Conway Stewart 78

[MarcoA64]

Greetings all, I was trying the CS 78 lever to see if I could put it in rotation and it went 'crunch' on the sac and didn't spring back as usual. Fine. Tried with a piece of bicycle tyre to remove the section but it didn't budge. Tried heating it a couple of times then using the piece of tyre, nothing. Enters the section plier, after heating, nothing.
Is the section of these pens screwed in or friction fit, please? Thank you. Marco

[Deb]

I agree with the above.

[MarcoA64]

thank you folks. I'll give it another go tomorrow and see how it goes. 👍🏻

[penwash]

thank you folks. I'll give it another go tomorrow and see how it goes. 👍🏻

And you may have to repeat the steps for many days, not just tomorrow.

I had a few pens, whose section is so tightly fit to the barrel that it won't budge no matter how many times I heat, pull, twist and tug.

And at that point it is easy for us to just assume that the section is glued. But in my case, after hundreds of restorations, the number of sections that were actually glued is one (1).

[Deb]

I used to repair Conway Stewarts and I don't remember any of them having excessively tight sections. As above, dry heat and section pliers. It may take many repetitions but it will give way in the end. Don't give in to the temptation to use excessive heat or too great force.

It does occur to me that there's one British "restorer" who made a habit of gluing sections because he believed that the owner had no business looking inside his own pen! If your pen passed through the hands of Grandmia it might be glued.

[Chrissy]

If your pen passed through the hands of Grandmia it might be glued.

I believe quite a few pens have passed through the hands of that restorer but I wasn't aware he had made that decision...

[penwash]

It does occur to me that there's one British "restorer" who made a habit of gluing sections because he believed that the owner had no business looking inside his own pen! If your pen passed through the hands of Grandmia it might be glued.

That is interesting, I watched some of his youtube videos and as far as I can recall (it's been years since) he used shellac, not glue. Maybe I just didn't watch the ones where he did use glue.

But in general, yeah, I don't agree with restorations that don't make it easier for the pen to be serviced later on.

[penwash]

I had a 58 that was bought from the original purchaser and hardly used, I changed the sac but the pen was a beggar to undo. It took a lot of effort and repeated attempts at heating and twisting. The pen had never been apart and the sac was the original light brown with Conway Stewart in script along it.

The pen went back together only with the greatest difficulty, Marco might have the same problem on reassembly, I would do a trial fit first of all to establish whether shellac is needed, possibly not.

For sure, factory original pens could be a bear to take apart. Your story reminded me of this gold-filled Wahl-Eversharp pen that I restored quite some time ago.

Pretty little pen, but the section was so difficult to remove. When I did finally remove it (took a really long time), I just found out that the metal barrel was thin enough that the cap threads have an inverted, less prominent version of itself inside the barrel. Those "negative" grooves -- over time -- clutched on the section so tightly that it left a shallow imprint on the section that makes it looked like the section is threaded into the barrel.

I used my lathe to very lightly sand off the shallow imprint on the section, so it still can fit snugly inside the barrel, but with just a little heat, you could take it in and out without issues.

[FredRydr]

Wahl-Eversharps are notorious for their Personal Points that had the aluminum sleeve originally designed to enable pen dealers to easily swap a section/nib unit for customers. Unfortunately, corrosion of the sleeves over decades made it difficult to extract sections from barrels by restorers. Syd Saperstein even marketed his penetrating “potion” to ease removal. I found “Blaster” will also do the job.

Oh, this is a C-S thread! Never mind…. ;-)

[MarcoA64]

I didn't buy the CS from this glue user 😊

[MarcoA64]

SUCCESS!! A bit of repeatedly applied heat and section pliers managed to get the section off. The sac is really in bad conditions. Shall I replace the old sac with a new latex sac or a silicone one? Pros and cons if any?

[MarcoA64]

I've always used latex. It is a lever filler, will silicone only increase the duration of the sac?

[MarcoA64]

@RobJonson, I have a lever filler pen where the section screws onto the barrel. It is a Mentmore Auto-Flow. I also have a Parker Challanger button filler where the section is friction fit. There are certainly other such vairants out there. Interesting

[penwash]

SUCCESS!! A bit of repeatedly applied heat and section pliers managed to get the section off. The sac is really in bad conditions. Shall I replace the old sac with a new latex sac or a silicone one? Pros and cons if any?

I use latex ink sacs on lever fillers. Silicone ones are less pliable than latex and can be hard on the lever assembly.

Unless your CS 78 has a very pristine celluloid that you don't want to risk being discolored by the gas supposedly produced by latex sacs.

[MarcoA64]

the pen's celluloid is Blue Herringbone. it is in pristine state.

[Deb]

Those don't discolour, Marco. I would use latex.

[MarcoA64]

Great info Deb. So could discoloration be related to age of manufacture? This is reported as being second half of 50s to late 60s I recall. Earlier periods could have this happening, i.e. pre 40-50s?

[penwash]

Great info Deb. So could discoloration be related to age of manufacture? This is reported as being second half of 50s to late 60s I recall. Earlier periods could have this happening, i.e. pre 40-50s?

The discoloration affects certain types of celluloid patterns/colors. Some are more prone and others more impervious to that.
I recall someone listed the types that are prone (Richard Binder if I remember correctly) in a discussion thread on FPN.

But that's me quoting expert opinions, in my own restorations (I restore quite a lot of celluloid pens) I noticed instances of pristine barrels with crumbled latex ink sac inside, with enough frequency that created a little doubt in my mind that the "gas" is solely responsible for the discoloration.

Back to your CS 78, if Deb says that your herringbone celluloid is not prone to discoloration, I'd listen.

I am more familiar with celluloids made for US pens. For example, I haven't yet seen pens made with black-bronze celluloid being heavily discolored, unlike the cream-black ones.

[MarcoA64]

ordered latex sac. thank you for your support folks. Marco