Pelikan Level 65 pen and bottle

[theblackpen]

No, the nib does not unscrew, you have to use the special bottle and filling system. I've got one that's been filled for the better part of 3 years with zero problems. Highly recommended.

 

I store the pen upside down on my desk, very easy to do since the pen will stand on it's flat-ended cap. With that methodology, the pen always writes immediately when I put it to paper, never leaks, and never dries out. The ink chambers are kept pretty full 24/7.

 

Skip

 

 

Hi,

I just bought a L65 on Ebay and I was wondering if this pen can be filled only from the special bottle of ink or the nib section can be unscrewed allowing an eyedropper-style filling. Thank you and I apologize if this was answered before. I am kinda slow these days :roflmho:

Mihai

Thank you for the fast reply

 

[Blorgy]

Hi,

I just bought a L65 on Ebay and I was wondering if this pen can be filled only from the special bottle of ink or the nib section can be unscrewed allowing an eyedropper-style filling. Thank you and I apologize if this was answered before. I am kinda slow these days :roflmho:

Mihai

 

Usually, fountain pens have a section and a separate barrel. At first glance, the Level 65 pen also appeared to have a section and a separate barrel. Closer inspection revealed that the barrel and section consisted of a single long tube, which had a variable external diameter. The tube was narrower at the section end of the pen than at the barrel end of the pen. During manufacture, a shorter second tube was slid over the outside of the section and glued in place. The second tube made the pen appear to have a section and a separate barrel, but in this case appearances were deceptive.

 

The section could not be separated from the barrel, and the pen could not be filled like an eyedropper.

[andy1m]

I have three Level 65. The filling system is very special. But I think they write too wet, and not for most paper I found here in Indonesia.

[Jammit]

Hi,

 

The valve is necessary to protect the pen from thermal expansion.

 

Your hand will cause the air in the reservoir to expand and the pen will blot.

 

Dillon

 

Ooooooooo Golly - your totally right there. I used to buy the insufferable "cheap" fountain pens with the plastic ink cartridge - and while the price was an utter scam per cartridge, so was the hassle of constantly buying, replacing and using them - on account of just how little ink they held - which is a real pain when one does an awful lot of hand writing.

 

The price gouging on $2 per cartridge for a CC or ml of ink is appalling.

 

So I got to becoming clever, by removing the ink cartridge, and filling the whole pen body with ink, using vaseline on the threads to seal the tank.

 

Trouble is that the greater the temperature difference between ones hand and the pen body; and the more air there was in the tank, the greater the "expansion" of the air and the more ink it would force out of the nib......

 

I mean this clever system would be just fine IF ones hand, the pen body and the ink inside it and the ambient temperature were all the same - but they rarely ever are - and so every time I picked up the pen, it would generally drip and bubble, more so on a really cold day.

 

So I generally had to hold the pen upright until it warmed up, and even very small temperature differences - such as putting the pen down for a few minutes, would allow it to cool down enough to suck more air in and when I picked it up again - it would blot and bubble.

 

I was forever getting ink everywhere and wiping the tip and all this messing around just to write - heaps...

 

When the Peliken Level came along - I understood immediately the genius behind the 2 tank design and the valving.

 

I COULD have a HUGE ink resivour and NO blotting and I could write hundreds and hundreds of pages - be done with those (bleep) little ink cartridge pens once and for all.

 

My ONLY complaint about the Level pens are the price - as writing is an essential, not a luxury; and it's so nice to have decent functional writing instrument -but not at the excessively high retail price generally being asked of them.

 

IF I could buy perhaps 2 pens for every color (one to write with and one spare) - with a heap of different ink colors; that would be a most excellent investment in the pleasure of writing.

 

Having GAINED the experience of using a big TANK to NIB fountain pen, I wouldn't dare modify a Pelikan Level pen into a more or less direct tank to nib design, because that would put me back into the position of doing what I learned was in essence - a very good idea - but it created more problems than it solved.

Edited June 12, 2009 by Jammit

[MJSchuelke]

My ONLY complaint about the Level pens are the price - as writing is an essential, not a luxury; and it's so nice to have decent functional writing instrument -but not at the excessively high retail price generally being asked of them.

 

I don't know where you are, but Level 65s appear on eBay Germany regularly for €10 or less; and Level 5s can be found with the same regularity for less than €40, which will buy you a gold-nibbed pen. Either is an excellent deal, and most sellers will ship internationally if you ask.

