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The Journey Begins...


AHoppy

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So I have been interested in getting into vintage fountain pens for a while now, and figured that Esterbrook would be a relatively inexpensive way to get into it and have a community to support me when I run into trouble or need information. After bidding on a few and getting sniped every time, I finally managed to snag one off "the bay"

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Old-Esterbrook-Fountain-Pen-/301222322107?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEWNX%3AIT&_trksid=p2047675.l2557&nma=true&si=DBxORfW%252FPv2Q5Krp8FMW9QhNqSQ%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

I just wanted any Esterbrook to work on, but I really did want a brown one because I think they look so good. The green ones look great too, but I was actually able to pick up a brown one. I want to catalogue my journey of restoring my first pen, so I'm starting this thread to do that! More updates once I actually receive the pen...

 

Now for a few questions going into this. I'm assuming that I'm going to have to replace the sac on this one, so I'm going to start with getting the supplies for that. I've read around here that Pendemonium is a good place to get this stuff from. I'm planning on getting: sacs, Orange shellac, a sac spreader, and a pen pick. However, they are currently out of pen picks. So should I wait for those to come back in stock, or can I fashion one of my own from home, or should I buy all these things from another vendor? I would like to buy all the stuff at once to minimize shipping costs. Thanks in advance for any help as I begin my vintage/Esterbrook experience.

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Nice pen for that price. Even if you have to resac it, that's a good buy. Some people will probably be jealous.

"Don't hurry, don't worry. It's better to be late at the Golden Gate than to arrive in Hell on time."
--Sign in a bar and grill, Ormond Beach, Florida, 1960.

 

 

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I've bought most of my stuff from Pendemonium.or Richard Binder. I found that I did not need a sac spreader, even with my gigantic sausages. The shellac kind of lubricates the inside of the sac and I found that it was pretty easy to slide over the nipple with a twisting push. Do get talcum powder, though, to keep the sac from binding up in the barrel. For a pick, I have some old wax carving tools, but I've also used a piece of a wire coat hanger and just kind of jammed it back and forth in the barrel to scrape out dead sac bits.

 

It looks like a nice pen at a good price.

 

Have fun!

 

-Drew

http://i1339.photobucket.com/albums/o715/drew_dunn1/Clan-MacNeil-Buaidh-No-Bas-Victory-or-Death_zps051b46b5.jpg

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Richard's pens has repair supplies and used to have repair kits with tools etc. but I can't see them on the site. He does have individual items. You can find a repair kits that have tools, shellac, and sacs, everything you need at Fountain Pen Sacs at http://fountainpensacs.com/pen_repair_kits.html. If you think you might be interested in doing more repairs it might be OK to think about a kit. I repaired 6 pens (sac replacement ) and saved myself more than the cost of the kit, if I had sent the pens off for repair, plus there is a lot of satisfaction repairing a pen.

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I started my journey about two weeks ago. Here is my limited experience:

 

I picked up a "starter kit" on ebay, from Fountain Pen Sacs. It included an assortment of sacs, talc, and shellac.

 

The owner, Larry, took the time to answer my questions. I'm actually on my second order with them through their website. (Picking up j bars).

 

I've put sacs on two pens, and did not use a spreader. They went on easy, for me.

 

You may have read that you might have to heat up the section to get it out of the barrel. I have taken apart three pens, and did not have to use heat, yet. It took some VERY firm, controlled twisting, and the parts separated. Now, that being said, I did order up a section tool, just in case I need it one day. It's inexpensive.

 

OcalaFlGuy (Bruce) has taken pity on me and given me some good advice. Look for his "pressure test" thread. It's a great tip to evaluate the condition of a sac, or to make sure your shellac job held.

 

Couple of things I have observed and/or learned:

1) If you don't have a #16 sac, a #17 might fill the bill.

2) Look up inside the barrels. Some barrels have a half cylinder spacer inside, some barrels don't.

