Drippy Musings
19 Notes from the Work Bench posts. How the restorations are done: re-saccing a lever filler, restoring a Parker Vacumatic, a Sheaffer TouchDown, a Conklin Crescent, polishing celluloid by wet sanding, and the snorkels that fought back. The bench posts new collectors are sent to first.
A friend and reader of “Drippy Musings” named Harv S. from Palatine, IL, reached out to me this past May to thank me for last November’s piece about making your own J-springs (pressure bars) at home. Not only did he find the article helpful, he shared with me his own modification to duplicate the action…
The Esterbrook pen company made myriad nib sizes and styles to customize each of the pens they made to the needs of their users. Best of all, they did it with an easy twist out nib assembly anybody could manipulate. Although every fountain pen manufacturer for the past 100 years has made specialized nibs for…
See how the needle nose pliers have started making a box in the end of the brass flashing as I restored this Sheaffer 5-30. When I first learned the art of fountain pen restoration, there weren’t as many readily available modern replacement “J” pressure bars to fix most standard lever-filling vintage pens. You could try…
A Waterman’s #15 eyedropper soaks in water to help loosen the old ink sealing its threads. Old hard rubber pens, especially eyedroppers, can be a difficult repair because the pens are so old and frail. It is very easy to overtorque them and crack or crush them. The problem, especially in eyedroppers, is that old…
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. For roughly 10 years, I have struggled to find a way to fix the beautiful and brilliant Sheaffer Snorkel. Years ago I saw a poll that asked pen collectors what they…
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. Periodically flushing your pen with water often helps eliminate leaks as well as helping…
If you find that your favorite fountain pen won’t write any more or the nib is starting to skip and have trouble writing, it is quite possible your nib and inkfeed are clogging with old dried ink. Soaking a fountain pen is often one of the fastest ways to help it write better. Just stick…
