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How Do I Polish a Pen? Celluloid Edition

By on November 8, 2024
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EDITOR’S NOTE: Polishing a vintage pen can be a surprisingly dangerous exercise in vintage pen restoration. If you use the wrong method on the wrong material, you will ruin your pen. If you overdo it with the correct method and correct material, you will ruin your pen. We will not be held liable for any problems that arise from your efforts to polish your pens. This is simply an explanation of what we do and have found success with with on our own pens. We do our best to warn about some of the pitfalls but we cannot guarantee we have explained all of them. Results may vary.

First gather your pen and Micro-mesh sanding cloths at your water source under bright light. You can see both the grit and cloth sides of these strips of various grits spanning 1500, 3600, 6000, 8000 and 12000.

This article explores wet sanding structurally sound celluloid pens by hand to a high-gloss shine. Never wet sand a pen made of hard rubber, especially if it has any sort of chasing design or imprint. Never wet sand a metal pen, either. Never try to wet sand a celluloid pen that is krazing or otherwise deteriorating, as you will destroy whatever is left of it. In this piece I take two heavily damaged Parker pens and restore their luster. However, before I got started on either of them, I examined them carefully to make sure they were free of that shattering plastic look called krazing and cracks in the barrel. A hairline crack in the lip of a cap is okay to wet sand, as long as you are very careful with it as you progress.

WHAT IS WET SANDING? Wet sanding is using different grits of specialty sand “paper” made out of cloth to first rough up and then smooth out the celluloid of a pen with some help from water.

I like using strips of a product called “Micro-mesh” cut into 2-inch by 6-inch sections. I use them in the grit levels of 1500, 3600, 6000, 8000 and 12000. Even if you only have one strip of each of those grits, it can last you dozens of pens.

WATER: You can use it two different ways. One with a thin stream of luke-warm water from a tap or the other way is in a large mixing bowl full of luke-warm water. The latter saves some water, and you can see just how crazy dirty plastic particles can get. Your hands are going to be in water for more than an hour, so you might want to wear some latex or rubber gloves.

This is a Parker Duofold with a Vacumatic filler. It actually survived Hurricane Katrina nearly 20 years ago. It looks very tarnished and filthy and worn and awful.

HOW IT WORKS: The process to wet sand a pen to near perfection is simple but very repetitive and time consuming. You will want a well-lit area near your water source. There is much better lighting by my bathroom sink, so I make sure to have my 5 strips of Micro-mesh at the sink along with the pen I want to work on. I set a steady but thin stream of water at a temperature I find comfortable from the tap. Next I wet my strip of 1500-grit Micro-mesh. It doesn’t matter if you start with the cap or the barrel, but I like to start with the barrel because it takes longer.

With the Parker Vacumatic pens I have chosen, I take off the main cap but leave the blind cap tightly secured to the barrel. I also have already replaced the diaphragm. This way, if there is a little blind-cap misalignment after the repair, I might be able to smooth it out a bit.

As a right-handed person, I hold the section of the barrel in my left hand. I take the first strip of 1500-grit mesh in my right hand and wet it under the running water. To help keep track of where I am at, I start with the open nib of the Parker Vacumatic facing up. I extend the barrel under the running water and I make 10 complete cycles of rubbing with the mesh strip against the barrel from the section threads to the tip of the blind cap and back to the threads. The 1500-grit mesh is going to scrape off an entire layer of the celluloid, removing the minor scratches and imperfections. Be careful, as it might also remove the last of a shallow barrel imprint! What luster your barrel might have once retained will look horrifyingly dull and scratched. Now I rotate the pen about an 8th or a 10th of a turn and do 10 more cycles of rubbing under the water. You will want to check that the mesh overlaps the original first cycle’s path to make sure you didn’t miss a spot. Take your time and be thorough. Keep the barrel under the running water or in the bowl no matter what grit of mesh you are using. Let the sanding mesh pass through the water. This helps remove the scraped away plastic…and it keeps the sanding from doing more harm than good. Dry sanding can wreck the finish. Keep rotating and doing 10 cycles until the barrel has been uniformly sanded by the 1500-grit mesh.

After the first round of wet sanding is finished, I like to dry off the barrel to inspect the progress and make sure I didn’t miss anything.

The hurricane survivor is halfway done. Notice the barrel is refreshingly shiny and clean compared to the untouched cap. Please notice the cap’s clip has been removed in preparation to wet sand the rest of the cap.

If everything looks evenly done, I take up my next strip of the mesh (3600 grit) and repeat everything I did the first time with the first strip. HOWEVER, now I do 20 cycles of sanding for each turn of the barrel. The reason is simple: That 1500-grit mesh really wrecked the celluloid and dug some deep sanding grooves into the barrel. 3600-grit mesh is half the strength of the harsher mesh and it take more effort to uniformly start cleaning up the damage from the first time through the process. Once you have uniformly polished the barrel with the 3600-grit mesh, dry it off and examine it.

Don’t be scared that the barrel still looks awful. Under that bright lights look for imperfections within the imperfections. The scuffed barrel will look even worse in a spot you missed. Imagine you just hired a local teen to mow your lawn. Before you pay this person, you check to see that they didn’t miss a spot or leave a thin strip of the grass that is much taller than the rest of the yard. Unlike a lawn that is easy to cut back down to size, a poorly wet sanded spot in the celluloid will only start to look worse, as the finer grits can’t fix what the harsher grits missed. As such, if you jump straight to the 6000-grit mesh, you might accidentally engrain a piece of the 1500-grit polishing portion that only the 3600-grit process can get out. If you find a spot you missed, just put that spot back under the water and give it another 10 cycles of 3600-grit sanding to see if that evens out the spot. Dry it off and check. Keep going until the spot looks uniform to the rest of the pen. You’ll mess up because you are new to it. It takes time and experience to catch the nuance of the sanding levels and how they look. If you get too ahead of yourself, just remember to go back to the stage you think you missed it at. It takes longer but you can correct the mistake.

