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Hey guys, hope this is the right place, but I've just finished restoring an old Parker 51 and I really wanted to show some people who might care! It was very interesting, and more difficult than normal as I suspect there was an unusual adhesive used on some of it, it took many days of soaking and heating to get it open. The jewel cap needed replacing also, and the whole pen was rather dirty. The sac was leaky so that had to go, too, and the feed tube was so corroded it snapped trying to take it off. What a mess. Now it writes perfectly, what a joy the Parker 51 is! I hope you find these couple of pictures of the process interesting, Cheers, ~Arcy (I just wish I could get the tiny tiny dinks in the cap out, they're not much and merely signs of it's age, but I have another pen with a bigger dink too and I think it would add to my service if I could repair them. I know the process but I'm not quite skilled enough yet, so I will continue practicing on other items first.)

Hello, I have recently acquired several cleaned/refurbished/restored/NOS pens, and I have used them without treatment. Just read several posts about mold I wounder will these pens increase the chance of getting mold into my ink collection of 10+ bottles of ink? And will pen flush like the Goulet ones or J. Herbin ones doubled with an ultrasonic cleaner while doing pen maintenance help control and eliminate any possible mold? All my inks are contemporary ink that are presumably fresh and I read that biocide are used, will this make my collection less possible to be contaminated? I do rotate pen and ink so if something goes wrong I guess I have to disinfect every pen and dispose every bottle of ink.

My first repair, and the first topic I've started. Whoo!! I found this pen at an antique mall for 50 cents (along with a couple Welsharps that are still needing some fine tuning.. ahem.) Anyway, I'm rather pleased with myself. I got it all cleaned out, slightly polished, re-sacked, and adjusted the nib to the best of my ability. It has some dents on the tines that the previous owner must have put there in prying the nib out, but it still functions. I had to gently close the gap between the tines as well, as the flow was extreme. Now, this is a nice little writer. A slightly hard-starter after letting sit overnight while I sleep, but once it gets going again, it doesn't quit. Using the normal side of the nib yields a bold line I'm not fond of, but turning the pen upside down and using the back gives a line with some interesting variation! So while this pen isn't perfect cosmetically, I've grown rather fond of it. The plastic is a dark navy blue, not black as it might appear in the photos. The ink used is Poky black, a rather cheap and feathery ink, but this was the initial post-adjustment test where I didn't possibly want to waste my better inks if the nib started super-flowing again. To note, I'm not entirely sure what model this is.. (Does anyone really know with Wearevers?) I call it a "Taperite Citation" type due to the shape of the section and size of the nib, though it certainly isn't as nice as other copies of the Waterman design. Ah well, I enjoy it whatever model it is. Edit: It's a Supreme. Still enjoying it! And here you can kind of see the denting in the tines.

I'm somewhat new to non-student fountain pens, so I had done a bit of research before hand before picking a 'vintage' pen to go with, and as per the recommendation of two friends of mine (one of which being the one that restored mine) I went with a Sheaffer Snorkel. It's a nice American made pen that's older than either of my parents. The one I got here is a Sheaffer Snorkel Admiral (circa 1953 based on some of the insides), won it for $41 when there was only a minute left and I was already annoyed at being out bidded for all the other snorkels (I wanted to get something like the burgundy red or forest green body, but this is nice ), and then I had it restored by Sean (Write on Time) to like-new condition. I was pleasantly surprised by the result, a nice lightweight pen that's easy to feel, writes smoothly and just feels classy. http://static.karlblessing.com/pens/intro/sheaffer_snorkel_close.jpghttp://static.karlblessing.com/pens/intro/sheaffer_snorkel_full.jpghttp://static.karlblessing.com/pens/intro/sheaffer_snorkel_extend.jpg I love it, I keep it with me most of the time when I go out, just wish I could find a nice single-pen case that I can slip it into for some more protection.

Some shots of my restored black Sheaffer Snorkel Admiral (~1953), currently using Noodler's Black Eel in it. http://static.karlblessing.com/pens/black_snorkel_admiral/full.jpghttp://static.karlblessing.com/pens/black_snorkel_admiral/close.jpghttp://static.karlblessing.com/pens/black_snorkel_admiral/snorkel.jpg