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Conway Stewart Churchill Hard Rubber pen



 
 
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  #1  
Old September 9th 03, 08:21 AM
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Default Conway Stewart Churchill Hard Rubber pen

With reference to the posting by Quarterhorseman.
Please do not take any notice of the suggestions or opinions
in this article, disassembly of your pen will invalidate
your guarantee. The author is obviously unqualified and does
not know what he is talking about, and is most certainly not
a qualified engineer. It is obvious from the photograph
that this person has already damaged his nib by crudely
taking apart his pen, and heating the barrel with any kind
of flame is not recommended.
Any leakage problems experienced has been due to a defective
batch of sacs from the sac manufacturers, this has now been
cured. The theory that fatness of the sac is causing the
pen towrite 'wet' is a complete fallacy, and certainly not
based on any engineering principle.
Should any customer have any queries please do not hesitate
to contact me personally at .
Ads
  #2  
Old September 9th 03, 11:54 AM
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wrote:

With reference to the posting by Quarterhorseman.
Please do not take any notice of the suggestions or opinions
in this article, disassembly of your pen will invalidate
your guarantee. The author is obviously unqualified and does
not know what he is talking about, and is most certainly not
a qualified engineer. It is obvious from the photograph
that this person has already damaged his nib by crudely
taking apart his pen, and heating the barrel with any kind
of flame is not recommended.
Any leakage problems experienced has been due to a defective
batch of sacs from the sac manufacturers, this has now been
cured. The theory that fatness of the sac is causing the
pen towrite 'wet' is a complete fallacy, and certainly not
based on any engineering principle.
Should any customer have any queries please do not hesitate
to contact me personally at
.


Witrh all respect you the one who obviously who knows nothing about pens
and the fatness of sacs is a MAJOR cause of uneven or "wet" writing.
Every experienced pen repair person on earth could testify to this. It
is a prinicple well known in the pen industry for 100 years. Perhaps
you should address why the pen you are selling have so many problems,
even after being repaired instead of attacking others who are only
trying to help. Nor has the pen in any way been damaged via disassembly
shown in the photo.

Nor have you address the obvious problem that the pressure bar in many
CS pens is obviously too long and does in fact often kink or tear the
sac due to its length and sharp movement near the sac nipple. This is
also a well known problem and every pen company that ever made a lever
filler knows, or should know of it. There should be a reasonable space
between the end of the bar near the section and the nipple to provide a
GENTLE bend when filling. Not a sharp kink which can tear a sac due to
the great stress or even pull a sac off the nipple itself.

Having read WJDs article I find it informative and well written. Yes,
HAD the pen been damaged the guarantee would be void. However it also
appears the guarantee that CS provides is next to useless as dozens of
posts on the internet have proved since the pen fails, often within days
of guaranttee work of CS lever fillers. If CS cared in the least about
their customers they would provide someone here in the US to provide
such service and make sure such service, once performed would fix the
problem instead of failing again in a short period.

One look at the photos prove that both the sac is too large and the
pressure bar too long for a properly designed pen. Frank
  #3  
Old September 9th 03, 01:02 PM
Quarter Horseman
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wrote:
With reference to the posting by Quarterhorseman.
Please do not take any notice of the suggestions or opinions
in this article, disassembly of your pen will invalidate
your guarantee.


Hi Don,

I do not dispute this warning and I thank you for the reminder. The
information is provided only to illustrate the workings of the pen and
to show how to fix it if someone were to forego the benefits of the
guarantee or not wish to wait for its execution.

The author is obviously unqualified and does
not know what he is talking about, and is most certainly not
a qualified engineer.