3) All the pens I've received so far have been dry as a bone. I give the nibs a sound and vigorous rinse under pretty warm water, and then try to draw just a little bit of warm water up into the sac. That has (I'll use this word lightly) "rejuvenated" the system, and the water/ink mix starts flowing out of the nib. That worked on two of three pens.

 

I already had some tools, like a loupe, flexible flashlight, gripper, spatula, forceps, and polishing/cleaning kit, and I have used them all so far. So, knowing what I know now, if I were starting fresh and had nothing, I would get the Ultimate Kit from Fountain Pen Sacs.

 

Anyway, best of luck!

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I started my journey about two weeks ago. Here is my limited experience:

 

I picked up a "starter kit" on ebay, from Fountain Pen Sacs. It included an assortment of sacs, talc, and shellac.

 

The owner, Larry, took the time to answer my questions. I'm actually on my second order with them through their website. (Picking up j bars).

 

I've put sacs on two pens, and did not use a spreader. They went on easy, for me.

 

You may have read that you might have to heat up the section to get it out of the barrel. I have taken apart three pens, and did not have to use heat, yet. It took some VERY firm, controlled twisting, and the parts separated. Now, that being said, I did order up a section tool, just in case I need it one day. It's inexpensive.

 

OcalaFlGuy (Bruce) has taken pity on me and given me some good advice. Look for his "pressure test" thread. It's a great tip to evaluate the condition of a sac, or to make sure your shellac job held.

 

Couple of things I have observed and/or learned:

1) If you don't have a #16 sac, a #17 might fill the bill.

2) Look up inside the barrels. Some barrels have a half cylinder spacer inside, some barrels don't.

3) All the pens I've received so far have been dry as a bone. I give the nibs a sound and vigorous rinse under pretty warm water, and then try to draw just a little bit of warm water up into the sac. That has (I'll use this word lightly) "rejuvenated" the system, and the water/ink mix starts flowing out of the nib. That worked on two of three pens.

 

I already had some tools, like a loupe, flexible flashlight, gripper, spatula, forceps, and polishing/cleaning kit, and I have used them all so far. So, knowing what I know now, if I were starting fresh and had nothing, I would get the Ultimate Kit from Fountain Pen Sacs.

 

Anyway, best of luck!

The spacers are found in the larger size J pens. The SJ and LJ don't have them. The spacer allowed Esterbrook used the same size sac and J bar in all of the J series.

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I found that a very, very fine crochet hook works well to get old pen sacs out, go to fabric or craft store if you need to buy one. You'll need the gauge that is used to make super-fine crochet lace. Make sure that you use pharmacutical grade talc and ALWAYS keep the nib screwed in the section when you remove it from the barrel. Heat is nearly always needed and before you spring for a heat gun, beg, borrow or steal a hair blow-dryer! For polishing up the barrel, many of us have found that nail buffing sticks (from your local beauty supply store) work well, I usually mask off the imprint with tape to preserve it. The same buffing sticks (get the ones with only a little foam padding) work well for nib smoothing too.

 

Good luck and please keep us posted.

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Nice pen for that price. Even if you have to resac it, that's a good buy. Some people will probably be jealous.

I'm one of those "some people" -- that pen was on my watch list, because of the nib (I have an SJ with a 1555, but would like to get a 9555 at some point), but I'm trying to be somewhat frugal at the moment. Especially between getting two pens in the past week (including a antique store find of a blue J with a a 9556 nib).

Good luck working on the pen, AHoppy, and let us all know how it turns out.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

"It's very nice, but frankly, when I signed that list for a P-51, what I had in mind was a fountain pen."

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The kit looks like it will be pretty good, but I'm not sure it will be the most economical way to go. I'm not sure I will need some of those things. I have a really cheap loupe and light. I think i'm going to go with the makeshift coat-hangar method for the spatula. as far as polishing goes, I haven't actually looked into that much. Being an engineer, I didn't even really think about the aesthetics at first, just getting the pen to write like new...

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IMO, the kits are overkill.

