To Soak Or Not To Soak: That Is The Question!

[Deb]

I've never understood why people soak vintage pens. Water just isn't very good for hard rubber, celluloid or casein and it's certainly not very good for the metal parts pens contain. Once you get water into a barrel or cap it's hard to get it back out again. I'm not sure what the soaking is intended to achieve. It won't soften glue or shellac. It can dissolve hardened dry ink but there are other ways of dealing with that.

I've repaired thousands of pens and I don't soak anything. Tight sections? Use heat. I invested in a heat gun long ago and it's one of my most frequently used tools. For safe disassembly and reassembly, it's an absolute essential. Though I don't remove nibs and feeds unless I have to, using a bulb to get water through is enough to allow safe removal with the knock-out block. Any hardened ink can be removed from the section and feed then, using cotton buds and stiff brushes.

Removing old ink from caps and loosening crusted-in clip screws calls for naphtha. Unlike water, naphtha leaves no trace behind and doesn't start metal parts rusting. As soaking is so prevalent a process in pen repair, perhaps I'm missing something. Convince me!

[Scooby921]

Convenience

Warm water or water with some light detergent soap is more readily accessible to most people. Professionals have their ways and proper tools. The average person makes due with what they can access.

Warm water will loosen up some glues and shellac. Liquid water won't get hotter than 100°C, so you can't accidentally melt plastic resin pens. You can also put a thermometer in a pot and heat it to an exact temp so you aren't always doing everything at boiling point. A thermometer, pot, and water are far cheaper than a heat gun with digital temperature control. Dipping a pen into a warm pot of water surrounds the pen in an equal temp on all sides/surfaces, so you aren't creating localized hot spots with a heat gun as a directional source.

Water will slowly dissolve / reconstitute dried up ink in the feed of an old pen. Yes there is concern if you're submerging a complete pen and water gets in past the button or lever mechanism and fills the barrel. That's just someone who needs common sense. Yes water will lead to corrosion, but the rate at which it happens is slow, and even slower while things remain submerged. People who know what they are doing and care for the item they are cleaning / repairing will also dry things off when finished, so the oxidizer is no longer present. A can of compressed air is cheap and effective at blowing air out of a feed, barrel, section, or the fine crevices of a lever or button mechanism and spring bar. Regardless of what you use to clean the proper end result leaves little to no cleaning solution behind. If one cares to prevent rust there are plenty of metal treatments out there which clean, remove rust, and protect afterward with very little residue.

Also, water and rubber are fine. If water were bad for rubber they wouldn't use rubber to make tires, fluid hoses, bushings and mounts for vehicle components, shoes, gaskets, o-rings, inflatable life boats, etc. I used to design and manufacture rubber products for automobiles. I've run a lot of tests on a lot of different rubber compounds. Rubber reacts far worse to oil and solvents. Even the air (ozone) is worse than water. Sunlight and ozone are what cause it to harden with age and crack.


So yeah, there is the proper professional way of doing things which will always yield the best result. But it is seldom the only way of doing things and the alternatives aren't always bad.

[Deb]

Hi Scooby921,

What's this "professional" shenanigans? I don't have a degree in pen repair. I didn't take any classes. So far as I'm aware it's well short of being a profession. I decided to try to repair a pen one day. It worked. So I did another and another and the years went by. I made mistakes along the way so now I offer what I've learned so that others don't need to make the same mistakes.

Most people have hair dryers. I used one for quite a while, and not for drying my hair. They are perfectly adequate for many of the pen repair tasks. Warm water is an extremely inefficient way of loosening shellac and most glues. Why do that, when most people have a good heat source at hand?

I've seen the consequences of soaking pens. Fixed clips, pressure bars, circlips, all manner of metal parts rusted unnecessarily through bad practice. Water is very good at lying in concealed places so you think you've got it all out, but you haven't. And there was no need to put it there in the first place.

"Yes water will lead to corrosion, but the rate at which it happens is slow, and even slower while things remain submerged"

I'm not sure what you're trying to say there. I agree that corrosion is slow but I'm suggesting using methods that will prevent it from starting.

The problem with hard rubber is that water is the final process in making it fade. Admittedly it's exposure to light and heat that start the process but so long as the pen is kept out of water it will usually retain its original colour. Soaking hard rubber components is absolutely the wrong thing to do. Always.

