How Can I Save This Nib?

[AL01]

From my knowledge...

 

(Which is not scholarly by ANY means...)

 

The "hardware" on Esties are made out of gold 'ole stainless steel.

 

AND that's why Esterbrooks don't really have tarnished clips or so on and so forth....

[Venemo]

Good news!

 

I managed to clean the nib entirely and was able to fit it back into its collar, and screw the nib assembly off the pen. It did require force, but nothing broke. However the tines became severely misaligned and even at my best attempt at realigning them, the nib became a very dry writer, because the two tines touch together too tightly. I'll try to work on that. Interestingly, the collar is now so loose that I can pull out the nib and feed from it easily. (I also soaked my other nib units in the ascorbic acid, those are good.)

 

I cleaned the rust entirely from the lever of the pen whose J-bar I destroyed, and ordered a new J-bar.

For the other pens, I settled on simply removing most of the rust (with baking soda and vinegar), and dried them gently with a hair dryer so that they don't start to rust again.

Some of the sacs still smell suspiciously, so I decided to re-sac all three pens and ordered the necessary sacs.

 

Big thank you to everyone who helped with ideas and suggestions!

[Tom Heath]

All of the above is excellent advise.

 

Nib units for Esterbrook are very challenging to did mantle... They are sold as a unit

The Nib, feed and sleeve

 

Frankly I do not remember reinstalling the above without the aide of Bernard Pillars. A specialty too us olde timers have acquired over the many years at this hobby

 

Your Screw in part of the unit released the nib and feed now it too must be gingerly removed or will need to be replaced.

 

It too needs to be soaked, possibly treated to a few drop of penetrating oil.

There a tool designed for this purpose it is called an " Easy Out: basically a reverse threaded screw. screw into section til

stop , slowly holding the section with a pair of spark plug pillars gently try to extract the stuck unit.

 

 

It is always good to have Esterbrook parts pens on hand, they certainly are cheap enough.Lets see a Junker pen $ 5.00 to 10 .00 yields

A. Cap with jewel

B. Barrel " " , a replacement lever, a replacement pressure bar

C. Replacement Section

D. Replacement nib, feed and threaded bushing

 

Sounds like you have an inquiring mind, why not buy a beginners book on pen repair, e.g " DA Book "

by Frank Dubiel available at most good pen supplier.

 

Your repair as one other suggested mush less complicated replace the Nib , Feed and Bushing with your desired replacement nib

 

Approx Value $ 10.00 + your time to seek it out...

 

Good Luck with your repair, never use India Ink in Fountain Pens..

[Venemo]

At the end the tines were very misaligned, so I gave up on the poor 9550. But! I had a 9556 which had a cracked collar, so I put the 9556 into the 9550's collar, and now I have a working 9556 nib. So it wasn't entirely a waste.

 

Thanks again to everyone for the advice!

[Hobiwan]

Well done! You have successfully: Performed what the Army calls a "Local Field Modification"; Executed Cannibalism; Engineered an Upgrade.... etc.

[Venemo]

I'd like to add one more thing to this topic: a very nice FPN member contacted me and offered to send me her own 9550 nib because she didn't like how fine it was. So I traded her 9550 for my 2668 (which I didn't like how broad it was ). This is why I love FPN.

[ac12]

You can also swap in a Chinese nib for the broken Esterbrook nib.

The Chinese nib is slightly thinner so the nib + feed will fit deeper into the collar.

These Chinese nibs have good tipping and write very well.

 

Esterbrook J-bars are spring steel, NOT stainless steel. I have removed the remnants of several RUSTED J-bars from Esterbrooks. That is why you should NOT put water into the barrel, stuff rusts.

Edited January 9, 2018 by ac12