Wearever Striped Pacemaker W/ 14K Nib

[donnweinberg]

I have a decent collection of the striped WEAREVER PACEMAKER pens, pictured below. I have 10 of the FPs and one mechanical pencil (2nd from left). I've collected this pen so far in four different colors. PenHero has covered Wearever pens quite extensively in other topics in the Other North American pens section, and has provided us with wonderful, professionally made photos, so I won't go over well-covered territory here. I've just provided various photos of my collection for what they are worth to you.

 

My ultimate purpose here is to discuss a common repair issue with these pens -- the cracking of the section -- and to solicit recommendations about repair.

 

These pens otherwise are relatively easy to fix when, for example, the button filler stops working. One can carefully remove the section, easily replace the rubber sac (if needed; so far not needed), reposition the lever and button mechanism, and get everything to work well. Because I'm a bit obsessive about cleaning my fountain pens, I also will remove the nib and feed (friction fit) to clean them, and then will reinsert them back into the section. If the section doesn't already have a crack, the reinsertion of the nib-feed has a tendency either to reveal a crack that already was there or to create a crack. That result may be contributed to by shrinkage of the section plastic over time. Although each section has a seam, the cracks I have seen or created thus far have not been in the seam. I now regret removing the nib-feed unnecessarily, as I perhaps could have avoided cracking the section of at least some of the cracked samples.

 

The next-to-last photo, with better lighting, would better show the crack in one of the pens. You may be able to see slightly the reflection of the section crack on the bottom of the nib where it meets the section, but it's subtle in that photo. About half of these pens in my collection have a similar crack.

 

What I have done with some success is to use a Q-Tip with super-glue to apply, in layers, the glue to the inside and outside of the section, and let it dry with each layer. As that very slightly reduces the space inside the section for the nib-feed, reinsertion of the nib-feed may stress the crack and require another layer or two of super-glue on the exterior of the section to hold in the ink. One may see a little bit of ink underneath the glue, which otherwise holds in the leakage to spare one's fingers an ink stain.

 

When not leaking through a section crack, these Wearever Pacemakers are good writers for the price. The 14K medium nib is on the thinner side, but it writes smoothly with a bit of give to it, and the overall writing experience is nice for such a relatively inexpensive (then as new and now as vintage) fountain pen -- at least for my tastes.

 

Any recommendations as how better to repair the section crack, assuming I've learned my lesson and will not remove the nib and feed just to clean them better?

 

 

 

 

 

The photo just below may allow you to see the slight crack in the section; the crack is reflected onto the bottom of the nib very near the middle.

 

 

[makas]

Hello

 

I would find a new section. The stress at the section is a little much for a repair and super glue is a bad fit. Water will make it fail and most of your ink is water. A solvent weld could close the crack but I’m not sure it would hold with the stress. Don’t worry about doing damage too much. At least you didn’t catch the section on fire! Don’t ask me how I did that just remember it could have been worse.

 

Take care

 

Mark

[donnweinberg]

Thanks, Mark.