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Parker 21 And Parker 61


BLCL

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Back in 1953 my first Parker fountain pen was a 21. At that time, that pen sold for $5.00. It was a very smooth-writing pen with a wonderful ink flow. I even used Parker Superchrome ink blue-black or turquoise. I never had any trouble with this ink in spite of many negative comments at pen stores and different places. The Octanium nib made such a great writing pen. The only thing negative, in my opinion, was that the barrel could easily crack at the threads. I never had the shell to crack. Parker 61 pens could have brittle plastic too. I just cannot understand why The Parker Pen Company never improved on these two series with the brittle plastic. With the 51 pens that I have owned and still own, I have never had any of them to crack. I have a vacuumatic 51 that I have had since 1955 (cedar blue), and it is such a wonderful pen and wonderful writer. It is still in service.

 

Again, I just never could understand why Parker never corrected the brittle plastic on the 21 and 61.

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Could the better plastic have been that much more expensive to manufacture? That is about the only thing I can think of. Well, also, I guess almost all large companies have the expensive and less expensive versions of what they make.If the less expensive is the same quality as the more, why buy the more expensive one.

 

 

Seth

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I would guess the sturdy 51 construction was a victim of automation as much as anything.

 

51's were lathed out of solid rods of Lucite. I THINK (but am of course welcome to correction), a few at a time by a semi-automatic machine that probably had a human worker standing there making adjustments and unloading and loading back up the individual mechanical lathes of the machine.

 

Plastic injection moulding machines which came later, are more like electric plastic pooping machines. You load the hopper up with raw plastic, push the button and out squirts perfectly shaped parts. IF any human supervision was required it wouldn't have had to be nearly as "skilled" labor as someone to run a lathing machine.

 

And yes, I would suspect raw plastic material to be Quite a Bit cheaper than specifically sized formed rods of "raw" Lucite.

 

On the 21's and 61's, the issues with those pen's plastic takes time to evidence itself. The production run for 21s I would think, would have been long enough for Parker to notice there were issues. Perhaps not so the case with the 61.

 

I am guessing the Real failure was Parker's not doing full and proper materials testing of the new fangled plastic Prior to beginning to make pens out of it. It seems to me with expedited heat and humidity testing, the frality of the material could have been discovered before the pens went into production or shortly thereafter. This is just a SWAG on my part however.

 

Bruce in Ocala, Fl

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Probably a pretty good guess, Bruce. If you think back to business practice of the 60's, Parker was probably one of the better companies to test designs than many. There were so many space aged dollar pens and disposable ballpoints on the market Parker was really having to paddle to try keep their share. Therefore, the testing processes would shorten drastically.

"Not a Hooker Hooker, but rather a left-handed overwriter."

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When you already have the Striped Duofolds and the Vacs as your Flagship pens, you can take your sweet time (relatively speaking) shipping test 51's to the ends of the earth for worst case environmental testing prior to official introduction.

 

I see the 21 and 61 as more Market-driven reactionary solutions which would have afforded Parker less development time than were they "at their own pace" normal product evolution. (There was probably a Need for a very inexpensive 51 facsimile and after the Sheaffer Snorkie, a Need for a pen that would keep your fingers nice and clean filling it.)

 

Bruce in Ocala, Fl

Edited by OcalaFlGuy
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It seemed nothing much changed as the first batch of the Special Edition 51's produced at Newhaven in 2002 suffered from cracking to the barrels (I know I've got one). They did at least correct that and later ones have no problems (I've got one of those too).

Peter

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What about the 45? How was the plastic on that pen?

"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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My 45's are very good. The Flighter is from the 60's. My other is newer though I believe.

Brad

"Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind" - Rudyard Kipling
"None of us can have as many virtues as the fountain-pen, or half its cussedness; but we can try." - Mark Twain

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What about the 45? How was the plastic on that pen?

 

That's a Really good question and not an easy one to answer IMO.

 

Honestly, I'd like to see someone more in the know than I to comment. Plastics Wizards Farmboy and El Zorno or Richard.

 

Despite one strong argument to the contrary, *I* think the 45 plastic is fine. At the same time, one Can't ignore those pesky dimpled hoods. :angry: My favorite most used 45 is dimpled pretty bad and I've just gotten used to it. I just tell myself, heck, that's the Only downside I can find and It's just cosmetic, so the heck with it until it gets so damn hideous looking that I need to put another hood on it.

