Fountain Pen Restoration

The Parker 51 is a highly collected pen, revered by pen enthusiasts around the world. First introduced formally in 1941, it continued in production into the 1970s. Over the years it had different filling systems (Vacumatic and Aerometric), was produced in many different countries (USA, Canada, Great Britain, Argentina..), and in varying sizes, colors and styles. The history is rich and for further research there is a very comprehensive book titled Parker 51, by David and Mark Shepherd.

I have several Parker 51s and have always enjoyed them. My only complaint, if I ever had one, was that most of the nibs were very similar - fine or medium. These pens did come with other nibs, but they are uncommon on pens that one finds in the wild.

I finally took the plunge and purchase a broad stub nib for a Parker 51, produced by Greg Minuskin. His website can be found here and he specializes in re tipping fountain pen nibs. I had read about his work and seen an example on one occasion.

I thought it would be a good opportunity to take some pictures of a 51 / Aerometric opened up as I changed out the old fine nib for my newly purchased broad stub.

Below, you can see the components. The sac assembly was working well, so I did not take it apart. As you can see, there is a lustraloy cap, blue barrel, matching blue hood, badly stained collector, nib, feed and attached breather tube.

I took the opportunity to clean the collector, feed, breather tube, and old nib (which I can use on another pen). The hood unscrews from the aero assembly. If it is difficult to unseat, gentle heat is a good solution. Be certain to unscrew as it is not a friction fit. The breather tube can be cleaned with a fine wire, if it is clogged. The collector and feed are easily cleaned in and ultrasonic cleaner.

Here is a picture of the new nib - a juicy broad stub. It simply fits over the old feed and the breather tube attaches back to the feed in the hole at the end of the feed. The feed is reattached into the collector which is reinserted into the sac assembly.

Here it can get a bit tricky. When the hood is screwed back on to the pen, it may not align perfectly with the nib. You may have to pull the feed and nib out of the collector to move the alignment to the hood.

Here is a picture of the nib after it has been fully set in the pen. The broad stub lines are a treat to use.

In a previous post, I detailed the restoration of a Parker Vacumatic. The filler unit on that pen was a 1940s Speedline with a plastic plunger. The pen that I just completed is also a Parker Vacumatic, but with a 1930s Lockdown Filler Unit. The restoration is very much the same as described in the Parker Vacumatic post, with minor differences.

The first picture below shows a Vacumatic tool used to extract the filler unit (and reinstall) from the end of the pen. It also shows the lockdown unit next to the old diaphragm after the sac and pellet have been extracted. With Lockdown fillers, be careful to extend the filler before unscrewing the unit to prevent possible irreversible damage to the unit. The new diaphragm is at the bottom. The larger diaphragm is the appropriate replacement for this pen - a 1935 Vacumatic Junior.

This was a relatively easy restoration. I removed the nib/section/feed from the barrel and cleaned the barrel out with q-tips and water. There was a lot of dried ink in the barrel as Vacumatics store the ink in the barrel, not in a sac. After cleaning, the barrel retains its original transparency. The breather tube was cleared and cleaned. The cap also had to be scrubbed to free its dried ink. I also polished the nib, clip, and two cap bands. The filler needed to have the new diaphragm attached. As with the speedline fillers, I inverted the sac and pushed the pellet into the filler, followed by attachment of the sac to the filler. I checked the suction and then carefully put the filler back into the barrel, making sure that the diaphragm did not get twisted in the barrel as the filler was screwed back in. After re-insertion of the filler unit I once again checked the suction of the unit before putting the section/feed/nib back into the barrel.

The next photo shows the Lockdown Filler extended. To fill the pen, the filler is depressed and held down, then turned slightly to lock it before covering with the blind cap.

And finally, the completed pen, posted - a 1935 (date code on barrel) Parker Vacumatic Junior, Double Jewel, Lockdown Filler. I water tested this pen and it fills well. The clarity of the barrel is very good and I will be reluctant to fill it to preserve this.

A nice aspect of these pens is the large amount of ink that they hold in their barrels. They can be found in numerous variations of sizes and colors - too many to keep track of. Both of these make them fun to collect and restore.

The Parker Vacumatic might be my favorite pen to restore. The filling system is unique and requires some specialized replacement sacs and a few tools unique to the restoration. When completed, they can be very attractive pens. Smaller sizes are often available at reasonable prices, unrestored.

Parker Vacumatics were produced by the Parker Pen Company from 1933 to 1948 in the United States. They continued in production in Canada for a while longer. A good reference book devoted entirely to these pens is Parker Vacumatic, by Geoffrey Parker, Dan Zazove, and David Shepherd.

