19 replies to this topic

[John Danza]

I have this cool Admiral syringe filler pen, a British pen, in chased hard rubber. I'm really interested in getting it restored and writing with it. Does anyone on the board do restorations of syringe fillers? Photos below.

 

 

 

 

[Paul M]

Hi John

 

I think this pen may have been made by George Shand, a manufacturer who was very active in the first years of the 20th Century,

 

I have tried to restore two similar pens in the past, using large cork seals, but found the end result less than satisfactory.  The pen looked good, but did not fill particularly efficiently. (I still have them here), If I was to do another I think I would look at those seals David Nishimura sells to see if any of these produced a better result. 

 

I had assumed that the original item was reasonable efficient, and maybe I should have less regard for 1905 design and technology. 

[AndyR]

John,

 

Sorry I can't help with the restoration advice but I think Paul is correct about the maker. The English manufacturers of the time each seemed to use a different design of finial on the end of the plunger, and that certainly looks like a Shand. From my British vintage pens gallery, here is a picture of one of his full size syringe fillers alongside a miniature version that we believe to be also made by him. There is another picture of the miniature pen in the gallery.

 

 

I guess the date of your pen (lovely example) would be c. 1905 - 1910, his earlier versions seemed to use over/under vulcanite feeds, and I have a mint & boxed 'Volcano' pen with that arrangement that I have been able to date to about 1903. Shand made almost exclusively 'own brand' pens, and he was a major supplier to both Conway Stewart and Jewel at the time. There is no doubt his was a substantial business, and a genuine rival to other other big English makers of the time, BWR & DeLaRue. I have been researching and preparing a history of the development of his business for some time - unfortunately due to pressure of the day job, it has been on hold for the past year, but I still hope to get it published in the WES Journal later in 2015.

 

Andy

 

[piscov]

Orings look to me as a viable option there. 

 

You just need to find the correct size oring. Install 2 or 3 depending on the space available in the shaft. Use also a bit of silicone grease to lube the spaces between orings, this will leave a "permanent" lub System in place. You should look for shops dedicated to selling orings, they have a a huge range of sizes and materials and you can try several there till you find the best fit.

 

It there is no oring size that fits you can have the shaft machined in a lathe to a diameter that fits a chosen oring in the barrel. it is fairly easy to make by anyone with basic lathe knowledge.

 

 About the cork: I don't see a reason why a proper well made to fit cork should not work; as long as the barrel is air tight the cork.

 

The trick to make a good Cork is use high quality cork, a lathe or a speed adjustable drill and sand paper.

 

1)make a contraption to old the cork in place make sure the cork cannot rotate in that shaft. Preferably with the same diameter or under the diameter the shaft has. 2)Just turn the cork at low speeds using the lathe or a contraption to fix the cork to the drill and have the it rotate the cork.Use the sand to reduce the cork size to the size you need. Measure it constantly and test with the barrel you need to cork up.

3)At the end cook it for 30 sec with paraffin or bee wax. ( don't let it too hot or the cork will expand, this is just to fill the pores the corks has.

4) install cork it in the pen's shaft and you can use a bit of shellac to fix it better in place. Use the nut to do the fixing properly.

4)Use silicone grease to lube it.

5) test it and enjoy a new corked pen!

 

Note: this is the way I do it. It works for me but probably there are other ways to achieve the same results. I use a lathe and have several gigs for each cork sizes ( internal and external diameter I need).

 

Hope it helps.

 

Vasco

[John Danza]

Thanks guys for all the great information on this. Sounds like restoration will be an adventure. I'll try the o-rings but I don't want to do irreparable surgery on a great old pen like this. If I can't get it up and running easily, I'll move it along to someone who better appreciates it for their collection.

[Cob]

Here's a picture of my syringe filler.

 

 

Life's too short for messing about with corks in my view so I fixed it with a bunch of O rings.  There wasn't a perfect fit size available, so mine are slightly tight, but the pen works perfectly and most importantly does not leak.