 

The price gouging on $2 per cartridge for a CC or ml of ink is appalling.

 

Where do you buy your cartridges? $2 per pack of cartridges would be common, but $2 per cartridge?

Edited September 1, 2009 by MJSchuelke

[J English Smith]

Does anyone know anyone U.S. (or North America) based who is still selling Level 65s? Or is the only source eBay Germany? Just curious...I would buy another one if I could find one...

[MJSchuelke]

Does anyone know anyone U.S. (or North America) based who is still selling Level 65s? Or is the only source eBay Germany? Just curious...I would buy another one if I could find one...

 

I don't know about the US, but this is the best offer I can find on this side of the pond: eBay auction 260360417705

 

- €7.95 each

- seller accepts PayPal and offers international shipping on request

- seller claims to have various combinations of red, green, blue and white pens with F, M and B nibs (see bottom of auction)

 

Note that these are just the pens, without the Level bottle.

 

(No affiliation, other than that I'm thinking of stocking up myself.)

[skipwilliams]

judperl on Ebay has them from time to time. He's the only reliable source I know of. They're certainly a lot more on Ebay Germany.

 

Skip

[FredMannis]

I have been reading this with some interest as I just 'discovered' my old level 5 which had been hiding in the back of a drawer for quite some time. Cleaning out the old dried ink is really quite easy - I use a syringe with a hypodermic needle of a suitable gauge inserted into the filler hole in the top. Fill the syringe with water to flush the top compartment and suck out the liquid. I carefully ground off and polished the tip of the needle so as to not damage the rubber valve. This procedure can also be used to easily change inks.

Fred

[encremental]

I just fill the Level ink bottle with water and with the valve open, swoosh it in and out of the pen by pressing the bottom of the bottle. You have a clean pen in a few seconds. Then empty the water out and put the fresh ink you want your Level to drink next into the bottle, and fill in the usual way.

 

John

[elaborate]

Want to add my 2 cents in here. I took apart a L65 following the advice here. I bought the pen secondhand and the ink was simply not coming through to the nib so I had to take it apart to see what was wrong. The cotton bud tip is really useful. I used the Johnson&Johnson's cotton buds, had to cut the blue stem at an angle as otherwise they were too thick to plug into the circles. To open up the pen it has to be in the triangle position.

 

Once opened up, I found that the stem had fallen off from the twisty end bit! Using Blorgy's photo the two long stems on the right hand side can actually be pulled off (with a light tug) from the yellow and green bits.

 

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c84/ZJK572/74546b0e.jpg

 

The reason why the ink didn't get to the nib was that the stem somehow got lodged in a position so that the ink flow from the front chamber to feed was permanently shut off. I had to take out the nib and feed and poke a cotton bud (sans cotton) through from that end to push out the stem. The stem and base is a snap on fit. I only had to push the stem back on to the base to make them one again.

 

As I pushed the stem I also accidentally pushed out the middle valve - that is the valve inside the barrel. This valve can be seen from outside the pen, it is the black shadow about 1.5cm away from the colour sleeve on the "section" (valve 3 in Blorgy's diagrams). It's basically a black plastic ring and an O-ring. As a reminder to myself - and may be others - to put this ring back in, it has to go in O-ring side towards the front. First time I pushed it in I did it the wrong way round :bonk: and had to poke it out again (with a slightly bent cotton bud from the front end) so that I may push it back in the right way. If this ring is in the wrong way round then there is no seal between front and back ink chambers, as you fill the pen from the end there will be ink squirting out from the nib.

 

One further thing is, the alteration recommended by Blorgy (the OP), in his post dated "24 November 2005 - 02:32 PM", i.e. permanently cutting the stem into two halves, is actually not necessary. If you would like to use the pen the way Blorgy had described you only need to open up the pen and pull the stem off from the base, snap the base back on to the barrel and that is it.

Edited March 2, 2013 by elaborate

[nana_kathy]

Thanks for your post... I have one of these pens for a year or two, and use it every day at work. Have never had a problem with it, but it's good to know it can be worked on if needed.

[Dillo]

Want to add my 2 cents in here. I took apart a L65 following the advice here. I bought the pen secondhand and the ink was simply not coming through to the nib so I had to take it apart to see what was wrong. The cotton bud tip is really useful. I used the Johnson&Johnson's cotton buds, had to cut the blue stem at an angle as otherwise they were too thick to plug into the circles. To open up the pen it has to be in the triangle position.

