The Ups and Downs of a Parker 51

[rff000]

Thirteen years ago I bid on an Ebay pen and pencil set that only had a blurry photo. There were no other bidders but I recognized the item as a Parker 51, so I bid on it and got the set for $13. It turned out to be a 1947 vacumatic. The diaphragm was not functional, so I sent it to a well-known restorer who specialized in this model and had it fixed for a very reasonable price. The restorer thought it was so good that he offered to buy it from me for a generous price instead of my paying for the repair, but I opted to get the pen back.

The pen wrote extremely well but I don't like to stick to a single pen and I eventually became frustrated at how long it took to drain out all the ink from the 51's collector if I wanted to give it a rest and use something else. The eventual result was that it sat in a drawer for around a decade and probably was not rinsed out as clean as it should have been.

Just a few days ago I was curious about it and tried to use it again but there is evidence of a damaged diaphragm. Pressing the plunger creates no bubbles and there is leakage out of the place the plunger goes into the pen. So, the diaphragm apparently disintegrated or ruptured over the decade of non-use.

I don't want this to happen again if I have it repaired again. By the way, repair costs are now double what I paid 13 years ago, but I'm sure that's par for the course. I think I'll either go for a new repair or try to sell the set. I'll need a good method for keeping it in good shape if I opt to keep it.

Any ideas?

[Mercian]

Here’s my ‘2 cents’:

 

I have read on here that the sacs used in the vacumatic “51” tend to last for about ten years before they corrode/decay, and need to be replaced.

 

If you wish to own a “51”, my advice to you is to buy one of the pens that has the ‘aerometric’ filler.
The collector in those is the same as the one that is used in the “51” with the ‘vacumatic’ fillers, so will be just as much of a hassle to completely clean-out.
But: the ‘pli-glass’ sacs in those appear to last indefinitely.

So, you could leave one sitting unused for ten or more years, and then find it to be still perfectly usable when you pick it up again.

The great balance, fantastic build quality, and hooded nib makes the aerometric “51” still ‘the ultimate writing machine’ for work in my opinion.

(Well, as long as one is only using dye-based inks, rather than heavy iron-gall inks or pigment inks. And one isn’t interested in having a nib that ‘flexes’. And one doesn’t wish to change colours of ink very often.)

 

I would advise you to send your ‘minty’ vacumatic pen with the ruined sac back to the restorer who fixed it the first time, and see if he would still like to buy it from you.
You ought to get enough money for it to be able to buy yourself an equally-‘minty’ (or totally refurbished, complete with new, un-stained, sac) aerometric “51”.

 

I recommend the pens from the first series (1948 - ca. 1965) of aerometric “51”.
Their bodies are machined out of Lucite (rather than the injection-moulded polystyrene of the final series of “51”).
They can be identified by the fact that they have the end of their filler shroud capped with a small piece of black plastic.

Slàinte,
M.

 

[inkstainedruth]

@rff000 -- Sadly, this sounds like a case of "learning curve" -- and the hard way at that.

While I agree with Mercian that 51 Aerometrics are much less work to maintain, I would get the 51 Vac repaired, and just remember in future to NOT let it sit with ink drying up in it.  

While I prefer the 51 Aeros I have, I have a Cedar Blue 51 Vac with a nicely tuned EF nib that is the pen I reach for and ink up for times when I might have to do a lot of research and take copious amounts of notes. But then do flush it out when it (eventually) runs dry.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[rff000]

Thanks for both responses. I'm now in touch with the restorer. He said that the natural rubber will develop problems from non-use over that period of time. Who knows, maybe air pollution will affect. I did try to get ink out of it, but it was not a complete cleaning. I wonder if it would help to fill it with distilled water when not in use and after cleaning. Or would that make matters worse?

 

Ron

[Mercian]

33 minutes ago, rff000 said:

Thanks for both responses. I'm now in touch with the restorer. He said that the natural rubber will develop problems from non-use over that period of time. Who knows, maybe air pollution will affect. I did try to get ink out of it, but it was not a complete cleaning. I wonder if it would help to fill it with distilled water when not in use and after cleaning. Or would that make matters worse?

 

Ron

I wasn’t sure about your distilled water idea. I know that alkaline inks can cause the rubber sacs to deteriorate, but I would not have thought that water would.

So I did a quick web search for ‘rubber decay’ and ‘rubber degradation’.

 

I learned that some types of rubber are more, and some other types of rubber are less, resistant to degradation by contact with different types of chemical.

Some are fairly acid-resistant, but very-susceptible to alkalis. With others it’s the other way round.

 

Most of them are susceptible to degradation when exposed to heat, oxygen, ozone, and repeated mechanical stress (such as stretching and then compression a.k.a. refilling an ink sac).

 

Some types of rubber degrade in high-humidity - so perhaps those might also do so when left in contact with water? 🤷‍♂️

Even if one were to assume that a sac filled with distilled water would be ‘ok’, filling its inside with water is not going to protect its outside from ‘attack’ by atmospheric oxygen.

 

It seems to me that owners of vacumatic “51”s just need to resign themselves to needing to replace the sac occasionally - in the same way that one has to occasionally replace e.g. the tyres on one’s car, or its air/fuel/oil filters.

 

That all said, you must remember that I am only some totally-uninformed random bloke on the internet; one who has never even owned a vacumatic-fill pen!
So, in order to get a well-informed answer to your distilled water idea, I would advise you to contact the people who restore vacumatic “51”s for a living!
Or you could perhaps start a new thread on the ‘Parker’ board to ask something like ‘What is the best way to prolong the life of the ink sac in a “51” with a Vacumatic filler?’

 

Good luck! 

