From my cousin I received my grandfather's Eversharp Skyline. It is a standard-size black with manifold nib, and visulated section (years 1941-43, I think).

I took it apart to clean & was pleased to see the sac pliable and able to hold water. It does not appear to have the long breather tube, as most of the length of sac bent over easily. Cleaned it up; soaked nib section in mild ammonia & water solution for a few hours. Flossed the channel with a piece of overhead transparency (poor man's nib floss). The nib was a bit toothy and using a 10x loupe I aligned the nib sections (I've been reading as many FPN articles as I can). Filled it up with Skrip and wrote a nice smooth, wet line.

Problem: it writes well for a few sentences and then flow stops. Also when I put it away for a few hours, it takes a long time to start, then again it writes for a while and stops.

Is it time to send it off to a professional, or is there something more I can do?

Until a pro chimes in: I've had good luck with Skylines doing one of two thing(or both): If you have access to an ultrasonic cleaner, put the nib/feed/section in the UC and let it run for 2 or 3 minutes and see how much old ink comes out. Then take an baby's nose syringe (squeeze bulb type), cut the end off a bit to where it will fit snug on the section nipple and flush water through the section/feed/nib. You can use the water/ammonia solution this way as well. The other option is to knock the nib and feed from the section with a knock-out block and do some serious cleaning of the feed channels. Both will require you remove the sac - which should probably be replaced anyway.

Word of caution: Skyline barrel plastic is often brittle; 140 degree heat is your friend. apply heat to the barrel threads to help prevent cracking when removing and installing the section. I speak from experience (bad).

OK, this is my take and some of the other restorers may chime in with some other ideas...
To me it sounds like dried ink in the feed...
Even though the sac felt good and was pliable, I would take it off so that you can do a thorough cleaning of the nib, feed assembly.
If you have a US cleaner, put the section with the nib and feed in it and give it a cycle or two in a 10% ammonia bath...
That should break up any dried ink in the section.... After that you might want to soak the section, nib and feed in the bath overnight..
Then using a bulb syringe that you cut back so it fits over the section, flush out the nib and feed with cool water until it runs real clean...
Put on a new sac and you should be ready to go...
IF this does not work, you are going to need to knock out the nib and feed and give it a good cleaning... but the above should do it.

I'm no expert, but I have 2 skylines, one with a breather tube and one without, and I know there are variables, but the one with the breather tube writes much better and starts up much better than the one without one. I decided to have the breather tube replaced.

OK this is helpful. I don't have access to an ultrasonic cleaner, however. And I don't want to do damage to the pen (sentimental value). I've never replaced a sac before -- would like to, but don't know if I want to start with this one. I'm thinking I might punt and send it off for restoration.



Is it possible to put a breather tube in this older model that didn't have one originally?

It sounds like you've done a great job on this so far. Heirloom pens are by far the most precious. I'm lucky enough to have a couple dozen from various family members, and to me, each one is a treasure.

I'd hesitate to use an ultrasonic on any assembled plastic parts (like the section on a Skyline). I know a lot of people do so, with great luck, but I've also seen the result when things go wrong: crazing. Ultrasonics are good for some jobs, but just not right (IMO) for others.

If you're not going to take everything apart, the easiest way to remove dried ink from the section/feed/nib is to just soak the front end of the pen, nib down, in a small container of water for at least three days. A good friend suggested that a three day soak was kind of the magic amount of time to fully dissolve ink debris in feed channels. He was right. You can soak the nib/feed/section in a small plastic container like a pill bottle or a film canister. Start by filling the pen with water, so you can flush outwards when you first lift the lever after soaking. The level of water in the container shouldn't be above the point where the section meets the barrel. After the soak, flush everything by emptying and filling repeatedly with water.

If you do decide to take the sac off and replace it with a new one, it would be good to force water through the assembled section with an earbulb or a similar squirty device. Flush from both directions, maybe starting from the nib end (there's more room for gunk to come out of the feed channels than out of the nib).