If the 3600-grit polishing run on the barrel looks uniform and complete. Do it all over again with the 6000-grit mesh. ONLY THIS TIME, do 30 complete sanding cycles for each turn of the barrel. Again dry it off and inspect it for uniformity when you are done. Now it should look like you are making good progress. The finish will start turning from cloudy to glossy…like a fog is starting to lift.

When you are satisfied the 6000-grit work is uniform and complete, move on to the 8000-grit. Now make it 40 complete sanding cycles per turn of the barrel. If you are an impatient person, you might be tempted to call it “Mission Accomplished” when the 8000-grit efforts are dry and uniform. BUT, trust me, there is still a slight layer of haze in the finish of the celluloid.

The 12000-grit mesh is so smooth to the touch, even when dry, you might swear it isn’t gritty at all. However, once you’ve now made 50 complete cycles of wet sanding per turn of the barrel, you will be astounded once you have dried the barrel and made sure the work you did was uniform.

Here is the completed Parker Duofold. Notice the little blemish to the left of the clip. It was way too deep for the wet sanding to polish out of the cap.

Unless there are deep divots or scratches in the barrel, your barrel will now look like new. To help seal that finish and keep the pen shiny, I take just a tiny drop of mineral oil on a cotton rag and rub down the barrel. I then buff it with a dry cloth to remove any excess mineral oil.

With the barrel done, you can repeat this process all over again with the cap. Parker Vacumatics and “Duovacs” (slang for 2nd generation Parker Duofolds with vacumatic filling systems) are fortunate to have removable pocket clips. It is easier to wet sand a cap without its pocket clip. BUT, if you can’t remove the clip, that is okay. Just take your time and polish under the clip. Some people like to mask off the cap ring(s)  while wet sanding the cap. You can brass/remove the plating on the cap bands if you wet sand them. However, if your pen is so ugly that you have to wet sand it, it likely was never going in a museum collection to begin with. Personally, I find it is just easier to wet sand the bands and take the risk. Sometimes they come out looking like new or sometimes I strip the plating. In either case, they are shiny.

PRO-TIPS & TRICKS: Start with a pen that you can ruin and not worry about. As with any new experience, it takes time to perfect the technique and find the ways to grip your pen parts and mesh to maximize comfort and effectiveness.

Wet sanding a complete pen takes me anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half. I save it for pens that are desperate for the tender loving care.

One of the things I mess up the most are the ends of the cap and barrel. It is soothing and easy to wet sand the middle of a cap or barrel. It is easy to forget to get all the way to the barrel threads or end of the barrel…or each extreme end of the cap. Sometimes before drying off and checking to see how I’ve done, I just go back and work around the ends a second time to make sure I got them right.

Vacumatics were made for this type of polishing. Other pens with more exposed metal parts require more effort to keep them safe. For example: A Sheaffer Balance Lifetime is a great candidate for celluloid wet sanding. You just need to take extra steps to protect it. By keeping this lever filler in water, the inner J-bar for the filling system will get very wet. There is no way to get around that. Sooo, when you finish your polishing of this barrel, shake out the water, dry it as thoroughly as you can with Q-tips and then set it so that a little fan can blow room-temperature air into it overnight. If you completely dry it out as quickly as you can, it won’t rust and cause other problems. Only after it is completely dry should you finish the restoration by resaccing it.

Hopefully, this will help you make some of your favorite vintage and modern pens look like new. Please feel free to ask questions. This system works well for me. I know other people who have their own ways of polishing their pens that are different from mine. There is always more than one way to accomplish a task. Best of luck.

Here is a hurricane damaged Parker Vacumatic with nickel trim. It might look hopeless, but….

Wet sanding has renewed to finish of that poor hurricane ravaged Parker Vacumatic to make it look as close to new as possible.

How Do I Restore A Parker Vacumatic

By on October 19, 2024
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This is a new old stock Parker Vacumatic Maxima in the “Golden Pearl” design. Check out the barrel clarity!

When it comes to vintage Parker pens, Parker Vacumatics are my favorite. I love their stunning art deco designs and over-complicated filling system. The pens have some quirks, too, but, I still love them.

As the Roaring Twenties came to a close, the Parker Pen Company knew it had to build on to its huge success with the Parker Duofold fountain pen or risk losing momentum in a very competitive writing instrument marketplace. Kenneth Parker, son of the company founder George Parker, figured the answer to this problem was a sac-less fountain pen that held more ink than most any other pen on the market. The key to the new pen would be a vacuum pump that used a rubber diaphragm invented in 1928 by Arthur Dahlberg. It was a device that Sheaffer, Waterman, Conklin and Wahl-Eversharp turned down. That device would be the foundation of a pen Parker first released to the public in 1932 as the Golden Arrow. Yet, the company would soon rebrand it the Vacumatic.

More than a Vacumatic-filling Parker 51, this is the rare, legendary “yellowstone” color in like-new condition.

During the next 16 years, Parker would feature the Vacumatic filling system in 3 of its most famous pens: the Vacumatic, the 2nd generation Duofold and the Parker 51. If you get into vintage pen collecting, odds are really good that you’ll encounter numerous “Vacs” that need repair. Restoring these pens is both easy and complicated. It really just depends on how lucky you get.

Parker Vacumatics and 2nd generation Duofolds with Vacumatic fillers (sometimes called DuoVacs) were made of celluloid. Celluloid is a beautiful plastic but it ages inconsistently. Some Vacs are as strong as they day they were made. Others that were exposed to prolonged heat might be brittle. In my own very non-scientific experience, I find that the “grey pearl” models of Vacumatics are often very fragile. Soaking the celluloid too long in plain water can damage a pen. ANNNND, for the love of all that you hold dear, keep celluloid pens away from open flames. When celluloid catches fire, it burns fast and hot, like a traffic flare. How do I know? One of the original fountain pen repair books said that one should heat a pen up over an open flame to make it easier to open. I did just that, when I was still learning, and holy cats! I had to leave the damned flaming pen at the bottom of a steel sink filled with water before it would finally go out. NEVER USE AN OPEN FLAME. Turns out hair dryers work just fine.

