A fountain pen is a controlled leak, right?
Well, that’s the theory, anyway.
Remember that Matador 811 I recorked about three weeks ago?
When I installed that pen’s new cork, I tested the seal by my usual method: stick the end of my tongue into the open end of the barrel, suck air out of the pen, and let the partial vacuum hold the pen to my tongue. No problem, the cork was sealing perfectly. I reinstalled the section with some Sheaffer thread sealant and smoothed the nib, and we sent the pen home to a happy client.
An email came back saying that it was still blobbing. Argh.
So the pen came back. I fished it out of my rework basket today and spent too much time finding the leak. I tested the piston: perfect seal, but the pen blobbed. I tested the section joint: perfect seal, but the pen blobbed. I retensioned the cork and retested. Yup. Blobs.
About that controlled leak thing... You know the old yarn about Lewis Waterman and the insurance policy, how he was going to have a client sign the policy, how he decided to impress the client by carrying a fountain pen he’d just bought instead of dragging along a dip pen and a bottle, how the fountain pen horked up a big one all over the policy, how the client had signed with another company before Waterman could get back to him with a fresh copy, and how Waterman was so frustrated that he started whittling bits of hard rubber and invented the channelled feed. Fable or not, the story pretty well hammers home the principle of the controlled leak.
So I took a hard look at the Matador’s feed. Actually, I didn’t have to look all that hard; the channel was so deep the thing looked more like the inside of a ship’s hull on the ways at Harland & Wolff than a pen’s feed. Rummaging through my drawer of miscellaneous feeds and sections, I rustled up a feed the right diameter and length, but with a much shallower channel. Assemble the nib with the new feed into the pen, and test. Bingo!
Also this week I had a brush with the rich and famous. I’ve been developing an occasional “partnership” with William Jewell, who operates Historical Woods of America. Bill makes superbly crafted furniture and other items (translation: tchotchkes) using wood from historic locations. Among the things he makes are pens — yes, he’s a pen turner, but he’s found himself a unique niche, and he does a really good job. On my workbench is a tool I use often, a letter opener Bill made from a piece of catalpa wood from the Wilderness battlefield. (Major props to the poster of the first comment successfully explaining why the Wilderness, fought in May 1864, marked a major turning point for the Army of the Potomac.) I also have a bottle stopper Bill made from a chunk of oak that came out of an 1850s dam on the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg. That oak’s provenance means that it saw the December 1862 battle that put a disastrous finale to Ambrose Burnside’s tenure as commander of the Army of the Potomac.
But I digress. Bill called me a week or so ago with a special project. It seems that he’d received an order for a fountain pen to be fitted with an 18K cursive italic nib. The purchaser was none other than U.S. Senator John Warner of Virginia. Senator Warner, who has sworn off ballpoints, wanted the pen urgently to sign a bill that he co-sponsored. Today Senator Warner’s pen went on its way to Virginia. I hope the Senator will enjoy using the pen as much as I enjoyed crafting its nib.
In other home-front news, I have this very day come into possession of a pen that doesn’t write. I’m not sure it will ever write. Despite its having retailed for $12.50 in 1945, it’s not even a good pen. I bought it because it‘s a piece of history. It’s this Reynolds Rocket.
Okay, so I’m out of control. (If you’re not familiar with the Rocket, you can find the Cliff’s Notes version of its history in my site’s glossary.)
A nice fresh Margarita (salt, no rocks, not made from one of those silly mixes) beckons, so I’m outta here.