It is possible to replace the breather tube. The original might be in the sac somewhere, but may be broken into several pieces. Or, it might never have been replaced the last time someone changed the sac (more likely).

Since this is your grandfather's pen, it's worth the trip to your local repair shop if you're not comfortable with any of this stuff. If you need a recommendation, I'm sure you can get a million of them around here.

Congratulations on owning such a wonderful piece of your own history. I hope it brings you great joy!

Cheers,
Tom

After reading your last post, I'm in agreement with Tom Pike - send this pen to a pro. The work that needs to be done is quite simple, IF you have some repair experience. Learning your repair skills on heirloom pens is not the way to go - too much is at risk VS the cost of a professional restoration.
I would suggest picking up some cheap junker pens either on ebay or at a flea market/junk shop in order to practice your repair skills. Richard Binder used to sell some of these on his site, I haven't checked lately.
If you're going to get into vintage pens, some very basic repair skills are helpful; replace a sac, J-bar, lever r/r, etc. Get a copy of "Da Book", the late Frank Dubiel's repair manual - knowing that some of his suggestions are outdated, but still the best single repair source around (pendemonium.com has them). Sacs can be purchased from several places. I buy mine from pensacs.com. Read all you can on the subject and ask for advice and you will be fine. It's fun and good therapy!

Thanks all. I think I'll try a 3 day water soak, that should do no harm and possibly may be the trick. I'm not in a hurry, I have lots of other FPs to use. (Another excuse for ordering more pens...) Next step will be to send it off. I don't want to mess up on this one. I am in process of picking up many parts and hope to have enough to practice on soon, maybe even make a franken-pen.

Thanks again.

Am proceeding with working on this pen (slowly, carefully) and have determined that the sac inside is too large in diameter, since it touches the sides snugly. Whoever resacced it I think used the wrong size. I noticed the cap had significant amount of dried ink, so my grandfather must have had a problem of warmed air pushing ink up. Anyway there is no breather tube inside, but I found a piece of tube (eyeglass cleaner aerosol tube) which fits snugly over the air hole. Questions: how long should the breather be? and should I rely on snugness to hold it there or apply a drop of some adhesive to hold it?

Make the breather tube just is pinch shorter than the sac. That'll give you the max ink fill.

If you must, you can use the smallest amount of shellac on the outside of the tube, taking great care not to block the flow. I must admit, if the fit is nice & snug, I don't use any shellac.

One final note. If you intend to use lighter color inks (ie not blue or black), you might as well drive out the feed and nib from the section and clean the bejeebers out of them. There is almost certainly old residual ink in there that no amount of water/amonia soaking will jar loose. But just put a drop of pretty red/green/orange/etc ink in that pen and poof, you'll have a black/blue tint added.

Good luck!

John

Thanks, John! I think it's snug enough without adhesive.

Have cleaned up it pretty well... I'm a dark ink man myself... black, blue/black, blue, and dark browns. Exciting enough colors for me.

Man, it's fun working on old pens & seeing them come to life. I'm sold on vintage now, I must admit.

Just a final report on a success story, my repair of my grandfather's Skyline. I put the breather tube adapted from an eyeglass cleaner aerosol tube, and then shellacced (not with clear nail polish!) a #16 sac, and put it back together. Polished it up & filled it with Quink black. It is writing so smoothly now, with a fine wet line. The nib is a manifold and very stiff.

Thanks for the helpful posts along the way. This was my second pen repair (the first was an Eagle), and tonight I finished my third: I have put a sac successfully in a Waterman #5 and it writes beautifully!

So, it's 10 o'clock at night and all I can think about is going out to some antique store or flea market and find more pens to fix...

Awesome!

It's great that your grandfather's pen is in your hand and writing as it should. Good for you!

BTW, you ARE officially hooked on pen restoration now...


Cheers,
Tom