[Jon Szanto]

Convenience

It won't seem so convenient when you ruin a good pen.

Also, water and rubber are fine.

Not vintage HR pens. When people bandy about info like the above, there is ample opportunity for someone new to the hobby to see it and assume they can just plunk that sucker in some water for a good soak. See Point #1.

[lsmith42]

It won't seem so convenient when you ruin a good pen.

Also, water and rubber are fine.

Not vintage HR pens. When people bandy about info like the above, there is ample opportunity for someone new to the hobby to see it and assume they can just plunk that sucker in some water for a good soak. See Point #1.

Jon... you are absolutely no fun at all...

[AzJon]

I have a Sheaffer Senior Radeite that had a suuuuper stuck section. Tried heat with the hair dryer. No dice. I was definitely getting into the possibly too hot range. Came back to it a few months later, this time I left it in just enough water to submerge it just above the section. In a few days I pulled the section out by hand with almost no trouble.

I also happen to know a very reputable pen restorer that soaks Sheaffers in Rapidoeze to get Triumph nibs apart. Claims to have never broken a single pen during a repair because, in his words, "you just have to have patience." He said he would set it for a day, then try to remove things. Then two days. At that point, he would wait one week. Still nothing. Two week. As long as it took to take things apart. I've soaked as long as it needs ever since then with no negative consequences.

[Deb]

I have a Sheaffer Senior Radeite that had a suuuuper stuck section. Tried heat with the hair dryer. No dice. I was definitely getting into the possibly too hot range. Came back to it a few months later, this time I left it in just enough water to submerge it just above the section. In a few days I pulled the section out by hand with almost no trouble.

I also happen to know a very reputable pen restorer that soaks Sheaffers in Rapidoeze to get Triumph nibs apart. Claims to have never broken a single pen during a repair because, in his words, "you just have to have patience." He said he would set it for a day, then try to remove things. Then two days. At that point, he would wait one week. Still nothing. Two week. As long as it took to take things apart. I've soaked as long as it needs ever since then with no negative consequences.

I've never failed in using heat to extract sections from barrels. Radite, so far as I remember, is a form of pyroxylin. I wouldn't immerse that in water. No telling what the long term effects might be. I wouldn't have any need to do it anyway.

I absolutely agree about having patience. It often takes time and very careful work to deal with fragile pens.

[AzJon]

I have to say: this is the first thread discussion I've seen that advocates, rather strictly, against soaking a pen. Like, yeah, don't soak the whole pen in water, but up to the feed is 100% a-ok, and above the section fine for a bit if you're fixing the pen. Honestly, as long as the pen isn't hard rubber, I would be more concerned with making a mistake using heat, particularly on a Sheaffer. The temperature where the shellac softens and the barrel material permanently warps is a fairly thin margin. Have I misunderstood that the danger of soaking (hard rubber not included) has more to do with risk of getting internal metal components of the filling system wet and thereby risking corrosion and breakage?

[Deb]

None of the materials that older pens – especially pre-world War II – are made from take immersion well. Also, many pens made from other materials had hard rubber sections. Naturally, there is always concern about the sadly common practice of soaking caps to remove encrusted ink deposits.

I agree that there is the risk of causing damage with heat but that's where care and caution must be applied until one becomes more confident through experience.

In writing my original post I had two ideas in mind: to express my concern about a practice which I believe to be damaging to older pens and which I frequently see recommended. Secondly, as one of the SEVEN (or however many it is now) I like to see interesting debate which may go some way to outweigh the predominance of sales posts in FPG.

[Seattleite]

To soak or not to soak is not the question. When to soak, what to soak, how long to soak and in what to soak, seems more accurate. I'll even accept if to soak, as
i don't think it is always necessary. A luke warm dilute soap soak with nib down, up to the section join on anything but a Casein bodied, or metal overlay pen is probably not going to hurt and often will help. I am a believer that loosening up whatever goo lurks within, reduces friction and enhances even heat distribution to the join, thus easing stresses during disassembly. Minimizing heat is always a good thing for both the long term health of the pen and in avoiding the immediate catastrophe of a melted mess, as others have noted.