Thank you for your opinion of me, which provided me some hearty laughs
over morning coffee. I have been repairing pens for nearly a decade and
I would estimate that somewhere between two and three hundred have
crossed my bench (actually my tiger-maple tavern table). All came in as
junk, and all went out working as designed or much better, or modified
to behave in a specific fashion. Regarding your comment about my being
a "qualified engineer," the last time I checked, fountain pens weren't
arcane devices that required that a repair man have some quantity of
letters after his surname, but rather just some tools, some brains,
patience, powers of observation, "hands" as the Italians say, and common
sense. I believe I posses all in abundance. So please don't try to
cast some foreboding, scientific pallor over pen repair; it doesn't
exist, and odd-looking individuals with pocket protectors and slide
rules are not required to be present for it to come out all right. (I
do understand, however, that CS is trying to prevent the average Joe
from yanking his pen apart, damaging it, and returning the broken pieces
to CS for repair; many such repair jobs have crossed my bench and I
sincerely sympathize with the manufacturers' exhortations to their
customers just to leave their pens alone.)

It is obvious from the photograph
that this person has already damaged his nib by crudely
taking apart his pen,


First of all, the nib is not damaged and you would have no way of
discerning that from the photograph, so let's dispose of that absurdity
at once. Sir, your pen is misdesigned in the nib/feed area. I wasn't
going to bring up that point, but since you mention it, I will now. Any
fountain pen, properly-fitted, should hang onto its nib very tightly.
This pen, as well as others of its ilk (it is rather generic in regard
to its outsourced nib/feed design, and I am certain you know what I'm
talking about) holds its nib so loosely that the application of only
moderate pressure will offset it inside the section, misaligning it with
respect to the feed. The nib/feed offset in the picture occurred during
disassembly and is nothing to worry about; repositioning and proper
anchoring is an easy fix bordering on the trivial using methods I and
others have described in this newsgroup in the past. You may take some
solace, however, that this behavior ("nib walking" is what I call it) is
not unheard-of with the type of nib and feed you use; I own several pens
of recent manufacture that behaved thus until I fixed them, my not being
a "qualified engineer" notwithstanding.

"Crudely" taking apart his pen? This is ridiculous. Having
disassembled so many pens over so many years, successfully and with
minimal devastation I might add, I used this experience and the tools I
possess to disassemble just another pen that required service. After
all, Don, that's what it was -- just another pen. It came apart fine
and was undamaged. It will go back together fine and will write better
and last longer once I'm done with it. If I had to disassemble more of
these I would not change the procedure I used one whit. By the way, I
should take the opportunity to thank CS for *not* rosining or
shellacking the pen together. The parts all appear to be a press fit
and are well-machined for that purpose.

and heating the barrel with any kind
of flame is not recommended.


I yield to your implication that CS may not recommend ever using flame
to heat a barrel, especially for those inexperienced in pen repair and
especially over barrel threads which can easily distort under excessive
heat. However, generally, in the pen-repair world this is
widely-accepted practice and is frequently mentioned in older pen-repair
manuals. In the case of this particular pen, I am sure a hair dryer or
other non-flame heat source would have worked just as well, since heat
of a localized nature was not really necessary, the section already
having been removed without heat. But I am most-comfortable with open
flame and readily assume the risks attendant thereto.

Any leakage problems experienced has been due to a defective
batch of sacs from the sac manufacturers, this has now been
cured.


I am glad you have successfully addressed the leakage problems with such
a simple change. What exactly was wrong with those sacs? Was it
composition, or profile? Have you located sacs that are
especially-tough mechanically? Have you gone to a nylon or other
non-rubber sac? I am sure we would all like to know.

The theory that fatness of the sac is causing the
pen towrite 'wet' is a complete fallacy, and certainly not
based on any engineering principle.


Ah. Back to engineering. It certainly *is* based on engineering
principle, the concept of air acting as an insulator. Please see Frank
Dubiel's repair manual for more information, and furthermore please
refer to the millions of sac-filled pens of old which, when
properly-designed and -executed, employed sacs that allowed air space
around them, or some other device, to help insulate the ink chamber from
the heat of the users' hands. By the way, I did not say that the pen
writes wet; I said that *if* a particular pen writes wet, it *may* be
caused by the size of the sac and its direct contact with the pen body.
If you are going to rebut my statements, sir, please at least do not
misrepresent them before doing so.

