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The Fountain Pen Community -> Ball Points/Roller-balls -> Stratowriter and "widget"
Post Info TOPIC: Stratowriter and "widget"
Chthulhu


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Stratowriter and "widget"
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Howdy, folks!

Recently, I scored a very nice gold-filled retractable Sheaffer Stratowriter (1946/1947?) with a functioning push+twist mechanism and an original refill that just barely makes marks. I was peripherally aware of the "widget" converter, and went ahead and ordered one. While it does work, it doesn't seem quite right to me; the tip of the modern Sheaffer refill sticks *way* out the front of the "widget" which is esthetically unpleasant. Shortening the additional "doober" at the butt of the refill allows the tip of the refill to sit at what seems the "proper" place when extended, but leaves the "widget" within the barrel of the pen and allows the refill to wobble around (the widget needs to seat itself against the inside of the barrel as the original refill did).

So I started experimenting with other refills, and find that the short Fisher Space Pen refill fits best in terms of length, but will require considerable adaptation to the butt end to make the mechanism work. Some third-party Parker-type refills also sit just right at the tip, but others do not. They will also require some fiddling to get the mechanism working correctly.

Has anyone else here had success with the "widget" in one of these particular pens (vs. the capped Stratowriters)? What did you do?

I'd also like to pull the spring out of the barrel and perhaps replace it with something less stiff, but it doesn't want to come out with the amount of force I've been willing to apply so far.

Anyone?



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Mike Hungerford
http://goo.gl/dUVnUZ
Chthulhu


Rawr.

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In a related note, the "widget" and Fisher refill (with the slip-on Parker adapter) are a perfect fit in the fat "Fineline" ballpoints. I just happened to have a green refill and a green pen, too.

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Mike Hungerford
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Chthulhu


Rawr.

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All righty, then! I made a hook to grab the spring in the old gold-filled '46 and yanked it on out of the pen. Far more spring than the poor thing needed, it was: very stiff indeed (that stiffness may have been the cause of the common failure of the push+twist mechanisms of which I've read). Further, the bushing against which the spring sat (or wrapped around?) also came loose, and it took a bit of fiddling to get it reseated in the right orientation.

Since I really wanted to use a Sheaffer refill in this pen, and since the tip of said Sheaffer refill stuck *way* out from the "widget," I opted to use the configuration shown here:

http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php?/topic/188591-how-i-fixed-my-sheaffer-stratowriter/

... at least for the business end of the pen. I shortened a stray spring to fit between the "widget" and the shoulder of the refill, and managed (serendipitously!) to cut my new spring to the perfect length for everything to end up in the right place, and snugly so, when the refill is at its forward limit.

For the back end, I trimmed the refill's blue plug down to its collar, then cut the butt end off of a Mitsubishi gel refill I had floating around. Some trial and error to trim the inner end of its plug gave me a cap that fits snugly over the trimmed Sheaffer plug and well onto its barrel, and is sufficiently large in diameter not to get caught in the pen's push+twist mechanism.

The overall tension of the spring makes this pen operable with one hand, and without anything rattling at any stage.

I'm a happy camper, with a functional 67-year-old ballpoint pen.

Update: I tinkered with a second spring between the "widget" and the barrel stop, and now both the refill *and* the "widget" retract within the barrel. Even happier than before.

Addendum: Be sure that whatever is used to increase the diameter of the butt end of the refill does *not* block the vent hole thereon. The cut-off Mitsubishi piece did not allow make-up air to enter the Sheaffer refill, which petered out while I was writing with it. As I was in the process of fitting a new Monteverde refill, I happened to look down into the old Sheaffer refill and saw that the grease seal was still near the butt, and it worked instantly I tried it on paper. I bored a hole in the Mitsubishi bit and I'm back in business.



-- Edited by Chthulhu on Wednesday 19th of June 2013 04:53:16 PM



-- Edited by Chthulhu on Wednesday 14th of August 2013 01:51:06 PM

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Mike Hungerford
http://goo.gl/dUVnUZ
Chthulhu


Rawr.

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I just acquired another gold-filled Stratowriter, along with nineteen of the original refills, all still in their plastic tubes, and twelve of those in their original box. Lots of material for experimentation, probably starting with turning one of these old refills into a "widget."

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Mike Hungerford
http://goo.gl/dUVnUZ
Chthulhu


Rawr.

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On a roll, apparently: Stratowriter number three arrived today, a little more shopworn than the first two, but this one came with a cap!

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Mike Hungerford
http://goo.gl/dUVnUZ
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