New(?) filling system on new Estie Raven model -- what is it?

[Paul-in-SF]

The Estie Raven has a very matte and very black finish. There are two different versions, one with cartridge/converter, and one with what they are calling a "button piston" filler. From a filling demo I saw online (Inkdependence/Mike Matteson) it appears to function very much like a vacumatic or similar vacuum filler. He mentioned two points that support that similarity: after cleaning by filling and flushing with water a little water remains visible in the ink window; and he mentions a "breather tube" that is "stuck on the end of the nipple." So I wonder if this is, essentially, a version of a vacumatic filler, and what the differences are. Especially the wear and repair situation. 

 

The pen supposedly just dropped today so I don't think any of us is likely to know the answer from first-hand experience, but I thought there might be some further information online somewhere. Esterbrook calls this "the latest in a suite of new innovations" but I wonder how new or different it is. 

[Paul-in-SF]

Bumping this thread to see if anyone ordered this pen (Estie Raven with new filling system) and either has it or is waiting for it?

 

If you have it, I'd be glad to see even a brief review.

 

If you are waiting for it, as I am, I wonder if anyone has heard anything from your retailer about when they will be in stock again?

[TQuid]

Just got mine a couple days ago. I quite like it. I think it's equivalent in mechanism to e.g. Pilot's CON-70 converter, so it is essentially a vac filler with a return spring. At the Vancouver Pen Shop where I bought it, they said that it was once pretty common on Parker fountain pens.

 

Now I'm less sure after a bit of research: https://penhero.com/PenGallery/Parker/ParkerDuofoldFiller.htm

 

This article says that it compresses a sac rather than using any kind of spring. Interesting! Not inclined to disassemble my nice new pen just to satisfy my curiosity, but I hope someone more knowledgeable can clarify. Esterbrook's own site is, sadly, not informative.

[Paul-in-SF]

It feels similar to a Parker Vacumatic, but I don't know what the innards of this pen are. With a Vacumatic, the pen barrel was the ink container, and the plunger at the back would push a rubber diaphragm down to expel air, and when released the diaphragm would contract, pushing out the plunger while drawing in ink (or water or air). The feed had a small tube attached to it inside the barrel; the ink would come up the tube into the bottom of the barrel. So you had to push the plunger several times and wait a few seconds each time, to allow the ink to come in and settle at the bottom of the barrel, so that when you pushed the plunger again you were pushing air out and not ink. (There are probably diagrams around that make this clearer.) This was not the filler used for Duofolds, which was a button filler with a pressure bar, very similar in principle to a lever filler. Here's a link to a Pen Hero discussion of Parker Vacumatic filling system vs. Sheaffer Vac-Fil system. https://www.penhero.com/PenGallery/Sheaffer/SheafferWins.htm

[Amelorate]

It's a modern take on Parker's Vacuumatic mechanism. When you repeatedly press the button on a vintage vacuumatic parker, it repeatedly decreases and increases the size of the ink chamber because of the sac extending into the ink chamber, and then moving out of it. When the sac pushes into the chamber, it pushes out air through the breather tube. When it retracts, it pulls in ink through the breather tube, which proceeds to fall to the bottom of the ink chamber because of gravity. If the breather tube were missing the sac would only fill the pen with ink of a volume equal to the air displaced by the sac when its fully extended into the ink chamber, no matter how many times you press the button.

 

On the Estie "Button" filler, the sac is replaced with a piston that is pushed up and down inside the ink chamber. The piston displaces more ink as it moves, which means it pulls more ink through the breather tube.

 

"Vacuumatic"-like fillers are very attractive in modern pens because they're mechanically simple, however they can fill the pen with a lot of ink -- equal to the volume of the ink chamber that is under the breather tube plus the volume of air the moving element displaces. To my knowledge the only modern pens it's found in are the Wingsung 601, a PenBBS model whose number escapes my memory, and the Estie Raven "Button" Filler. I hope that Estie puts out more pens with this unique filling mechanism.

 

It should be noted that Estie's "Button" filler is fully unrelated to vintage button fillers, which are much like a lever filler with a traditional sac except the pressure bar mechanism is complicated to move its actuation to the back of the pen.

[Paul-in-SF]

2 hours ago, Amelorate said:

To my knowledge the only modern pens it's found in are the Wingsung 601, a PenBBS model whose number escapes my memory, and the Estie Raven "Button" Filler.

 

There is another one. Edison has had (and seems still to have) something they call a Pump Filler, which was based on the Vacumatic; they also have a Draw Filler, which is different in operation in that the plunger does not spring back on its own, you have to draw it out after you push it in. 

[ruby.monkey]

Add to that a version of the Wing Sung (marked Junlai) 629, which looks like it uses the same filler as the 601. This one is a bit unusual in that its blind cap has a left-handed thread, despite being marked as turning off with a normal twist - I came close to cracking the barrel before I realised that I was turning it the wrong way. I'm guessing this was done so the pen can use the same barrel as its piston-filling sibling, but I don't think this is just a bodge by the seller since the pen does have a breather tube.

[Phonz]

I received today my “black bird”, and let me tell you that Im a little disappointed about the quality control that Esterbrook has, if they have any at all. The nib arrived misaligned, and the material quality of the nib is equal to the other Estie nibs that I have. The amount of “iridium” on the tip of the nib has been ridiculously diminished. It almost looks to me, like the very firsts nibs that came out with the first Esterbrook “j” nibs, remember?  they didn’t have any “iridium” (ja ja ja, well …whatever material they use for this purpose nowadays) at all. There is a lot of gaslighting about the nib of this pen. Pity! I really want it to like it, but it didn’t covered my expectations.

Anyhow, at least it looks nice!