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Any advice/tips for 1st-time Vac-fill owner? Care and feeding, inks to avoid, etc.

As the title says I am trying to restore an old sheaffer tuckaway but I am having trouble finding restoration guides specifically for it and instead find videos for restoring sheaffer touchdowns that to my knowledge have the same mechanisms it used in the tuckaway. If anyone has a more specific guide that would be very helpful as this would be my first attempt at a restoration. Also, when watching this video there is an o ring that needs to be placed in the Sheaffer Imperial but i am having trouble finding a notch for one....also what size o ring should i look for/ where is the best place to buy one? Any guidance would be greatly appreciated! Okay last minute edit, so I see that anderson pens sells o rings a large and small, but which size should I get?

I have a Sheaffer Tuckaway with SA imprinted on the barrel underneath the W.A Sheaffer...What does SA mean? What is says is this: W.A.SHEAFFER FORT MADISON, IOWA SA 600 I get the 600 but the SA????? I tried to take a picture but the imprint is too faint for my low end camera Thanks, Michael Little Phoenix, AZ

While removing the nib and feed from my vac-fill Sheaffer Lady Tuckaway I snapped the feed in half. Upon further inspection I noticed the feed was significantly undersized and there was a plastic collar at the bottom of the feed. As you can see in the photos the section diameter was around 7 mm. My question is 1) Is this collar an original feature and 2) When finding a replacement feed should I get one around 7mm so that if fits the section or 2mm undersized and use the plastic collar. Thanks for any help.

The plastic seems to have turned green or something, and either ink formed a gunk (I think I see some in the top of the feed) or the plastic did. The brown inside the barrel appeared to be red or brown, and the gunk grey. The feed also seems to be split, and sticks further out than the other tuckaway (a post-war one)

Bought these these at an antique store and they cleaned up pretty nice and though there was old ink inside the plungers still function quite well. My question is in regard with the caps. I cannot tell if they truly belong with the pen they came with or if they might have been switched.. I did some research on my own but can't find a page where it says this cap with this nib and section - blah blah blah. So any help in ID'ing these pens with the correct cap would be nice. Thanks. And I also picked up a red one with the dot on the top of the cap as well but since it all matched I didn't have to worry. It had a lifetime nib in the style of the one on the right. http://i770.photobucket.com/albums/xx346/km4rt_secur1ty/20151214_100812.jpg http://i770.photobucket.com/albums/xx346/km4rt_secur1ty/20151214_100733.jpg

The pen is really small, has a post-war cap band, and has a triumph nib, and a moveable blind cap held in place with some sort of aluminum collar, so I think it is a sovereign II. So far I think I need to screw out the collar with a prong?, repack the packing unit, and get a new rubber seal. Where can I get the rubber seal and other replacement materials? What tool do you use to screw of the thing holding on the blind cap?

I'm in the very beginning of the restoration of my grandfather's Sheaffer Touchdown Tuckaway. My grandfather died 32 years ago, and wrote with the pen until the day he died. It's been sitting in my mom's desk drawer since then, fully loaded with a beautiful blue ink (which I shall identify someday). One thing I've noticed is that the inside of the cap has a very little bit of greenish corrosion inside of it. Does anyone have any recommendations of good ways of cleaning that up? In addition, there's a small dent in the cap that doesn't affect the utility of the cap. It's about halfway up the cap, far enough to not affect the threads on the cap, but a ways from the end. Is it worth it trying to smooth the dent out? Or should I just leave well enough alone? Mainly, though, I'd like some suggestions about the corrosion!

My mom recently learned that I'm really into fountain pens (it's a new obsession of mine), and remarked that if I really like them, she has my grandfather's old fountain pen and I could have it. Obviously, I'm thrilled and say yes. Posting some images on /r/fountainpens on Reddit, I've learned that this pen is a Sheaffer Tuckaway, possibly with a Touchdown filling system. So here's my real question, and it was suggested on reddit that I post here because you guys could help me out more. This pen has been lying in a drawer for about 32 years, since my grandfather died. My mom is certain she saw him using this pen up until the day he actually died, in fact. She says the back of the pen unscrews and she has unscrewed it and it comes out like a piston and moves easily (I nearly had a heart attack when she said this, but tried not to show it). So is this something I could do maintenance/restoration on and use today? Or is this something which needs specialized tools and I should pay a professional to do for me? It's a family heirloom (at least it is to me), and so I'd really appreciate all of your advice. Thanks! Oh, in case it helps, here is the imgur page that shows the pen.

