GB1109022A - Fountain pen - Google Patents

Abstract

1,109,022. Reservoir pens. TEXTRON Inc. 19 July, 1966 [22 July, 1965], No. 32334/66. Heading B6P. [Also in Division A4] The overflow control member 62 of a reservoir pen comprises a generally cylindrical porous body axially apertured for the passage of the capillary feed member which transfers ink from the reservoir to the marking point or nib. The control member 62 comprises a multiplicity of ink wettable particles bonded together at their points of contacts. The particle, e.g. polypropylene particles, may be lightly packed into a moulding die of the desired configuration, which die is then heated sufficiently to cause softening and subsequent bonding together of the surfacecontacting portions of the particles. The spaces or cells so provided are randomly distributed and of various sizes, and comprise preferably about 40% to 75% of the total volume of the control member 62. A certain percentage, about 10% to 60%, of the total spaces form storage cells, and the remaining spaces, which are of lesser width and therefore greater capillarity, form a vein-like network of capillary passages by means of which ink is distributed throughout the control member 62 to its storage cells. In Fig. 1, the point 54 comprises a cylindrical rod of porous plastics material, e.g. a polyamide such as a fluorocarbon, and includes a writing tip portion 56 and feed portion 58 the rear end 60 of which extends through a pierce tube 44 into a cartridge reservoir 32. An air return channel is provided through the bore 50 surrounding the writing tip 56, Fig. 2, and rearwardly along the feed portions 58 and 60 between their outer peripheries and the inner surfaces of the adjacent control member 62 and the pierce tube 44. A semi-cylindrical venting channel 68 is formed along the outside surface of the control member 62. In Fig. 5, ink is drawn into a capillary channel 154 of a feed bar insert 150, whence it is transferred to a capillary slit 156 beneath the split nib 160. Air is drawn into the reservoir via an air scoop 164 formed in the head 140 of the feed-bar, then through a transverse aperture 178 and finally through an enlarged air passage 166 formed between a flattened area 152 of the insert 150 (Fig. 6) and the internal surface of the tubular feed-bar extension 144.