 

The dimpling Could have you think there was a plastic problem. I'm not so convinced. I've seen a buttload of 45's in all kinds of shape. Funny, but other than the dimpling, I Don't See Other plastic degradation issues. No weird color changes, no shrinkage to speak of, no common bananaing, cracking, etc; For me, there's one other Coup de Clue. ;) My Parker Arrows, the all plastic model, Don't seem to dimple At All, that I can see.

 

This points me to kind of a combo-conclusion(s). I think the dimpling issue is more one of a cap clutch issue than it is a plastic issue. I can see the Grab requirement of the clutch to hold a heavier metal cap on tight being More than that needed to hold the Arrow's lighter all plastic cap on. I Might surmise or not argue against the hood being made of too thin a plastic, perhaps it should have been a hair thicker to resist the dimpling forces. The barrels sure don't seem to acquire any marks but they also don't have to have a functional fairly sizeable collector Inside them like the hood either. The barrels Could well be thicker as the hoods Should have been.

 

Again, I do think there was a similar issue to the 21 and 61 in that by the time Parker noticed the dimpling, there were just too many 45's under the bridge to fix it. At the least it would have required a new cap clutch and maybe a redesign (thickening) of the hood and reducing the diameter/increasing the length of, the collector.

 

So. I give the 45 plastic a passing grade in my book. At least until someone who knows better sets me straight anyway. ;)

 

Bruce in Ocala, Fl

 

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As everyone says, this is a difficult one.

 

You can't injection mould acrylic (Lucite). The shape of the P61 shell is a design that can only take advantage of injection moulding unless you are prepared to cast each & every individual shell. I have looked at making tooling for this myself and.. it isn't cheap and not all that easy either. In these days of CNC it is possible to make enough tools to do it, but the curing time and investment in tooling makes injection moulding of PS much more economical. You can probably get down to a 10 second cycle time for injection moulding of 20 P61 shells & hoods from one machine. The curing time for acrylic is 24 hours to be safe, then cleaning, preparing, releasing and re-filling of the moulds etc would add another 24 hours. So, with a production line going full blast 8 hours a day, one injection moulding machine would produce 9600 P61 shells & barrels in 48 hours, using one person, maybe 2, to operate the machine. To get the same production from casting acrylic in 48 hours, you would probably need 10000 tools to allow for waste shells with bubbles, and about 40 or 50 people to do it all. Acrylic isn't economical against the newer technology unless its design requires some features of the material - like the pearlescence found in the P&B Duofold.

 

The next question is why P45 sections don't crack, while P61 & P21 shells do.

Can I ask - have you seen a Parker 45 collector? You know, the thing with fins in the P61?

No. I haven't either. There isn't room in the section for a P61 style collector in a P45 because the section walls are so thick. I think this is the nub of the reason why P61 shells can crack & P45 sections don't. The P45 uses a small volume around the feed as its collector, rather than wetting the surface of a solid object. The PS used in both shrinks a bit, maybe 5%. The diameter decreases a bit. The P45 section shrinks and reduces the collector volume around the feed and that's it. The P61 on the other hand tries to shrink, but it's held close to its original diameter by the collector inside (which seems to me to be non-shrinking acrylic, possibly a hang-over from the P51) . What happens? Well, a hoop stress is set up, stretching the shrunk shell so that it's the diameter of the collector, gripping the collector tightly. If the shell plastic continues to shrink, the hoop stress will rise to the point when the plastic breaks, and it will break perpendicular to the stress, ie the cracks will be up & down the pen - a phenomenon seen in both the P61 and P21.

 

Why didn't Parker learn the lessons for the P51 SE in 2002? I suspect it was a different generation of engineers who had never learnt the lessons from a generation previously; so it can be put down to corporate forgetfulness/stupidity. This has happened in other fields of engineering, major bridge disasters used to happen every 35 years or so, as a new generation forgot the lessons of the last - think of the Tay bridge disaster, that was followed 35 years later by on one on the Menai STrait, then 'Galloping Gertie', the Tacoma Narrows Bridge

http://youtu.be/j-zczJXSxnw

 

Well, that's just my view. I have a small amount of experience making pens, casting bits from plastic and the injection moulding of lids for boxes. It gives me an idea of the likely problems & some possible reasons for doing things the way they have been, however there are much more knowledgeable people than I in each of the specialist fields I've touched on, so please treat what I've said with a little bit of caution

 

Regards,

 

Richard

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As everyone says, this is a difficult one.

 

1-You can't injection mould acrylic (Lucite). The shape of the P61 shell is a design that can only take advantage of injection moulding unless you are prepared to cast each & every individual shell.

