Hi Chrissy,
I have a couple of thoughts. First, a picture is worth a thousand words:
"A" is a lockdown unit
"B" is a speedline unit
"C" is a plain old vacumatic unit
The lockdown kind is locked down (surprisingly enough) in place, and is housed in a very short blind cap. The other two use the same, slightly longer, blind caps. The best thing to look for in identifying a lock-down are the two wide notches at the top of the side slits. Also, the brass top is knurled, and not smooth.
The same tool is used for all three, and they all are removed in the same way (lefty-loosey, righty-tighty). They should at no time be glued, shellacked, or loc-tited in place (I found on this week that was...) The friction of the rubber diaphragm holds them in place just fine. One word of warning: "A" and "B" can fall apart if you aren't careful. So be careful.
As far as knocking out the nib and feed goes, don't do it. They are usually extremely tight, and it will be beyond most people to get them back into place. And they usually clean up quite well without disassembly, using a brief soak bath of 5% household ammonia/95% water/a drop of dish soap.
Tradition says that Parker made Vacs with an extremely tight fit between section, nib, and feed. However, I have noticed in handling many of them that the fit is only very tight at the back end, where the threads are. This doesn't make sense, as there is no evidence that there were two different diameters of drill used to bore out the sections. So, my working theory is that because most celluloids of that era shrink a bit, the barrel probably has cinched the threaded portion of the section down tight permanently, and the front part of the section (where the fit is always looser) is the original diameter. (I'm sure there will be Opinions about my working theory...) This is all mostly academic, though, and the take-away point is that knocking out a Vacumatic nib is asking for trouble if you aren't very experienced in replacing them.
As an aside, you don't have to buy an expensive knock-out block when the time comes. You can often find vintage watchmakers' blocks (
like this one)for a reasonable price, and they do the trick quite well if you put them over a piece of wood with a 1/2" hole in it for additional height. If you can find a dealer in watchmakers' tools it will be cheaper than ebay.
Hope this helps!
Bookmarks