Below is a photo of a Vacumatic after I have taken it apart for cleaning and repair. Clockwise from top left the parts are:

Cap / Section / Feed / Barrel / Nib / Breather Tube / Diaphragm (old) / Filler Unit / Blind Cap

The pen I worked on is a Vacumatic Major (standard size) in blue striated color with a medium nib. The date code on the pen indicates it was produced in the second quarter of 1946 in the US (Janesville, WI). The filler is a “speedline” filler, with a plastic plunger, representative of these later Vacumatics, produced in the 1940s. These also had the typical one color gold nib.

The only part that needed replacement was the diaphragm. The correct size is a demi size for these Major sized pens. Diaphragms also come in a larger size for some large sized Vacumatics such as the Maxima.

I cleaned up all of the usable parts first. It is extremely important to clean the inside of the barrel on these as often times the old diaphragms may have adhered to the barrel, and the repair will be unsuccessful if this is not removed. Be very careful doing this as the inside of the barrel can scratch easily and one of the nice effects of these pens is the transparency of the barrel.

The nib, feed, section, and breather tube were cleaned in the ultrasonic cleaner and the nib with some Simichrome and a dremel. The cap had the usual large amount of dried ink and cleaned up after several swabs with q-tips and water. Finally, the cap, barrel, and blind cap were polished to a shiny glow and the transparency on the barrel is complete.

The diaphragm attachment is the tricky part of the restoration, but once you do it a few times, it is fairly simple. From the picture below you can see that the old diaphragm has been detached from the filler unit. However, a pellet remains in the pellet holder at the end of the filler. This must be taken out of the filler unit before the new diaphragm with the new pellet can be inserted.

There are many different techniques for removing the pellet. However you do so, it is extremely important not to damage the hole to the pellet holder. I use the thin tip of an x-acto knife to pick at the pellet and cut it to pieces. Eventually these pieces fall out of the holder and the filler is now ready for the new pellet/diaphragm. New diaphragms come with the pellet in the tip and ready to go.

First the diaphragm needs to be folded back against itself until the open end reaches the pellet end. This takes some time and patience. Once this is achieved, the pellet pusher tool is placed in the diaphragm against the pellet and the pellet is pushed into the hole in the filler. Now that the diaphragm is attached to the filler the diaphragm is further folded onto the filler unit. It needs to be placed onto the filler until such time as when the plunger is pushed the filler extends to the edge of the diaphragm. At this point, trim off the excess sac so that it covers the filler to the edge as shown in the second picture below.

Here are the completed filler unit and nib assembly with breather tube after restoration. The only non-original part was the new diaphragm/pellet.

After the filler unit and nib assembly have been completed, the filler is screwed in to the top of the barrel. One must be careful that the diaphragm does not get twisted or turned when doing this. It is a good idea to look into the nib end of the barrel after the filler has been inserted to see that everything is straight. If not, it must be unscrewed and reinserted. Next, the nib assembly is screwed back into the barrel. The completed pen is below. The dates on the photo refer to the years this particular pen was in production. As stated above, the date code of .6. indicates this pen was produced around the Spring of 1946. The nib has the same code stamped on it, indicating to me that it is the original.

Several other Parker pens used the vacumatic filling systems including the Parker 51 and later Duofolds. In future posts, I will photograph some of these repairs.

Thanks for reading..

Just when you think you know enough about fountain pens to make you dangerous in casual conversation, another alley opens up and a new type of pen emerges.

I had heard of stylographic pens and had seen a few pictures here and there, but considered them inferior to standard nibbed fountain pens.

Last night I restored a JUCO “Independent” Stylo. My opinions changed after I completed the pen and tried it out. First, a picture of the pen after I took it apart. Note that there are a few parts that are not found on most fountain pens. The nib almost looks like a rollerball nib and the bottom right elongated needle fits inside this nib to control the flow of ink.

The black hard rubber barrel and cap are identical to lever fillers of the day. The only departure is the section, nib and and control needle. There is no feed as the nib screws directly into the section. As you can see, the sac had hardened and needed to be replaced by a size 18 sac. I cleaned out the section, nib and ink control using an ultrasonic cleaner. I also spent quite some time cleaning out the cap, which had an abnormally high concentration of purple ink caked into it.