 

Cob

Edited by Cob, 14 January 2015 - 11:20 PM.

[Cob]

Posted in error

Edited by Cob, 15 January 2015 - 11:01 AM.

[John Danza]

Where would you guys recommend looking for the o-rings? My local hardware store carries some, but I wouldn't call it an extensive supply. Would a good hobby shop carry them?

[Cob]

Where would you guys recommend looking for the o-rings? My local hardware store carries some, but I wouldn't call it an extensive supply. Would a good hobby shop carry them?

These people are brilliant; you can buy a packet of 10 for a couple of quid - free postage; I do not know how they do it.  Don't forget to order silicone grease - you can get a tube from Amazon - don't buy the tiny containers from the pen supplies people.  I bought a tube of Servisol - about £5 I think.

 

Cob

[piscov]

Hi John,

 

There are shops that carry a lot of orings sizes in their inventory and you can go there and find the ones you really need instead of buying online several until you find the one that fits your needs. Tose shops usually deal with seals for hydraulic and pneumatic machines/parts, and they also they also have good quality silicone grease for sale like the Dow Corning 111

 

I like to go to a brick and mortar shop and buy them, but you can also find them online. Here is a link, try to find a shop nearby and go there and test them.

http://www.theoringstore.com/

 

http://www.globaloring.com/

 

Best

 

Vasco

Edited by piscov, 15 January 2015 - 06:35 PM.

[John Danza]

 

Where would you guys recommend looking for the o-rings? My local hardware store carries some, but I wouldn't call it an extensive supply. Would a good hobby shop carry them?

These people are brilliant; you can buy a packet of 10 for a couple of quid - free postage; I do not know how they do it.  Don't forget to order silicone grease - you can get a tube from Amazon - don't buy the tiny containers from the pen supplies people.  I bought a tube of Servisol - about £5 I think.

 

Cob

 

 

Cob, since I'm in the U.S it will probably be better for me to try to source locally. Could you tell me the size of o-rings you used for your pen, as you pen looks like it's pretty similar to mine? Thanks!

[Cob]

 

 

Where would you guys recommend looking for the o-rings? My local hardware store carries some, but I wouldn't call it an extensive supply. Would a good hobby shop carry them?

These people are brilliant; you can buy a packet of 10 for a couple of quid - free postage; I do not know how they do it.  Don't forget to order silicone grease - you can get a tube from Amazon - don't buy the tiny containers from the pen supplies people.  I bought a tube of Servisol - about £5 I think.

 

Cob

 

 

Cob, since I'm in the U.S it will probably be better for me to try to source locally. Could you tell me the size of o-rings you used for your pen, as you pen looks like it's pretty similar to mine? Thanks!

 

OH dear!!

 

Er...

 

Well the thing about this is that when you order O rings the dimensions given are the internal diameter and the thickness.  Of course we need to know the external diameter - when fitted!

 

I measured the thickness of the shaft of course and did my best to measure the internal diameter of the barrel.  Of course I could not measure the part where the work is done and given that the pen is probably over 100 yeasr old that's a bit of puzzler.  So I subracted twice the offered wall thickness and planned for a tightish fit on the shaft - this of course will expand the rings - so it's not a simple as it first might seem.  On one pen I fitted the O rings: too tight so I spent about an hour and a half with abrasive paper reducing and polishing them; it worked in the end but what a pain that was!

 

I have about eight packs of O rings - partly from experiments fixing Osmias; I'll try to have look tomorrow and see if I can find out - there's no system here I'm afraid!

 

Best wishes

 

Cob

[John Danza]

I'll have to get my micrometer out and measure the shaft diameter and the inside diameter of the barrel. That should get me in the ballpark.

[Cob]

I'll have to get my micrometer out and measure the shaft diameter and the inside diameter of the barrel. That should get me in the ballpark.

Yes - well a caliper anyway!  Should the dimensions be the same, and I find my bag of O rings, then PM me and I'll post them to you.

