We are by no means done with the Decameron 2022 Project. However, I felt like getting dorsum to pens for a posting. If you lot've been mostly coming for the storytelling, who knows, peradventure you'll get a boot out of a deeper dive into old fountain pens.

Here is a Conklin Crescent 2NL fountain pen in demand of restoration.

Allow's look at ane of the oldest "self-filling" fountain pen filling systems. In the earliest days of fillable fountain pens, any pen with a bladder or ink sac was considered self-filling. Before that you lot had dips and eyedroppers. Conklin invented the crescent filler in 1898. For equally cumbersome as information technology looks, it was an insanely elementary design. The pen is hollow like an eyedropper, just at that place is a prophylactic ink sac affixed to the nipple of the section. A crescent is fitted to a flat steel bar, and when the safe band is rotated into the proper position, the crescent can be depressed, flattening the rubber ink sac within. The condom ink sac wants to re-inflate, which fills the sac with ink and pushes the crescent back out of the barrel. Way less messy than an eyedropper, it was an instant hit. Even the famed American author Mark Twain was hired to be an advertising spokesman for the pen.

Don't soak a Conklin hard condom pen for very long, as information technology will discolor the one-time hard rubber. Be sure to become the water over the end of the section and on to the barrel threads.

If you already read our "How Do I Re-Sac a Vintage Pen" article, this isn't very different. However, most of these pens are fabricated from black hard rubber more than 100 years ago, and they are very brittle. You want to make sure you are pretty comfortable with restoring plastic/celluloid pens start. These early Conklins are getting much older and harder to find, and they break much more than easily.

As with before, yous will demand some ink sacs, a pair of spark-plug/section pliers, a long dental selection, sac shellac or prophylactic cement, scissors that can cut through rubber ink sacs, a jar or cup, clean water, polish, a cloth rag, newspaper towels, a hairdryer, a razor blade and an ultra-sonic cleaner.

  1. Always start by soaking the neb in room temperature water over the threads of the barrel. Now the flim-flam with old hard rubber is that water discolors it chop-chop. A shiny black volition quickly turn to a chocolate brown haze. Don't soak information technology for long, simply plenty to outset to leech out one-time ink and perhaps lubricate the friction fit of the section into the barrel. I certainly wouldn't soak information technology for more than an hr. I'd probably soak it for much shorter a fourth dimension.
  2. Adjacent, remove the nib and section from the water and dry them off.
  3. Warm them upwardly only a little with the hair dryer or estrus gun. You only desire them to be warm to the touch. Heat volition also discolor the hard rubber. Plus, it can melt it.

  4. Scrape the dead ink sac out of the barrel. Be sure to be especially conscientious shaving the ink sac remains off the section nipple.

    Using your section pliers, gently grip and twist the section counter clockwise in an unscrewing motion. Sometimes it takes nerves of steel, patience and experience to discern the departure between the old ink sac inside the pen slap-up and the barrel of the pen smashing. If the barrel cracks, y'all've probable killed the pen and made information technology nothing more than a parts donor.

  5. Once you become the section to kickoff coming out, gentle, small wiggles tin can work information technology out without further stressing it from twisting. Very modest wiggles. You can easily break the barrel, especially when the section looks as if it is almost out of the butt. The more the section wiggles, the more it can act as a lever to crack the barrel. Some people choose the give the neb and section a sonic cleaning and others don't. The sonic action can destroy the part if at that place is a crack already starting in it. More than 30 seconds to a minute will commencement discoloring the safe. However, I've also found that pens this old often are filled with sediment-based inks that need something special like a sonic cleaning to remove the caked-in old ink.
  6. Subsequently the section is out, the residual is adequately easy. Scrape out all of the old ink sac from inside the butt and very gently shave off the remaining sac on the nipple. Your razor can hands cut the nipple or cave in a wall of the nipple. Go super slow and piece of cake with only small motions.

  7. Polishing old hard rubber is difficult. You can wear away a lot of safe very quickly, ruining imprints and chasing.

    With everything cleaned out and disassembled, that is when I like to polish the pen and parts. You cannot go as rough on century-sometime hard rubber equally you lot can plastics. I like to use MAAS metal polish on a soft terry cloth rag. Mostly I just requite a lite going over of the pen and cap with the polish and rag because both strip away the pinnacle layers of the rubber and can remove chasing and other imprints. Information technology also removes some of the chocolate hazing. Using a Q-tip, I besides polish the neb and crescent.

  8. Reinstall the crescent filler and lock it in place with the safety band.

  9. Dust the ink sac in talcum ability to help preserve information technology.

    Size and trim an ink sac that isn't too snug inside the barrel. If you don't have the crescent filler with the bar reinstalled start, y'all won't get the proper fit.