Vacumatic enthusiasts divide these pens into 3 generations. It is vital to know which generation pen you are working on. 1st Generation pens have a lockdown vacuum tail filler and often an integrated section and barrel. As such, you can’t always unscrew the section from the barrel, as you would the 2nd and 3rd generation pens. Plus, when removing the filling unit, you must first unlock the plunger so it is fully extended. Attempting to remove the filling unit with the plunger locked down will destroy the plunger and filling unit. (Authentic replacements are very hard to find.) 2nd Generation pens still have an aluminum plunger but no lockdown device. They usually have a section that unscrews, too. 3rd Generation pens have a plastic plunger and unscrewing sections. These were World War II production models, and aluminum was rationed.

On the left is the Vac Extractor Tool and to the upper right is the “stocks” style Vac unit tool. A Parker “DuoVac” awaits them below.

Unlike most pens which can be restored with the same tools, Parker Vacumatic pens need a special filling unit tool that helps you to remove and return the filling unit into the tail of the pen. I use two different types depending on the challenge of the job. My favorite looks like a medieval stocks with two different size (threaded) holes and is tightened with screws and an Allen Wrench/hex key. The small hole is for debutante and standard/major-sized filling units. The larger hole is for the oversized Maximas. I generally prefer it, as it makes resetting the new unit with a lubed diaphragm a little easier. The other design that I like was invented by Scott Pauley at The Inky Nib. He calls it the Vac Extractor Tool. Unlike the stocks tool that I normally use, this tool has the tightest threaded grip imaginable on the filling unit. My “stocks” just can’t get a tight enough grip on maybe 1 in 20 filling units. That is when I break out the V.E.T. to get the job done. Very clever design, fairly easy to use.

For today’s demonstration of Vac repair, I have chosen a 1945 Parker Duofold with a vacumatic filler. As with the 3rd generation Vacumatics and early Parker 51s, it has the plastic plunger unit. It also has a section that you can unscrew.

As usual, I start by soaking the nib and section with water just deep enough to cover the barrel threads for an hour or so to leach out the old ink and help loosen the section. An hour is usually safe enough not to damage the celluloid with the water emersion.

This is a close-up of the extracted filler unit in the stocks.

After drying off the nib and section, I test to see if I can unscrew the section with section pliers and just a few seconds of heat from a hair dryer. If I can get it started, I leave it for later. Then I thread the filling unit into the stocks and tighten up the stocks. Next I take the hair dryer and apply a few seconds of even heat around the celluloid tail of the pen. I grip as much of the barrel of the pen as I can in one hand and then slowly apply pressure turning to the left with the stocks. I am lucky with this pen that the unit unscrews fairly easily. If it fought me, I would apply a little more heat at a time until it finally gave way.

 

Watch how the wooden dowel pushes up through the section side of the barrel to remove the old diaphragm from the barrel.

After the tail-end is open, I then unscrew the section with the nib and feed all still in place. The reason that I don’t unscrew the section, even though I’ve loosened it, is that I want the added strength and stability of the celluloid at that end of the barrel while pressure is being applied to the tail end. The tail end experiences more torque and a little more fragile than the section end. I don’t want to accidentally squeeze the barrel too hard so that I crack the open end.

Sometimes the threaded black-plastic portion of the filler unit comes out, but the plunger portion remains stuck inside the tail. Sometimes the remains of the decaying rubber diaphragm remain stuck in the tail of the barrel. In these situations, I use a wooden dowel to remove them. After the big parts are out, then you need to use a dental pick or some other device to make sure all of the old diaphragm is out. You want to be especially careful with the barrel’s inner threads.

Here is the “field stripped” view of the pen. Note that I do not disassemble the section, nib, feed and breather tube. They are all perfectly happy in place 90+% of the time.

Once the pen is disassembled, the real cleaning begins. There is a trend lately among new vintage pen collectors/repairers online to prove their street cred by also knocking out the nib and feed from the section. This is entirely unnecessary the overwhelming majority of the time and risks breaking things that are perfectly fine as they are. At this point, I just dunk the still fully assembled section in the sonic cleaner along with the cap and barrel. It usually takes fewer than 5 minutes of cavitation to get them clear of old ink and debris. When you are done, dry it all off. I like to buff up the 14k gold nib…if I am not at risk of removing any two-tone plating…apply a little “Super Lube Silicone O-Ring Lubricant” to the section threads and screw it tightly on to the barrel again.

Can you see the little pellet ball in the top of the plunger from this view?

At no point did Parker actually use any glue on these pens. However, over the years, various repairmen did use glues and shellacs. That brown crud on the bottom of the plunger three photos up from here is old shellac. I scrape it off with a razor. (Please note that I leave the filling unit in the stocks for the duration of the restoration process. This helps me to make sure the proper depth is achieved when I screw the unit back into place so that the tail cap and barrel will realign properly.) Then I try to carefully remove the pellet from inside the plastic plunger’s cup. It was really difficult to get a good photo of that annoying little ball. The goal is to minimize damage to the cup of the plunger. I recently discovered there is a man in the UK who make a dremel-friendly drill system to drill out the pellets, but I have not yet tried it. Typically, I use a pin to try scooping out the pellet. It deforms the cup a little, but I try to pinch the cup back into shape when I am done.

Trim the diaphragm at roughly the point you see where I’ve lain a pin over it in the photo. New diaphragms are usually way too long to work properly. It is vital that the diaphragm can be stretched with the plunger to the point where it almost touches the breather tube inside the barrel. However, if it is so long that it impedes the function of the breather tube, the pen won’t fill or empty properly.

