Hard Rubber Crack Repair

[Nestorvass]

I recently purchased a Parker Duofold Jr from a seller at the flea market. The pen was in good condition. However I did notice that the hard rubber cap had a few thin cracks all over its lip. Is there a way to repair them by chemically welding them or are then any other methods that will give a solution to my problem? Note that the previous owner thought it would be a good idea to super glue the crack which of course didn't work due to the oxidization of the hard rubber. I placed some photos below so you can see the cracks.

Edited January 19, 2019 by Nestorvass

[JonSzanto]

The short answer is no.

[Nestorvass]

The short answer is no.

What about the long?

[JonSzanto]

What about the long?

 

I'm a bit pressed for time or I'd do the heavy lifting. It is a common subject when speaking about true vintage pens (going back on the eariy part of the last century). Simply doing searches here on FPN would return many threads discussing this; internet searches would fill out the picture either further. The topic has been covered many times just here on FPN, and the mods and members of the repair forum have offered many thoughts.

 

The issue is that the original material - hard rubber - does not respond to solvent welding and other tactics commonly used in repairing celluloid, acrylic and other pen materials. On top of that is both the commonality of the lip cracks (a thin part of the pen) along with the fact that it would be cosmetic at best, and you could never post the cap again (which is where the caps usually spring from).

 

I'd urge you to spend a little time doing searches on "repairing hard rubber pens" or something similar. I'm not saying that someone might not come up with something, newer bonding agents my pop up that work, but in general, the consensus has been that this is one of the areas of pen manufacture and history that is hard to restore. The good part is that the pen in question can be somewhat commonly found and a replacement cap won't be particularly hard to source (pen shows, vendors (I'd try Five Star Pens to start), eBay).

 

Hope that's long enough.

[Ron Z]

This is a question that comes up rather frequently, and Jon's answer is correct. I had a rather long and detailed answer to this a couple of months ago. If you take some time reading through this thread, and post #10 in particular, you may find your question to be answered in sufficient detail.

[Nestorvass]

I thank the both of you for your answers . To be honest I was almost certain that there isn't a way to repair this. The good thing is that due to the ring thats on the cap I can post my pen without making the crack any worse, so repairing this only had to do with cosmetic reasons. I will definitively read your post Mr. Zorn and thank you for informing me about it. I was thinking about buying a new cap. However not from a pen show since we don't do any pen shows or anything pen related in Greece (unfortunately). Most likely from ebay.