kitless rollerball section instruction

[conandy]

Hey, all. I have yet to go kitless, but am seriously looking into doing it for a client. He (and I) want a rollerball pen in a smaller form factor than the Jr. series pens, but want a grip section that isn't so narrow and whimpy like most of the Baron equivalents. Thus am I am considering my first kitless pen as a rollerball.

I have not been able to find any instructions or drawings for drilling out a section to fit a rollerball refill (Schmidt 5888). I am sure I can trial and error it but was hoping for a good starting place. I can figure out the section and barrel and cap threading from the other good tutorials on kitless fountain pens, just can't seem to find anything on drilling out rollerball sections.

Thanks!

 

[bmachin]

Sorry that I can't answer your question directly. I have made a couple of rollerball sections from scratch that turned out OK, but was very negligent in writing things down.

However, I was much happier with the outcome when I used metal nosecones from:

Richard L. Greenwald, LLC, Pens, Pens Parts and Photographs

If I recall correctly, the shorter nosecone will have a step to provide the proper refill exposure but you will have to figure the other steps out on your own. The longer version provide a little bit more in terms of reducing the number of steps that you will need to drill.

Hope this makes some sense. Long term memory seems to be on vacation today.

Bill

 

[jalbert]

Here is a very rudimentary drawing of my process of drilling out the grip/nose cone. I've found it to be a lot of finicky drilling, but it's fairly straightforward. The main thing you are after is to get the proper amount of the insert's tip to protrude from the nose cone. Generally I drill the second hole a little deeper than needed (but not all the way through the front of the nose), which allows me to adjust the amount of the insert protruding by simply drilling the third hole (in very small increments) deeper. Hope this helps somewhat. Apologies for my bad illustration.

 

[conandy]

Here is a very rudimentary drawing of my process of drilling out the grip/nose cone. I've found it to be a lot of finicky drilling, but it's fairly straightforward. The main thing you are after is to get the proper amount of the insert's tip to protrude from the nose cone. Generally I drill the second hole a little deeper than needed (but not all the way through the front of the nose), which allows me to adjust the amount of the insert protruding by simply drilling the third hole (in very small increments) deeper. Hope this helps somewhat. Apologies for my bad illustration.

Thanks, John! This is great info. Very helpfull. Exactly what I would have tried had I started fiddling first. Drawing is excellent.