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Hi Everyone Being new in the world of fountain pens and restoration of them, I am not sure how to approach polishing. I know some are in favor of polishing others are not. If you decided to polish what products are best for which material? · Harden rubber · Casein · Bakelite · Celluloid · Thermoplastics · Metal parts · … Assuming that you always start with a less critical area to see how things turn out in the specific case. What products do you recommend for the different materials? I am not looking for long detailed answers. More something simple and short like below. · Harden rubber: XXX, YYY and ZZZ · Casein: XXX and never ZZZ · Bakelite: BBB and YYY · Celluloid: No idea · Thermoplastics: XXX · Metal parts: AAA Let me know if a post about this already exists. I am looking forward to read your answers. Thanks.

Hello all, This has likely been asked before, and I apologise if it has. I have a favourite no name pen with a fine nib that tends to be rough. It is a F nib and has tipping material. I would like to take the nib down to an Extra Fine but am not sure how to deal with the tip material. Should I remove it or work at leaving it where it is and incorporate it into the reduction? Thank you for any input you may have.

In trying to hone my skills at grinding, polishing and tuning nibs I am looking for a source of ‘bulk’ #5 and #6 steel nibs on which to practice. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks.

Hi everyone I love celluloid pens, and use celluloid Stipula fountain pens as daily drivers. However, some have become less shiny/reflecting but more dull over time. Is there a simple and cheap trick (similar to shining silver trims again with a toothbrush and a small bit of toothpaste) to "polish" the celluloid? The celluloid pens I have are quite expensive and rare, so I wouldn't want to harm the celluloid in any way! Thanks for all advice and experiences!! Greetings from Belgium, Ruben

So my grandad back in India got me a few vintages out of which some are celluloid and others, some sort of plastic. I haven't had the chance of seeing them due to the COVID pandemic. Now many of them are in a poor state. The main reason he got them was for me to try restoration. They aren't expensive or anything, but I wouldn't want to destroy any of them so I thought of asking here some tips to polish them. I have a buffing machine back home but I'm not willing to let these vintages come close to it at all (would you recommend it, anyway?), so hand polishing is the way to go for me. I have sandpaper up to 7000 grit and after successively wet sanding up to that, I get a nice finish but not all that polished. Would stuff like Autosol, Meguiar's PlastX or a jeweler's cloth work to gloss these pens without any short or long term effects? These are the only things I have access to in the UAE and buying anything from the west would be cumbersome due to expensive shipping rates 😔 I'll be grateful for any help. (I should also add that I can polish ebonite to a mirror like gloss on the buffing wheel so I do know how to operate that thing. Just wondering if it would mess up any of the vintage stuff)

I was smoothing a few nibs today, some from modern fountain pens and some from vintage. I did notice that the final result favored the modern fountain pens and not the vintage ones, despite the fact that the same polishing method was used. Specifically I got much more buttery effect out of a plain parker IM fountain pen with a steel nib, compared to a parker 51 with a gold nib. This got me thinking whether this had to do with the tipping of the nibs and the slit cut. I imagine that modern pens take advantage of new technology which has provided better methods to apply tipping at the nib and to cut open slits for the ink to flow. Is this something that may explain the difference between the smoothness of the nibs? Meaning the parker 51 having a more "rough" (with air pockets) tipping or inner tines, due to inferior manufacturing process, compared to the one we use today.

I accidentally came across a nice pen which I want to have for quite sometime. A Parker 45: Gold Cap, 14K Fine nib, made in USA, black Barrel. The one I got is quite old, but writes very well. As you can see above, there are lots of mini (not micro) scratchings and rust maybe around the pen, turn up I bought it as the price is nice and I really love the shape of the 45. After writing some days, today I return her beauty. I need a princess, not a muddy frog... What I need? [1] Tamiya Compound, Course, Fine, and Finish. [2] Cape Cod polish cloth. (it is much better than the Autosol paste) [3] Some rayon eyeglasses cloth, or you can get some fine micro fibre cloth, or even just some cloth. [4] glove [5] cotton buds & paper towels. What to do? [1] Wear the glove. And wash the pen under tab, some mild detergent may help but I just use water this time, beware of flushing small parts away.... [2] dry the parts with paper towel [3] polishing the barrel [3.1] squeeze some Coarse Compound on the barrel or on the cloth and polish with a fine cloth, for a pen barrel, say 5 mins is good enough. [3.2] wash off under tap and slightly wipe dry with paper towel [3.3] repeat 3.1 & 3.2 [3.4] use another new cloth, repeat as Coarse, but using Fine and then Finish (so total you wash six times. for the section area, I use Fine compound for one more time as the scratches from the metal cap are severe. [4] polishing the metal parts [4.1] cut a little piece of Cape Cod is fine for a pen, in my case, about 3 x 3 cm is good. [4.2] when the metal part starts, everything will gone black, many oxidised powder will come out. Just continue to polish like 5 mins, until you feel fine. And during polishing the metal, you could wipe off the blackenings by a paper towel. [4.3] when it is done, wash your hand. then using the soft fine cloth to wipe off the blackenings from the metal surface. ATTENTION: if it is gold plated, I suggest a mild polishing procedures to be followed, otherwise if the plating is too thin, the plating could have a possibility to be wiped off by the polishing ingredient. For my case, although the cap is gold filled, I just have it polished slightly, so that there are still some micro scratches left behind. But anyway, it works really good already. And don't use too much force on polishing to avoid breaking the pen, man, the pen is old already. Quick, but not hard. upper left, use cotton bud to polish and dry the small parts. upper right, the compound paste bottom left, the size of the Cape Cod cloth bottom right, half way done, after Coarse and Fine Compound polishing. What I get? TADA! I use a brand new Sailor Professional Gear for comparison.