Deb, you voice some maxims that are not helpful, in my mind. One that jumps out is "Water just isn't very good for hard rubber, celluloid or casein and it's certainly not very good for the metal parts pens contain." There are more exceptions to your statements, than there are truths, I think. This absolutism does not serve the community well, at all. I'll toss out a couple of thoughts...

- Exposure to water does not harm celluloid aka Radite, that I am aware of. Think of Vacumatic barrels, and all of those visulated celluloid sections. These parts were designed to be in direct contact with water based ink for their entire working lives. They used to make dentures out of celluloid.
- Water damage to hard rubber is limited to the possible discoloration of UV damaged surfaces, as mentioned elsewhere. There are times where a little easily removed discoloration may be a small price to pay for a safe disassembly.
- Casein? Keep it dry.
- Metal? Which metal? A carbon steel pressure bar spring - of course. A gold alloy Snorkel tube.....
Making such broad-brush statements does little to help collectors build the solid body of materials knowledge that will lead them to successful restorations or of applying their skills and knowledge to more involved projects.

I would direct people away from grasping on to absolutes. Learn some solid material and process fundamentals, how to apply them, and learn when to stop and ask questions specific to the pen in hand. The person who has restored "that exact pen" can offer credible advice that usually leads to a success. Most "ruined" pens that I hear about are the result of someone asking or knowing "how", then applying only that procedure to every pen that they encounter. In a way, being told categorically not to do something, does as much harm by unnecessarily making verboten, viable options; options that might be helpful for a given situation. Deb, what works for you, works for you - thousands of times. Won't argue with that. I will argue with an "Always/Never" mindset.

I am not in the pen business. No skin in the game, other than sharing a common interest and offering a different perspective and approach that, I hope, supports people in their efforts to hunt and restore their own pens. I'm not interested in Thanks, or thanking - not looking to be followed. I don't even know what Rep Power means, and don't haunt the classifieds. If I am wrong, show me the way!

Bob

[penwash]

I soak nibs up to section in water. Just water, and cool water from the tap. And never soap, ammonia, or whatever else that is not in a household tap water. I live in an area where the water is not hard, so it never leaves any residue or whatnot.

As to why? This wicks out hard gunky inks from feeds, nibs, and sections, and cleans them too. In a lot of cases, it makes sections detachable from the barrel easily without having to resort to heat. And in a few cases, it saved me from misapplying force to a section that unknowingly is threaded to the barrel. <--- mystery pens.

Also, unexposed to prolonged UV hard rubber is fine in water, I've soaked ebonite section and feeds in water for weeks and they never get discolored. Think about it, if hard rubber always discolored when touching water, why then we have black feeds and section insides? Aren't they almost always inky <---- ink contains water.

The only things that I would not soak are hard rubber caps and barrels. Because I have no idea whether they have been exposed to UV sufficiently to discolor or not.

[penwash]

.... I would direct people away from grasping on to absolutes. Learn some solid material and process fundamentals, how to apply them, and learn when to stop and ask questions specific to the pen in hand...

Bob

Well-said! A lot of young people asked me how to get started with pen restoration, and I always told them, get ready to think, a lot

[Jon Szanto]

Here's my take on this, following Bob's post:

I'll wager that most everyone in the thread has spent time doing pen work, from just a few and new at it, to people like Deb who is seasoned and restores for later sale (as well as other reasons). Bob posts a long, in-depth and well-reasoned counter to some of the basic OP claims. I don't find much fault there, except...

What I constantly encounter - online - and do all that I can to stop is the rapid spreading of misinformation and partial information. While there is a steady stream of n00bs on FPN, I don't hang there much, so my interaction is mostly with startups on Reddit. All it takes is one mention of "yeah, just soak that pen overnight" and some of them are off to the races. I'll insert here that while many of us consider soaking only the section and nib, when that phrase pops up you won't believe how often they just drop the pen in a glass of water. Of great difficult is that many come at this after buying and using a few modern fountain pens, and come from a background of ballpoints and gel pens. Unused to the occasional ink drop or splat, many are neat freaks that immediately disassemble the pen down to every component part just to clean between re-inking!