Thank you again, Don, for your participation and feedback. I hope your
company, as well as the pen community in general, will accept the
information I provided as it was intended: to help improve its design
whether by CS itself or in the hands of an end user. You have a very
attractive and desirable pen here that's nine tenths of the way to
perfection. I would appreciate it greatly if you would feed back my
suggestions to the design team. If you would like specific
recommendations, including dimensions, I would be glad to be of service
thus to CS. Let me know here and I will post them.

Best regards,
QH

  #4  
Old September 9th 03, 11:10 PM
Dik F. Liu
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Don, it's common knowledge among FP collectors that too large a sac can cause a
pen to leak. Not being a qualified engineer, I have nevertheless fixed a few
"restored" leaky pens by just changing the sac to a smaller size. You don't
need an engineering degree to do this.

At any rate, it seems that you should at least be grateful to Quarterhorseman
for remedying what is, ultimately, an engineering flaw created by YOUR company.
If your pens write well, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Dik
  #5  
Old September 10th 03, 12:58 AM
kg
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wrote in message
...
With reference to the posting by Quarterhorseman.
Please do not take any notice of the suggestions or opinions
in this article, disassembly of your pen will invalidate
your guarantee. The author is obviously unqualified and does
not know what he is talking about, and is most certainly not
a qualified engineer. It is obvious from the photograph
that this person has already damaged his nib by crudely
taking apart his pen, and heating the barrel with any kind
of flame is not recommended.
Any leakage problems experienced has been due to a defective
batch of sacs from the sac manufacturers, this has now been
cured. The theory that fatness of the sac is causing the
pen towrite 'wet' is a complete fallacy, and certainly not
based on any engineering principle.
Should any customer have any queries please do not hesitate
to contact me personally at .


Don,
first off, I think the information provided by Quarterhorseman was good,
both from a repair perspective and for those of us who may be contemplating
purchasing a CS leverfiller. I would have to agree with Frank and others
that the disassembly of the pen is not that big of a deal and the problems
as described would seem to hold true. If you've messed with enough old
leverfillers, you recognize the symptoms right away. I do have a question;
why the nylon sleeve design as opposed to the time proven method of
machining the nipple on the section itself? That seems an extra piece of
potential trouble. I'm sure there is a reason, I'm just curious.

Thanks for you time,

Kelly G.


  #6  
Old September 10th 03, 02:05 PM
Licensed to Quill
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I am wondering if the company is aware of the principle which was discovered
at the turn of the last century to which people on these boards have alluded
but which no one has mentioned: That the reason why smaller sacks are used
is that (as Quartermaster mentioned) if there is no space between the sack
and the barrel, as soon as any ink is used up in the sack, heat from the
body will cause whatever is in the sack (air) to expand and cause wetness or
in extreme cases flooding.

Looking at the authoritative writings on this subject, - only countered,
(rather suspiciously) by the unsupported suggestion that disassembly will
invalidate any warranty, - I was wondering about two things: Firstly in
mentioning a plastic piece behind what looks like a nipple, why has no one
tried putting a neck type sack directly onto the nipple? Would this not
obviate the problems mentioned by Frank (whose experience on this subject
can hardly be ignored, especially when described in such detail) about the
pressure bar causing a kink too close to that nipple (of whatever type the
nipple is)?

Secondly, why does this quality pen use what one might disparagingly
describe as a Morrison-type pressure bar of the type discarded almost
immediately on introduction by all quality pen companies? Look at the early
Watermans 412 PSFs of around 1915 and the pretty much immediately introduced
452s to see what Watermans learned about making this design work properly.
As soon as the pen sees any moisture or gets dipped in water in a non-hot
climate, will the u part of this pressure bar not start to rust or at least
become weak? Although all cheap pens used this type, I have rarely
(LeBoeuf) been aware of that U-type pressure bar used for any period of time
by any quality pen company. I suppose one could be made to work properly
and be properly manufactured, but isn't the more conventional method more
often used because it is better? Put another way, wasn't this the method
vaguely similar to the one pictured in Sheaffer's 1908 patent which was
discarded by the time they actually got the pen into production about four
years later?

