IMPROVEMENTS IN RESERVOIR PENHOLDERS
Year: 1883

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Thomas Alfred Hearson at tho
Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 27th October 1883.
THOMAS ALFRED HEARSON of 5. Westcombe Park Road Blackheath in the
County of Kent "IMPROVEMENTS IN RESERVOIR PENHOLDERS
"
The said invention has for its object the construction of a Reservoir Penholder
capable of carrying a comparatively large supply of ink in the body of the holder
which ink shall bo automatically fed at a proper rate during the act of writing to a
nibbed pen which may be the ordinary pen of commerce made of gold steel or other
metal, readily removeable, and easily renewed. A second part of the invention
consists of means for closing the passage or passages leading from the ink reservoir,
so that the ponholder may be safely carried in the pocket without dangor of leakago
of ink.
The method of construction is as follows. The upper part or body of the holder
consists of a tube of vulcanite or other suitable material closed at the upper end
remoto from the pon. This is the reservoir for carrying the ink.
The lower part
of the holder, which carries the pen, is provided with two tubes. One, of fine bore,
is prolonged down to the nibs of the pen, and serves to conduct the ink from the
reservoir to the pen nibs. The other, of larger diameter, is shorter, and terminates,
either in a side hole or not, above the lower extremity of the first tube at a distance
which is equal to, or, a little less than, the capillary height of the second tube.
This tube serves to conduct air into the reservoir to take the place of the ink with-
drawn by writing. The two tubes are joined by one or more lateral passages, and,
by this means, the air tubo will be blocked by ink when the pen is liberally supplied,
but an air bubble will be allowed to pass when by the act of writing the ink in the
pen and lower part of the air tube is used up; and thus the pen will be repeatedly
and automatically supplied with ink from the reservoir above.
The penholder may be made secure for carrying in the pocket by either of the
following methods.
First; the two tubes, the ink and air tubes, may be intercepted by a plug
perforated in one direction only, as in an ordinary turncock; or,
Secondly; the two tubes may at their upper end be caused to join into one
passage or terminate both in one conical seating and may be closed by the thrusting
[Price 2d.]

page_text: down of a cone ended rod. In this case the rod is made to slide or slide and turn
in an air tight aperturo in the upper end of the reservoir.
Thirdly; it may be sufficient to close the air supply tube only. If the air tube
is made to terminate in a side hole the hole may be closed by tho act of covering tho
pen and hole by a pen protecting cap. In this third case the following modification
of the construction may be advantageous, that is to say: the air tube may be caused
to dip nearly to the bottom of a cylindrical recess in the pen carrier leaving an
annular space whose capillary height equals that of the air tube and excess of length
of ink supply tube. A side hole being made to this annular space air may flow up
the air tube when the chamber is empty of ink, but the passage is blocked when
there is any ink in it.. A passage being made from this chamber to the ink supply
tube any ink in the chamber will be drawn off by the act of writing, when a bubble
of air will pass and the supply be ronewed, and so on.
Another modification of the construction effecting the same object, and involving
the same principle of action may be described as follows.
The ink supply tube, previously mentioned, may be a prolongation of a rod
which may slide and turn in an air tight aperture in the upper end of the reservoir,
the ink finding its way into the tube by one or more sido holes on a level with the
lower end of the reservoir. This tube being inserted into a larger tube will leave
an annular space which will serve to conduct air into the reservoir from a hole
drilled through the wall of the annular chamber. The lower end of the annular
passage is shaped to conduct ink to the nibs of the pen. With this construction the
holder may be made ink tight for carrying in the pocket, by forming a cone at the
end of the ink tube to fit into a cone seating at the bottom of the annular chamber
and a second cone on a higher part of the tube to fit a cone seating at the top of
the annular chamber both valves being closed at the same time by the thrusting
down of the tube ended rod.
It may also be arranged that when the rod is withdrawn a sufficient distance an
opening may be formed by means of the tube through the upper end of the
reservoir by which the holder may be blown through and sediment removed.