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Help with Kadett 55 (Kaweco-Fabrikat)


mizgeorge

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I just got this rather pretty pen and wonder if anyone has restored one? It's clearly a piston filler, but the knob just spins at the moment.  I'm happy to dismantle it, but it would be lovely to know what I should expect to find in there!

 

large.kadett1.jpg.d24c0024a7dc9b94f92ef593e106b2f8.jpg

 

The nib is obviously not that originally fitted (not least because the pen is designated EF and the nib is a nice flexible F. I'm just a bit curious about it - I've not come across a 'Rexor' before and wondered if anyone knows anything about this as well. 

 

large.kadett2.jpg.f0f26a6d6699619fbb81d5adfb33fe95.jpg


Enough questions I think. I'd be grateful for any help!

 

 

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That’s a Kadett in an unusual colour, congratulations! The Kadett was a school and student pen and I think it was fitted with a steel nib. So, your gold nib, though not original, might be an upgrade. I never heard of Rexor but I can imagine it was one of the countless German nib makers still around in the 50s or early 60s. But of course it could be a British replacement as well.

 

I haven’t restored a Kadett yet but quite a number of similar vintage Kawecos. If you can turn the piston knob without the piston moving at all, that would be a bad sign. Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures at hand to show you the inner life of a Kaweco piston filler but it’s fairly simple. The piston housing is screwed into the barrel with a standard thread. If you look carefully, the split between barrel and piston housing should be easy to see. Apply dry heat before trying to unscrew the piston housing. The piston rod with the seal is a celluloid rod moving inside the housing that keeps it from rotating. The piston nob is attached to a spiral that goes into the piston rod moving it up and down. I don’t want to speculate and you need to open the pen anyway, unless you want to send it off of course. So, let us know what you find inside.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Did you repair the pen already?

 

I have a Helios - which is also a Kaweco sub brand - in the same color and pattern, but haven't opened it yet. What I sometimes find in cheaper German pens is a piston unit where there is no mechanism to keep the piston head from spinning except for the friction between the cork and the barrel. It might be the same with this pen. In that case, when the cork has dried out, the piston head just spins inside the barrel, instead of moving up and down, when turning the piston knob.

 

But no matter what, you need to open it up first. As OMASsimo says, these are typically not hard to open, but you need to apply some dry heat.

 

About the Rexor nib: someone else is also trying to find info on this, without any luck though 

 Looking at these, especially the one on the left, they look a lot like the Matador nibs I have. These are German pens too, and often have a USA made nib. Maybe because just after WWII nibs were hard to get by in Germany (??)

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Thank you! I have almost finished the repair on this one - I just need to finish the new cork - the old one had so much ink dried into it that it was just a little bit small now. The rest is all done - it was a straightforward unscrew for the mechanism.

 

The nib is interesting - I also think it's a case of an imported nib having been used post WWII or possibly even as a replacement for an original steel nib. I have a feeling it's going to be a very pretty pen one it's finished, and the size is perfect for me.

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14 hours ago, Nethermark said:

Did you repair the pen already?

 

I have a Helios - which is also a Kaweco sub brand - in the same color and pattern, but haven't opened it yet. What I sometimes find in cheaper German pens is a piston unit where there is no mechanism to keep the piston head from spinning except for the friction between the cork and the barrel. It might be the same with this pen. In that case, when the cork has dried out, the piston head just spins inside the barrel, instead of moving up and down, when turning the piston knob.

 

But no matter what, you need to open it up first. As OMASsimo says, these are typically not hard to open, but you need to apply some dry heat.

 

About the Rexor nib: someone else is also trying to find info on this, without any luck though 

 Looking at these, especially the one on the left, they look a lot like the Matador nibs I have. These are German pens too, and often have a USA made nib. Maybe because just after WWII nibs were hard to get by in Germany (??)

 

Two of the Rexor nibs clearly show an USA imprint so I think that’s settled. Unless there is an explicit “USA” imprint, German and US nibs can look very similar. Marking a nib “Germany” used to be rather uncommon those days but both used the “585/14 C” standard.

As far as I remember, Matador used nibs from N.Y. (Morton? Morrison???)  in the very beginning (maybe till late 20s?) and then switched to custom made Degussa nibs in the early 30s after Osmia sold its legendary nib factory to Degussa. I’m not aware that they used US nibs anymore after that. Matador had some of the best nibs ever in my opinion, just like Osmia. And Matador disappeared rather quickly after WWII. If you see post-war Matadors with US nibs, I’m inclined to think that they may have replacement nibs.

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11 hours ago, mizgeorge said:

Thank you! I have almost finished the repair on this one - I just need to finish the new cork - the old one had so much ink dried into it that it was just a little bit small now. The rest is all done - it was a straightforward unscrew for the mechanism.

 

The nib is interesting - I also think it's a case of an imported nib having been used post WWII or possibly even as a replacement for an original steel nib. I have a feeling it's going to be a very pretty pen one it's finished, and the size is perfect for me.

 

That sounds very promising! Did you find a mechanism similar to that of other Kawecos like described? I’m very curious and maybe you could post pictures.

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And open sesame.

 

large.IMG_20211010_190601.jpg.689718e5b4863ab56d4fc9e04fcbc5fc.jpg

 

The stopper for the cork is held in place by a small pin on the piston shaft, which pushed out easily. I just need to seal the new cork and should be able to put it all back together in a day or two. I'm looking forward to seeing how it writes now. 

 

When I pulled the nib and feed for cleaning (the pen had decades of something fairly nasty and very dark blue clogging everything in sight) the nib had no further designations on it - no USA marks. My only slight disappointment is the level of staining to the ink window, but I haven't tried anything serious on it yet, and might just give it a fill of a nice cleaning ink like Doyou before I try anything involving any effort!

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Thanks for the picture! Yes, the inner part of the mechanism looks very similar to the typical Kaweco design. I cannot tell if it has a blind cap but I would think so. What material is it made of, celluloid or some kind of acrylic? I looks like post-war to me (short cap finial) but I think that the Kadett from the 50s was usually injection molded black plastics. If it’s celluloid, then there is very little chance that cleaning would help anything against the dark ink window in my experience. Many celluloid ink windows went opaque by the typical ambering of clear celluloid aggravated by iron gall inks.

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I don't actually know what it's made of. It rather looks like celluloid, but there is no smell, and it feels more like plastic. Is there a definitive (and non-destructive) way to tell?

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