Licensed to Quill


wrote in message
...
With reference to the posting by Quarterhorseman.
Please do not take any notice of the suggestions or opinions
in this article, disassembly of your pen will invalidate
your guarantee. The author is obviously unqualified and does
not know what he is talking about, and is most certainly not
a qualified engineer. It is obvious from the photograph
that this person has already damaged his nib by crudely
taking apart his pen, and heating the barrel with any kind
of flame is not recommended.
Any leakage problems experienced has been due to a defective
batch of sacs from the sac manufacturers, this has now been
cured. The theory that fatness of the sac is causing the
pen towrite 'wet' is a complete fallacy, and certainly not
based on any engineering principle.
Should any customer have any queries please do not hesitate
to contact me personally at .



  #8  
Old September 10th 03, 07:28 PM
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Posts: n/a
Default

Alan Shutko wrote:

writes:

The end result is this is a terribly designed pen.


This has been a very educational thread... anyone know of more
reviews of this nature? Most reviews concentrate on look and feel of
the pen, along with how it writes.

Does Da Book have this kind of info? (Haven't gotten around to
getting a copy yet.)


Yes it does in terms of explaining the technical basis of how various
pens are designed and work vs cases of poorer designs. Once you become
acquantied with traditional pen designs its easy to spot the differences
and/or mistakes in so many modern pens. More important it would show
you what changes can be made to improve pens performance.

Many reviews of new pens are useless. In most cases they appear in
magazines where the company paid big bucks for a full color ad of one or
more pages and you can bet the reviewer will not or cannot say much
negative lest the advertiser complain. I can state for a fact some
reviews and comments that are only slightly negative have been totally
cencorsed from some publications and some web sites which are far more
interested in money made from ads than honestly informing people about
both positive and negative aspects of a given pen.

Many reviews read more like press releases and I've read quite a few
that don't even bother to say what type of filler the pen even has. A
few reviews have been more honest so not all are biased or thinly
disguised advertisements but that is sadly the minority.

The look and feel of a pen IMHO means zero if it does not do what a pen
is supposed to do and do it perfectly--that is write and when I say
write I mean it does everything "write" means including no skips, no
leaks, instant start and so on.

In this thread about Conway Stewart we had an excellent post from WJD
explaing some MINOR design problems in the pen that have caused it to be
a terrible pen. These minor problems can be easily correced by the end
user. But Don speaking, we assume for CS, instead of thanking WJD for
his input and suggestions decided to attack him and show actual contempt
for anyone saying anything negative about their product. In fact the
suggestions from WJD and myself could very easily be incorporated in
futuer CS pens with the most minor of production changes. Maybe they
will. Maybe not. However as someone elese pointed out if the pen was
designed properly we would not be having this discussion.

Has Don or CS simply thanked WJD for the input and cautioned against
such work lest anything be broken in the process which would void the
warantee no one would have minded. But to attack WJD and then deny the
so obvious thechnical problems has I sure soured some of us on CS. I
really think Don or someone from CS owns WJD an apology. In fact the
flaws must be corrected or this pen will continue to be among the most
unreliable lever fillers ever made. Frank
  #10  
Old September 26th 03, 11:21 AM
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About quality of Conway Stewart..
What about the quality of the new Conway Stewart 58'???

"DovR" wrote in message .. .
Indeed this has been informative and elucidating w/o mud slinging. Maybe
anger by the manufacturer for implied and direct criticism on his pen which
seems correct and justified, judging by the heavies' opinions expounded on
these pages. Pity instead of trying to rectify an inherent manufacturing
fault and appreciating expert opinions.

Alan if you do not have Da Book as you admit, run to Mr D or your favourite
pen empoium to get one. It's industry standard these days. Spiral bound and
blue paper covered, self duplicated on a 50 or 100 year old printer, it's a
wealth of information for the experienced and newbie alike. Email with the
20 plus handling will suffice and get you this instructive manual.

"Alan Shutko" wrote in message
...
writes:

The end result is this is a terribly designed pen.


This has been a very educational thread... anyone know of more
reviews of this nature? Most reviews concentrate on look and feel of
the pen, along with how it writes.

Does Da Book have this kind of info? (Haven't gotten around to
getting a copy yet.)

--
Alan Shutko - I am the rocks.
I have a very good memory - it is just short.

 




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