The Parker disaster - finding a solution.

[Icietla]

Today I disassembled my Parker Lady Duofold to install a new ink sac. I carefully removed the rubber sac and found out that the pen, which I had bought in "perfect condition", was far from perfect. The part of the section which holds the opening of the sac was half gone, so that it can`t hold a new sac properly without leaking. On the other hand, the threads on the grip section are shrunk so that you can just slip the threaded part into the barrel. :(
So now that I had a useless Parker Lady Duofold, what was to do?
I looked at my also broken Pelikan M150 with the Iridium-less nib and found out that it has almost the same size and shape of the Parker nib. I decided to disassemble the Pelikan`s nib section without having a knockout block at hand. It took about half an hour. Then the thing was apart and I could install the Parker nib. I did and found out that there was some space between the nib and the ink feed. So I cut off a piece from the fibre writing tip of a cheap highlighter pen and used it to close the gap. Then inked the pen and - it finally works!
It is a medium wet to wet writer, just like it was with the original spearhead feed of the Duofold.
I have put the rest of my Parker Lady Duofold in a box and hope to find a proper grip section for it so that I can restore it one day. Until then, the M150 with the nice, smooth Parker nib is my daily writer.

[mhosea]

That's one way to go. OTOH, feeds can be adjusted to nibs (especially hard rubber feeds, but even most plastic feeds), sac nipples can be replaced, and section threads aren't that big of a problem with a lever filler, as most have slip-fit sections, anyway.