[Glenn-SC]

The “51” is my favorite FP, and the Vac my favorite version of the “51”.

 

I have original Vacs with, as far as I know, have their original working diaphragms.  And I have repaired Vacs that have needed to be repaired again.  When I asked if there was a “better” diaphragm material with a longer lifespan (like silicon maybe) and was told that there wasn’t.  
 

I still use Vac “51”s all the time.  The Vac “51” feels more robust than the Aerometric version.  

[rff000]

I decided to go with one more repair and then to try to do a better job of keeping the pen in good shape. The repair person said that I could put clean distilled water in the pen if it will be out of use for a time, which would keep the rubber from drying out and cracking. If this try doesn't work, I'll just settle for my other pens, including a decent Super P21, which isn't that different from the P51. Having lost a P45 as a school child, much later in life I decided to try for three of the Parkers I heard most about on the internet: a P45, Super P21, and P51. I got a P45 mint and unused for around 10 bucks, a Super P21 in excellent condition, and the P51, now headed for its second restoration. I also got a regular P21 which dripped ink and was unusable, while the Super 21 works OK.

[rff000]

In case this is of interest, the P51 surgeon just gave me the diagnosis: the celluloid pellet cup broke due to age and that led to the diaphragm breaking. One more thing that can break on those ancient pens (1947).

[FarmBoy]

I’d guess the pellet cup broke while removing the pellet or the previous restorer put it in damaged. 
 

I’ve seen a few pellet cups and never seen one spontaneously break. 
 

Either way pellet cups are easily replaced and shouldn’t cost much if anything extra. 

[VacNut]

Just my opinion, but there are few 80 year old items with replaceable parts that can sit over 10 years and work without some kind of maintenance. I don’t think even steel-belted tires can sit for 10 years.

[Sailor Kenshin]

On 3/27/2024 at 9:49 PM, rff000 said:

I decided to go with one more repair and then to try to do a better job of keeping the pen in good shape. The repair person said that I could put clean distilled water in the pen if it will be out of use for a time, which would keep the rubber from drying out and cracking. If this try doesn't work, I'll just settle for my other pens, including a decent Super P21, which isn't that different from the P51. Having lost a P45 as a school child, much later in life I decided to try for three of the Parkers I heard most about on the internet: a P45, Super P21, and P51. I got a P45 mint and unused for around 10 bucks, a Super P21 in excellent condition, and the P51, now headed for its second restoration. I also got a regular P21 which dripped ink and was unusable, while the Super 21 works OK.

 

Dripping ink probably indicates a pinhole in the sac.  Could be repairable.

[inkstainedruth]

@rff000 and @Mercian A friend of mine found a Parker 51 at a flea market a number of years ago, and told me that when she contacted Parker she was told to store it with water in it.  But I thought that sounded like a bad idea, since the water would (eventually) evaporate.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

[rff000]

1 minute ago, Sailor Kenshin said:

 

Dripping ink probably indicates a pinhole in the sac.  Could be repairable.

The drip was a blob out of the feed. I read that this was a defect of the original P21 which led to modifications in the Super P21. So, I went with a Super 21 and got rid of the older P21.

[rff000]

1 minute ago, inkstainedruth said:

@rff000 and @Mercian A friend of mine found a Parker 51 at a flea market a number of years ago, and told me that when she contacted Parker she was told to store it with water in it.  But I thought that sounded like a bad idea, since the water would (eventually) evaporate.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

Assuming that water is a good idea, I would just think about renewing it with distilled after a while. The barrel holds so much liquid that I think it would take a long time to evaporate. And if it was distilled, there would be no residue even if it did dry up. Thanks for the idea.

[inkstainedruth]

Oh I quite agree with you on distilled vs. tap water -- at least where I live.  Our water is so hard that we routinely get buildups on the faucet handles.  And that's why I NEVER flush a pen with tap water either....

But I still don't know if storing a pen with even distilled water in it is a good idea (and I told my friend as much at the time).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[VacNut]

Is there a chemical engineer in the house…I believe the modern diaphragms are made from petroleum based latex and are essentially inert to water, unlike plant-based latex (i.e tree sap-type rubber latex) from earlier in the century.  Heat and humidity still deteriorate latex and the latex may crack and flake over time, but I don’t think the presence of water makes any difference.

 

I don’t think there are any celluloid parts in a Parker 51 susceptible to water.

If properly sealed the only exposed parts to liquid are lucite or metallic.

 

I dont know the composition of the black feed.

 

[Estycollector]

There are few things that are more destructive than disuse. Since we collectors have multiple pens, it is hard to keep them in use. I used Parker51 to retore one of my 51's. This thread will cause me to use it more often. 

[rff000]

On 4/7/2024 at 7:05 AM, Estycollector said:

There are few things that are more destructive than disuse. Since we collectors have multiple pens, it is hard to keep them in use. I used Parker51 to retore one of my 51's. This thread will cause me to use it more often. 

I'm in something of the same boat, having my second restoration being done by P51. I'm torn between using one FP I may really like for extended periods and switching around to avoid deterioration from non-use.

[OCArt]

Can keeping a P51 vacumatic empty really shorten the life of the sack compared to one that is in regular use? If so would filling it and emptying it with water once in a while be beneficial? (As P51 Aerometics seem pretty indestructible I'll only ack about vacumatics.)

On 4/7/2024 at 4:05 AM, Estycollector said:

There are few things that are more destructive than disuse. Since we collectors have multiple pens, it is hard to keep them in use. I used Parker51 to retore one of my 51's. This thread will cause me to use it more often. 

 

[FarmBoy]

I can assure you many sacs and diaphragms not in pens sit in boxes on a shelf and are not kept wetted with distilled or otherwise water.