Below is a close up of the imprint, which appears on the cap, not the barrel. Inside the heart on the left is “JU & Co, which is short for Jacob Ullrich and Company. JUCO, was a fountain and stylographic pen maker in New York City in the late 1800s and until the 1920s. Jacob Ullrich was a resident of Hoboken, NJ.

Here are a few of his Stylographic Patents:

Stylo 1882

Stylo 1908

Stylo 1910

Below is a picture of the completed pen. The clip and lever have lost their gold plating, but the chasing on the black hard rubber is well preserved. I would estimate this as an early to mid 1920s pen as it is a lever filler and many of the JUCO stylographic pens I have seen are eyedroppers and date to the 1905 to 1915 time period. This pen writes much like a modern day roller ball with a fine line. There is none of the shading and expressiveness of a standard fountain pen nib, but if one is looking for a rollerball type experience with a vintage feel, this is the pen. I have filled mine up with Waterman Ink (Florida Blue) and it will be a good pen for math and accounting in the office.

Stylographic pens were invented in 1875 in Canada by MacKinnon and appeared in the US shortly thereafter. Their popularity was then quickly dashed by the emergence of nibbed pens, but they did remain in production on a limited basis for many years. One of the most noted producers in the United States was Inkograph and they were even more popular in England.

If you are looking for a pen with some historical significance, with practical use, ease of repair (assuming the needle is in usable condition), and a unique niche in the world of pens, a Stylo would be a good choice.

(Note: Many thanks to the website: Vintage Fountain Pens, for information critical to the writing of this post, as well as friends at the Lion & Pen website for leading me to Jacob Ullrich.)

Last week’s post - Belmont/Rexall and Yankee Cousins - was about two pens that were nearly identical, but made with different imprints; one for a Kraker Company and one for Rexall Stores. This week follows a similar theme. The pen restored this week is a Pencraft, made by the Michael George Company of Libertyville, Illinois. The Michael George Company was a Company owned by George M. Kraker, a man discussed in many of the posts in this blog. As you may recall, Kraker left Grand Haven, Michigan in 1929 and moved to Libertyville. I am not sure how long he was in Libertyville, but he did show up in Chicago by 1938. In Libertyville, he produced pens for Rexall and under his own Pencraft, Dixie and possibly other names.

This pen came to me in typically discolored condition.

As you can see, the pen is a typical lever filler that needed to be cleaned from top to bottom. Interestingly, this one came with no lever on the inside. Someone had previously taken it apart, but had not finished the restoration. I cleaned the nib with simichrome and an ultrasonic cleaner and also scraped the section to remove remnants of the old sac.

I inserted a new j-bar and size 16 sac and the resulting pen is shown below.

Below is the imprint showing the Pencraft and Libertyville, Ill. location.

And the Pencraft “30″ 14K nib.

Finally, this pen above the pen restored in my February 7 post - Rexall Monogram - in which I surmised the Monogram pen below (sold at Rexall Stores) was made by Kraker, prior to the contract with Rexall expiring.

Based on the similarity of the two pens, I may have been on the right track.

Back on January 27th of this year I wrote about restoring a Yankee Pen, made by a Joseph Kraker Company in Grand Haven, Michigan. The post can be found under the title: A Yankee in Michigan. I just picked the pen up below and it bears a very close resemblance. The clear red top is just a bit wider and brighter, but the chasing, lever, and clip are identical. Both also have the same feed, section and Warranted No. 2 nib. Also, the barrel print type is the same. The only difference is that this pen reads:

BELMONT

PAT

NON BREAKABLE

SOLD ONLY AT

THE REXALL STORE

The Yankee Pen, covered in the referred post reads:

YANKEE

NON BREAKABLE

GRAND HAVEN, MICH. - PAT

As you can see from the picture below, this pen came with a severely tarnished clip and lever, as well as a very grimy nib. There was no pressure bar present, so I replaced the j-bar and added a new sac. I spent quite a bit of time and energy on cleaning the lever and clip. I used Simichrome and a Dremel to grind away the initial caked-on grime and then used tooth picks and q-tips to remove the tarnish from the hard to reach areas. The sac remnants were completely removed from the section and a new size 16 sac was cemented to the section. The nib polished up completely and looks new. The nib and feed were inserted into the section and the pen was water tested.

Here is the completed pen with shiny Warranted No. 2 nib. I used a white crayon to highlight the crisp imprint.

I have placed the two pens referred to above next to each other to show the similarity.

I have read that Joseph Kraker still had the contract to produce pens for Rexall when in Michigan and later possibly in Libertyville, IL (refer to my post of February 7, 2008 titled Rexall Monogram). These pens are just another proof of this. I have read that the contract was then taken over by the Moore Pen Company of Boston, MA. Later Belmont pens contain several Moore-like characteristics which back this up.