I purchased a Parker Duofold from the 1980s and didn't notice that the cap band was scuffed on half of it. I didn't inspect it close enough.... So.. I want to see if polishing it would be an option or if this is just a this layer of brass or other material that if polished would wear off and make it worse. Anyone know what kind of material the cap bands are? I have simichrome polish I can use but trying to decide if I should go that route. Any experienced advice is appreciated. Pic attached.

I have a nib I want to polish. It's not rough or scratchy, I would just like to polish it very slightly to take a tiny bit of the 'tooth' out of it. Should I be using lapping film rather than micro-mesh, and what grades should I be looking at? Thanks

I am rather fond of my ebonite pens and some are highly polished and some a very matt. I like the polished ones the most (I know some of you will be pursing your lips right now and uttering, 'heathen!'). Some of the matt ones I would like to keep matt, some I would like to polish to a high shine if possible. Some of the ones that are matt were once shiny and I would like to get them back to their original state - again, if possible. The issue I have is that I have no idea what to polish them with. I would love to hear some ideas of what works and perhaps what to avoid and if anyone had before and after pictures that would be excellent, although I know that's asking a lot.

Hello, I have a friend who has been using a Cross Century II for about 9 years. There's a bunch of micro-scratchnig all along the pen from years of use and bouncing around in a pencil case. What is a good material(s) to use for polishing out most of those tiny scratches? I'd use regular metal polish, but I'm concerned about it taking the finish off. It's the all chrome Century II. Thanks

Thanks to my fellow FPNers (read: enablers), I've purchased a Waterman Ideal 52 12/V Red Ripple. From the seller's photos, it looks like a touch of polishing may be in order. What's better to use: Wenol (red label), Simichrome (which I already have, for the Esties), or something entirely different? Also, I assume a Sunshine cloth will be fine for the gold plated furniture, right...? And (since this is rolling along), what about 100% pure carnauba wax? Does that come into play? Please advise, Oh Wise Ones.

Knox nibs from xfountainpens.com come in very handy when you want to customize a relatively cheap pen like a Jinhao or an Ahab to your liking. I have a predilection for the #6 K35 nibs in Extra Fine. There's just one problem: They only come in (faux?) yellow gold plate and in a particularly aggressive shade of gold to booth. When putting them in pens that already sport gold trim, these gold-toned nibs sort of match. When attached to chrome-trimmed pens, however, the mismatch is extreme and, to my eyes, painful. When customizing chrome-trimmed pens, I typically bite the bullet and order the more expensive #6 JoWo nibs from Goulet. I like the JoWo nibs a lot, but at $15 a pop, I prefer to reserve them for the occasional Ahab or Indian ED pens. For the cheaper Chinese pens, I stick with Know nibs. So I'm jazzed that I've figured out an easy, gentle way to take the thin yellow plating off these nibs and return them to their stainless steel color. All it takes, it turns out, is some rubbing with a moistened jewelry polishing cloth normally used to take the tarnish off silver jewelry. Below is an image of the result. I hope this information is useful to others in the FPN community.

Hey Pelikan Forum, I picked up my first Pelikan a month or so ago, a gorgeous Souveran M805 in black. I absolutely love it, and It's become my daily writer for my notes in college. Despite keeping it in a pen case while it's not in use, it's picked up some very small and fine scratches. They're actually very difficult to see if the lighting isn't right or if you don't look closely. Although I know and accept that this is a natural occurrence in a daily use pen, I'm afraid that I've always been a perfectionist, and like to keep my belongings in the best possible condition. Does anyone here polish their pens to keep them smooth, shiny, and clean? I'd love to hear the methods you take to achieve this. Also, feel free to share any information regarding caring for Pelikans, as I'd like to take advantage of the wealth of knowledge that's now available to me. My current TLC routine is wiping the pen down at the end of the day with a soft cloth, and flushing it with distilled water around once a month. Thanks so much for your help!

If you use only vintage, high-quality fountain pen, please move on. This subject matter is strictly for people like me who mess around with "genuine, non-imitation" plastic fountain pens. Plastic pens can receive minor or major scratches. So can metal pens, but many metals can be polished to remove most scratches. My Waterman Phileas began life as an inexpensive student pen. No lacquer finish. No solid-gold nib (at least that I've seen). No wood, glass, or ivory inlay. It was and still is a molded plastic pen cast in one solid color (and others bear a faux-marble appearance). I shouldn't be finicky about this, but it bothers me when my favorite pen suffers cosmetic scratches or gets that hazy patina resulting from countless small scratches. I have tried buffing it back to a glossy shine using toothpaste. (Hey don't laugh—toothpaste is a very gentle polishing compound that works on certain plastics without creating new scratches.) But considerable work was required to produce any visible improvement. I have one "freebie" Phileas that shows sings of a previous owner's butchery. They must have attempted to use a coarse grit sandpaper because the "polishing" left more scratches than it could possibly have removed. I would post photos but I seem to have used up my limit of download space. Has anyone had any luck polishing or buffing scratches out of their Phileas? If so, please share. If you think it is absurd to put this much effort into a low-end plastic pen, please refer back to the first paragraph. —www.twelvedrawings.com