So, It seems an added bonus to this hobby is that of repairing pen to their days of glory.

Restoration is something I love.

I've also read that you don't want to start practicing on an expensive reclamation project and break something.

So my question is this:

What are some inexpensive fountain pens that you can work on which would help you hone your abilties on?

For example: pens that have sacs, vacumatics, aerometrics, level fillers, piston fillers, etc

Thanks in advance.

Esterbrooks are a good place to start. Pick them up pretty cheap, then use them or re-sell them.

Wherevers- cheap, cheap, cheap. Nothing to feel bad about if you ruin them. It seems I see them all over the place for only a few bucks. When you're done repairing them they would make nice gifts for children, grandchildren, kid brothers and sisters.

In another thread SMG said he was going to practise nib grinding on some Pilot Varsity pens (or Vpens outside of the U.S. apparently). I thought that sounded like a great idea. They cost $3.00 a piece or less.

Hero's are pretty good to. The few I've tried have responded well to disassembly, cleaning, tuning, and reassembly. At $5-$10 for many of them, it isn't a tragedy if something goes wrong.

Look at some junky-looking objects on eBay, too. Just because that Vacumatic "51" has a section that looks like an india-ink lollipop doesn't mean that you're not going to learn something from the filler. At very least, you start to build a collection of parts in addition to the experience.

You can practise on my Yard O Led.

I agree with Jim and Led Zep girl.. Esties or Wearevers. Lately, Esties are going up on ebay but Wearever's are still cheap (just got one for .99). Any cheap pen on ebay will do but start with sacs/lever fillers, but Vacumatics Touchdowns, Snorkels, are a bit higher up the scale in terms of difficulty.

Oh yeah, almost forgot check out Richard Binder's site... he was doing a special where he sells you three fixer upper pens for like $15.00 all guaranteed to fixable with a little bit of work. That is a great deal if he still has it.

I would suggest looking into correct procedures before taking a Vac apart. It very easy to ruin something and all the parts are pretty valuable so you want to be careful. Richard Binder has some terrific info on his site
(http://www.richardspens.com/) searh Vacumatic under "Reference info"
Of course, there are other tricky pens out there and they are the most interesting...
Good luck,
d