Inside the diaphragm is a new pellet. To start reassembling the filler, you will need to carefully get that rubber dip end of the diaphragm with the ball/pellet in it into the cup of the plunger. Once the diaphragm is secure in the cup of the plunger, you are going to hold the diaphragm in place and push the plunger up through the center of the diaphragm and invert the diaphragm from its original starting position. Once you have the original open lip of the diaphragm rolled down over the plunger, pinch it with your fingers to that metal cone part that I used a razor to scrape the shellac off of. Also make sure the same cone is held into the black-plastic threaded part of the filler unit so that the plunger is fully extended by itself without the rest of the parts joining it. This is tricky and likely doesn’t make any sense until you actually do it for yourself. While the unit is is pinched and the plunger and diaphragm stretched fully, dab some of that silicone lubricant all over the diaphragm. Finally insert the lubed up mess into the tail of the barrel. Make sure to twist the barrel back and forth so the stretched diaphragm doesn’t get stuck on the sides. Don’t release the pinched cone until it is as deep into the tail as your fingers can let it be. It should snap onto its seat when you release it. Finally, you can screw the black-plastic threads back into the barrel. If all goes well, the unit it will feel tight right where you started at. However, even when things go well, sometimes they don’t stop where you started. NEVER overtighten the filling unit. If it starts to snug up early, that’s okay. Sometimes, you might have to unscrew the stocks and reset them a little higher to finish tightening a little deeper than before. It is far more important to get the right snugging of the unit, as the unit holds the diaphragm lip in place while the plunger creates a vacuum with the rest of the rubber. If you overtighten, you can blow out the entire barrel and make it inoperable, ruining the pen. If you don’t get a tight enough closure, the diaphragm will get loose and not work. Don’t worry if the blind cap doesn’t align as perfectly with the barrel as it might have done.

At this point, it is safe to try test filling it with water. Remember it takes 10 to 12 pumps to fill it all the way. If everything looks like it is working okay, the only thing left to do is to polish it to a beautiful luster. Personally, I think wet sanding works best on Parker Vacumatics, 2nd Generation Duofolds and 51s. Tune in this November for our wet sanding tutorial.

Here is our fully restored Parker Duofold from 1945. That wet sanding really makes it stand out

Parker Pen Heists

By on June 19, 2024
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It has been a little while, but I have a new story in Pen World Magazine! In it I uncover not one but TWO pen heists that targeted the Parker Pen Co. in the late 1940s. This story is reproduced here with permission from Pen World. Please click on the individual images to see the story close-up. Please also use the QR code at the end to subscribe to Pen World Magazine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How Do I Restore a Sheaffer TouchDown

By on April 9, 2024
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Fixing a Sheaffer TouchDown filler can be easy with a little practice. Personally, I love the functionality and simplicity of the design that uses pneumatics to collapse an ink sac and allow its natural vacuum to draw ink back into the pen.

Most of what you need to fix a Sheaffer TouchDown filler is right here in this photo.

In the first photo, you will see almost all that you need to restore a Sheaffer TouchDown filler. We forgot to include a bottle of “Super Lube: O-Ring Silicon Lubricant.” In case you have trouble seeing the photo, you will need: a Sheaffer TouchDown-filling pen, a long-shaft flathead screwdriver, dental pick, scissors, razor blade, a size 15 latex rubber ink sac, an O-ring, sac shellac, rubber cement and jar of room-tempeture water. A couple of Q-tips, paper towels, corn starch and a wooden dowel might also be useful.

To get started, unscrew the cap from the fountain pen, and stick the pen nib first in water. You do not want to soak the entire pen in water, just up to the division between the section (finger-grip part) and the blue barrel of this pen. Let it soak for anywhere from an hour to overnight. This leaches out most of the old ink and softens any possible glue a past repairer might have used to secure the threaded section to the barrel.

Once the pen is finished soaking, dry it off with a tissue or paper towel. Frequently these pens can unscrew without any assistance from section pliers. Grip the section (finger grip) between your thumb and forefinger on one hand and the barrel with your other hand. Unscrew the section with a steady, gentle pressure counterclockwise (lefty loosey.)

When the section unscrews, you will see the “sac protector” and inner remains of the ink sac come out with the section. The sac protector is friction fit, and you can remove it simply by pulling straight back. Some times the old ink sac has petrified and stays on the section nipple. Sometimes it is in pieces inside the sac protector. Sometimes the old sac has melted to the inside of the sac protector. The first two scenarios are very easy to manage. The melted sac takes a long time to remove. Q-tips, wooden dowels or anything else you can use to safely scrape the inside of the sac protector clean will help. It is very important to remove all the debris from inside the sac protector to allow the new sac to slide in and operate properly.

This photo shows a complete disassembled Sheaffer TouchDown pen.

After you have finished with the sac protector, unscrew the blindcap on the tail of the pen barrel and, if possible, pull the blind cap back as far as it will go. (Don’t force it if it is frozen inside the pen.) Now take the long-shaft flathead screwdriver and ease it up the barrel until you can feel the screw at the end of the barrel and metal tube. Turn the screwdriver slowly until you feel it find the slot of the screw. Hold the blind cap tightly with one hand and gently unscrew the screw to the left. You will feel the screw come free. It seems easiest to let gravity help it fall out on to your work bench. With some gentle pressure, the plastic blind cap will pop off the metal tube. Next, you push the tube back down and out the section-end of the barrel.

Until you get used to it, the trickiest part of the restoration is replacing the latex-rubber O-ring in the blindcap-end of the barrel. You can see the black O-ring imbedded in a groove of the barrel in this photo. If you are lucky, the O-ring will still have a little pliability and it will come right out with the help of the dental pick. If you are unlucky, the O-ring will have petrified, and you’ll have to carefully dig it out little piece by little piece.

Once the old O-ring is out, you might want to use a Q-tip to clean out any dirt in that end of the barrel. The barrel on TouchDowns are often still quite clean, and cleaning it with a Q-tip might not be necessary.