 

Once opened up, I found that the stem had fallen off from the twisty end bit! Using Blorgy's photo the two long stems on the right hand side can actually be pulled off (with a light tug) from the yellow and green bits.

 

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c84/ZJK572/74546b0e.jpg

 

The reason why the ink didn't get to the nib was that the stem somehow got lodged in a position so that the ink flow from the front chamber to feed was permanently shut off. I had to take out the nib and feed and poke a cotton bud (sans cotton) through from that end to push out the stem. The stem and base is a snap on fit. I only had to push the stem back on to the base to make them one again.

 

As I pushed the stem I also accidentally pushed out the middle valve - that is the valve inside the barrel. This valve can be seen from outside the pen, it is the black shadow about 1.5cm away from the colour sleeve on the "section" (valve 3 in Blorgy's diagrams). It's basically a black plastic ring and an O-ring. As a reminder to myself - and may be others - to put this ring back in, it has to go in O-ring side towards the front. First time I pushed it in I did it the wrong way round :bonk: and had to poke it out again (with a slightly bent cotton bud from the front end) so that I may push it back in the right way. If this ring is in the wrong way round then there is no seal between front and back ink chambers, as you fill the pen from the end there will be ink squirting out from the nib.

 

One further thing is, the alteration recommended by Blorgy (the OP), in his post dated "24 November 2005 - 02:32 PM", i.e. permanently cutting the stem into two halves, is actually not necessary. If you would like to use the pen the way Blorgy had described you only need to open up the pen and pull the stem off from the base, snap the base back on to the barrel and that is it.

 

Yes, as I mentioned earlier, the stem does pull out, so one doesn't actually need to cut it.

 

Dillon

[Gral]

As I cannot post this in the Market Watch section - I thought I'd mention this here:

 

If anyone in Europe is looking for Level 65s - maybe this helps:

 

https://www.bur-shop...-Tintenfass.jpg

 

https://www.bur-shop...ller-Tintenfass

 

I quite like the pen and was looking for a bottle as backup.

Does anyone know if they sold this pack in a shop or if it was a demo-pack for shop owners?

 

(Has anyone been successful with an alternative filling method? Do syringes really work?)

[amberleadavis]

I adore my Level pens. I'm uploading the photos here the prior posts since Photobucket links do not appear.

 

 

[Z man]

Thanks for reviving this thread. It motivated me to disassemble and really clean my L65s. These were the only pens that never ran dry during the day while others with a complete fill would do so occasionally, including a Parker Vac Max and a MB149.

 

The thread also prompted emptying one of the bottles with 4001 blue and refilling with Skrip permanent royal blue from a master ink just because the bottle hasn't been used in some time. The old 4001 blue went into an empty Skrip bottle with the well.

[OCArt]

13 hours ago, amberleadavis said:

I adore my Level pens. I'm uploading the photos here the prior posts since Photobucket links do not appear.

I see you also have another hidden Pelikan gem, the Pelikan Go!  The Level pen has always worked great for me and is a very good writer as is the Go!

[amberleadavis]

On 11/18/2021 at 9:10 AM, Z man said:

Thanks for reviving this thread. It motivated me to disassemble and really clean my L65s. These were the only pens that never ran dry during the day while others with a complete fill would do so occasionally, including a Parker Vac Max and a MB149.

 

The thread also prompted emptying one of the bottles with 4001 blue and refilling with Skrip permanent royal blue from a master ink just because the bottle hasn't been used in some time. The old 4001 blue went into an empty Skrip bottle with the well.

Glad to motivate you!

[amberleadavis]

On 11/18/2021 at 10:58 AM, OCArt said:

I see you also have another hidden Pelikan gem, the Pelikan Go!  The Level pen has always worked great for me and is a very good writer as is the Go!

 

The picture isn't mine, but I have more than 1 Go. The first one broke when the glue holding it together disintegrated. Something about living in Las Vegas for decades did the pen in!  It wasn't my first Pelikan (that had been a M200), but it was the pen I carried for years and loved.

[Z man]

5 hours ago, amberleadavis said:

Glad to motivate you!

I'm also a fan of the Go! Between you and OCArt, I'm on the hunt for one I've misplaced. (Whad'ya mean too many pens?)