What is on your bench?

[VacNut]

2 minutes ago, es9 said:

Ah, pretty cool! 

Thx. I couldn’t get it past the security screening at Heathrow. The blunt saw was a centimeter too long and the pointed brass tube scraper with the wooden knob could have been “used as a weapon”

I had to express mail it to myself for £75. 
The brass anvil is really helpful to straighten nibs, much better than the acrylic blocks. 
I have to find a period jewelers hammer to complete the set.

Great piece of history

[VacNut]

6 hours ago, LoveBigPensAndCannotLie said:

So... I need advice on a repair. I have a ringtop, a cheaper one - I think it's a Morrison or maybe something from National Pen Products. Unfortunately it does not have an inner cap and I am not convinced it ever had one. It dries out pretty fast because of the holes for the ring at the top of the pen.

 

Anything I can do to solve this? I don't really have the capability to manufacture a custom inner cap. I was thinking of sealing the holes with some shellac but I realized this would stop the ring from moving freely. My next thought is some kind of rubber gasket to act as a faux inner cap but not quite sure where I could find some thick enough rubber for that.

 

It's otherwise a pretty decent pen all things considered, even the cheapo pens from the 1920's had fun nibs so it'd be nice to get it in a more usable state. It's not bad now but it dries out after a few hours.

I was researching thread repair and came across liquid steel/metal epoxy from Devcon which can be cast and machined. It is a two-part epoxy. It’s expensive but you can mix as little as needed. Gray-black color. It can be machined or sanded to shape after casting. There are videos on it. I may buy some to play with the material.

A shaped wooden dowel won’t be perfect, but it is a material than can be shaped with hand tools and sand paper. 

[LoveBigPensAndCannotLie]

So, I was restoring a Parker 51 vac and came across an issue I've never come across before after doing like a dozen of these. The pellet cup opening is just a little loose. I put the new sac in there and it holds it fine (I tried shaking it and extending the pump a bunch to see if it will come out, it didn't), but if I pull on the sac with my fingers it comes out relatively easily.

 

I assembled the pen and it fills fine, but any danger of this coming apart later on? And any potential fixes for this to build up the opening of the cup if it will be an issue? I think I have one replacement cup left but I'd rather not have to disassemble the filler and risk breaking the celluloid pump bit if I don't need to.

[es9]

Seems unlikely there would be enough pull pressure once everything is installed. But I’ve had that happen a couple times. Once, I used a bigger pellet that I had recovered and saved. Another time, I heated the pellet cup and closed the opening of the hole a little. 

[LoveBigPensAndCannotLie]

Ah... I didn't think of heating it and trying to close it a bit. I guess I'll keep an eye on it, if it fills okay, no need to fix what isn't broken. If it starts having issues, I'll give that a shot. Seems like there's no such thing as a perfect restoration for me when it comes to these vacumatics.

 

I was thinking that things were going suspiciously well... everything disassembled easily and I was even able to get the old pellet out with minimal effort, it just slipped out. But I guess now I know why it came out so easy.

[GlenV]

These two were obtained separately but have the same insurance company logo, Redipoint set made by Brown and Bigalow, the cap was bent a bit out of round so was scratching the design over the years but otherwise simple work, I am impressed by this pen’s quality including the nib.

 

[es9]

Two that were fun to work on. 
 

First, a gray marble vac jr. with reverse trim:

 

It ended up with great barrel clarity, but it took some work. There was a turquoise ink in there that stained like nothing I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t deep in the celluloid; it was on the surface, but it just would not come off and it had coated the entire inside of the barrel. I ended up having to scrape it out and polish the celluloid with some micromesh sticks and microgloss. I’m not usually a nut about getting every trace of old ink out, but the whole pen just looked turquoise.
 

Second, a senior duofold in orange permanite: 

 

The sac nipple had broken off so I turned a replacement out of ebonite, drilled out the section, and epoxied the replacement in. Getting the dimensions right was a bit tricky in light of the lucky curve feed. But it was a lot of fun. 

[GlenV]

15 hours ago, es9 said:

Two that were fun to work on. 
 

