Just bought a 61 Flighter, capillary fill. It was supposed to a mint never inked pen, which I'm not so sure about now. I bought it as a daily writer, so I'm not worried about that, but the pen does have a few problems:

The fine nib is quite scratchy, inspection with the 10X showed the tines were not well aligned. I fixed that, but the nib is still scratchy. This would be fixed with some nib polishing, I presume?

The second problem is it is a iffy feeder. If I have the pen in my breast pocket and it is quite warm, it has quite a wet flow, but if it is not warm it takes a bit to start and then runs dry after writing a short time. Could this be because the pen is dirty inside and requires cleaning?

Now further inspection has shown that the clutch ring and the threaded bushing that goes into the hood are not tight. My understanding was that the hood was shellaced to the threaded bushing and should not unscrew freely. Could this be part of the problem? With the bush loose, will I do any harm if I disassemble the pen completely now for inspection?

Yours
Vern

Scratchy P61 nibs are quite unusual. Sounds like the pen may have been misused. Please do not attempt nib smoothing on such a pen unless you are very experienced at it. You will ruin the nib. You may get a smooth nib, but it probably will have a flat spot that will ruin its character. I sell nib smoothing kits, so this advice goes against my interest, but I want the pen to give you years of great service. Get the pen serviced professionally, it is worth it.
Be careful also with the shell: P-61 shells are very thin and prone to cracking!
I love Parker 61s, thay can be great user pens. If it were my pen, I would send it to a good repair person/nibmeister, and I have been smoothing nibs for 30 years!
Good luck!
Giovanni

Tryphon Pen care and pen repair products

A loose shell could cause the pen to leak on your fingers when you write with it, but it's not causing poor flow.


Don't go there. The capillary cell is sealed, after a fashion, by a soft polyethylene sleeve that is terrifyingly easy to destroy upon reassembly.


Amen. I also sell smoothing kits. I have been accused of selling them to drum up business, and it's true that a couple of nibs have come back to me for repair after their owners used the kits. But Giovanni is right. The nib in a 61 is more difficult to smooth properly than most other nibs, and if you're not already an expert, this is not the pen to use as a learning experience.

Just in case Giovanni is still hanging around, here's my First Edition 61. Drool, Giovanni, drool!

Thanks all for the comments. Now I have new things to report: I went to fill it this morning and the pen came apart in my hands. I presume the white band is the seal Richard is referring to. So here are the new questions:

The hood turns out to be cracked. Also, the collector is missing a few fins in spots. Finally, the pen nib has some scratches along one side, as though it had been grasped by pliers. Does all this point to the pen having been serviced by a brute? When I got it the capillary filler material was red, which I took to be an indication that the pen had never been inked. Now I am positive the pen is a used one.

My next question is what to do now? I've soaked the pen a bit and gotten most of the ink out, but I can see that some still remains in the feed section. I can supply pictures if that will help with any advice you might have.

Yours
Vern

I AM drooling, Richard, I AM!!
What a gorgeous pen!

I'll say! Though some, I'm sure, consider that arrow on the hood to be schlocky looking, it sure does orient that hooded nib for those, like me.

OK, the latest news. After the pen fell apart this morning, I cleaned it throughly. The nib proved to still be out of alignment, and the slit was quite closed up. I opened the slit a bit and realigned, reassembled the pen and it works quite well now. The scratchiness is mostly gone, and it writes pretty good now. Still a bit reluctant to start as soon as the nib touches the paper on occasion, but overall a useable instrument now.

Yours
Vern

Way to go Verne!

You must be well on your way to becoming a journeyman repair person, considering some of the warnings given earlier.

Always a pleasure to see someone succeed with a difficult job and have no adverse outcomes.

Gerry

Yup, same here

Glad you managed to get the "61" working again, Vern.