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I recently purchased my first vintage Waterman's fountain pen... a Taperite Crusader. I bought it for next to nothing but have a significant amount of time invested in it just getting the section out of the pen. We're talking about long soaks in water with a little Dawn detergent, ultrasonic baths, and of course heat. This was done over several days with me giving up numerous times rather than to risk breaking the pen. What finally produced the slightest movement of the section was my decision to wiggle the heated joint side to side, rather than just up and down. I got a sudden little "crack" sound causing me to think that I had broken the pen but then I noticed that the section was slightly askew to the left. Reheating and applying pressure in the opposite direction suddenly released the section. After giving the released section, nib, and feed an ultrasonic cleaning, I installed a new sac, loaded the pen with some ink and was pleasantly surprised with how smoothly it writes. Unfortunately, it also manages to blurb an ink blot now and then. I've tried several inks and some seem to work a bit better than others but eventually, either a small drop of ink begins to appear at the nib's vent hole or (worse) a larger drop forms hanging from the bottom of the feed. What can be done with this? My thinking is that the feed is not allowing the free exhange of air for ink and that the only way to address the problem is to remove the nib and feed from the section. How in the world can that be done? The shape of the section precludes the use of a conventional knock out block. Does the nib push back through the feed in the opposite direction? Or, is there some sort of custom knock out block that must be used? Anything that can properly support the section would have to be tapered which would make the section a wedge being driven into the block. Does anyone have experience with this issue and can enlighten me on how to fix the ink blotting issue? Thanks much, Cliff

Aloha - I have an Old Chap button filler thats gotta have a new sac. I've installed a number of sacs in lever fillers. This section is stubborn. When twisted, I get a tiny bit of daylight between section and threads. It revolves rather freely for a few milimeters and opens just a hair, then locks tight. Pulling straight out gets me nothing. Am I pulling against threads? I really don't want to damage the extra nice pen with a wonderful flexy 18k nib. Does anyone know if the Old Chap sections are threaded or friction? I'm soaking overnight in Windex/water 50/50 solution at the moment, but I don't know if I am working with a section with threads or friction.

I recently purchased a World War II era "Secretary" fountain pen manufactured by the Newark Pen Company. I want to get it writing again but have run into a unique (for me at least) problem. I placed the nib/section portion of the barrel in a 10% ammonia solution in my ultrasonic cleaner. After several minutes, I removed the pen and tried turning and, hopefully, extracting the section. The section turned somewhat easily but I found it impossible to remove. It is not threaded and only moves outward about 1/100" or so, even with significant pull, rocking, and twisting. In turning the section, I noticed that the fill lever had become loose and would sort of flop out a third of the way under its own weight. Holding the lever firmly in place, I rotated the section back to its original position and the lever was again tight with springy resistance. My conclusion: the sac is ossified and completely glued to the pressure bar which is preventing me from removing the section. My question is: How do I remove the section in this situation? I have to confess that I have not tried heat other than hot water under the faucet but I am wondering if heat is going to work. I was thinking about using a syringe to inject a plastic-safe (naphtha?) solvent inside the barrel through the lever slot, perhaps something that would loosen the bond between the sac and section. I would appreciate suggestions

Discovered a small screw on the plastic shroud, and one thing led to another. Was reading the excelent thread pinned in Esterbrook on resacing and remembered this rig I built. The key was cuting 4 slots in the 1½" piece of copper pipe and mushrooming it over the tapered end of the beast. I stopped at 2 screws to secure it. A 'T' and some caps, and a few short lengths of pipe were lightly sweated together. The remaining open part of the tee forms a nice friction fit that allows ajustment to any angle. Hardest part is calculating the size the slit needs to be. The formula is simple enough, but much easier in mm's. It works like a Swiss lawnmower (I hope those are good.) same amount of heated air, just directed in a nice fan shape for heating just the shallacked section. She stays in the bullpen more nowdays (Digitall Infinitely Adjustable heat gun and others takeing over her duties. I would build one again, sometimes you need that sliver of verry hot air nothing else will deliver. It lives a little further off the desk as shown because it does run hot. The next project comming is a fairly large write-up on whittling Vacumatic pump pellet cups out of Papermate Inksticks. Some times I enjoy making pen tools and accessories, as much as fixing the pens. Dad used to say, if you cant make a part or a specil tool... Hell, whwt makes you think you can fix stuff."