Personal Point Equipoise Type 4B Going To Need Some Love

[Addertooth]

I saw this pen on eBay, and could not resist. It looks to need a new sac, a full polish and re-plating to fix all of the brassing, especially on the tassies (rings at both ends of the pen). This will probably take a few months of working with it a few minutes intermittently, but I suspect it will be rather nice when complete.

 

If I have the identity wrong, feel free to straighten me out.

 

 

 

 

[FrozenPen]

Can you share your re-plating technique?

[Addertooth]

I posted a "plating 101" on the repairs forum. But I will give the cliff notes here...

Step one, hand polish the metal. The final finish well never be smoother and cleaner after the plating, than it was before the plating.

Put on latex or Nitrile gloves.

Clean the area you are about to plate to get all of the human oils off it. Whether it is hard rubber, celluloid, etc... will determine your allowed cleaning agent. Be sure to rinse with distilled water.

Mask and protect the non-metal parts of your pen barrel and cap. Some plating solutions can damage pen bodies and caps.

Based upon what you are plating, you may choose to do Brush plating, over dip or bath plating.

If Brass is the base metal, plate with Nickle first, then plate with gold... follow the instructions on your electroplating kit.

Polish the plated surface with a jewelers cloth... sometimes the plating looks undesirable when it first leaves the bath, a bit of polish reveals the beauty of the gold plating.

Remove the masking from the pen body and cap.

enjoy, admire... get a friend to pat you on the back.

[FrozenPen]

Got it. Thanks. And I found your 101 article:

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/348533-the-basics-of-electroplating-to-get-rid-of-brassing/

I didn't realize I could get professional (after a lot of practice, I'm sure) results at home.

More things to add to my todo list.

[Addertooth]

Virtually every craft known to man can be mastered at home. There are some people out there producing beautiful pens, out of their garage.