I will post some of these in later posts.

In my post of January 27, 2007, titled A Yankee in Michigan, I repaired and discussed a Yankee Pen made by a Joseph Kraker pen company in Grand Haven, Michigan. In that post, I mentioned that I had a Yankee Pen from Minnesota. Well, two weeks ago, I came across another Yankee Pen, from the Minneapolis Pen Company. The clip on this one is the same as the clip used by Kraker in Michigan and on the Monogram Pen discussed on February 7. Having read several expert opinions, I am quite confident that the Minneapolis Pen Company and the Yankee Pen that I am restoring here is another Kraker product. I would place the date in the early 1920s after he left Kansas City and prior to Grand Haven, MI.

The picture below is of the pen after being taken apart. The sac had reduced to a fine dust. As you can see, the hard rubber chasing is in excellent shape, as is the color and imprint. the nib and feed were very dirty and needed to be scraped (feed) and cleaned. The nib is a nice Warranted 14K with no size number. The section needed to be scraped to remove all signs of the previous sac.

I installed a size 16 sac and the pen works fine. Below are pictures of the restored pen closed and posted.

I want to point out the unique lever. This lever is one that appears on many Kraker pens of the period. The first photo below is the lever of this pen. You can also see the same lever on a Winter Robbins pen, featured in my post of December 7 of last year, titled Hard Rubber Midwest Style.

Finally, here is another pen, a Drew Pen Company (St. Paul, MN) with the same lever again. It would lead me to believe that Kraker may have been involved in some way with the manufacture of several of these pens.

Esterbrook began in the pen business in this country in the 1850s in Camden, NJ, producing steel nibs for dip pens. I have titled this Fountain Pen Restoration 101 because, for so many, Esterbrook pens are the first vintage pen they acquire, or repair. The most common Esterbrook is one of the J, SJ, or LJ series pens produced after 1948. These were mass produced, colorful, sturdy, and had the famous Esterbrook interchangeable nibs. Here is a nib chart, showing the variety of nibs available to Esterbrook Pen owners. As you can see, nibs ranged from fine hard “bookkeeping” nibs to expressive “signature” nibs.

The pen that I worked on yesterday is not the standard J series pen, but a CH series pen, dating to the 1955-57 period. These were also known as “purse pens” and appeared in many pastel colors, with varying end jewel colors as well. They were sold with matching pencils and had colorful carrying cases. An H series also existed, without the clip. The picture below shows the interchangeable, screw in point. This is one of the reasons that these are so easy to restore and a good place to start if you want to experiment in restoring your own vintage pens. The nib unscrews from the section and then the section needs to be removed from the barrel. Remember here that gentle heat is a good way to do this, as described in many previous posts. Often times a new j-bar will also need to be secured if the old j-bar is damaged or corroded after removal from the barrel. The j-bar for this pen was in fine shape.

As you can see below, this pen was very well preserved, down to a unique Esterbrook sac. The good news is that it is still in good shape, I filled it with water and there are no leaks. I am going to leave it on this pen as an original Esterbrook sac is kind of cool (at least to me). The color of this pen is aqua, and it has the standard 1551 Student nib. This is a plain nib, without any special characteristics. I do have several other Esterbrook pens and should I decide to use this pen, I can just exchange this 1551 for a more expressive nib, such as a 2314M, a medium stub, which I enjoy.

After removing the section, I put the nib assembly in an ultrasonic cleaner to remove any old ink. I cleaned the inside of the cap, which was also loaded with old blue ink. I use q-tips for this. The threads were also ink stained as you can see from the picture above. I used an old toothbrush to remove this. The resulting pen is below. A nice aqua Esterbrook CH, dating to the 1950s.

Here is a picture of this pen with a pink CH, which I have had for quite some time.

If you are interested in learning to restore vintage pens, these pens (especially the J series - not shown) are an excellent place to start. They are readily available and at very reasonable prices. For the price of a new sac and j-bar, they can be brought back to life again.

In 1949 and 1950 Sheaffer produced a Valiant Touchdown that predates the Thin Model (TM) touchdowns that were developed for sale in 1951. I much prefer this earlier model, produced only for a short time. The Valiant Touchdown differs from other touchdown fillers of this time in that the cap and barrel are the same color and, of course, the nib is a wrap around triumph nib. Also produced were a standard nib Statesman, Silver and Gold nib Deluxe, and Gold Capped Crest. Colors were Black, Brown, Burgundy, Blue, and Green.