You can see the old O-ring inside this Sheaffer TouchDown barrel. Use a dental pick to carefully remove the old O-ring.

Sheaffer TouchDown fountain pens used one of two different size O-rings. Most pen-part suppliers list them as either a “small O-ring” or a “large O-ring.” Large O-rings were only used in first-year Sheaffer TouchDowns (1948), which have noticeably thicker barrels than the remaining “Thin Model” TouchDowns (1949-1952), which use small O-rings. If you ever feel like dabbling in Sheaffer Snorkels, the large O-rings are also used on PFMs and Snorkel Desk Pens.

I find it is easiest to place the new O-ring into its groove with the dental pick. I fold the O-ring a little and insert it into the blind-cap opening. Then I use the dental pick to carefully get one side of the O-ring into the groove. If all goes well, I use the dental pick to drag the opposite end of the O-ring into the groove. With two-points in the groove, I go the next high point of the sack and work it into the groove. Once that is accomplished, I try to get the last high point of the O-ring into the groove. It sounds easy, but it takes some practice to do it quickly. NEVER lube the O-ring before trying to install it. A slippery O-ring will make your life miserable.

Now it is time to start reassembling the barrel apparatus. Clean off the metal tube you had to unscrew from the blind cap with a paper towel to get any old shmutz off. Then drop the screw threads-first down the tube. Use the screwdriver to help find the tube’s hole for the screw. Leave the screwdriver in the tube slotted into the screw. Put a thin layer of silicon O-ring lube around the shoulder of the tube on the screw-end of the tube. Then insert the screw and tube, screw first, into the section hole of the barrel and gently glide it with the screwdriver all the way through the blind-cap side’s hole in the barrel until the tube won’t go any farther. Rest the barrel and tube on its side with the screwdriver still slotted into the screw.

Take the plastic blind cap and fill its cup with rubber cement. (There should be a rubber washer in there, but often it is blown and the rubber cement acts as a sealant that can replace it.) You might find a way that works better for you, but I hold the blind cap with the rubber cement in my left hand and pick up the barrel assembly by the screwdriver with my right hand. It gets a little messy, but I then screw the screw into the blindcap. You know you have found the screw hole in the blind cap when you see the tube going into the blind cap’s cup and rubber cement starts smooshing out. It is important to make sure the screw is in tightly, but you have to be very careful not to overtighten the screw because it can split the blind cap in half and make it useless for the necessary air seal to make the filler work. It is important for the tube to be extended all the way to prevent the rubber cement from getting into the O-ring. Wipe the excess rubber cement off with a paper towel. Now you can work the tube back and forth to spread the silicon lube around the O-ring and get smooth operation from the barrel assembly.

Here you can see where the hardened ink sac has been scraped off to reveal the nipple underneath.

Getting back to the section assembly part of the pen, take the razor and clean the usually hardened old ink sac off the nipple of the section. Be very careful not to accidentally chip off a piece of the nipple. That will ruin your pen. Some people will insist you need to give the nib assembly a sonic cleaning at this point, but if you soaked it long enough, you likely already removed most of the old ink.

To move forward, you need to trim your ink sac to fit perfectly into the sac protector. I don’t have a definitive way to do this. I usually stick the sac (closed end first) in the sac protector, pinch it at large opening of the sac protector, pull out the sac from the protector while maintaining the pinch and then trim it with scissors. Make sure the nipple on the section is dry. Put the sac on the nipple and then put the ink sac protector over the sac to see how well it fits. If the sac is a shade too long, trim it just a bit more. If the sac is a millimeter or so short, that is perfectly fine. Remove the sac protector and then ink sac. Paint a thin layer of sac shellac on the nipple of the section and then replace the properly trimmed ink sac. Wipe off the excess shellac and let the assemble dry for a few minutes. Next rub down the ink sac with pure talcum powder (old skool and potentially cancerous, as talc is mined with naturally occurring asbestos) or corn starch. The corn starch (or death talc) helps preserve the rubber. Snap the sac protector into place over the sac.

Final assembly is easy. Screw the section back into the barrel in a clockwise (righty tighty) fashion. Some old manuals say that you should put rubber cement on the threads (you can see the remains of old rubber cement on the starting photos) to help seal the barrel, but it isn’t necessary and only gives future restorers a bigger headache. The threads seal the section and barrel nicely on their own.

At this point, you have a pen that is ready to write. I, generally, give the pen 24 hours to let the shellac set completely. Then I test it with water, flushing out any remaining old ink while making sure it fills properly.

If you want it to looks its best, you can do a wet sanding that will remove a thin layer of the plastic, removing most surface scratches and stains. It also can enhance the color a bit. Unfortunately, it also makes the remaining imprint shallower or removes it entirely, which is a reason to be judicious in deciding which pens to wet sand. Yet, how to wet sand a pen is worthy of an article on to itself.

When Pelikan Tried to Level Up

By on July 19, 2023
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Here stands a blue Pelikan Level 5 fountain pen in its inkwell egg filling unit.

The number one thing that attracts me to fountain pens and their history is all the many unique filling systems. One of the last great attempts at making a unique new filling system was the Pelikan Level system for its Level 65 and Level 5 pens.

Made between 1995 and 2001, the Pelikan Level pens held up to 4 milliliters of ink–more ink than just about any pen on the market.

The key to the whole operation was a valve system within the pen and a specialized ink bottle that engaged the valve assembly in the tail of the pen. There are two reservoirs within the pen. One chamber near the nib holds the ink used for writing, and the larger chamber holds the reserve ink.

Filling the pen should be easy, but it gets complex in a hurry. You turn the silvery tail piece on the pen until one engraved dot lines up over a dot on the barrel, while the pen is nib down. You engage the egg (which holds the ink bottle) by pushing down on the tail of the pen. In theory this is supposed to squirt ink into the reserve chamber of the pen. In practice with our own pen, we had to take the ink bottle out of the egg and try squirting ink into the pen, which only seemed to do one or two drops at a time. Once the chamber is full, you turn the silvery tail piece until a triangle appears over the barrel dot. This opens the chamber to the writing ink chamber, allowing ink to drop in from the reserve. This sometimes needed a couple shakes. Then you could realign the dots and top off the reserve chamber, if you wanted.