  10. Utilize orangish shellac to adhere the sac to the section nipple.
  11. Dust the sac in pure talcum pulverisation
  12. Very gently and slowly reinstall the sac and section into the barrel. This is some other high-run a risk motion that tin crack the barrel and so take information technology easy. You might even want to warm-upwardly the butt a bit.

Await 24 hours for the shellac to dry before filling the pen. And so you lot are prepare to write.

The finished pen should expect much cleaner and be ready to write.

For the last several years, we have heard about the splendor of the Baltimore Pen Show. This is what we've heard: It is well organized by our buddy Bert Oser. It is a premier place to buy and sell premier luxury pens. Information technology is well advertised to the public, and information technology is becoming the premier pen show in the state.

This year, we are going to experience it for ourselves to see if it is all true. We have spent the past calendar month restoring dozens of vintage pens and prepping never-before-seen-on-our-site luxury pens.

PLUS, for showgoers, we have dropped some of our prices to clear out some of our luxury inventory.

On a personal level, this is my first trip to Baltimore. I bewail the fact the Orioles aren't nonetheless playing, equally I'd dear to encounter a game at Camden Yards, but I hope to have some fun exploring the waterfront and old Fort McHenry, abode of "The Star-Spangled Banner," if there's time.

And, of class, the very best part volition be getting to hang out with old friends at a new location, while also making new friends at a show I've never seen earlier. Please be sure to come check it out and say, "Hi."

Not too long ago we were approached by a radio restoration expert named Jaime A. for aid on his special 1938 Detrola radio desk-bound prepare. I of the 2 Parker Vacumatic trumpets had cleaved and he needed a replacement. Nosotros just and so happened to be lucky enough to have a replacement trumpet set.

Photo shows a 1938 Parker Vacumatic desk set that features a clock, weather station and Detrola radio.

A fully restored Detrola radio makes up the centerpiece of this near perfect Parker 1938 desk set!

The gear up fits perfectly, but he wants to get one of the rarer chrome-based, ribbed trumpets to ameliorate match what originally came with the set up. He as well wants matching Parker Vacumatic desk-bound pens (or a matching pen and pencil for such a desk set.). If you lot can help him out, please reach out to us in the comments, and we will hook y'all guys up.

In the meantime, feast your eyes on this gear up. Jaime completely refinished the forest and stain, replaced the vacuum tubes in the radio and got the clock and conditions station portions working. That's a lighter in the center of the wooden base of operations!

If any body has a chrome-base and ribbed Parker Vacumatic trumpet they would like to sell, please let us know so we can help Jaime A. finish the final touches on his Detrol Radio and Parker Vacumatic desk set.

If whatever body has a chrome-base of operations and ribbed Parker Vacumatic trumpet they would like to sell, delight allow us know so we tin assistance Jaime A. finish the concluding touches on his Detrol Radio and Parker Vacumatic desk set.

Clearly, those Sheaffers are non the original pens for the set. They are just temporary identify holders until he tin can find the right set of Vacs.

Still, it is one of the rarest and almost handsome desk sets we've ever seen!

In one case in a rare while, I find that the department of a pen has lost its nipple to attach an ink sac. Sometimes, an quondam nipple is just too heavily damaged to patch together or seat a bladder. On the vintage Wahl fountain pen beneath from the 1920s, the nipple actually was still attached to the remnants of the onetime ink sac but cleanly detached from the section.

A piece of copper tubing has been fit into a vintage fountain pen section to serve as a nipple, to which you can attach a fresh ink sac.

A piece of copper tubing has been fit into a vintage fountain pen section to serve equally a nipple, to which you tin can adhere a fresh ink sac.

Equally Wahl sections from the 1920s aren't like shooting fish in a barrel replacement parts to find, I discover information technology is best to jury rig a solution. This means it is fourth dimension for a trip to McDonald'due south or the local hardware store.

I have used a variety of objects such as straws (from McDonald's) to metal pipes over the years. All it needs to exist is stiff plenty to hold a shellacked ink sac.

In this case, the hardware store had a small copper pipe that fit perfectly. Luckily for the pen, the section hole was deep enough to arrange the inkfeed at proper depth while allowing enough room for the  pipe to hold tight. If the feed rested above the pigsty, then I would have been out of luck.

To get started, utilize a rotary tool or hacksaw to cutting the pipe to the proper length. Employ said rotary tool or some heavy sand paper to polish the newly cut piece. This keeps it from not plumbing fixtures or from leaving sharp pieces to hurt the ink sac. Remember to keep the replacement nipple fairly brusque to avert information technology coming into contact with the inner pressure bar or spring. If information technology is as well long, information technology might trap the filling mechanism and not let y'all to fill the pen.

