ink is now 1/3rd the barrel at the point where if I were using the stock setup, it would've burped by now... And I ve experienced zero burps so far.

 

Some takeaways from my experiment:

 

1. The ink channels that were cut really do help buffering the ink. You can see the ink getting trapped in the fins.

 

2. The ink path is still a straight cut, so ink will come out if the pen is shaken or jolted, unlike the no nonsense feed.

 

3. While taking it to places in my bag, while it certainly has not leaked, I did observe ink coated on the very end of the section, at the point where the section meets the inner cap, doesn't get to where you actually grip the pen, so no issues. And the ink also tends to pool on the space between said portion of the section and the nib feed assembly, since I didn't heat set the section(because it isn't ebonite), and the feed is relatively short, some gaps are visible around the nib-feed assembly and the inner bore of the section. Perhaps that's what's causing the pooling, again that pooling didn't transfer to the paper as a blob, so it's also okay. 

 

4. I've seen ink stains on the very end of the feed which I presumed got covered by ink when jostled around in my bag... Also unlike the NoNonsense feed, my nib does get covered in ink from time to time, which leads me to beleive that ink does escape when moved around as mentioned in point #2, but still the main thing, "it didn't burp and wrote normally".

 

5. Now I don't know if it helped or not, but i kept a breather tube that i salvaged from an old hero pen, and stuck it in the hole in the feed, where I presume it was intended... Wether it helped regulate the air pressure more effectively is out of my scope of thought, but for the sake of full disclosure I'm leaving this point in

 

My key takeaway is this... This doesn't compare to the no nonsense feed(plastic or ebonite) when it comes to sheer ink holding capability, but this is the closest we can acheive with the current feeds that are available in the market, and they perform exceptionally well, for a feed which was cut by an idiot with what is basically a thin hacksaw. Hope the manufacturers would bring something similarly effective one day for these simple but very good eyedropper pens...

 

Will post an update either when the ink runs out or it has burped out...

 

Hope this helps

 

Have a nice day, night, or whenever you're reading this

[hari317]

2 hours ago, Aravind_A_2310 said:

A quick update:

 

I've been using the pen for a while now, and whilst I've not completely emptied the barrel, the ink is now 1/3rd the barrel at the point where if I were using the stock setup, it would've burped by now... And I ve experienced zero burps so far.

 

Some takeaways from my experiment:

 

1. The ink channels that were cut really do help buffering the ink. You can see the ink getting trapped in the fins.

 

2. The ink path is still a straight cut, so ink will come out if the pen is shaken or jolted, unlike the no nonsense feed.

 

3. While taking it to places in my bag, while it certainly has not leaked, I did observe ink coated on the very end of the section, at the point where the section meets the inner cap, doesn't get to where you actually grip the pen, so no issues. And the ink also tends to pool on the space between said portion of the section and the nib feed assembly, since I didn't hear set the section(because it isn't ebonite), and the feed is relatively short, some gaps are visible around the nib-feed assembly and the inner bore of the section. Perhaps that's what's causing the pooling, again that pooling didn't transfer to the paper as a blob, so it's also okay. 

 

4. I've seen ink stains on the very end of the feed which I presumed got covered by ink when jostled around in my bag... Also unlike the NoNonsense feed, my nib does get covered in ink from time to time, which leads me to beleive that ink does escape when moved around as mentioned in point #2, but still the main thing, "it didn't burp and wrote normally".

 

5. Now I don't know if it helped or not, but i kept a breather tube that i salvaged from an old hero pen, and stuck it in the hole in the feed, where I presume it was intended... Wether it helped regulate the air pressure more effectively is out of my scope of thought, but for the sake of full disclosure I'm leaving this point in

 

My key takeaway is this... This doesn't compare to the no nonsense feed(plastic or ebonite) when it comes to sheer ink holding capability, but this is the closest we can acheive with the current feeds that are available in the market, and they perform exceptionally well, for a feed which was cut by an idiot with what is basically a thin hacksaw. Hope the manufacturers would bring something similarly effective one day for these simple but very good eyedropper pens...

 

Hope this helps

 

Have a nice day, night, or whenever you're reading this

do update when its nearly empty

[Aravind_A_2310]

53 minutes ago, hari317 said:

do update when its nearly empty

Will do sir...👍

[sniyogy]

19 hours ago, Aravind_A_2310 said:

A quick interim update:

 

I've been using the pen for a while now, and whilst I've not completely emptied the barrel, the ink is now 1/3rd the barrel at the point where if I were using the stock setup, it would've burped by now... And I ve experienced zero burps so far.

 

Some takeaways from my experiment:

 

1. The ink channels that were cut really do help buffering the ink. You can see the ink getting trapped in the fins.

 

2. The ink path is still a straight cut, so ink will come out if the pen is shaken or jolted, unlike the no nonsense feed.

 

3. While taking it to places in my bag, while it certainly has not leaked, I did observe ink coated on the very end of the section, at the point where the section meets the inner cap, doesn't get to where you actually grip the pen, so no issues. And the ink also tends to pool on the space between said portion of the section and the nib feed assembly, since I didn't heat set the section(because it isn't ebonite), and the feed is relatively short, some gaps are visible around the nib-feed assembly and the inner bore of the section. Perhaps that's what's causing the pooling, again that pooling didn't transfer to the paper as a blob, so it's also okay. 

 

4. I've seen ink stains on the very end of the feed which I presumed got covered by ink when jostled around in my bag... Also unlike the NoNonsense feed, my nib does get covered in ink from time to time, which leads me to beleive that ink does escape when moved around as mentioned in point #2, but still the main thing, "it didn't burp and wrote normally".

 

5. Now I don't know if it helped or not, but i kept a breather tube that i salvaged from an old hero pen, and stuck it in the hole in the feed, where I presume it was intended... Wether it helped regulate the air pressure more effectively is out of my scope of thought, but for the sake of full disclosure I'm leaving this point in

 

My key takeaway is this... This doesn't compare to the no nonsense feed(plastic or ebonite) when it comes to sheer ink holding capability, but this is the closest we can acheive with the current feeds that are available in the market, and they perform exceptionally well, for a feed which was cut by an idiot with what is basically a thin hacksaw. Hope the manufacturers would bring something similarly effective one day for these simple but very good eyedropper pens...

 

Will post an update either when the ink runs out or it has burped out...

 

Hope this helps

 

Have a nice day, night, or whenever you're reading this

 

Thanks for the update @Aravind_A_2310 . I don't carry pens in my bag so have not faced the issue of pooling before. But I guess that this would not be out of place under the circumstances.

 

As an extension to the deepening of the fins, it might be also useful to create some more fins of the same depth on the lower part of the feed that might add to the buffering capacity. This is purely guesswork on my part and I myself have never tried this.

[Aravind_A_2310]

16 minutes ago, sniyogy said:

 

Thanks for the update @Aravind_A_2310 . I don't carry pens in my bag so have not faced the issue of pooling before. But I guess that this would not be out of place under the circumstances.

 

As an extension to the deepening of the fins, it might be also useful to create some more fins of the same depth on the lower part of the feed that might add to the buffering capacity. This is purely guesswork on my part and I myself have never tried this.

I do think that adding more fins would help, but make the feed even weaker... Plus, kanwrite's feeds aren't that long, as I've cut a little from the sides as well as the bottom, adding more fins might just break the feed altogether... Still it's a good idea to try in the future, just have to keep the cut straight and parallel...

 

Regarding the ink pooling, I think it has more to do with the fact that the ink channel is just a wide straight cut, thus low resistance for ink to go through... I'm almost at the end of the barrel, so expect an update very soon...