I bought a Sheaffer Legacy 1 with TD filler....Observations

[Chrissy]

I bought a Silver Interrupted Barleycorn with gold plated trim Sheaffer Legacy 1 with factory stub nib. It was new old stock, and looked like it when I opened the box. It even had it's original gold price tag on it! I was very happy to see it.

This touchdown filling system is new to me so I thought I would make some observations on it. The booklet says to unscrew then pull out the plunger tube, put the nib into the ink, then press it down and pull it up again, then press it down quickly and hold it in the ink for 10 seconds.

I tried this, and found that the ink fill started to run out after a couple of pages of writing. Yes, it's a broad Stub nib, and it uses much more ink than say a Fine nib would, but I wasn't overly impressed with the ink capacity. I'm in Florida at the moment, but never come here without my trusty syringe, so I tried the effect of following the instructions for the TD filler, and pumping more than the number of times it suggested. I always ended by pushing the plunger down quickly, and leaving the nib submerged in ink for at least 10 seconds.

After doing this I then unscrewed the pen and removed the TD converter and tried the effect of adding more ink using my syringe. I expected more ink to go in than actually does and find that I can't add much more ink to the converter. My conclusion is that the TD filler is working quite effectively, and is filling with a reasonable amount of ink.

I'm assuming now that the TD converter doesn't hold very much ink. Maybe less than a cartridge holds? I have a couple of Sheaffer press bar converters with the red base, and I have read that these can be used in exactly the same way as the TD converters, as they contain pli-glass sacs, and are the same as the gold tube TD converters. My guess is that they will hold about the same amount of ink though, not more.

When I get home I will carefully try out a twist action Sheaffer converter in there. Whether it will fit inside the plunger tube I don't know yet. But either it will or it won't. I will be careful and see it it works. Edit to add: a twist action converter is too long to fit inside while the TD filler is in there.

It's a fabulous pen, but I just wish it held a bit more ink.

Sorry but the picture is poor because I only have a long lens for my camera.

2017-06-14 14.58.03.jpg2017-06-14 19.53.27.jpg2017-06-14 14.56.43.jpg