Coat the outside of the tube with some rubber cement, earlier setting information technology down in the department. This will seal the microscopic gap between the section and tube if y'all have a good fit. Plus, safety cement won't damage the plastic or hard safe. Nor will information technology stick so tightly that you cannot remove the new nipple for whatsoever reason.

Make sure no rubber cement is bottleneck the inkfeed channel, preventing yous from using the pen y'all take worked then hard to restore.

Later on everything is articulate, apply a lilliputian more rubber cement to braze the new ink sac. As long every bit y'all keep the pen away from heat, which yous should always do anyhow, the safe cement makes for a good seal for the bladder. Until orange shellac became more available to pen collectors in contempo years, safety cement had been the go-to sealant for putting on new ink sacs. As I wasn't sure how much I could trust the shellac betwixt metal and rubber surfaces, I went with the old standby that I knew I could trust.

Upon completing this. let everything prepare and dry for 24-hours. Test information technology with water or ink to make sure the seals are good. If the pen goes for some other 24-hours on its side without any leaks in the nipple, department or sac, you are skilful to go.

If the sac will make full simply cannot retain any fluid, and then there is an air leak y'all will need to observe and seal. It might be a well hidden hairline crack elsewhere in the section. It also could be a pigsty in the ink sac, which is unlikely. Generally it will be a gap somewhere between the section and the new nipple.

Once everything is tested and belongings, put the rest of the pen together as yous would any other repair task.

SPECIAL REMINDER: Exercise NOT force a piece of metallic tubing into the remaining pigsty. Metal tubes are stronger than old difficult rubber or plastic. It will cleft your remaining part if forced into place.. If that happens, it is time to find a new pen to work on. Be careful.

A friend and reader of "Drippy Musings" named Harv S. from Palatine, IL, reached out to me this by May to thank me for last Nov's piece most making your ain J-springs (pressure confined) at home.

Not only did he find the commodity helpful, he shared with me his ain modification to indistinguishable the activity of other pressure bars with an extra "leg" that helps to squeeze out a few extra drops of ink. Below are his photo and advice.

Reader Harv S. from Palatine showed us not only the J-spring pressure bar he made after reading our column, he gives his own advice for adding a second leg to the spring to make it perform like some other vintage J-springs.

Reader Harv S. from Palatine, IL,  showed united states non but the J-jump pressure bar he made later on reading our column, he gives his own advice for adding a second leg to the bound to make information technology perform like some other vintage J-springs.

"Here's a motion picture of the original, weakened, corroded jump and the 1 I made to supercede information technology.  I couldn't find brass flashing material and so I went with galvanized steel, which should be fairly resistant to rusting though not so much equally non-ferrous metal, agreed.  Although the motion picture doesn't testify it well, I folded over the fabric then that in that location's a secondary leg of the jump just like the original riveted i.  I take some diamond grit files that I de-burred the new jump with and information technology seems to piece of work well." — Harv S.

What I love about the fountain pen customs is how much we help each other out with this hobby and occassional obsession.

Cheers, Harv. I look frontwards to seeing more of your'due south and other reader's projects. Please let me know how I can help.

Two Snorkel filling units mock me from my work bench, as I try to sort out the final mysterious reasons they won't draw ink.

Two Snorkel filling units mock me from my work bench, equally I effort to sort out the final mysterious reasons they won't depict ink.

For roughly 10 years, I accept struggled to find a way to fix the beautiful and brilliant Sheaffer Snorkel. Years agone I saw a poll that asked pen collectors what they prefered: the Parker 51 or the Sheaffer Snorkel. I sided with the 25% that preferred the Snorkel.

Among other things, I am a clean freak. Snorkels are the most mess-free pens of the vintage era. The Parker 61 was/is mess-free, likewise, simply information technology is static and but aborbs ink. There is no Rube Goldberg intricacy.

The Snorkel satisfies my need for cleanliness and lodge also as my need for complicated and elaborate. When they piece of work, they are wonderful pens.

However, in my try to learn to restore these cute devils, I have littered the junkyard with the corpses of those steel filler units.

The reason there was a filibuster in updating this blog or the vintage pens in the past week was because I had made not ane but 2 restoration breakthroughs with the Snorkel fountain pen. One: I finally institute a way to remove the plug that holds the ink sac and seals the pneumatic casing without dissentious annihilation. Two: I plant a way to insert a new ink sac and that plug back into said casing.

I already know how to restore the touchdown filler O-rings and associates. I even know how to supervene upon the Snorkel tube'southward gasket between the pecker and the department.

All done. Correct! NO! Frustratingly, miserably no. I accept an air leak or blockage somewhere that won't allow the pen to fill. Whatever the problem is, I know information technology is a simple pocket-sized easy picayune tweak that is probable staring right at me. I just don't see it. That is all that is standing betwixt me and finishing virtually a dozen classic Sheaffer Snorkels that are just dying for the opportunity to piece of work again and be sold into loving homes that will employ them and cherish them.

