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Sheaffer Lifetime Lever Filler


white_lotus

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Hello pen experts!

 

Today when I visited a friend she said "oh, I have a fountain pen!" and went to get it to show me. It's an old Sheaffer lifetime lever-filler. Pics below. I've done work on sac replacement on Esties so I'm not totally wet behind the ears. But I don't know about Sheaffer pens.

 

The section unscrewed easily and the sac fell out whole. Yea! Lever and J-bar in excellent shape.

 

The nib says J52640, and other than being a bit ink stained, doesn't appear bent, or any other real obvious problems

 

The cap says "1/10 14K Gold filled Made in USA".

 

How are the nib and feed removed? That may not be necessary, just curious. Are they OK to be soaked?

 

What precautions do I need to take with the barrel? Is it celluloid?

 

I have the Oldfield book so I'll be taking a look there. Thanks for any suggestions/precautions.

 

fpn_1428690858__img_3112.jpg

 

fpn_1428690921__img_3113.jpg

 

fpn_1428690953__img_3114.jpg

 

fpn_1428690993__img_3115.jpg

 

 

 

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It's a Sheaffer Crest, a very nice pen. In my (limited) experience getting the nibs and feeds of these pens back in the section can be challenging, so I'd advise not removing them unless necessary. Soaking the nib, feed and section in plain water should be fine, but I'm not positive about soaking the section in a 10% ammonia solution. Hopefully someone with more experience will weigh in.

 

Nice pen, enjoy it.

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Early Crest 1937-1941. Probably soaking in water with a drop or two of dish detergent will clear the section of any dried ink residue. If not, an ultrasonic cleaner could do it. Getting the feed and nib out reguires a knock-out block and then as Redbike says, getting them back in can be difficult.

 

This is an uncommon pen and desirable.

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Early Crest 1937-1941.

 

'38-'41 per catalogs.

 

--Daniel

"The greatest mental derangement is to believe things because we want them to be true, not because we observe that they are in effect." --Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

Daniel Kirchheimer
Specialty Pen Restoration
Authorized Sheaffer/Parker/Waterman Vintage Repair Center
Purveyor of the iCroScope digital loupe

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Replace the sac as you would for an Estie. As said above, avoid knocking out the nib unless the pen won't otherwise write.

 

You can use Simichrome polish on the cap to remove the stains. Be careful to use a minimal amount of polish and try not to get polish inside crevices, under the cap clip, etc. Simichrome will help make that lovely cap shine like new.

 

A curious feature of that model pen is that the famous Sheaffer "White Dot" that indicates their highest-quality pens, is on the barrel, not on the cap. For these early models with metal caps, Sheaffer hadn't figured out how to place the white dot on the cap yet.

 

Richard

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You can use Simichrome polish on the cap to remove the stains. Be careful to use a minimal amount of polish and try not to get polish inside crevices, under the cap clip, etc. Simichrome will help make that lovely cap shine like new.

 

Hard to tell from the photos, but if there's brassing around one or both of the cap's vent holes, polishing with Simichrome will make that worse, and it will generally remove some of the gold layer on the cap overall.

 

--Daniel

"The greatest mental derangement is to believe things because we want them to be true, not because we observe that they are in effect." --Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

Daniel Kirchheimer
Specialty Pen Restoration
Authorized Sheaffer/Parker/Waterman Vintage Repair Center
Purveyor of the iCroScope digital loupe

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Given the somewhat animated discussion on another thread regarding simichrome, its hazards, and polishing in general, I wasn't planning on using it. So no worries there.

 

I haven't gotten to actually replacing the sac yet. The sac was broken off whole at the mounting peg and what's left is firmly affixed due to the combination of age, ink, and glue. I'm hoping to research the best way to remove the old sac from the mounting peg this weekend. The sac might have been affixed with something other than shellac, which I think weakens with age, but what I have left is rock hard. My concern is that trying to pop off some of the old sac will take some of the plastic along with it.

