Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Pen with Ink-Syringe

Refillable and writes upside down
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Start with an ordinary ball-point pen replacement cartridge. Some are skinny and some are fat; we want one of the fat ones.

Put a one-way valve near the tip of the pen. Add a syringe plunger to the back end.

When assembled, the back end of the pen is double-bodied. Inside the inner body are springs that push on the plunger, so it pressurizes the ink somewhat. The ink can't go out the valve, and it can only go out the ball-point during writing. The pressure, of course, allows writing at any angle. The outer body of the back of the pen holds the standard click mechanism, of course.

When the ink runs out, take the cartrige out of the pen and insert point into an inkwell. Pull back on the syringe to refill the cartridge body, with ink flowing through the one-way valve. It is possible that the viscosity of the ink might make this a slow process, so an additional gadget, mounted on the inkwell, could be used to hold the pen cartridge. This gadget would use springs to extricate the plunger.

When done, wipe off the ink on the outside of the point (or just start using a spare cartridge while the first sits in the inkwell gadget), re-assemble the pen, and continue writing.

Vernon, Jun 12 2006

Fisher Space Pen http://www.spacepen.com/usa/index2.htm
As mentioned in a couple annotations. The "Technology" part of this site has some "tabbed pages" that pretty thoroughly explain how they work. [Vernon, Jun 12 2006, last modified Jun 14 2006]

[link]






       Tattoo tool?
normzone, Jun 12 2006
  

       //writes upside down// - good for scribbling your name on the Sistine chapel ceiling then...
xenzag, Jun 12 2006
  

       A re-fillable Space Pen? That is doubly retro.
baconbrain, Jun 12 2006
  

       Actually, I think the Space Pen used a gas-pressurized plunger, to keep the ink flowing. I don't know why they didn't use springs (maybe that viscous ink REALLY doesn't want to flow!).
Vernon, Jun 12 2006
  
      
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