If you know the secret inner psychology of what information technology takes to prepare a Snorkel, please let me know.

A Q-tip can be one of your best tools for helping to clean out a pen cap and keeping your fingers from getting inky. Even after rinsing this Sheaffer Lifetime cap, you can still see plenty of ink on the cotton.

A Q-tip tin be one of your best tools for helping to clean out a pen cap and keeping your fingers from getting inky. Fifty-fifty after rinsing this Sheaffer Lifetime cap, you can still see plenty of ink on the cotton.

Periodically flushing your pen with h2o often helps eliminate leaks too as helping to get your neb to first writing well, again, as we discussed in Pen Tip #1.

Nevertheless, afterwards you've gotten your pen cleaned and filled, you discover that y'all yet take a niggling or a lot of ink on your fingers the side by side morning afterwards you've decided to write with it.

The trouble oftentimes comes from old ink however within your cap. Even if you rinsed your cap when you flushed your pen, that is non usually nearly enough to get all the old ink out.

Inside the caps of most all vintage and modern pens is an inner cap. It usually seals the beak compartment of your cap when the section (writing grip) of your pen screws up and against information technology. This keeps your pen from drying out. However, as fountain pens are wont to occasionally leak, drip or run across some evaporation with estrus, ink gets into these inner caps. Worse, it gets between your inner cap and outer cap shell. Once enough accumulates, your fingers are bound to get inked.

Your best bet is to soak your cap overnight in room temperature water.

Are you sensing a theme? Room temperature h2o and soakings are our friend.

Make sure the whole cap is immersed, and brand sure that there is no air trapped inside the cap.

After a practiced, long soak, shake the cap empty over a sink. This gets messy in a hurry, so be careful.

Your next motion is to hold the cap under running room-temperature water from the tap while scrubbing its insides with a small plastic-brissle brush that is like a toothbrush but smaller. Some hardware stores, tobacco shops and gun shops sell ones that work pretty well. I oftentimes utilize a plastic-brissle brush I found in an air rifle cleaning kit. I don't take an air rifle to clean, but I spent the coin just to get that trivial brush used on the air rifle barrels. Whatever you practice, exercise non utilize a metal-wire brush used on regular hand guns and rifles. It will tear apart your cap.

Once the ink stops coming out of the cap in the sink, milk shake out the cap again. Apply a Q-tip to dry out the cap. Odds are good that there is still plenty of ink in the cap, and y'all will get through many Q-tips trying to make clean information technology out. You will have to keep getting Q-tips wet to keep getting the former gunk out. Pay special attention to the cap threads and the lip of the inner cap. Continue cleaning until yous are satisfied.

This process takes a while, merely if you only have i or ii pens you have to do this for, it is worth simply doing this to them once every several years. If you lot are a hardcore collector, we can discuss inner cap pullers and ultrasonic cleaners on another day.

Click here to run into the finished restoration of the Sheaffer Lifetime cap in the photo above.

Delight write in with your pen repair questions.

If you take been visiting our vintage pens pages lately, you might detect yourself asking, "Cocky, what's with all of the inexpensive Parkers and Esterbrooks?"

We sell more vintage Esterbrook pens than any other brand. These copper-colored Esterbrooks are my personal favorite of the options available, but our most popular colors are blue, grey and black.

We sell more vintage Esterbrook pens than any other brand. These copper-colored Esterbrooks are my personal favorite of the options bachelor, merely our almost popular colors are bluish, grey and black.

It is simple plenty my friends. Esterbrooks are the most popular pens nosotros sell at ThePenMarket.com. Nosotros generally can't keep them in stock. Equally for the inexpensive Parkers, we had and then many expensive pens on the vintage pens pages, we thought it would be dainty to offer a high-quality entry pen to the site for people but looking to get into writing with fountain pens.

But then there is one more reason.

ThePenMarket.com recently acquired an amazing collection of rarer, harder to find vintage pens dating back to the turn of the last century. We're talking hard condom and silver filigree fountain pens. Think Waterman 12, Waterman 52, Waterman 54 and a cute sterling silvery Waterman 452. We've got Parker Duofolds and Vacs. Sheaffer Lifetimes and Balances. Maybe some Mabie Todd. Perhaps some sterling and gold no names. You'll quiver with delight at the senior Conklin Enduras with remarkable color clarity.

We've got 120 classic vintage pens to catalog, restore and postal service for auction.

Are you salivating all the same? When they arrive online would you lot rather they exist the first things y'all see or have them buried under 2 dozen steel nib beauties. That's what we thought. In the coming weeks and months, e-fist fights might breakout over the first daily opportunity to buy these glorious fountain pen wonders of yesteryear.