Here is a picture of the pen prior to restoration.

The first good thing about this repair is evident from the picture above. I will not have to scrape the inside of the sac protector (upper right) as the old sac has come out in one piece. This is usually the most time consuming part of repairing a touchdown or snorkel. A dose of pure talc to the new sac will be all that is needed when it is inserted back into the sac protector.

There were no surprises with this restoration. The old “O” ring came out without a problem and a new one (larger size that TM and snorkel) was inserted. I then secured the blind cap to the end of the barrel by using a long screwdriver. The old sac remnants were scraped off the end of the section and the entire section and nib were cleaned in an ultrasonic cleaner. A new sac was secured to the section after it dried, measuring it to make sure it was just large enough to reach the end of the sac protector. I covered the sac with pure talc and secured the sac protector over the sac and to the section. The entire nib/section/sac/ sac protector was then inserted into the barrel and I tested the filler by pulling out the touchdown tube and inserting the pen in water. Then, pushing down on the filler with the nib assembly in the water. This filled the sac up with water and the restoration was complete, except for general clean up of the gold and black plastic parts. The gold was polished gently with Simichrome and q-tips and the black plastic was polished and preserved.

The end result is below.

The triumph nib, a medium, is pictured here.

Finally, here is a comparison of this pen on top, comparing it to a TM (thin model) Touchdown, which began production in 1951. I prefer the older, fatter touchdown to the TMs as they fit my hand better, and hold more ink. The thinner model must have been very well accepted, as the snorkel, which appeared next, held this thin size.

William Welty has appeared in two of my posts, with his appearance here. It is a tribute to his resilience and persistence in the face of economic and business pressures. These were due to attempting to start and sustain a small size fountain pen company in the Midwest during a time of intense competition from bigger companies and the never ending needs of additional capital and legal battles from the likes of the Conklin Pen Company.

My first mention of Welty was in my post of December 12, 2007 where I restored an Evans Hump Filler pen. That was a pen dating to approximately 1915, a few years before this pen. As you can read in that post, after Welty won his lawsuit against Conklin, he was in need of additional funding and brought in Evans as a partner in the Evans Pen Company. After this he also entered into a relationship with the Moore Pen Company of Boston, MA to produce the Servo, or Moore-Servo pen. This is an example of a pen made in the short time that Welty and Moore were together, before Moore took over the line completely.

Eventually, Welty left Waterloo and headed for Chicago, where he again started up the Welty Pen Company. It was the final move for Welty and the Company seems to have remained there into the 1950s. At the end of this post I will show a picture of a Welty Chicago fountain Pen.

Here is a photo of the dismantled Servo Fountain Pen, which was probably produced sometime after 1917 in conjunction with Moore. The unique Welty Filler Patent can be found by clicking here.

As you can see, the lever is reverse to most lever fillers and opens from front to back. It is a hooked shape lever that attaches to a pressure bar which is under the sac (not above as in most lever fillers). A detailed view of this filler can be seen in the patent link in blue above.

Here is a picture of the pen reduced to its parts. The lever and pressure bar can be seen at the top and end of the barrel. You can see the end of the lever pointing to the front of the pen, ready to be pulled up and toward the back , thus lifting the lever from the bottom of the barrel, compressing the sac.

This was a relatively simple repair. I cleaned up the old sac remnants from the section, using an x-acto knife. I then cleaned the section with a q-tip, removing all of the old ink. I then cleaned the feed and nib. The feed with water and dental pic in the channel. The nib (14K) using a dremel and simichrome. The nib is a 14K Servo No. 2.

The reverse lever is not gold, and I was able to remove the tarnish with simichrome and a lot of rubbing with a soft cloth. I attached a number 16 silicon sac to the section/feed/nib and inserted it in a different manner due to this unique lever/pressure bar. I held the pen with the lever on top so that the bar released to the bottom of the barrel and slid the sac assembly between the top lever and the bottom, where the bar rests. Now, when the lever is lifted, the bar will be pulled up to compress the sac. This is contrary to the standard lever filler where lifting the lever pushes the bar down into the sac.

Water testing was successful - no leaks and a steady flow of water after filling.

Here is the finished product, followed by the unique imprint showing the largest geographic distance I can remember on a fountain pen imprint.

As I mentioned earlier in the post, William Welty eventually left Waterloo, IA and headed northeast to Chicago. Here is a picture of a later Welty pen, from Chicago.