Help My Parker 51 Has A Terrible Dry Flow

[Edo98]

Hello, I am communicating to all of you who have great experience in these pens.

 

I just purchased my first vintage pen parker 51 aerometric condition near mint restored from a reliable website.

But the problem is that the pen has a miserable ink flow like I've never seen, an extremely dry flow that makes the black ink look gray like a very soft pencil.

It is also worse in my case that I write in cursive and fast and my loops look terrible and feel rough and look dim.

And my question is if I'm supposed to have bought it restored so it's clean and free of obstructions or is it a problem with the nib?

I feel quite nervous and disappointed honestly I like the grip and design of the pen but its performance is the worst felt in a fountain pen.

And this happened with the most wet ink I have, I can imagine the terrible result with a dry ink = 0

[Edo98]

[Mr. Pink]

Crud does build up. I bought a 51 new many years ago. For some time it was having flow problems. So I took it apart, nib and all, and gave it a complete cleaning, and now it writes just fine. There are several YouTube videos on disassembly. The only difficulty is heating the hood enough to unscrew it. A hair dryer worked best for me.

 

Further, you might try to find a broader nib.

Edited December 8, 2018 by Charles Rice

[mitto]

Also the nib tip and hood tip need to be ajdusted. Nib too tight against the hood tip and the pen would write dry. Nib tip should not be eother too tight or too loose. Best.

[FarmBoy]

Nib looks as if it has a distinct lean.

[ralfstc]

Hi,

 

How long have you had it inked for? In my experience it’s often usful with P51s to allow 48 hours for the collector to fill and everything to settle in as the fluid fills the gaps. Also, what ink are you using? I’ve found a few that P 51s don’t seem to like.

 

Ralf

[Edo98]

  On 12/8/2018 at 6:38 PM, ralfstc said:

Hi,

 

How long have you had it inked for? In my experience it’s often usful with P51s to allow 48 hours for the collector to fill and everything to settle in as the fluid fills the gaps. Also, what ink are you using? I’ve found a few that P 51s don’t seem to like.

 

Ralf

 

Hello my pen I used it yesterday at dawn for only 3 hours and it just had a terrible performance it was too dry and the color of the ink instead of being black it looked faint gray after that I emptied it and wiped it with water.

The ink that I used was noodler's black which is a very wet ink in all my fountain pens and with an excellent ink flow.

I feel quite disappointed and sad about the performance of my Parker 51, it is so comfortable in the hand and pretty but ...

 

It is a medium nib but how dry it is seems fine point

[Edo98]

  On 12/8/2018 at 10:42 AM, Charles Rice said:

Crud does build up. I bought a 51 new many years ago. For some time it was having flow problems. So I took it apart, nib and all, and gave it a complete cleaning, and now it writes just fine. There are several YouTube videos on disassembly. The only difficulty is heating the hood enough to unscrew it. A hair dryer worked best for me.

 

Further, you might try to find a broader nib.

 

It could be a possibility that it's dirty.

But I'm supposed to have bought it restored so it's delivered to me clean, or is it not?

 

And the other possibility can be a problem with the nib as you say?

[nsalvut]

Where did you buy it from. Restored could mean anything off eBay. I've seen guys list "restored" Vacs on ebay where all they did was replace the sac in it and run it over some micromesh. Others do a fantastic job and ensure the pen is truly redone, and still others list working pens that they bought at an estate sale as "restored" despite them having done literally nothing to it before sale.

 

Not implying your restorer lied, but the quality of restoration does vary. Try a different ink in the pen and see if that helps. If not, I'd recommend you contact your restorer and see if they have suggestions. If you are daring, you could spread the tines with some thin brass sheets (amazon for like $7), but that would be a last resort.

 

Good luck!

[Brianm_14]

The question is, what does "restored" imply? Is the state of successful restoration measured solely by the seller having performed certain operations on the pen, or is it more a matter of pen performance? Or perhaps, both? Whatever was done to "restore" the pen doesn't seem to be particularly meaningful if you cannot ink it up with a standard ink of your choice, and use it to write. It is too light to use as a boat anchor or even a paperweight.

 

Farm Boy's observation about the nib looks spot on to me. That's a worrisome consideration to keep in mind.

 

If it were my pen, I'd rinse it thoroughly with cool tap water, leave it filled with the same and give the tip a brief dip in my ultrasonic cleaner (optional: I'd do this because I happen to own one). Then I'd drain and dry the pen on paper towels, fill it with ink, and let it rest, capped with the nib down in an empty cup, for 48 hours. (Prayers and offerings to God, gods, or saints, or Santa, are left up to your conscience. Personally, I'd prefer a Waterman ink for a test run, but that is also up to you.) If that didn't fix it, it would then be time to talk with the seller about promptly fixing this pen or giving a full refund, including postage both ways. I'd opt for the latter if possible and then set about looking for another pen.

 

There is no question that 51s are great pens. It may just be that you need to get yourself a working example of one, and not a bundle of frustration!

 

I have bought a total of six 51s off of eBay, each one after carefully watching the seller for a while and asking questions about every pen. That was what others -more experienced in pen buying- advised me to do. (Of course, I bid on a number of other pens that simply went above my price range; still, I got what I wanted in the long run.) Several of the pens were restored, the rest were simply advertised as being in very good, working condition. All are still working well several years later. Well-worth the time and care invested.