Disassembling the ink unit and pen stand is easy. Notice the special nozzle on top of the plastic bottle of ink.

On paper, it is a brilliant system and design. In practice, it is a little more challenging than necessary. One could easily forgive the challenge, if the pen wrote well. On the pen I bought, the steel nib was delightfully smooth. Unfortunately, I found I could only write about 3/4ths of a page before the flow of ink through the feed got disrupted. At that point, it became a battle to write with until the pen was given time to rest on its side or nib down so that the air exchange could complete and restore ink to the nib.

The Pelikan Level 65 started life as a student pen with the Level 5 for nonstudents following a couple years later. Since the pens were discontinued in 2001, Pelikan no longer makes the specialty ink bottles required for filling the pens. If you have an ultra fine syringe, you can fill the pens with that, but otherwise you are out of luck.

A close-up view of the Pelikan Level 5’s steel nib and section.

If you love constantly changing ink colors, as so many of us do, it is nearly impossible to clean these pens out without completely disassembling the pen, which it was never really designed for. I have yet to verify this, but rumor has it that Pelikan only made blue and black inks for this pen, anyway.

In the final breakdown, I love this pen and filling system for my curio cabinet of horrors. However, the one I own certainly doesn’t live up the to practical writing capacity and flawless functionality I have come to trust and love in the overall Pelikan brand.

A Nib by Any Other Number…Is Still Confusing

By on May 19, 2023
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Even for experienced professionals, it is really difficult to gauge a nib by its number. We get calls and e-mail with some regularity asking for a nib of a certain number. The trouble is, we often aren’t sure what the customer really wants. If the nib brand isn’t specified it can be a really challenging to know what is really desired.

A number on a nib doesn’t always mean what it seems to mean. Here a #4 is larger than a #5.

Take this 14k gold Conklin #4 and 14k gold Sheaffer #5 for example. It is often assumed that nibs always followed a standardized system of sizing. After all, that would make the most sense. Unfortunately, especially in the golden era of vintage pens, many of the companies sized their own brands differently from their competitors. The only thing that seems uniform is that within each brand a #0 or #1 nib was the smallest and the sizes could go up to 12 or higher, though many seemed to top out around 8. Here you have a Conklin #4 being larger than a Sheaffer #5.

The closest to a standard setter in the 1920s and ’30s might have been “Warranted” nibs. These were usually 14k gold nibs that were used by a wide variety of 2nd tier pen brands and repairmen looking to get a pen up-and-running, again, if they didn’t have the proper branded nib. In some ways, these were the JoWo or Bock nibs of their time.

Nib sizes vary widely by brand in this photo.

Check out these nibs lined up together. From left to right: Sheaffer Feather Touch #5; Sheaffer 3-25; Waterman 2A; Unbranded #2; Mabie Todd #2; Star PE #6 and Diamond Medal #5. Note their lengths and widths in relation to their numbers and each other.

To size a nib properly, especially if it isn’t a branded nib, it is important to measure the nib. To do that, let’s discuss the anatomy of a nib. Let us start with the writing tip, which usually has a special tipping material to keep the nib from deforming with a lot of writing. The tip grows into the two (or three for music nibs) tines. The breather hole allows for the exchange of air and ink inside the pen, helping to facilitate ink flow. Usually the breather hole is centered at the widest part of the nib known as its shoulders. As the nib tapers down to its tail, that part is known as the body of the nib.

Here are 3 more numbered nibs muddying the waters of size referencing. The 6 is a little bigger than the 3, but it is definitely smaller than a JoWo 6, which I didn’t have in time for this article.

If you are looking for a good replacement nib, measure the length of your nib from tip to tail. (It is easier in centimeters and milimeters than 32nds and 64ths.) Then measure the shoulder. These two measurements will get you pretty close. Probably close enough in 90% of cases. Yet there is one last  bit to account for, which is the width of the gold. As the technology improved nibs got stamped thinner and thinner. It is easy to feel the difference between a 1920s Sheaffer Lifetime and a 1950s Sheaffer Snorkel nib of open design.

This brings us to some of the more confusing numbers on nibs. Earlier you saw a photo of a Sheaffer 3-25 nib. Although most 3-25 nibs are the same general size, that number referenced the price and warranty length of the pen from the date it was purchased: $3 and 25 years. You might also see Sheaffer 5-30 and 7-30 nibs. If you ever find a 7-30 nib, snatch it up. Those are pretty rare. It was a clever marketing tactic by Sheaffer. For an extra dollar, you got the Lifetime warranty pen. If someone back then could already afford the $7, they could afford $8. Yet, how many people really used their Lifetime pens for 30 years or more? That is a question I would love to know the answer to. I’m sure a few did, but, for many, pens were a fashion accessory and statement, as well as a useful tool.

Sheaffer Lifetime pens of the 1920s and ’30s had elaborate serial numbers, which had for more to do with fighting black-market pen dealing than tracking customer pens.

Showcasing the 1950s Sheaffer numbering system are two more nibs. M1 = Medium Steel Open Nib and F5 = Fine-Point, Two-Tone 14k gold Triumph Nib.

In the 1950s Sheaffer started an alphanumeric nib classification system, which was really quite inspired and gave a great deal of information about the nib. The first letter of the code was the point style: A = accountant (extra, extra razor-thin fine); B = Broad; F = Fine; G = Gregg Shorthand; M = Medium; S = Stub and X = Extra Fine. On hyper-rare occasions there could be two starting letters led by an F for flexible such as an FB5, as you will soon read.