 

Don't bother with a sac spreader, use that money for more sacs. You'd need 3 hands to use it and more space for it than there is where you need to use it.

 

You also don't need section pliers for Esties. Get some good gripper material. See with your fingers. I use old bicycle inner tube cut into squares, it's free and and it works great.

 

My 2 most important resac tools are a pair or angle cut tweezers (get good Revlon ones, they're worth it) and a pair of the smaller size, 5.5" hemostats. Stats are less than $4 shipped from Amazon or from a local headshop as I hear ;) they make good roach clips. Stats are the primo J-bar remover.

 

My next most used Estie tool is the flat wood coffee stirrers (Charyucks?) to push J-bars into place with. Also stacked on top of each other to straighen out sprung clips.

 

I use the same tweezers to pull the sac on to pick out pieces of stuck sac. If the sac is all dried out, a sharp rap on the table top (straight down so you don't crack the barrel edge) may shake the pieces out.

 

I may use my dental scaler sometimes to get sac detritus out of the barrel. Mine has a little knife blade on one end, a little scoop on the other. I got my scaler at a fleamarket at a booth will all kinds of stats, scalers, n'stuff like that. I'd get the same model again if I lost mine. There is a place on line with all kinds of inexpensive scalers and stats.

 

There are pros who will tell you that soaking the section to just past the barrel threads, point down, overnight cannot possibly help get the section out. They are just wrong. It does. I've done it plenty of times both ways and Went Back to soaking. Not soaking because you as a pro don't have time to and still make money is NOT the same as it actually Not helping.

 

If you have stuff on your mind, get it off before you start working on the pen.

 

If you get frustrated, put it down for an hour, then come back and give it another shot.

 

Use heat or you WILL ruin a perfectly good pen. The question Isn't Will you, it's just When Will you. Period.

 

That's a very nice Copper you have there Hoppy.

 

The nicer the pen is when you get it, the nicer it will be when you're done restoring it.

 

Friends don't let Friends buy garbage Esties unless you are buying parts pens for parts prices. There are just too many nice Esties out there.

 

I would buy parts pens before I'd buy modern replacement J-bars. Estie knew what they were doing with J-bars. I have a couple modern replacements that I hope to never have to use IF I run out of Estie ones.

 

Have fun. If you don't, you're doing it wrong. ;)

 

Bruce in Ocala, Fl-your friendly neighborhood Estiebrook Crack pen enabler

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Thanks for all the advice Bruce! I think I'll pick up tweezers, and hemeostats and of course some sacs and talc. But quick question: Where do I get my hands on some used bicycle inner tube? I know it sounds like a really dumb question, but I actually have no idea.

 

The pen arrived today and it does look great. Really excited to get started, but I haven't ordered any tools yet... However, here's what I have noticed so far:

The pen was inked when I got it. Or at least, never cleaned out. There is dried blue ink everywhere, and no matter how many times I fill the cap with water, it still comes out dark blue. I can also see a lot of gummed up ink around the lever, so I think once I get it open it will all need to soak for a while. Is it a problem to soak the whole cap or the barrel in water over night? Will the ink that comes out into the water stain anything or cause the hardware to rust?

 

The only thing that the seller did not mention was the jewel on the top has a chip. But that's ok, I'm not out to make it mint. If I were though, is it possible to replace those? Also, I'm fairly certain it is a J because the cap jewel is larger than the barrel jewel. Am I correct in thinking that?

 

Finally, I believe the J-bar is intact because when I pull the lever it definitely has a lot of spring back but there definitely is not a functional sac inside. That much I do know. Wish me luck!

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I should also mention that I would highly recommend the seller. The pen was shipped very quickly and packaged exceptionally well. It came wrapped protectively in tissue paper, then in a plastic clamshell case, then that was also wrapped in tissue paper and all that was in a dense, padded envelope.

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I recently got an Esterbrook on ebay myself for $12. A squeeze-converter (no j-bar). I'm a little daunted about trying to replace the sac, to be honest. XD

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...so I think once I get it open it will all need to soak for a while. Is it a problem to soak the whole cap or the barrel in water over night? Will the ink that comes out into the water stain anything or cause the hardware to rust?

