What is on your bench?

[IThinkIHaveAProblem]

discovered that a"51" Special (Octanium nib) that I was working on was missing the tipping on one tine... (that explains why it wouldn't write...)

realized I had a "21" super that was a lost cause...

little heat, some pliers... cause of course someone shellacked the hood on to the connector...

and now the Special has this glorious blob of tipping, and writes beautifully smoothly

 

 

[LoveBigPensAndCannotLie]

1 hour ago, IThinkIHaveAProblem said:

well, I won't lie, that nib is beyond my current "skill" level... (I use the word lightly and in quotes...) but I absolutely believe that it IS saveable! somehow I feel like Nylon jawed pliers would be useful...

hopefully @Ron Z will chime in here  

 

I'm glad you managed to find a replacement unit to restore with in the meantime.

 

WRT to which triumph? start here: https://www.penhero.com/PenGallery/Sheaffer/SheafferSnorkelTriumph.htm @PenHero has an excellent article about it

 

 

Oh for some reason I thought the caps were different lengths. It'd the one with the band on the pen body.

[VacNut]

The 21 is a daily workhorse. Almost like the battery bunny. There won’t be a shortage of parts for another 50 years.

[Ron Z]

re. the bent nib.  Yes, that can be straightened, and we generally use the nylon or plastic pliers to prevent marring the nib.  Sometimes though you have to use steel pliers.  Make sure that all of the corners and edges are well rounded and polished.  Look at a nib carefully and decide where to bend, and in what order.  Here I might bend the forward part down first, then bend up farther back.  But it's your nib....

[LoveBigPensAndCannotLie]

Eh probably not even going to attempt it. I don't use pliers anymore after I've snapped the tipping off two nibs with the Pentooling ones. I really don't like those, I don't think they do the job they're supposed to. The tips are too floppy and don't close all the way which means you have to use more force to hold onto the tines, and if your positioning is slightly off... pop goes the tipping.

[LedZepGirl]

Complete and utter chaos, but much more relaxing than my day job.  All of these are awaiting various parts.

[IThinkIHaveAProblem]

2 hours ago, LedZepGirl said:

Complete and utter chaos, but much more relaxing than my day job.  All of these are awaiting various parts.

 

oh,,, that's nice... I see a two Vacs there... Maybe three?...

very nice...

 

I just put a sac in a TM Touchdown. it should get a barrel seal too, but I dont have one and a quick pressure test showed that it DOES have pressure... so ill add the barrel seal to the "still needs" list...

[VacNut]

15 hours ago, LedZepGirl said:

Complete and utter chaos, but much more relaxing than my day job.  All of these are awaiting various parts.

The difficulty isn’t just sourcing the parts, but finding parts that are dimensionally correct. It looks like you have most of the outer parts, so congratulations.

As a minor item, sometimes celluloid parts sag or deform. You may consider keeping the pens as “whole” as possible until you can get to them. It doesn’t happen very often, but it is disheartening when a cap or barrel sags and the section or barrel no longer fits. It also keeps all the parts in one place.

Good luck on the pens.

There are never too many Vacumatics…Go Vintage!!!

[LedZepGirl]

12 hours ago, IThinkIHaveAProblem said:

oh,,, that's nice... I see a two Vacs there... Maybe three?...

very nice...

 

I just put a sac in a TM Touchdown. it should get a barrel seal too, but I dont have one and a quick pressure test showed that it DOES have pressure... so ill add the barrel seal to the "still needs" list...

 Two Vacs- an oversize that writes great but is missing the cap and barrel jewels and a Debutante- and a DuoVac, which I'm redoing for the second time- I ran out of small diaphragms.  The others are a Wahl Oxford twist filler, a Parker Parkette and just the barrel of a Sheaffer fineline- the cap nib/section are in the pen repair toolbox.  

[IThinkIHaveAProblem]

24 minutes ago, LedZepGirl said:

 Two Vacs- an oversize that writes great but is missing the cap and barrel jewels and a Debutante- and a DuoVac, which I'm redoing for the second time- I ran out of small diaphragms.  The others are a Wahl Oxford twist filler, a Parker Parkette and just the barrel of a Sheaffer fineline- the cap nib/section are in the pen repair toolbox.  

Very cool

[LedZepGirl]

42 minutes ago, VacNut said:

The difficulty isn’t just sourcing the parts, but finding parts that are dimensionally correct. It looks like you have most of the outer parts, so congratulations.