The numbers that followed the first letter were: 1 = Steel Open Nib; 2 = Monotone 14k Gold Open Nib; 3 = Two-Tone 14k Gold Open Nib; 4 = Palladium Silver Triumph (conical) Nib; 5 = Two-Tone 14k Gold Triumph Nib and 6 = Palladium Silver Open Nib. And for those keeping score at home, the two-tone nibs were solid 14k gold with a decorative Palladium plating over about half the nib.

On rare occasions there was another letter that followed the number: L = Left Oblique and R = Right Oblique.

And there you have it. At the very least it is a start to understanding the numbers we see on nibs and what they might mean. I hope you found it to be helpful.

Apologies to a Parker 51

By on October 26, 2022
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Time and again, I’ve mentioned the fountain pen that got me hooked into this crazy lifestyle. It was my mother’s father’s Sheaffer Balance Lifetime. Yet, I have another grandparental pen that never gets much publicity. It is a Parker 51 from my father’s side of the family.

This Parker 51 once belonged to either my father’s mother or father. I suspect it was Granddad’s, but either way it is a treasured keepsake.

The Parker 51 showed up in my life about 15 years after the Sheaffer. It was right around the year 2000. My father’s mother was getting sick and had to live with my parents. As they packed up her house, they discovered a Parker 51 in a desk drawer. They knew I liked old pens and sent it to me in Montana. At the time my collection was meager. My only other pens were a Sheaffer Imperial, a Rotring, a Waterman Phileas, Lamy Safari and Cross Townsend.

I recently pulled out the aforementioned 51 to write a letter and was struck by how little I knew about pens in 2000, when it showed up in my life. It would be several more years before I learned how to restore pens. I had never heard of a Parker 51. I had heard of Parker Duofolds because I had seen a modern Parker Duofold MacArthur Special Edition at Marshall Fields in Chicago. It was well out of my price range, and although its literature mentioned the original Duofolds, I assumed that none were left in existence! Honestly, I assumed that my Sheaffer was such a rare treasure that no other old-fashioned fountain pens could possibly exist. Good Lord, when I saw that modern Duofold in 1994, I was 18, and my 60-year-old pen might well have been what the dinosaurs wrote with.

That’s how little I knew. The internet only barely existed. I didn’t know a single soul who liked fountain pens. My parents thought they were archaic and messy. My friends parents thought the same. My relatives thought the same. I had not stumbled into any of the early pen catalogs and mailing lists. Only bank presidents wrote with Montblanc 149s to show off. In my tiny world, I was the last hold out.

Enter the 51, and my ignorance was on full display. It still worked and had an Aerometric filler with a silicon (sorry, pli-glass) ink sac. I assumed it was some deranged promotional pen my grandmother must have gotten in the 1980s for one of her many charitable donations. It didn’t look like a vintage pen to me. I didn’t know how to look for and understand a date code then. I didn’t know that the 51 was originally released in 1941 with the advertising stating that it was 10 years ahead of its time! The design certainly fooled me, as I thought it was from the 1980s. The date code that I now understand said it was made in 1950.

My paternal grandparents were both very formal people. The black barrel and lustraloy cap could have belonged to either of them, but as my grandmother was far more into flowery and feminine design, this pen, I now understand, was likely my grandfather’s.

My granddad, as he was called, died when I was only 8 or 9 years old. I never got to know him very well. He was always nice, but he was of a generation and upbringing that children were meant to be seen and not heard. He wasn’t the type of guy to romp around on the floor with me, but I don’t have any bad memories. As I grew up, I learned he had a business in professional sales in New York City. He was into electronics, fast cars, Broadway, a little bit of baseball and cocktail parties with witty conversation. As an adult, I’m surprised at how much we have in common, and I wish I could have known him as an adult. Our similarities baffle my own father, who wonder’s how his father’s tastes could have so completely skipped a generation.

My own father and I share the love of writing. My dad prefers ballpoints and typewriters to fountain pens and computers, but, hey, nobody’s perfect. All the same, I don’t think my grandfather likely wrote much besides orders, quite possibly on carbon copy paper. This might explain why the Parker 51 has such a firm extra-fine nib. The pen barely looked used when I got it. I suspect Granddad put it away as soon as he could get his hands on reliable ballpoint pens. I wonder if in the things left behind were a first or second-year Parker Jotter. I can see him zipping down the road in his much-beloved candy-apple red 1955 Ford Thunderbird and a Parker Jotter in his shirt pocket.

Of course, it would be nice to have that Thunderbird or any one of the myriad Lincoln Continentals that he drove over the years. I am very happy with his pen, but he sure had great taste in cars, too.

How Do I Start Collecting Pens: Why Are Some Pens More than Others?

By on October 5, 2022
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A good friend recently asked me why some pens cost more than others. The cheeky, glib and true answer is supply and demand. But, it is more than that. Sometimes it is marketing. Sometimes its trends in the marketplace.

This is a “Big Red” senior Parker Duofold made of orange Permanite.

However, he was asking for something more specific. When looking at vintage pens, he saw wildly fluctuating prices for pens that looked almost the same to him. Why does the average super-famous senior Parker Duofold “Big Red” (orange) go for $100 or $200 and the average senior Parker Duofold in Mandarin Yellow go for $800 or $900?

Big Reds are pretty common, especially the later 1920s’ version made of “permanite.” Most vintage collections have several of these pens. Mandarin Yellow versions of the same pen are fairly rare. They didn’t make as many, and the material used to make the yellow turns very brittle with age. As such, a large percentage of the senior Mandarin Yellow Duofolds broke. Nevertheless, these are still beautiful pens, and their scarcity makes them all the more desirable. Senior-sized Duofolds cost the most back when they came out, so many people bought the smaller Junior and Lady Duofold models to save money. As such, collectors have chosen the rarer senior models to be the favorite, which is why junior and Lady Duofold versions of the pen in mandarin yellow sell for much less than the seniors.

Mandarin yellow was a much more fragile substance to make Parker Duofolds, and it didn’t age well. These Mandarin Duofolds are much more sought after because they are more scarce.