If I'm going to be extra-cautious when giving out advice online to an audience that is NOT into studying up, doing patient research on the net and in books all the while, I am most certainly going to err on the side of don't do something. Yes, it's true: all things being equal, absolutes are usually not a good way to go. OTOH, take into account who the advice is for. All it takes is one YouTube video of a guy fixing a pen, using techniques that would curl the hair of any sane restoration person, and legions of new recruits go "Hot damn, I'm gonna fix me a pen!"

I don't mind a little caution, and when someone says "yeah, if you soak that it will come apart easily" is a recipe for a kid dropping a swell old pen into a bin of water and that's all she wrote. I think we can all be careful in this regard.

My $0.02.

[Deb]

Also, unexposed to prolonged UV hard rubber is fine in water,

I already covered that point, further up the thread. Now, how do you tell which hard rubber hasn't had prolonged exposure to UV over the last 90 years. Because that's a really clever trick.

[Deb]

In my original post I asked to be convinced that there was some merit in soaking pens. Nothing has been said that sounds convincing to me. Now I'm being told by penwash he only soaks up to the section. I don't see any problem with that - he's only soaking the nib and the feed. Mind you, by time he has set up an arrangement to precisely dangle a pen in water, I'd have restored a few using heat. By time his jig has wicked old ink out of a section and feed I would have moved on to the following week or maybe fortnight. That just seems wilfully inefficient to me.

Seattleite tells me that a little easily removed discoloration of hard rubber isn't a problem. Agreed. You can abrade it off, paint it or apply some gunk that may have unfortunate effects some way down the line. And, in the meantime, I'm working on another pen or two. With heat.

How about if you take some of that time you waste and learn to use heat properly on scrap parts? It might take half a day at the most. And I see no "absolutism" in what I'm saying. It's just what I've learned from years of restoring pens.

[kirchh]

I use selective soaking when appropriate; it takes almost no time at all to get the front end of a pen soaking. A few seconds, perhaps, if you work on pens with some frequency, and while it's soaking, I can work on other pens, of course, so it's hardly "willfully inefficient." As noted, it's inaccurate that all materials used to make pens will be damaged if in contact with water-based liquids, or that they were not intended to be in prolonged contact with such liquids. Immersing an entire vintage hard rubber pen is generally a bad idea, and unnecessary, due to latent surface damage, but an experienced repairperson can determine whether soaking the forward portion is safe. As for "Radite, so far as I remember, is a form of pyroxylin. I wouldn't immerse that in water. No telling what the long term effects might be," as someone else observed, some celluloid pens hold ink directly in the barrel, and immersion in plain water for a few hours has no long-term effects on celluloid.

As for, "I see no 'absolutism' in what I'm saying." Well: "Soaking hard rubber components is absolutely the wrong thing to do. Always;" "Water just isn't very good for... celluloid;" "there was no need to put water there in the first place."

--Daniel

[Jon Szanto]

I'd just like to say that it is nice to see Daniel contributing - you haven't been around much!

[penwash]

Also, unexposed to prolonged UV hard rubber is fine in water,

I already covered that point, further up the thread. Now, how do you tell which hard rubber hasn't had prolonged exposure to UV over the last 90 years. Because that's a really clever trick.

I don't know

But I am betting on the high possibility that sections and feeds on pens that looks like it's worth restoring, haven't been exposed to much UV. So far I haven't lost that bet yet.

Having said that, I've seen a few olive-colored sections before I even soak it.

[penwash]

In my original post I asked to be convinced that there was some merit in soaking pens. Nothing has been said that sounds convincing to me. Now I'm being told by penwash he only soaks up to the section. I don't see any problem with that - he's only soaking the nib and the feed. Mind you, by time he has set up an arrangement to precisely dangle a pen in water, I'd have restored a few using heat. By time his jig has wicked old ink out of a section and feed I would have moved on to the following week or maybe fortnight. That just seems wilfully inefficient to me.

Seattleite tells me that a little easily removed discoloration of hard rubber isn't a problem. Agreed. You can abrade it off, paint it or apply some gunk that may have unfortunate effects some way down the line. And, in the meantime, I'm working on another pen or two. With heat.

How about if you take some of that time you waste and learn to use heat properly on scrap parts? It might take half a day at the most. And I see no "absolutism" in what I'm saying. It's just what I've learned from years of restoring pens.

I maybe slow and inefficient, but I'm having fun ... slowly and inefficiently

[Deb]

Well that's fine.