First, a gray marble vac jr. with reverse trim:

 

It ended up with great barrel clarity, but it took some work. There was a turquoise ink in there that stained like nothing I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t deep in the celluloid; it was on the surface, but it just would not come off and it had coated the entire inside of the barrel. I ended up having to scrape it out and polish the celluloid with some micromesh sticks and microgloss. I’m not usually a nut about getting every trace of old ink out, but the whole pen just looked turquoise.
 

Second, a senior duofold in orange permanite: 

 

The sac nipple had broken off so I turned a replacement out of ebonite, drilled out the section, and epoxied the replacement in. Getting the dimensions right was a bit tricky in light of the lucky curve feed. But it was a lot of fun. 

Beautiful pens and nice work on the big red, nice to save the lucky curve feed too

[VacNut]

23 hours ago, es9 said:

Two that were fun to work on. 
 

First, a gray marble vac jr. with reverse trim:

 

It ended up with great barrel clarity, but it took some work. There was a turquoise ink in there that stained like nothing I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t deep in the celluloid; it was on the surface, but it just would not come off and it had coated the entire inside of the barrel. I ended up having to scrape it out and polish the celluloid with some micromesh sticks and microgloss. I’m not usually a nut about getting every trace of old ink out, but the whole pen just looked turquoise.
 

Second, a senior duofold in orange permanite: 

 

The sac nipple had broken off so I turned a replacement out of ebonite, drilled out the section, and epoxied the replacement in. Getting the dimensions right was a bit tricky in light of the lucky curve feed. But it was a lot of fun. 

There were scratches from the scraping of the barrel interior, and you polished the barrel interior?

[es9]

2 hours ago, VacNut said:

There were scratches from the scraping of the barrel interior, and you polished the barrel interior?

Correct. They were not deep, but noticeable enough—and came from my own hand—that I figured I’d polish them away.
 

I don’t usually polish barrel interiors with any kind of abrasive. I’m not particularly proud of it, but very little material was lost. 

[Nethermark]

On 12/7/2024 at 2:34 AM, es9 said:

Two that were fun to work on.

Great work on these two classic pens!

[VacNut]

On 12/7/2024 at 7:39 PM, es9 said:

Correct. They were not deep, but noticeable enough—and came from my own hand—that I figured I’d polish them away.
 

I don’t usually polish barrel interiors with any kind of abrasive. I’m not particularly proud of it, but very little material was lost. 

Turquoise ink, wow. Only color worse would be red. Have you tried Rapid-Eze to remove the ink? Surprisingly effective 

[es9]

7 hours ago, VacNut said:

Turquoise ink, wow. Only color worse would be red. Have you tried Rapid-Eze to remove the ink? Surprisingly effective 

Rapido is definitely a core part of my cleaning routine—great stuff. It would barely touch this. I honestly think it was some kind of paint. Either that or maybe a home-brewed ink gone wrong. Rubbing alcohol was pretty effective on the nib and feed (knocked out, of course). But I obviously couldn’t use that on the celluloid. 

[Estycollector]

It's been a while since I've needed to re sac a pen. The Sheaffer Crescent lever fill sac failed. I installed a new on this morning that I received from Anderson Pen. 

[John T]

Morrisson Patriot, just finished putting it all together using Richard Binders instructions and the repair kit from IndyPenDance. My first experience "welding" parts together.

[Estycollector]

Just a follow up, the Sheaffer Crest (lever fill) sac replacement went well. I've been using it all day. The ink flow is much improved. 

[GlenV]

On 12/11/2024 at 2:43 AM, John T said:

Morrisson Patriot, just finished putting it all together using Richard Binders instructions and the repair kit from IndyPenDance. My first experience "welding" parts together.

Nice Job! I have avoided these...

[LoveBigPensAndCannotLie]

Edit: Removing my post, I made a really really dumb mistake.

[John T]

11 minutes ago, LoveBigPensAndCannotLie said:

Edit: Removing my post, I made a really really dumb mistake.

Those make the best stories, and/or learning experiences....

[LoveBigPensAndCannotLie]

3 minutes ago, John T said:

Those make the best stories, and/or learning experiences....

 

I kept it up in the original thread but I warn you, it really is a very dumb mistake, I can't overstate how stupid it was.