What is on your bench?

[VacNut]

Many of us do minor repairs and “restorations”. What is on your bench? 

This black Vac Max arrived in the mail this week. I have broken it down and am in the process of cleaning the parts and removing the old diaphragm. Unfortunately the fill tube snappeed off in the feed. It should clean up nicely.

 

 

[VacNut]

This brown striped Vac is from the Latin America Area. It is unique in that there are no transparent laminations. The pen is made of black and brown laminations with a Marca Registrada imprints. I originally thought the pen was just stained, but I shone a scope inside the barrel and it is fully opaque. The only other Vac I have found with opaque barrels are from very early Vacs.

 

 

[es9]

1949 “Fat” Sheaffer Touchdown with an NOS stub nib. (Don’t ask how I ended up with the nib; mostly due to chance.)

 

Was waiting on fresh shellac and some thread sealant, but should be ready to ink up soon! 
 

[eckiethump]

Swan Visofil VT340/78  TYPE 1, I'd never seen a TYPE 1 VT340 before, having serviced many what I now know to be the Swan VT340 TYPE 2. TYPE 1 is entirely different in that the barrel unscrews, mid way to service. Sorry unable to load photo's.

Laurence Oldfields' Swan Visofil specific book covers the VT340 TYPE 1

et

[VacNut]

23 hours ago, es9 said:

1949 “Fat” Sheaffer Touchdown with an NOS stub nib. (Don’t ask how I ended up with the nib; mostly due to chance.)

 

Was waiting on fresh shellac and some thread sealant, but should be ready to ink up soon! 
 

This pen looks smashing. How large is “fat”? May I ask where do you apply the shellac? Doesn’t the thread sealant seal the pen? 

[Ron Z]

That's a Valiant, so a little under 1/2" - it was the largest of the Sheaffer line at the time.  Thread sealant goes on the threads of the nib unit (don't ever use shellac because you'll never get the nib out again).  Shellac goes on the sac nipple on the section, when he puts the sac on.  That part of the pen is hidden up inside the barrel in the picture.

[es9]

Yep!  I can guarantee no shellac was used anywhere other than the sac nipple.  And given how much of a terror getting these nibs off is* I used very little thread sealant.  

 

*Praying Fountainbel's eponymous triumph nib removal tool becomes widely available as soon as humanly possible.  

[VacNut]

6 hours ago, Ron Z said:

That's a Valiant, so a little under 1/2" - it was the largest of the Sheaffer line at the time.  Thread sealant goes on the threads of the nib unit (don't ever use shellac because you'll never get the nib out again).  Shellac goes on the sac nipple on the section, when he puts the sac on.  That part of the pen is hidden up inside the barrel in the picture.

I assumed because of the metal filler that it would use o-rings to create the seal. It has an internal sac, similar to a typical button+push bar fill system? I am curious about the complexity of the filler. How much ink can the pen hold if the metal sleeve fits inside the barrel?

[es9]

10 hours ago, VacNut said:

I assumed because of the metal filler that it would use o-rings to create the seal. It has an internal sac, similar to a typical button+push bar fill system? 

 

Correct on both counts.  Info on the pens can be found here, and info on repairing these can be found here.  

 

10 hours ago, VacNut said:

How much ink can the pen hold if the metal sleeve fits inside the barrel?

 

Not sure total volume of ink, but I have found it's quite a bit.  It takes a 17.5 necked sac; I bought mine here.  Note the neck of the 17.5 sac offered there is technically sized for a PFM, but David Nishimura informed me I could just cut it down; it fit fine when I did.  

 

[VacNut]

On 1/11/2021 at 2:45 AM, eckiethump said:

Swan Visofil VT340/78  TYPE 1, I'd never seen a TYPE 1 VT340 before, having serviced many what I now know to be the Swan VT340 TYPE 2. TYPE 1 is entirely different in that the barrel unscrews, mid way to service. Sorry unable to load photo's.

Laurence Oldfields' Swan Visofil specific book covers the VT340 TYPE 1

et

I did a quick internet search on this pen. It is mad the number and complexity of parts for this pen. I like the idea of a clear piston filler so the ink can be viewed. I cannot imagine the difficulty of rebuilding one of these pens.

[VacNut]

On 1/9/2021 at 4:51 PM, VacNut said:

Many of us do minor repairs and “restorations”. What is on your bench? 

This black Vac Max arrived in the mail this week. I have broken it down and am in the process of cleaning the parts and removing the old diaphragm. Unfortunately the fill tube snappeed off in the feed. It should clean up nicely.

 

 

Finished the cleaning and had to swap out the section, as the previous owner broke off the threads and secured the broken section in place with some type of rosin. At least they didn’t use super-glue.  Looks like they kept twisting the section, until it broke off. Very easy fix, compared to the Sheaffer and the Swan.

 

[eckiethump]

19 hours ago, VacNut said:

I did a quick internet search on this pen. It is mad the number and complexity of parts for this pen. I like the idea of a clear piston filler so the ink can be viewed. I cannot imagine the difficulty of rebuilding one of these pens.

TBH, it is pretty astounding the variety of designs from Swan in what they call possible Visofil type pens, when you include the Blackbird Topfiller and variants. The USA Swan pens are another subject altogether, which thankfully we don't see too many of in this country 🙂

[VacNut]

Sorry for the poor pictures, but I am finally starting to service a few Vacs. It is actually very relaxing. No major rebuilding, but it is always rewarding to see the barrel transparency come back after the cleaning.

 

[VacNut]

I bought this Italian The King Dream Pen. Transparency is great, but I have to figure out the filling mechanism and how to remove the section.

[es9]

Speaking of vacs, I’m on the verge of tears. I have a lovely standard vac I just started working on, but it seems the person who had it before epoxied an all-plastic threaded plunger unit on the back. I’m throwing everything I can at it, but I don’t see how I can get the old plunger off without ruining the threads. 

[FarmBoy]

Don’t try to remove the jamb nut while warm. 
 

It likely was not glued. 
 

other option is to send it out. 

[es9]

The threaded part the blind cap screws onto cracked off pretty much immediately... did not exert much force at all.  Since then, I've been trying to get the remainder of the plunger unit off, but this thing is *fused* on there.  I figured my best bet was to try to soften whatever bonding agent was used and then use a screw extractor.  Suffice it to say, I have not yet succeeded.  At least I'll get a nice two-tone arrow nib and a few spare parts out of it.  

[FarmBoy]

They fuse in without glue. You can drill it out and replace the filler. 
 

 

[es9]

How can I drill it out without destroying the threads/seat?

[eckiethump]

16 minutes ago, es9 said:

How can I drill it out without destroying the threads/seat?

Unless I am interpreting Farmboy wrong, you will need to replace the whole filler, it helps to have a thread chaser for these pens, 3 sizes.

et