 

Cob

Edited by Cob, 16 January 2015 - 01:05 AM.

[Cob]

John,

 

Apologies for the delay - I have been rather busy.  I hope to make progress this weekend.

 

Cob

[Cob]

Many apologies for the long delay - just too much to do.  Finally I have the answers for you.

 

The barrel bore on my pen is 7.38mm nominal; the piston shaft diameter is 4.72.

 

The O rings I used are 4.5mm x 1.5mm.  Note that O rings are specified by ID and thickness, so this was the nearest I could find:

 

4.5 + (2 x 1,5) = 7.5mm  The piston shaft thickness means that the rings are a tight fit and stretched somewhat; operation is on the tight side but half-reasonable! (I took the liberty of assuming that the "working" part of the barrel would probably a bit larger through wear than the part that I could measure with my calipers.

 

I hope this helps solve your problem.

 

Best wishes

 

Cob

Edited by Cob, 22 January 2015 - 11:55 AM.

[John Danza]

I finally measured my pen. My micrometer is in inches, which I converted to MM as a comparison to Cob's pen:

 

Barrel inside diameter = 0.346 in / 8.79 mm

Shaft diameter at point where the O-rings ride = 0.1305 in / 3.32 mm

Shaft diameter = 0.244 in / 6.2 mm

Total amount of O-rings needed = .328 in / 8.33 mm. This is the amount of room between the HR washer that will go up against the rings and the shoulder on the shaft where it widens.

 

Off to the hardware store tomorrow to see what they have.

[Cob]

I finally measured my pen. My micrometer is in inches, which I converted to MM as a comparison to Cob's pen:

 

Barrel inside diameter = 0.346 in / 8.79 mm

Shaft diameter at point where the O-rings ride = 0.1305 in / 3.32 mm

Shaft diameter = 0.244 in / 6.2 mm

Total amount of O-rings needed = .328 in / 8.33 mm. This is the amount of room between the HR washer that will go up against the rings and the shoulder on the shaft where it widens.

 

Off to the hardware store tomorrow to see what they have.

Your pen will more ink than mine - provided you can find the O rings!

 

Cob

[John Danza]

Success! I finally found what I needed at the local hardware store, which has a huge selection of tiny hardware bits and pieces, even more than the big boxes like Home Depot. What I found were small rubber grommets that were a perfect size for the barrel of the pen and the shaft of the syringe. Two of them fit perfectly in the space allotted on the shaft, but I picked up six of them for spares, since they were only $0.27 each.

 

After fitting them, I took the advice about silicone grease and filled the grooves of each grommet with it, so there will be plenty of lubrication between the layers. Photos below. The pen fills perfectly, seems to write well with great flow, and so far there have been no leaks from the back of the syringe. All I need is to look through the accommodation clips I have to find one that fits and this old English HR pen will be back in action in my pocket.

 

Thanks to everyone (especially Cob) for the great and really helpful advice.

 

 

 

[Cob]

Success! I finally found what I needed at the local hardware store, which has a huge selection of tiny hardware bits and pieces, even more than the big boxes like Home Depot. What I found were small rubber grommets that were a perfect size for the barrel of the pen and the shaft of the syringe. Two of them fit perfectly in the space allotted on the shaft, but I picked up six of them for spares, since they were only $0.27 each.

 

After fitting them, I took the advice about silicone grease and filled the grooves of each grommet with it, so there will be plenty of lubrication between the layers. Photos below. The pen fills perfectly, seems to write well with great flow, and so far there have been no leaks from the back of the syringe. All I need is to look through the accommodation clips I have to find one that fits and this old English HR pen will be back in action in my pocket.

 

Thanks to everyone (especially Cob) for the great and really helpful advice.

 

 

 

Well done - and what a great Idea.  I would have been inclined to polish up the edges of the grommets as the finish is not up to O ring standard.  We'll have to see when it settles down.

 

If you cannot find a clip, perhaps a Swan metal pocket would work?

 

Enjoy your pen.

 

Cob