How to fill a Parker Vacumatic?

[southpaw52]

Recently purchased a Vacumatic. I am not sure how to fill it, I watched several videos but it has not helped the issue. Any secrets to filling a Vacumatic?

[jar]

First, start with water not ink.

Put the full nib, feed and first part of the section under water, press and release the plunger, count slowly to ten, repeat the process. I usually do three iterations.

Look to see what the water level is in the pen.

If it is not nearly full, send the pen to someone who really knows how to restore them.

[kirchh]

Only a one-second pause is needed after each plunger stroke, and generally seven to twelve strokes are needed to fill a Vacumatic.
--Daniel

[stub]

There is no point in me participating on this thread since I can not insure that answers I provide will meet the exacting standards of the entire membership of the forum. This answer might have misused terminology or even a spelling or grammar mistake so I am deleting my posts so so that none will be harmed.

I sincerely apologize for every single post I have made that has not been 100% accurate and precise in content, grammar, and spelling.

I will try to delete as much content as I can to insure the purity of the information presented on this board.

[Chrissy]

I've found this thread to be quite educational. Thank you all.

jar, when you say: "Look to see what the water level is in the pen" how can you see that?

Edited: Oh right. I assume when you are talking about a Parker Vacumatic you mean a different version to my Parker 51 Vacumatic. I assume you can still see through some Parker Vacumatic barrels

[stub]

There is no point in me participating on this thread since I can not insure that answers I provide will meet the exacting standards of the entire membership of the forum. This answer might have misused terminology or even a spelling or grammar mistake so I am deleting my posts so so that none will be harmed.

I sincerely apologize for every single post I have made that has not been 100% accurate and precise in content, grammar, and spelling.

I will try to delete as much content as I can to insure the purity of the information on this board.

[jar]

I've found this thread to be quite educational. Thank you all.

jar, when you say: "Look to see what the water level is in the pen" how can you see that?

Edited: Oh right. I assume when you are talking about a Parker Vacumatic you mean a different version to my Parker 51 Vacumatic. I assume you can still see through some Parker Vacumatic barrels

Yes, when you say you have a Parker Vacumatic almost no one will think "51". The Parker Vacumatic had what (IIRC) they called a "Television body" which had layers of clear celluloid so you could see the ink level.

[kirchh]

I have had a Vac demonstrator. THAT WAS EDUCATIONAL.

1. vacs exchange air for ink in very very small amounts. 10-15 pumps are actually necessary to fill to capacity.

2. pump wait pump wait pump wait ... etc.

3. When you are convinced there is no more ink going in to the pen, pump one last time and hold the punger down, pull the pen out of the ink & then let go.

Vacs flood. Your pen will 100% be flooded when full. Depressing the pump will expel some ink and when you pull the pen out of the ink bottle and let go it will take in some air clearing most, though not all, of the excess ink sitting in the collector.

Vacs are great. Enjoy.

They are a little hard to clean so choose your ink wisely, vacumatics are not like Parker 45s, you don't want to be changing and cleaning with each fill.

Note that Parker Vacumatics do not have collector, a feature of the Parker "51".

--Daniel

[stub]

Note that Parker Vacumatics do not have collector, a feature of the Parker "51".

--Daniel

The vac demonstrator I had was a 51, I just used the vac I happen to have on hand to demonstrate and unlike you I am human and when speaking or typing casually on a CHAT board will once in a while misspell a word or mistakenly use incorrect terminology. Generally people are pretty gracious. Generally.

But yeah. point taken. Forgot you were on this board too.

[Flounder]

In re pump, pause for the ink to be drawn up and out of the breather tube, repeat etc, the demo vid for the Edison Menlo is quite handy.



Hmm looks like the board software doesn't support start times - skip to 9 minutes 53 seconds.

[kirchh]

Note that Parker Vacumatics do not have collector, a feature of the Parker "51".

--Daniel

The vac demonstrator I had was a 51, I just used the vac I happen to have on hand to demonstrate and unlike you I am human and when speaking or typing casually on a CHAT board will once in a while misspell a word or mistakenly use incorrect terminology. Generally people are pretty gracious. Generally.

But yeah. point taken. Forgot you were on this board too.

I was clarifying for the benefit of the original poster and for other readers who might otherwise think from your post that Parker Vacumatics had collectors and that they required the collector-clearing procedure you described.

--Daniel

[stub]

WE'RE ALL CLEAR NOW.

[Flounder]

Good, for a minute I though that offense was being taken where none was offered.

[Flounder]

Good, for a minute I though that offense was being taken where none was offered.

Its THOUGHT, dingus!

[Flounder]

Good, for a minute I though that offense was being taken where none was offered.

Its THOUGHT, dingus!

It's IT'S, you blithering bandersnatch!

[Hawk]

Flounder,
I'm a broken down engineer from the States and I understood the first version of your comment.

[scrivelry]

I find it useful to blame these things on spell/grammar check and fingers too big for the screen. ;-)

[southpaw52]

Thank you everyone for your help. The original seller has agreed to recheck the pen for me.

[southpaw52]

The problem was not with how I was filling it, the problem was that it was not properly feeding ink to the nib. I returned the pen to the seller, he refunded my money. My first Vacumatic was a disappoint.