The one that didn't do so well was a Regina safety (German). When I started working on it -- the project was to adjust its flow and smooth its nib -- I found that it wouldn't hold ink. The barrel seal was shot. Receiving approval to repair the seal, I disassembled the pen and found a mess. Someone else had worked on it at some point and, not knowing how to disassemble it, had broken it. Here's what I found inside the pen:
The back end of the barrel has a left-hand thread, you see, and any attempt to unscrew it the normal way, like a Waterman, was doomed from the get-go.
So I sent the above photograph to the owner with a cost estimate for repairing all the damage, and the response was that it wasn't affordable. So I bought the pen, giving a promise that I would resurrect it and add it to my own collection.
I have a busy schedule, but that Regina just kept nagging at me. So, this weekend, in my "free" time, I began the restoration process.
To repair the broken barrel-end piece, I bored out part of the unthreaded half-piece to the same diameter as the bore through the threaded half-piece (where the original barrel seal was), turned a hard rubber rod onto which I could assemble the broken halves with shellac, and finally cross-drilled through each of the half-pieces and the rod running through their center. Then I turned a couple of small hard rubber pins and inserted one into each of the cross-drilled holes, to stake the parts solidly together. Then I drilled out the center of the newly assembled piece to provide passage for the knob's shaft. A counterbore at the end under the knob provided space to install three O-rings for a good seal, and that part was done.
A quick couple of drill-outs to clear away the remains of the broken pin that stakes the spiral to the shaft, fashioning of a new pin out of polystyrene (instead of hard rubber, to give added strength), and assemble the pen. Voilą!
And whaddya know, it even writes!
To the person who gave up this pen, thank you.