 

Good luck! When you get a working model in your hand, you'll forget all about this incident.

[ac12]

Are you holding the pen so that the nib is flat on the paper?

With a hooded nib pen like the 51, it is VERY easy to rotate the pen without realizing that you are. Then you are writing with the nib tilted to the side. And a fountain pen nib does NOT write well or at all, if it is tilted.

 

I had a person come to see me at the SF Pen Show with a pen that he said needed repair, because it would not write well.

When I tried the pen, it wrote just fine.

It turned out that he was rotating the pen, so the nib was not flat on the paper, and ink was not flowing. Once he got the pen level, ink would flow.

[Edo98]

  On 12/9/2018 at 6:13 AM, ac12 said:

Are you holding the pen so that the nib is flat on the paper?

With a hooded nib pen like the 51, it is VERY easy to rotate the pen without realizing that you are. Then you are writing with the nib tilted to the side. And a fountain pen nib does NOT write well or at all, if it is tilted.

 

I had a person come to see me at the SF Pen Show with a pen that he said needed repair, because it would not write well.

When I tried the pen, it wrote just fine.

It turned out that he was rotating the pen, so the nib was not flat on the paper, and ink was not flowing. Once he got the pen level, ink would flow.

 

Hi , I'm not rotating the pen when I write, I'm used to not rotate since the pen that I use the most is a 2000 BB lamy modified in stub and this requires an excellent angle to write.

 

When I write with this parker 51 I use it with the right angle but it is still too dry.

[Edo98]

Right now I found some serenity blue waterman cartridges that I emptied into a glass to test it on the fountain pen and the result was better than with noodlers in the aspect that the color looks a bit stronger than with the other ink and does not present skips, but still remains dry and feels some feedback.

[Edo98]

an ink that apparently accepted better was the waterman serenity blue maintains the color and writes without skips.

 

but it still feels dry and like the color looks better when it is written slow since if I write fast the color looks somewhat weak.

[mitto]

After reading F.BOY's post I looked at the nib picture closely and it really looks leaned/tilted to one side. Probably been used in a tilted position. Not much one can do about such nibs unless one is a nibmeister.

[Edo98]

[Flippy]

Try taking the pen apart. Put the hood in a cup of hot water (maybe the hottest you can get out of your sink, that will do it) and wait for about 5 minutes. Let the shellac loosen and try and screw the hood off. Adjust the nib as needed.

[Edo98]

[nsalvut]

To my not nib-meister eye, it looks like the tines are a little too close at the tip. It looks aligned correctly (hard to tell without a loupe) but it does seem a little too tight. Thin brass strips should help a lot. However, if you just bought it restored, I'd contact your seller. I personally restore Vacs for fun and some side money; Full disassembly, cleaning, new sac, buff polish wax, and very minor nib adjustments, etc. But I won't let a pen leave though unless it's something I am proud to put my name on.

 

Correcting nib issues is super expensive when restoring a pen and many times it can eat up all of your profit if you're lazy.

 

For example, I just got a repair quote of $110 for a lucky curve true blue with a majorly bent nib that's going in my collection. I know it's totally worth the money in the long run, but there's no way I'd ever make money on the pen if I sold it. Long story short, unless someone has a lot of pride and experience in their restoration work, many hobby restorers overlook tuning the nib. Given that with two decent quality inks you are still having issues, seems to be the pen and not you (besides, your beautiful handwriting says a lot about your abilities to wield a fountain pen in my humble opinion).

 

Unless you feel comfortable disassembling your new pen, I would contact your seller if I was in your shoes.

[Edo98]

  On 12/9/2018 at 8:49 AM, nsalvut said:

To my not nib-meister eye, it looks like the tines are a little too close at the tip. It looks aligned correctly (hard to tell without a loupe) but it does seem a little too tight. Thin brass strips should help a lot. However, if you just bought it restored, I'd contact your seller. I personally restore Vacs for fun and some side money; Full disassembly, cleaning, new sac, buff polish wax, and very minor nib adjustments, etc. But I won't let a pen leave though unless it's something I am proud to put my name on.

 

Correcting nib issues is super expensive when restoring a pen and many times it can eat up all of your profit if you're lazy.

 

For example, I just got a repair quote of $110 for a lucky curve true blue with a majorly bent nib that's going in my collection. I know it's totally worth the money in the long run, but there's no way I'd ever make money on the pen if I sold it. Long story short, unless someone has a lot of pride and experience in their restoration work, many hobby restorers overlook tuning the nib. Given that with two decent quality inks you are still having issues, seems to be the pen and not you (besides, your beautiful handwriting says a lot about your abilities to wield a fountain pen in my humble opinion).

 

Unless you feel comfortable disassembling your new pen, I would contact your seller if I was in your shoes.

 

Hi, thank you for sharing your experience here and as you say I think it would be best to contact the seller about the pen to try to solve this problem.

Also I do not have shellac to seal the threads in the event that I remove the hood to use the thin brass strips and that adding that I have no experience restoring fountain pens.

Today I will send an e-mail to the seller, but in the worst case that the seller does not want to reach an agreement with me I will have to send it to someone who will adjust the tip or maybe I will venture to remove the hood and use the thin brass strips to improve the ink flow.

 

By the way many thanks for praising my handwriting , I love using the font pens to write in cursive for the softness of writing that these give me is too pleasant and for my handwriting style the dry flow is quite annoying.