 

 

I believe I read that the j-bar is steel and can rust, so I'm not sure I would submerge the whole thing. You would need to dry it out pretty well.

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Thanks for all the advice Bruce! I think I'll pick up tweezers, and hemeostats and of course some sacs and talc. But quick question: Where do I get my hands on some used bicycle inner tube? I know it sounds like a really dumb question, but I actually have no idea.

 

The pen arrived today and it does look great. Really excited to get started, but I haven't ordered any tools yet... However, here's what I have noticed so far:

The pen was inked when I got it. Or at least, never cleaned out. There is dried blue ink everywhere, and no matter how many times I fill the cap with water, it still comes out dark blue. I can also see a lot of gummed up ink around the lever, so I think once I get it open it will all need to soak for a while. Is it a problem to soak the whole cap or the barrel in water over night? Will the ink that comes out into the water stain anything or cause the hardware to rust?

 

The only thing that the seller did not mention was the jewel on the top has a chip. But that's ok, I'm not out to make it mint. If I were though, is it possible to replace those? Also, I'm fairly certain it is a J because the cap jewel is larger than the barrel jewel. Am I correct in thinking that?

 

Finally, I believe the J-bar is intact because when I pull the lever it definitely has a lot of spring back but there definitely is not a functional sac inside. That much I do know. Wish me luck!

Call your local bike shop. I guarantee you they have a bunch they are just throwing away from where they changed tubes for customers.

 

You can certainly replace jewels. The tricky part is removing the good jewel from the donor pen without messing it up. At least, that's always been my challenge.

 

I actually use a piece of that mesh drawer liner. Works well too.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Tools have arrived, and I was able to successfully separate the section from the barrel. I received a pleasant surprise that the pen had no sac whatsoever! No ugly mess in the back of the barrel. However, as I feared, there is dried ink all over the inside of the barrel. So my question now is: What do I do to clean that out? Should I pull out the J-bar and clean that off well? if so, how do I get it back in?

 

One last quesiton: I un-screwed the nib from the section to soak the two (both being quite inky) and I just want to make sure everything is normal with my nib, so I've included a picture. Is that crack under the feed "normal"? And if so, do you think it is anything to worry about? Also, is it OK to soak the nib overnight? Thanks in advance for all the help!

 

http://i.imgur.com/gduXkeY.jpg

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Hi Hoppy,

 

If you're referring to that crescent dimple in the sleeve, then yes, that's a normal feature. Not all nibs have them, though many do. I believe it was an attempt to lock the feed within the sleeve. Actually works fairly well.

 

I've soaked plenty of nibs for several days with no ill effects (usually in an ultrasonic). Just dry it thoroughly afterwards.

 

As far as pulling the section, if you ever go in for a blood draw, ask the tech/nurse if you can keep the blue stretchy thing they wrap around your arm; they're single-use and they just throw it away anyway. I use two two-inch pieces of that; it's the grippiest stuff I've run across yet, it's thin, so you get a good feel for the pen, and it's cheap! You get many pieces from a single one.

 

I've not had to mess with J-bars thus far... been unreasonably lucky; I'm sure my day's coming. I'll leave that one to more experienced hands.

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Tools have arrived, and I was able to successfully separate the section from the barrel. I received a pleasant surprise that the pen had no sac whatsoever! No ugly mess in the back of the barrel. However, as I feared, there is dried ink all over the inside of the barrel. So my question now is: What do I do to clean that out? Should I pull out the J-bar and clean that off well? if so, how do I get it back in?

 

 

Use a q-tip. Don't get the barrel wet. If you do, the lever ring that holds the lever in place can and will eventually rust, causing it to swell, and then the lever box area will bulge as a result. You really need a hemostat to remove and replace a J bar. One of the best tools you will ever buy and one of the cheapest too.

www.esterbrook.net All Esterbrook, All the Time.
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