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Ups and downs...
Oct. 12th, 2011 03:55 pmI could have sworn I had turned off the Automatic Updates feature on webster (the machine I've been using to recover data from the USB drive that CRC'd itself out), but this morning, after having specified a number of directories for recovery, I found the machine sitting pretty, all freshly booted and everything, so I have basically no idea—short of replicating a lot of work—of where I am with the recovery. Ah, well...
* * * After placing a "yard sale" ad in the paper yesterday, Galina and I gravitated to one of the many antique stores that have cropped up in the downtown area in Pagosa Springs. While Galina chatted with the owner, I looked around at some of the offerings. My eye was drawn to a small group of fountain pens that were priced very reasonably, for the simple reason that, as it turned out, they were pretty common-looking pens.
Except, in my opinion, for one item, which set me back $3.00.
It was a very short fountain pen—3-1/2 inches long closed, and an inch longer when assembled for writing (aka, "posted")—made of old, darkened hard rubber, with no visible way of filling the thing. A magnifying glass revealed the manufacturer to be the "Boston Safety Fountain Pen" company, with the body of the pen proclaiming the design to have been patented on January 26, 1904, and a July 5, 1904 patent date on the cap.
As I mentioned, there is no obvious way to fill the pen. There are no levers of any kind, and the part with the nib doesn't unscrew. Digging on the Internet confirmed a suspicion that this is almost certainly an early fountain pen type known as an "eyedropper" pen, which contained no mechanism for filling the pen, per se, other than unscrewing the nib portion from the barrel and filling the barrel with ink (typically using an eyedropper, hence the name). For whatever reason, the nib portion doesn't unscrew from the barrel of the pen, and since this is the first eyedropper pen I've ever seen, I don't really want to risk breaking it by forcing any of its parts.
To get a feel for writing with the pen, I placed a small drop of ink into the nib and started writing. The line I obtained is fairly fine and the "feel" of the pen is very smooth. Then the ink ran out.
After a few moments of thought, it occurred to me that it might be possible to fill the pen very slowly via the nib. As a test, I dipped a small-diameter plastic tube in the ink container and withdrew it. I was pleased to see that capillary force had retained about a half-inch column of ink in the tube. Then I placed the bottom opening of the tube over the very tip of the pen. The ink level in the tube was drawn down, with the ink apparently descending into the nib. When I did this a second time, some of the ink accumulated around the rim of the part that hold the nib, but it receded after a little while.
At that rate, it would take me quite a while to fill the pen, but finding an efficient method of filling a pen that won't unscrew was not really the point of the experiment. And even if I get a half-dozen such "slugs" of ink into the pen, that ought to be enough to use it for a while (I mean, it ain't as if there aren't computers on sixteen-inch centers around here ;^).
* * * Work continues to stream in, and I am doing my best to try to keep that under control. Between assignments and sleeping, I must turn a pile of notes into a polished presentation for the ATA conference and help out with getting the house in shape for our renters.
Cheers...
Except, in my opinion, for one item, which set me back $3.00.
It was a very short fountain pen—3-1/2 inches long closed, and an inch longer when assembled for writing (aka, "posted")—made of old, darkened hard rubber, with no visible way of filling the thing. A magnifying glass revealed the manufacturer to be the "Boston Safety Fountain Pen" company, with the body of the pen proclaiming the design to have been patented on January 26, 1904, and a July 5, 1904 patent date on the cap.
As I mentioned, there is no obvious way to fill the pen. There are no levers of any kind, and the part with the nib doesn't unscrew. Digging on the Internet confirmed a suspicion that this is almost certainly an early fountain pen type known as an "eyedropper" pen, which contained no mechanism for filling the pen, per se, other than unscrewing the nib portion from the barrel and filling the barrel with ink (typically using an eyedropper, hence the name). For whatever reason, the nib portion doesn't unscrew from the barrel of the pen, and since this is the first eyedropper pen I've ever seen, I don't really want to risk breaking it by forcing any of its parts.
To get a feel for writing with the pen, I placed a small drop of ink into the nib and started writing. The line I obtained is fairly fine and the "feel" of the pen is very smooth. Then the ink ran out.
After a few moments of thought, it occurred to me that it might be possible to fill the pen very slowly via the nib. As a test, I dipped a small-diameter plastic tube in the ink container and withdrew it. I was pleased to see that capillary force had retained about a half-inch column of ink in the tube. Then I placed the bottom opening of the tube over the very tip of the pen. The ink level in the tube was drawn down, with the ink apparently descending into the nib. When I did this a second time, some of the ink accumulated around the rim of the part that hold the nib, but it receded after a little while.
At that rate, it would take me quite a while to fill the pen, but finding an efficient method of filling a pen that won't unscrew was not really the point of the experiment. And even if I get a half-dozen such "slugs" of ink into the pen, that ought to be enough to use it for a while (I mean, it ain't as if there aren't computers on sixteen-inch centers around here ;^).
Cheers...
