Hi everyone: I am new to FP but seem to have picked up the bug. I bought two waterman phileas pens same nib but each one has its own personality. Dad had an old skyliner that I inherited when he passed and I thought to restore it. I thought it would be best if I first bought another, without the sentimental value, and did so on E-Bay. I don't know what happened but now I have a stack of skyliners coming in. It seemed that the old saying "you can't eat just one" has kicked in for me. To topic some of these pens would appreciate a little TLC in taking some light abrasions out of them but I hesitate to put jewelers rouge or other buffing compounds to old things like this without speaking to someone who knows. My brother in law gave me some polishing compound entitled 'MAAS" and said it was good for all fine polishing. He is my brother in law but I take recommendations with a grain of salt when expertise in an area is in question. That said does anyone have any recommendations as to what they have used successfully in the past? thanks chuck

I've never been a big polisher and I think the key is how lightly anything is used. Some new pen people get dremmels and fire them up and take good plating off. I'm an old timer so still use good old simichrome, but lightly. I also use a jewelers rouge called Zam.

I think MAAS will be just fine. It is very similar to Simichrome polish which is the old stand-by for pen polishers. Just use hand rubbing, no buffing wheels. It will also work on gold nibs but if you want to use rouge on nibs, that will be OK too.

Thank you for the advice. chuck

To polish most pen bodies a good liquid car polish will work well. The one exception would be Hard Rubber pens.

I USE fountain pens and COLLECT vintage hair toys (combs and such).

I use RENAISSANCE WAX/POLISH on everything. It's a micro-crystalline wax that can be removed with a little white spirit. It's the ONLY thing that will restore lustre to Vulcanite (hard rubber) that I've ever found. It won't harm Bakelite or cellulose either. It protects and brings back lustre. It also fills small scratches. Museums use it by the bucket)

I have a friend that works at the Johnson Presidential Library, her job is waxing stuff with this wax. The amazing thing is that it is crystal clear so it can even be used on transparent parts.

When I get a new pen, I wax it thoroughly about 3 times with very thin coats. It protects the pen also.

I've purchased a beautiful Vulcanite pen that had become dulled with age. I cleaned it well with grain alcohol, then I polished it about 6 times and it looked gorgeous--so gorgeous that my son fell for it.