Hero 616 Vacumatic (2) Parts and Tools

From the time it leaves the factory,  through its brief life meanly doling out that congealed treacle which makes our handwriting such a spidery chore, until its inevitable burial in an overflowing landfill, the ballpoint pen gives uniform dissatisfaction.

Until now!  The humble ballpoint makes knocking together a  vacumatic fountain pen a breeze. Its ink tube gives an excellent ramrod for the diaphragm pellet. Another piece makes a perfect pellet holder. The tip itself is perfect for connecting the pellet holder to the plunger rod. At a stroke, with no tooling at all, half the vacumatic assembly simply presents itself!

From left to right: Staedler 430F, Staedler 430M, British Red Cross freebie.

Surprised? I was. Armed with an old ballpoint pen, a washer, a blind rivet, a bicycle tyre valve and an free aftershave sampler, all that is needed to complete the vacumatic assembly is the rubber diaphragm itself.

Parts Used (all prices include UK shipping)

• An old ballpoint pen. This was a freebie from a British Red Cross mailshot. The Staedler Stick 430 seems to be a compatible design too.

• A Dunlop/Woods bicycle valve, and its cap. £2.25 a pair at TemeCycles eBay shop.

• A blind rivet, solely for its tang.

• A free aftershave, eau de toilette, or perfume sampler, the mini spray type, for its tiny compression spring.

• A small metal washer.

• Aquarium sealant (silicon sealant) £3.99 from Maidstone Aquatics.

• A vacumatic diaphragm, the large size (definitely not debutante size) £2.08 from Cathedral Pens.

The Hero 616 Jumbo uses a much larger vacumatic diaphragm than the Parker 51, as it lacks the latter's dedicated choked barrel chamber.

Tools Used

• An unbranded mini drill, and the various cutting & sanding attachments they come with.

•  A cake of blank DVDs, to hold the curved barrel straight as I cut the blind cap. I don't have a mitre box and had to improvise! 

•  A sharp, thin utility blade, I think it's the long Stanley type. 

With the parts to hand, it was time to make a start on the conversion, beginning with the next post - "Cutting the Blind Cap".