As a minor item, sometimes celluloid parts sag or deform. You may consider keeping the pens as “whole” as possible until you can get to them. It doesn’t happen very often, but it is disheartening when a cap or barrel sags and the section or barrel no longer fits. It also keeps all the parts in one place.

Good luck on the pens.

There are never too many Vacumatics…Go Vintage!!!

The parts needed are pretty standard off the shelf things - sacs, diaphragms, and a breather tube.  I'm all too familiar with the celluloid shrink, that Wahl Oxford was a bit of a challenge to disassemble as it has shrunk over the years.  If you are familiar with those, you know there's a washer glued in the middle of the barrel that holds the sac by way of a nut/threaded nipple combo- the barrel is slightly distorted around that washer.  It's not noticeable visually, but you can feel it.

 

Anyway, I'm hoping to have all of these back together in about a week.

[VacNut]

I feel your pain. I stopped collecting the Wahl celluloid pens due to the celluloid. Just breaks my heart seeing the celluloid dissolve 

[LoveBigPensAndCannotLie]

Anyone have any tips for cleaning up grody old hard rubber pens? I've been getting a lot of them recently and I usually use Simichrome but I'm thinking of stopping because it really does not do much to clean off the oxidation and old dust.

 

That being said, I don't want to just keep the outside dirty either so... not sure what the best thing is. Water is a no-no obviously.

[Ron Z]

Mark Hoover sells some goop that evidently works well to remove the oxidation to bring back the color of hard rubber pens.  Some people swear by it.  It's not something that I get into using.

[VacNut]

1 hour ago, Ron Z said:

Mark Hoover sells some goop that evidently works well to remove the oxidation to bring back the color of hard rubber pens.  Some people swear by it.  It's not something that I get into using.

Reblackening a pen is certainly controversial. A BHR Pen with a worn pattern that is completely black would certainly raise suspicions. If a completely black pen is important then feel free, but one should notify prospective buyer of the process. An unblackened pen carries a premium.

You can disregard the idea of moisturizing the pen with paraffin oil, IMHO.

[LoveBigPensAndCannotLie]

I'm not too fussed about reblackening it, my aim is just to lightly clean the pens. I got a nice new pen box and I don't want to put dirty pens in it, that's all. I do polish my pens a little bit when restoring them (usually with Micro-Gloss these days) but my goal is usually to get it to a point where it looks "well maintained" not necessarily "like new."

 

Unfortunately Micro-Gloss is not a good choice for hard rubber since it's water based. And besides that, it has a bunch of very fine particulate that gets stuck in imprints, chasing, etc. People complain about people overusing Simichrome and seeing remnants of that on "restored" pens but in my experience Simichrome is way easier to clean out of nooks and crannies than Micro Gloss.

[VacNut]

I apply simichrome onto my buffing rag, rather than the pen. A little goes a very long way, and allows me to apply less onto the pen. It also leaves residual compound onto the rag, so I can simply use the rag if I want a more gentle shine.

[es9]

On 4/4/2025 at 9:34 AM, Ron Z said:

re. the bent nib.  Yes, that can be straightened, and we generally use the nylon or plastic pliers to prevent marring the nib.  Sometimes though you have to use steel pliers.  Make sure that all of the corners and edges are well rounded and polished.  Look at a nib carefully and decide where to bend, and in what order.  Here I might bend the forward part down first, then bend up farther back.  But it's your nib....

Think the masking can be saved here? 
 

I had a similar nib once and gave up trying to create the correct upturn. Made both tines flat. Not ideal, but the pen writes well enough after tuning. 

 

[es9]

On 4/4/2025 at 9:59 AM, LoveBigPensAndCannotLie said:

Eh probably not even going to attempt it. I don't use pliers anymore after I've snapped the tipping off two nibs with the Pentooling ones. I really don't like those, I don't think they do the job they're supposed to. The tips are too floppy and don't close all the way which means you have to use more force to hold onto the tines, and if your positioning is slightly off... pop goes the tipping.

Which pliers? I agree the tiny ones are not great, but the thin ones are awesome for when you need to bend between the tines. 

 

My favorite pliers to date are Lindstrom round nose ones. They’re quite expensive, but are just so good. 

[es9]

3 hours ago, LoveBigPensAndCannotLie said:

People complain about people overusing Simichrome and seeing remnants of that on "restored" pens but in my experience Simichrome is way easier to clean out of nooks and crannies than Micro Gloss.

Ummmmm, really?!  You might be the first…