This also is a good place to demonstrate trends in the marketplace, too. I am writing this in October of 2022. Where as a reasonable price to pay for a senior Mandarin Parker Duofold is $800 to $900, five to seven years ago, these same pens were getting $1,200 to $1,500. These pens were in higher demand back then, and dealers couldn’t keep them in stock. The market has softened some since then. Why? 2 factors. 1.) Just about everybody who wanted one of these pens back then got one if they could afford it. 2.) Sadly, we are starting to see a passing of a generation of vintage pen collectors. There are more and more of these pens on the market, and younger generations of pen users and collectors are not as excited about vintage pens. ALSO, the younger generation is paying off insanely large sums of college debt and paying tons more for skyrocketing housing prices. In their hierarchy of stuff to pay for, a rare 100-year-old pen is not as pressing as next month’s rent or feeding a young family.

Staying in the Parker Duofold family, Senior Big Reds made of orange hard rubber are usually much more valuable than the more common and less fragile “permanite.” Streamlined Senior Parker Duofolds are rarer and tend to get more than the “traditional” flat-top designs. Pristine Lapis (blue) Senior Duofolds can command a lot more money due to the fact most Lapis Duofolds turned dark and nearly black in some cases. The same goes for the Pearl and Black Duofolds. They turned brown with discoloration. If you find a pristine one, those are going to get a lot more money. Another feature on a Parker Duofold that is highly regarded is the bandless senior Parker Duofold Big Red. These pens are also really hard to find. Most Duofolds had one, two or even three bands near the lip of the cap. The bands help to protect the cap when posting it on the tail of the pen. Bandless models weren’t common, and the caps often broke when people posted them. Soooo, many people will pay top dollar for a bandless senior Duofold.

We haven’t even left the Parker Duofold family, yet.

Flexible nibs, such as this Conklin #4 nib, are in high demand in 2022.

Flexible nibs are king right now. Everybody wants one, and so few pens came with flexible nibs over the years. All flex nib pens command top dollar. Basic Waterman 52s would sell for maybe $50 ten to fifteen years ago. Yet, many of their tiny #2 nibs have a little to a lot of flex, and these same pens now get between $100 and $150.

Conversely, one of the several Waterman pens that really draw big bucks are early 1920s Waterman #7 Pink pens. These were oversized…or close to it…. The distinguishing feature of these pens is a pink ring around the top of the cap AND the word “Pink” imprinted on the 14k gold nib. Waterman made these nibs specifically to be very flexible writers. All of the color-ring Waterman #7’s are fairly desirable, but Pink is the most sought. As such, these pens command much more money. You can probably find a Waterman 56 or 58 in black hard rubber from the same general time period for less…with the same basic flex nib…and save a bundle over the Pink.

Apparently, even cheap TWISBI fountain pens made in China are falling down this pricing rabbit hole. You can buy most TWISBI Eco fountain pens for around $15 to $20 brand new. However, just the other day I saw a “limited edition” transparent orange cap TWISBI Eco sell at an auction for more than $230! It was a discontinued color that people love enough to get into a bidding war over.

Most TWISBI Eco fountain pens are pretty inexpensive but this rare color model goes for more than $200 on some auctions sites.

There are probably hundreds of vintage pens (and modern) such as these to ask these questions of, and so I shall revisit this topic and question from time to time to help sort out why some pens are so much more valuable than others.

Pen Books: Waterman Past & Present

By on August 16, 2022
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Staring at a shelf full of pen books, it struck me that I ought to share with you some of what these great tomes have to offer. As such, I would like to start with a pen-collecting classic.

Here is the cover to “Waterman Past & Present,” a definitive guide to Waterman pens spanning 1883 to 1958. It is a great resource for identifying each model of Waterman pens.

“Waterman Past & Present: The First Six Decades” by authors Max Davis and Gary Lehrer.

If you are just getting into vintage pens and/or Waterman pens, this book is an absolute must. Most professional collectors and dealers I know still use this book as one of their favorite references to identify classic Waterman pens.

The book’s authors are among the most trusted dealers in vintage pens. Max Davis once owned a pen shop in New York City, before moving to Europe to start several very successful websites. According to the book, he contributes most of the European advertising for Waterman and most of the ink displayed in one chapter. The rest of the book was completed by renowned pen expert Gary Lehrer, whose personal Waterman collection was possibly second-to-none. He also created with his wife Myrna one of the most successful vintage pen catalogs online and in print. I had the good fortune to know Gary and Myrna on the pen show circuit, and I was very sorry to learn of Gary’s passing earlier this year. He was an honest, kind and hard working pen man who helped to build pen collecting into the hobby it is today. He also was an excellent pen repairman.

Published in 2008, “Waterman Past & Present” is a 236 page book. Hardbound and coffee-table book size, it sports full-color on almost all of its thick, quality paper pages. After a very brief history about Louis Edson Waterman and his pens from 1883 to 1958, there is very little writing in this book.

Instead, it is a feast of images from common Waterman pens to some of the only known remaining rare models. Most of the pen photos are printed at their actual size, with specific details called out to help differentiate between models that might look similar. Along with the photos of pens are clear, easy to read images of original Waterman catalog pages AND magazine advertisements. Additionally, many of the original bottles of Waterman ink are present.

The only thing missing from this book appears to be Waterman pencils. Some appear in the ads and catalog pages shown, but few are photographed or given much thought.

Nevertheless, this remains a phenomenal resource for identifying Waterman pens, and it is wonderful to be able to see real samples of some rare pens that you and I might never seen in real life.

Pen World: Defining Vintage Part 2

By on April 25, 2022
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The sequel to my story in Pen World Magazine is now on news stands. Click each photo to read each page of the story. We have permission to reprint it here from Pen World editor Nicky Pessaroff. Be sure to subscribe to Pen World to read this and many other great stories about pens.

Click the image to better read the story.

Click the image to better read the story.

Click the image to better read the story.