What is on your bench?

[VacNut]

14 hours ago, Inkyways said:

@es9 thank you for the suggestion. I will post a picture soon . while I am waiting I have two more new comers to my pen lot.

 

These pens are my most ignored pens . I ignored as I am not having any tools to fix them. But I have a plan get the tools later and fix them but hunting for them while they are popping up. 

So I am into collect few more Parker Vaccumatic / Paker Duefold pens . This week I bought 3 of them and I have two Photos here.

I am not fun about any pens that has M/ BB nibs . I am up to at least pens with  F nibs . These two pens are Ideal to me .

 

Thats interesting, the brown vac looks like it has an arrow nib from an older vac model. The quills are recessed into the shaft which were part of the earlier lockdown filler models.

Your pens have alot of history 

[gweimer1]

7 hours ago, Inkyways said:

@gweimer1 Thank you 

 

This is a link I posted some times back  for this Pen .

 

 

This is the  pen and it is black . It is a Snorkel and it is not moving.  That pen is somewhere in a  boxpen . So I repost the old photo here. 

 

 

Are sure that's a PFM?  It looks more like an Imperial IV.   And I have spare nibs for either.  PM me.

[Armo]

A few years ago I bought this Tuckaway off fleabay. Unfortunately it had fallen victim to an idjit with a heat gun and the inner barrel was badly distorted rendering the pen useless. Over the last couple of years I have 'tried, failed and put away' on a number of occasions. This time I poured boiling water over the inner barrel and pushed the unsharpened end of a drill bit into it a number of times. It is much improved and I have ordered new seals and washer so by end of the week I should have the verdict - life or death.

[John T]

So I had three Sheaffer Triumph nibbed piston vac pens on my bench for the longest time. All three have the inner cartridge arrangement that keeps the ink off the inside of the barrel. Thanks to a nifty tool that arrived in the mail today from Dale Beebe @ pentooling dot com, it took me less than 5 minutes to get the nib and feed off the front end and from there disassemble the pens entirely. Before I start waving a drill bit at them I just want to verify I replace the seals in the back of the cartridge and not in the barrel. It makes sense to that is where they would be but I have made the mistake of assuming things before.... 

[Ron Z]

Take a look at the exploded view of a wartime Triumph.  The setup is very much the same.  You drill out the disc at the inside of the packing unit, and often can push the felt and rubber washers out the front. 

 

Dale also sells a drill guide that I designed for the Triumph pens.  Most of the time I use a lathe when drilling into the packing unit because it's more precise and I have better control, but made the drill guide so that I can restore one of these if needed at a pen show.  The guide keeps the drill centered protecting the threads,  guiding it so that it hits that disc on center.   Use a sharp drill and drill less than 1/4" so that you don't drill through the end of the barrel and/or packing unit.  You'll feel when the goes through.

[John T]

51 minutes ago, Ron Z said:

Take a look at the exploded view of a wartime Triumph.  The setup is very much the same.  You drill out the disc at the inside of the packing unit, and often can push the felt and rubber washers out the front. 

 

Dale also sells a drill guide that I designed for the Triumph pens.  Most of the time I use a lathe when drilling into the packing unit because it's more precise and I have better control, but made the drill guide so that I can restore one of these if needed at a pen show.  The guide keeps the drill centered protecting the threads,  guiding it so that it hits that disc on center.   Use a sharp drill and drill less than 1/4" so that you don't drill through the end of the barrel and/or packing unit.  You'll feel when the goes through.

Success!!! Thanks for confirming and the guidance, I had previously purchased the drill bit, guide, and reamer from Dale... plus a set of 5 orings and styrene disc's to replace the packing unit. and now we wait 24 hours so everything hardens in place. It probably won't take that long but sleep and a day at work will prevent me from playing with pens till tomorrow evening

[VacNut]

A little something different. I found this great Swan Vintage Pen Tray. It was meant to lay relatively flat within a case. I made a matte board stand with a small storage shelf in the back to hold the tray more upright. The slots are a bit narrow for later pens, but it makes a great display.

[gweimer1]

I've been doing the same.  I finally got around to restoring this Esterbrook case that I've had for a few years.  I was able to find replacement parts, so it's working again.   I just need to get it to close properly.

 

[VacNut]

That’s a lot of Esties…

I love these things, but they take up a lot of space, and I feel bad exposing the pens to sunlight.

[IThinkIHaveAProblem]

Got a “51” aero in a deal yesterday. Cleaned it up (nice easy cleanup) but the nib won’t write unless pressure is applied. Ugh. Was hoping this one would be an easy job. Guess I’ll have to work on the nib tonight. 

[es9]

11 hours ago, IThinkIHaveAProblem said:

Got a “51” aero in a deal yesterday. Cleaned it up (nice easy cleanup) but the nib won’t write unless pressure is applied. Ugh. Was hoping this one would be an easy job. Guess I’ll have to work on the nib tonight. 

Two likely culprits: baby bottom or the tines are too close together. Check for both. The former is harder to fix. For the latter, start by making sure the feed and shell are appropriately spaced/heat-pressed. If the tines still touch at the tip, gently space them out just a little. 

[IThinkIHaveAProblem]

3 hours ago, es9 said:

Two likely culprits: baby bottom or the tines are too close together. Check for both. The former is harder to fix. For the latter, start by making sure the feed and shell are appropriately spaced/heat-pressed. If the tines still touch at the tip, gently space them out just a little. 

