Jeph
September 19th, 2013, 03:36 PM
Note: While getting the pictures together for this post I noticed that the nib is cracked. The crack runs from the breather hole back to the top of the K in PARKER. This not only makes me sad, but also means that I am seriously considering not working on this pen. However, thinking about working on it posed some questions that I am still interested in finding out the answer to. So, I am going to continue the post as if everything was fine. You never know when I will get motivated enough to try getting the nib repaired.
Last weekend I decided to get out of my comfort zone of cheap German piston fillers and pick up something old and interesting. As a result, today a box arrived today containing an old (prewar) black hard rubber Parker #20 Lucky Curve Jack-Knife Safety button filler. It has no clip and I see no evidence that there ever was one. The button is seized as expected. The color of the pen is actually surprisingly good, with the only significant discoloration under the blind cap. Most of the imprints are still very good. I filled them with talc because I am too lazy to set up a good picture.
The problem is that my standard procedure when I receive a pen is to perform an initial inspection, perform an initial cleaning, disassemble anything that comes apart readily, and then plunk everything into cool water to soak overnight. They keep soaking until everything is apart and clean. I did that with an old German piston filler but it turned out the black plastic was not all black plastic like I thought. The top of the cap and the piston knob were both made from hard rubber. So the next day when I came home from work and took everything out of the water and wiped them down, they were both a sick brown. I wiped the piston knob down with olive oil and the results were very encouraging. So I soaked the piston knob submerged in olive oil overnight, then took it out, wiped it off with a dry cloth, wrapped it in a paper towel and let it dry in the dark. The end result is better than it was originally, but not as good as it looked after the initial wipe with the olive oil. Now the piston knob is a dark olive green tinted brown instead of the dark tan. Pictures of those 3 stages follow.
After water soak -> freshly wiped with olive oil -> 24 hour soak in olive oil plus 24 hour dry in the dark
548854895490
So my first question is, how do I clean this pen without destroying it? I could manage to dress the outside dry, but that does not help me get it apart. The information in Da Book was less than inspiring. I assume that the nib and feed are friction fit, but I suspect that there is quite a bit of very old dried ink in there. Then we come to removing the section. I have not found any pictures or discussions of this or a similar pen disassembled. So I have a potentially very nice pen with no reasonable guidance and many, many ways of doing horrible things to it. How should I go about disassembling it? Pictures follow if for nothing else to show what it looked like before I screwed it up.
5491549254935494549554965497
Last weekend I decided to get out of my comfort zone of cheap German piston fillers and pick up something old and interesting. As a result, today a box arrived today containing an old (prewar) black hard rubber Parker #20 Lucky Curve Jack-Knife Safety button filler. It has no clip and I see no evidence that there ever was one. The button is seized as expected. The color of the pen is actually surprisingly good, with the only significant discoloration under the blind cap. Most of the imprints are still very good. I filled them with talc because I am too lazy to set up a good picture.
The problem is that my standard procedure when I receive a pen is to perform an initial inspection, perform an initial cleaning, disassemble anything that comes apart readily, and then plunk everything into cool water to soak overnight. They keep soaking until everything is apart and clean. I did that with an old German piston filler but it turned out the black plastic was not all black plastic like I thought. The top of the cap and the piston knob were both made from hard rubber. So the next day when I came home from work and took everything out of the water and wiped them down, they were both a sick brown. I wiped the piston knob down with olive oil and the results were very encouraging. So I soaked the piston knob submerged in olive oil overnight, then took it out, wiped it off with a dry cloth, wrapped it in a paper towel and let it dry in the dark. The end result is better than it was originally, but not as good as it looked after the initial wipe with the olive oil. Now the piston knob is a dark olive green tinted brown instead of the dark tan. Pictures of those 3 stages follow.
After water soak -> freshly wiped with olive oil -> 24 hour soak in olive oil plus 24 hour dry in the dark
548854895490
So my first question is, how do I clean this pen without destroying it? I could manage to dress the outside dry, but that does not help me get it apart. The information in Da Book was less than inspiring. I assume that the nib and feed are friction fit, but I suspect that there is quite a bit of very old dried ink in there. Then we come to removing the section. I have not found any pictures or discussions of this or a similar pen disassembled. So I have a potentially very nice pen with no reasonable guidance and many, many ways of doing horrible things to it. How should I go about disassembling it? Pictures follow if for nothing else to show what it looked like before I screwed it up.
5491549254935494549554965497