I've decided I am in the market for a Tuckaway. After hours of trying to decide which body material, trim, filler system, etc that I want, I am leaning toward the older striated vac models. I would prefer a Touchdown sac filler, but I assume they dont exist in striated as that would defeat the purpose of the transparent barrel. Then I got concerned that the vac barrel could get permanently stained and ruin the transparency. Noodler's Bulletproof Black is pretty much my exclusive ink just because I require as much water resistance as possible. All my other pens are sacced or C/C pens. Can someone confirm if this is or is not a problem before I purchase a striated? If not possible, then I will concentrate on a solid bodied Touchdown Tucky. Also, is there a very SIMPLE (eg. one sentence description) of all the different Sheaffer trim levels and a hierarchy? Every time I try to read some posts, the discussion gets way heavy with minor nuances and one-year variants, etc, etc. As someone just getting his feet wet with Sheaffer, I would just like a very simple primer. I'm sure there is a good post on FPN, I just haven't found it yet. I know this is probably wrong, but to give an idea: Valiant: ? Crest: has a metal cap Craftsman: cap and barrel match. Thin wire cap band. Lowest tier

Made a run up to a local antique place today, and I stumbled over a booth that had a fair number of Shaeffers! I picked up four items that drew my attention, and I'm curious about ID on 'em! None of them fill, of course, but the pencil in the snorkel set works just fine. First, a pen-and-pencil set, open nib, snorkel filler. I think this is likely an Admiral or a Saratoga? The gunk on the barrel is just tape residue, it comes right off with a light rub of denatured alcohol, thank fully, leaving the barrels un-marked. I was a bit worried about that when I picked them up! http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/p603/Komitadjie/PENS-1_zpsa7f09d77.jpg http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/p603/Komitadjie/PENS-2_zps94dbc890.jpg Next is a Tuckaway of some kind, touchdown filler, triumph nib. Beyond that I'm completely baffled. The diameter is a LOT larger than the other Triumph pens I have, I've included a picture of it at the end for comparison. The section is also transparent, although rather dark amber at this point. I'm not sure if that's degradation of the plastic with time, or crud on the interior, although I'd probably guess just the plastic breaking down a bit. As you can see, the cap has a fine, engraved pattern on it, as well as an engraved name. The clip is a tiny little thing, and the touchdown tube is hugely fat, and very short. http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/p603/Komitadjie/PENS-3_zpse61b9fc9.jpg http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/p603/Komitadjie/PENS-4_zps4e170421.jpg http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/p603/Komitadjie/PENS-5_zps8b252e2d.jpg Last in the list is what I am fairly sure is a Touchdown Imperial, although I have no idea what model. It is also Triumph nibbed, and has three metallic points on the side for the cap's clutch to hold. http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/p603/Komitadjie/PENS-6_zps382796fd.jpg http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/p603/Komitadjie/PENS-7_zpsae2620b5.jpg And here's a quick shot of the different Triumph nibs. The front-most on the gray pen is a Valiant, for reference. The center one is the Tuckaway, and the top one is the Imperial. The sizes are really, really different! http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/p603/Komitadjie/PENS-8_zps6922f05f.jpg Any help you guys can give me in identifying these would be greatly appreciated. I'm working on determining which ones I should send to a pro for restoration, and which I should work with myself. I'd really like to learn to restore these lovely old pens myself, it looks like a LOT of fun! I just don't want to accidentally hose up some rare, expensive model that I'll want to shoot myself for later out of pure inexperience! EDIT: Forgot to include the picture of the three nibs!

Who would you recommend to repair and refurbish a snorkel-style Tuckaway that leaks where the barrel joins the nib? Thanks, Laurie

I just got a Sheaffer Tuckaway in the mail today and I need some help with repairs. I'm wanting to do the repairs my self but I need help with what to do. The filling system doesn't work, I can't budge the nib and I don't want to break it, and the base of the cap has a gap. Any advice as to how to fix these problems would be appreciated, thank you! http://i719.photobucket.com/albums/ww191/ParkerDeanPeterson/temporary-16.jpg http://i719.photobucket.com/albums/ww191/ParkerDeanPeterson/temporary-17.jpg

I'm a big fan of tuckies, and recently came across this beautiful cap and body in an ebay lot. I believe it is an early tuckaway model without a cap clip. I have been thinking about trying my hand at vacuum-fil repair, and I like what's left of this pen enough to give it a shot. I'm holding up on this adventure until I can secure the right nib for it. was the nib in this pen a triumph or open nib, and does the donor pen have to be precisely the same mode? what are my chances of ever finding a supplier for this nib?