Thanks. Got it done.

Tines were too tight.
I had checked earlier today after my previous post, could barely get a brass shim in there. May have been my fault during disassembly or reassembly last night. I mean it has some decent wear and tear, and had dried ink in it so in all likelihood, it wrote fine when put away and forgotten about all that time ago so likely the problem was caused by me during my thorough cleaning. 

Took it apart again, cleaned it, removed the nib, spread the tines a bit, checked alignment, threw it back together and just like that, a nice wet writer. 

 

 

[FarmBoy]

What is on my bench you say?

 

4500 pen sacs....

[bsenn]

5 hours ago, FarmBoy said:

What is on my bench you say?

 

4500 pen sacs....

 

Is that two or three month's worth?

[VacNut]

22 hours ago, FarmBoy said:

What is on my bench you say?

 

4500 pen sacs....

Why do I know there is EXACTLY 4500 sacs on your bench?

And it’s not because I counted them…

[LoveBigPensAndCannotLie]

Got an interesting issue, I recently picked up a Waterman Ligne 60 (or some variant thereof), same as the one in this thread: 

 

Biggest problem was the the converter rusted into place. After much soaking and heating, it came out... without the plug. Which is now stuck in the section.

 

How do I proceed? I am doing something dumb right now, don't think it will work - I lined the inside of the converter with shellac on the part that touches the plug and I am letting it dry. I hope that the shellac holds tighter than the plug in the section and allows me to pull it out. I don't care about damaging the converter, I will find a C/F cartridge to use instead.

 

[LoveBigPensAndCannotLie]

Never again. The shellac didn't work, although it did pull the remains of the sac on the plug off, better than nothing. Long story short I ended up cracking the threads pretty badly although the plastic these pens are made of is pretty flexible rather than brittle so they still work just fine.

 

The plug on the other hand, I could not get it out no matter what I tried. I ended up picking at it with dental picks until I could get most of it out (how I cracked the threads), enough to fit a c/f cartridge. The old converter's plug was basically fused to the section. I don't think they were designed to be removed.

 

Has anyone successfully restored one of these? What's the proper way of doing it? These pens seem to be somewhat uncommon and half the responses I could find are "they're annoying to fix but it's possible" and the other half are "the plug is broken off in the section and I gave up on this pen."

[Chris1]

Just finished relacing the sac in a nice green Sheaffer snorkel Admiral before offering it for sale on ebay. Just as well I'd checked it was working (it wasn't) before posting or my reputation would have suffered!

Thankfully an easy task now having done several Statesmans already (not Statesmen 🙂).

Nice writer, but I never did take to green ink so it sat unused for many years.

 

[GlenV]

My first safety other than a Moore, this little pen had several bad flaws so was cheap. These are so complex compared to the simple workings of the Moore but I was looking forward to play with one to see how they work.
The main flaw was that the end of the ebonite spiral was cracked. I think the repair to the spiral is sturdy similar to original I extended the length of the spiral with a ring of loctite black reshaped to accept the shaft for the nib. These parts are immersed so much of the time not sure will hold up to leaving ink in it for a long time. 
I did know about the extensive complex cracks of the cap but the threads are so far down I figured it could be sleeved, the crack is partly visible in the picture propped up on the now sturdy cap. 
Made a cork and the little thing works quite well with an Ingersoll nib. Fun to see how one of these works. Compared to a little Wahl to see it is little.

[LoveBigPensAndCannotLie]

Very impressive, and the pen looks quite nice. I'm a sucker for mottled hard rubber pens, nothing like them.

 

I had another disastrous "restoration" today, I don't understand why I am so unlucky. I have a rainy day supply of Esterbrooks I haven't restored, figured I'd do one as a palate cleanser after the last Waterman. Nearly everything that could have gone wrong did.

 

First, the nib was one of the butterfly tipped 1xxx series ones, one of the folded over "tips" was broken off. No problem I thought, I have a spare 2550 nib. The damn thing would not unscrew. I applied heat, let it soak, nothing. Eventually broke off the feed and mangled the nib. Not too upset about that, the nib was beyond repair anyway. I knocked it out, now the problem of getting the nib "unit" out. 

 

Absolutely nothing I did would make it budge. I tried sticking spare feeds of a similar size in to grip the unit, no dice. Eventually I ended up shoving a damaged nib/feed from trash pen in to unscrew it. The threads were gummed up with something, I don't think it was normal ink. I had to soak the section in ammonia wash for three hours to get all of it out of the threads, with copious scraping with a pick.

 

The pressure bar was completely broken as well, which is a bad sign. Esterbrook Js are basically bulletproof, so if you find one with broken parts you know unholy things have been done to it. I thought no problem, I have a bunch of spare vintage j-bars from lower tier pens. Not a single one would fit. I finally shoved in one of my hated modern replacements, and I had to place a sac one size down.

 

It now "fills" with a floppy lever and holds a piddling few drops. These are supposed to be "EASY" pens to restore. I have an irrational desire to just step on this pen and end its misery. I just want one (bleep) problem free restoration, that's it. I guess my expectations are too high.

 

Edit: After googling, apparently the floppy lever is a common problem with any Esterbrook that doesn't have its original j-bar, or close enough to it because the levers on these are so short. I don't have power tools to grind down the replacement jbar to fit perfectly so I guess it will have to stay floppy.