What is on your bench?

November 18

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

November 18

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.

November 24

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.

November 24

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.

November 24

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.