My Broken Doric Lives

[pitonyak]

Before I was born, well, I think it was before I was born, someone in my family purchased a Doric fountain pen. I believe that it was one of my grandparents, but, it could have been my great grandmother. In the late 80's, my Mother gave the pen to me, not that I ever tried to use the pen, but I had the pen.

 

Fast forward to late 2017 or very early 2018, I am too lazy to look it up, I decided to try the pen. Problem was that the innards were completely messed up and there was no way this pen was going to take any ink. On a whim, I dropped an email to the Wahl Eversharp company, and Syd Saperstein responded immediately. Yes, he is our beloved moderator for this group.

 

Well, I sent the pen the Syd, and Syd fixed all those troublesome fiddly bits inside the pen. Well, actually, I think he said some sort of incantation or something, since I cannot even imagine how he got that thing apart, but, it came back looking like this:

 

 

The first item of note is that you can kind of see through through the body of the pen. When I sent the pen away, that part was completely black on the inside. My guess is that someone left some ink in there. I kind of like how the pen looks now.

 

Something that I am now able to do that I could not before, is unscrew the back of the pen, and then I can pull that back part out until I hear a click.

 

 

Lets take a closer look at the nib, which says "EVERSHARP 14K MANIFOD MADE IN USA". And it looks like someone has been chewing on the section. A manifold nib, so, this was probably used by my Grandfather in his electrical shop where he repaired electric motors. I am not a fan of a super stiff nib in general, but the pen actually wrote pretty well. I kind of like the heart on the nib.

 

 

This is the nib from the back

 

 

 

Not sure what the F means.

 

To get a feel for the size of the pen, because this pen feels small to me, compare it to my Lamy 2000.

 

 

I filled the pen with Noodler's Blue EEL Turquoise ink, and, this is the first thing that this pen has written in probably 30 to 50 years.

 

 

Next, I decided to write a letter. I saw that there was some ink on the section and in the cap, so, I wiped it down with a tissue, and wrote a letter; and I had ink on my fingers. I was feeling rather emotional writing a letter using this old family pen. I wrote three letters total, with a break between each, and I realized that ink was leaking from between the body and the section. My first thought was that it was related to the ink that I used, since I have heard of that being a problem, so, I posted in another thread here. Based on that, I dropped an email to Syd who pretty much said "I think that I know what the problem is, if you send it back, I will take care of it..... or..... if you want to fix it your self you can......<directions here>"

 

I really like fixing things myself, and it sounded like something that I can easily fix. The bottom line is that if the body would easily twist off the section, then the shellac used to seal it did not take. Syd said that I could apply shellac to the threads, or, I could use a Silicone seal such as Elmers Stix or clear tube silicone caulk. When I first considered fixing this myself, I believe that I read that shellac is the standard to use and Syd specifically said that he uses Shellac, so, I will use shellac. As a wood worker, I mix my own shellac, so, I have some shellac flakes dissolving in alcohol now, and I will apply it to the threads tomorrow, let it sit for 24 hours, then give it a test. This is what it looks like taken apart.

 

The semi-circle cut out is original design. It gives a place for the gasket to go to one side when parked at bottom if plunge.

 

 

This is what the barrel looks like

 

 

Really enjoying the process, and, I am looking forward to having this pen working in a few days. This is faster than sending it back, and it is kind of fun. If I fail to seal it properly, I will send it back to Syd, but, it is a lot more fun to do it yourself.

 

 

[pitonyak]

After I mixed a small batch of blond shellac (in a very heavy cut for all of you wood workers out there that mix their own shellac), I applied it, put the pen back together, waited 24 hours, then I inked it us with a Waterman ink. I have been using the pen for a few days and I have not seen a single leak.

 

As a side note, when I fired up this pen to write with it I remember thinking "wow, that is very smooth". As in much smoother than I expected from a pen that had been sitting around unused for very many years. I asked Syd about that, and he mentioned that he always does a list of things to pens including smoothing. Well, it really shows. I was skeptical that I would like the Manifold nib, but this thing is very smooth (with suitable paper, I just used some paper that is not smooth with any of my fountain pens).

 

So, we have a total success story and I can go to my happy place.

 

Now I will try to find as much information about this particular model of pen that I can find. I did not realize how small it was; most of my other pens are larger....

[Kodiac136]

Nice job, I'm glad it all worked out in the end. What a beautiful pen.

[sidthecat]

I think it’s a first-gen in the Junior size: I have one in Kashmir. They’re a great writing experience. What’s also nice is that the celluloid looks to be in good shape, as the Morocco color seems inconsistently susceptible to decay.