 

2-The next question is why P45 sections don't crack, while P61 & P21 shells do.

Can I ask - have you seen a Parker 45 collector? You know, the thing with fins in the P61?

No. I haven't either.

 

3-There isn't room in the section for a P61 style collector in a P45 because the section walls are so thick. I think this is the nub of the reason why P61 shells can crack & P45 sections don't. The P45 uses a small volume around the feed as its collector, rather than wetting the surface of a solid object.

 

Regards,

 

Richard

 

1-What is this molding of Lucite? Again, 51's were machine lathed out of solid rods of Lucite. I see no reason a 61 hood and barrel could not have been lathed too except for cost reduction. There isn't That much difference in the two shapes. Of course, that injection molding was also seen as an advancement over the slower machine lathing which it IS When the material Doesn't fail as a result.

 

2-Not only have I Seen one, I've held it in my on hand. You can see one too. ;) (The yellowish piece.)

 

P45Demo.JPG

 

3-Incorrect, yes there Is room for a 61 style collector in a 45.

 

Bruce in Ocala, Fl

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I have one remaining P45. I bought it NOS a few years ago. It seems perfect, but I don't use it, I just have it to have one. Same with the 61 and 21. A token pen or two of each. Given what has been written about the plastic in these pens that's all for me. The only two Parkers that I like to use are the 51 and the Sonnet.

"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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2-Not only have I Seen one, I've held it in my on hand. You can see one too. ;) (The yellowish piece.)

 

P45Demo.JPG

 

3-Incorrect, yes there Is room for a 61 style collector in a 45.

 

 

I stand corrected (glad to be in this case, pleased that it isn't like the P51 c/c version with a solid lump instead of the collector) - I have never seen one in the P45's I've disassembled & it looked as if the whole section was solid black. I suspect that the section must have shrunk on, because I was never able to get it out either. However, look at how thick the section is, and compare with a P61 hood thickness. It's much, much thicker to take the hoop stress load induced by shrinkage, so will require much more shrinkage to cause the stress to get to the level where the plastic cracks - It's probably close to the point where the collector will crush instead.

 

You cannot make a P61 shell by turning on a lathe, which is why it needs to be moulded. The reasons for this are:

  1. The feed aperture under the nib. It is not rotationally symmetrical, having a flat on the underside to match the lower surface shape of the feed.
  2. The inside shape of the nib aperture on the shell has a slot on it to locate the nib upper tab. This cannot be machined out on a lathe.
  3. The arrow recess cannot be machined on a copy lathe.

All these design features mean the P61 shell can't be made on a lathe if you want to have these features. And if you don't have the features, it's not a P61, it's a P51. And Parker seemed to be getting bored with the P51 when they came up with the P61, wanting to have a model that was similar but different enough to get more people to part with their money.

 

One further thing - could one or two people in charge of a load of copy lathes produce up to 4900 per day in the same way as single injection moulding machine for the same tooling investment? Parker were making two things with a pen - making pens and also making money. Lucite would work out as a much higher unit cost, but they wouldn't be able to put the price up, so injection moulding helped the bottom line.

 

Regards,

 

Richard.

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I think the reason most people haven't seen a P-45 collector, is that Parker Intended they be Permanently installed. As of course, mine Wasn't when it came out of the hood stuck to the end of a ink nasty converter.

 

I certainly can't argue with any of Richard's non-lathe points for the 61. He's forgotten more about 61's than I'll ever (care to) know.

 

Bruce in Ocala, Fl

Edited by OcalaFlGuy
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Who made the 45 demonstrator? Is that a Parker product or is it an Ariel Kullock pen?

"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 think that one is a Kullock but I doubt he fabricated the collector of his own accord. It looks just like the one and is in the same position as the one that came out of my pen into my hand. I think it's pretty easy to see in that pic how the collector could get "ink glued" to the end of a converter/cartridge which was how I found mine.

 

Bruce in Ocala, Fl

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That demonstrator is a very interesting pen. I wonder if he lathed it with the old Parker machinery. I might look into getting one of those. The 45 I have is black/lustraloy/gold tone with a 14K medium nib. The nib overpowers me, so I don't use that pen. The demonstrator is interesting. Thanks for the info and the picture of it.

"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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Thanks for all in the expertise Richard. This is all waaay above my paygrade. The closest I can get is: How many engineers does it take to make a fountain pen? Who knows? Because they'll all give you a different answer.

"Not a Hooker Hooker, but rather a left-handed overwriter."

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