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I was prowling the 'bay a week or so back & came across one of these turn of the century 1910/teens no name overlay ED's. This one has the bonus of being stamped sterling but honestly,I don't think there's much if any silver in this one...lol. David Nishimura has a great article on these on his site.

http://www.vintagepens.com/cheapie_overlays.shtml

This looks like a slightly better version of the ones shown. It's sort of funny, at one point or another I've had each of those shown in the ad pass across my workbench. With a new feed & better nib, these can be prety nice pens.

Meanwhile back at the ranch....

It turns out someone shoved one of the old style huge & fat sheaffer BP refills in the barrel, hacked off the ED section at the threads, & jammed it down over the BP refill a long time ago. I'm thinking early 50's or so.

Anyway, when I got to looking at it to see if I could save it & return it to FP status, I found the threads inside the barrel were 99% history. Hmmm....what to do. I guess I could go ahead & try to convert it to a BP the right way. Yeah what the heck why not. Famous last words.

Off to ye olde parts bin I go. Thninking I need to find a setion that fits the barrel for starters. Test a few & a find a Waterman 52 1/2 section fits perfectly. Ok now for a BP tip/cone of some sort. Back in the bin o' wonders I go & come up with an old Pelikan BP front end. Excellent this will work perfectly. Measure the refill, section & BP section. Turns out the standard Parker BP refill I want to use is just a tad too long. No sweat, hack off the plactic end spacer from the refill. Perfect fit. When it's time for a refill sawp, hack off the next or reuse the precut one. Easy as eatin' a piece of grannys hom made cobbbler.

I had to somehow modify the 52 1/2 section to accept the Pelikan BP section. Got to thinking & ended up cutting off the section nipple first, then about 2/3 of the front end of the section.

If you look at the side profile of a section, from the point where the section fits into the barrel there is a step out and then the concave curve down to the nib end. To get things to fit right I had to take that step out & turn it into a step in. (are you following me at all here)

So with magnifier goggles, my dremmel~carbide cutting disk & a wooden dowell to hold the section I started the great section grind off of '08. Ever smelled scorched & burning hard rubber.....Gag! Major stink! It took a while & a steady hand but I was able to get the step 'reversed' & an inner recess inside the pelikan cone. I also had to open up the back end of the section just a bit to get the refill to seat properly. (I REALLY REALLY need a lathe, all this close up hand work sucks!)

So in the end & after 3 hours or so of fitting, cutting & generally monkeying around with it I came out with this.  I have to say I'm rather proud of this one.














-- Edited by DWL at 16:18, 2008-09-17