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This is pretty typical for lever fillers that haven't been used in a while. You could soak the section in water with a couple of drops of dish soap to see if the old sac softens. I use the small blade on my Swiss Army knife to scrape the sac remnants off the nipple. If you get one piece off, it gets easier to pry the rest off with dental type tools. I've never damaged the nipple doing so, but certainly caution is advisable. Good luck.

 

I haven't gotten to actually replacing the sac yet. The sac was broken off whole at the mounting peg and what's left is firmly affixed due to the combination of age, ink, and glue. I'm hoping to research the best way to remove the old sac from the mounting peg this weekend. The sac might have been affixed with something other than shellac, which I think weakens with age, but what I have left is rock hard. My concern is that trying to pop off some of the old sac will take some of the plastic along with it.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Sorry I haven't been very diligent in following up. I've removed the leftover sac on the peg, and still think it wasn't shellac. But it's pretty much gone, no chunks of glue or sac and its now smooth. My guess is this probably would take a #17 sac, if that correct? I know I can follow Mr. Zorn's advice and go buy a digital caliber, but given the cost of such an item plus shipping, it'd be easier for me to ship the pen to someone to fix, and not cost much more. I actually don't have any #17s, but I have #16s and #18s. I think the latter are too thick and would be too loose on the peg.

 

I have a question about the feed here. Sorry for the terrible photos, when cropping them the software constantly wanted to scale them up, making everything more fuzzy.

 

Anyway what I'd call the feed sits within the section. As you can see in one photo, since the section is clear, this feed piece is at an angle. Is this the way it's supposed to be? Or do we have something else going on here?

 

The black thing inside the section angling down is what I'm talking about.

 

fpn_1430015946__img_3212.jpg

 

In this picture of the mounting pen end of the section, you can see it just at the edge.

fpn_1430016011__img_3213.jpg

 

I've never seen anything like this so asking about it's correctness before I put the sac over it, seems prudent.

 

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Is the black thing round & hollow, entering the feed in the latter's center?

If so, I'd suggest that it's the remains of a breather tube. The rest of it would have broken off at some point during a sac replacement. Restoring the breather tube is important for obtaining proper ink capacity.

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Sorry I haven't been very diligent in following up. I've removed the leftover sac on the peg, and still think it wasn't shellac. But it's pretty much gone, no chunks of glue or sac and its now smooth. My guess is this probably would take a #17 sac, if that correct? I know I can follow Mr. Zorn's advice and go buy a digital caliber, but given the cost of such an item plus shipping, it'd be easier for me to ship the pen to someone to fix, and not cost much more. I actually don't have any #17s, but I have #16s and #18s. I think the latter are too thick and would be too loose on the peg.

 

I have a question about the feed here. Sorry for the terrible photos, when cropping them the software constantly wanted to scale them up, making everything more fuzzy.

 

Anyway what I'd call the feed sits within the section. As you can see in one photo, since the section is clear, this feed piece is at an angle. Is this the way it's supposed to be? Or do we have something else going on here?

 

The black thing inside the section angling down is what I'm talking about.

 

fpn_1430015946__img_3212.jpg

 

In this picture of the mounting pen end of the section, you can see it just at the edge.

fpn_1430016011__img_3213.jpg

 

I've never seen anything like this so asking about it's correctness before I put the sac over it, seems prudent.

 

Normal.

 

-Daniel

"The greatest mental derangement is to believe things because we want them to be true, not because we observe that they are in effect." --Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

Daniel Kirchheimer
Specialty Pen Restoration
Authorized Sheaffer/Parker/Waterman Vintage Repair Center
Purveyor of the iCroScope digital loupe

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Is the black thing round & hollow, entering the feed in the latter's center?

If so, I'd suggest that it's the remains of a breather tube. The rest of it would have broken off at some point during a sac replacement. Restoring the breather tube is important for obtaining proper ink capacity.

No breather tube in a Sheaffer. It's a normal feed.

 

--Daniel

"The greatest mental derangement is to believe things because we want them to be true, not because we observe that they are in effect." --Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

Daniel Kirchheimer
Specialty Pen Restoration
Authorized Sheaffer/Parker/Waterman Vintage Repair Center
Purveyor of the iCroScope digital loupe

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