The Swan Visofil V (Vee, not five) was made from 1935 until 1937, when it was replaced with the 'VT'. It featured a 'concertina' type filling system involving an open ended tube, rather than an ink sac. Along with a spring, a see through filler button, and a very long breater tube the system took up a large amount of ink and allowed the ink level to be viewed by inverting the pen.
Disassembly is quite straight forward, the whole assembly comes out with the section as it is removed in the normal fashion. As usual, a little heat is helpful, I use a hairdryer. The section nipple is connected to the ink tube which runs through a spring and is then connected, at the other end, to the filler 'button'.
The ink tube can be cut from a straight sided ink sac, 3cm. of a number 18 sac is about right. After cleaning the assembly is a case of careful measuring to make sure too much tension is put on the shellacced joints by cutting the sac too short and also ensuring that the breather tube is long enough but doesnt foul the filler button.
The slightly awkward bit is fastening the 'top' end of the tube as the spring is in the way, fortunately Jim Marshall comes to the rescue with his suggestion of using bent paper clips to hold the spring back to enable the joint to be made. When the shellac has cured the clips can be removed and the nib, section, and breather reintroduced.
The complete filler 'train' can then be refitted to the barrel and the job is complete.
