Warning! This modification has the potential to cause the piston mechanism to not function properly! Built from Ink and Tea assumes no responsibility for any issues in your pen, resulting from this or any other modification.
Now that the disclaimer is out of the way...the photographic guide!
The process of expanding the ink capacity is simple. First, I recommend disassembling (and cleaning, if necessary) your Diamond 530. Fully disassemble the pen, so that you can remove the piston rod and seal. If you have a TWSBI Diamond 540 or 580, laying the piston rod from the Diamond 530 alongside the Diamond 540 or 580 will show you just how extra long it is (as also shown in the picture, below).
As you can see, using the rod of this length diminishes the capacity of your Diamond 530.
The simple, hack way to fix this is to utilize wire cutters or the snips in a pair of needle-nose pliers to remove a short amount of the end of the piston rod. This will allow the rod to move back farther in the pen. I highly recommend, if you are going to attempt this modification, that you remove a small amount at a time, rather than a large amount to begin.
Here, you can see the resulting amount that was removed, as well as the extra capacity. Unfortunately, because I removed that large amount, there are some issues with the piston rod fitting into the mechanism. Take it off a small amount at a time!
I wish you the best, if you attempt to increase the capacity of your TWSBI Diamond 530. If you would rather have increased capacity out of the box, I recommend taking a look at the new TWSBI Diamond 580!
Enjoy! If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below.
This post was unsolicited and uncompensated.
Even if it's an old post I found it very helpful with my pens, thanks!
ReplyDeleteBecause of how the 530 was made there are two limits to this mod :
- the 530 end cap hasn't a step at the bottom so the piston ensemble goes up all the way, shortening the run of the piston (at least in my clear 530 and from the photo your cyan too).
- the second problem is the 530 piston rod itself, not only it's too long so your shortening helps with that, but it's not grooved all the way down to the seal so it's only natural it won't retract further than that into the pen.
Glad to hear that it helped!
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