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Thread: Waterman Taperite Restore

  1. #21
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    Default Re: Waterman Taperite Restore

    Hey, things get rough around here... but seriously, these 40s/50s Watermans can be right nasty little so and so's to repair and I think people are genuinely trying to save you some hassle.

    I'm not a very experienced repairer but the one thing I would say is be very careful putting the pen back together. You've done really well so far and you don't want to ruin things now as it'll be a nice pen when done.
    Warm the barrel up first before you put the section back in, and stay good and patient, don't insist if it doesn't want to go. I actually managed to nearly melt a pen barrel when I first started - thank goodness it was a third tier clunker! it still has a bit of a banana tendency so to speak - and since then, I've tried to exercise a whole lot more patience!

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  3. #22
    Senior Member Ron Z's Avatar
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    Default Re: Waterman Taperite Restore

    Yes. It makes all the difference in the world when it comes to bending the tabs back in place. If you don't anneal the tab and bend it will likely break. I'm not a metallurgist, so don't ask me for the science behind why this happens, but I've read that metal forms crystals as it ages, and in this case it weakens the metal. Annealing changes the properties of the metal.
    ,
    re. opening up a Waterman Taperite... This happened at one of the first pen shows that I went to early one, and illustrates the fragility of a the pens. I was handed a Waterman Taperite to repair, and checked with another repair person on how to safely open the pen. I did get the pen open without damage, and restored the pen. I handed the pen to the owner, who then turned to his friend who was sitting next to him and said, "You owe me a beer."

    These pens are a royal pain, and I sometimes think that whether you can open a pen or not is as much a matter of luck as it is skill. You need a lot of both. Some of the Taperiate Citations can be brittle too, which adds to the joy.
    Last edited by Ron Z; November 18th, 2020 at 08:59 AM.

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  5. #23
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    Default Re: Waterman Taperite Restore

    I got gun-shy after breaking some of these pens, early on, so the several that came my way, usually as part of a lot, just sat with their mummified sacs. I decided that I wanted a few working examples, so I paired up some with messed up or missing nibs with some where the barrel was broken. I removed the broken barrel bits from the good sections, and cut off the bad nibbed sections from good barrels. I then re-bored those barrels to remove the section remnants. Next, I turned down the section mating surfaces to allow more comfortable fits to their "New" barrels. I turned the section, as opposed to boring out the barrel, so as to not further weaken the barrel. Since there are certainly more good sections than good barrels (because of the failure rate of restoration, if anything), this approach seemed a reasonable sacrifice to make. We no longer throw young virgins into volcanos, so acts of sacrifice are not one of the typical go to solutions these days, but my offering to the Great Pen God was received, and a mass of hobbled Taperites were given new life.

    As to why they are so stubborn, I have seen recessed pockets set at a roughly 45 degree angle placed around the section, (on some of these), where it fits to the barrel. On the pens where I broke off the barrel remnants, I could see where the barrel wall had shrunken down into these pockets. Some of the earlier injection molded plastics seem to lose both mass and plasticity as they age, such that 70 years later, some Bub trying to wiggle out a section is often rewarded with a little SNAP. Waterman, and later, frustrated owners, may have tried a bunch of things... solvent, glue, fitting tightly with heat, the little pockets... to keep the force against the clutch ring, when uncapping, from pulling the section off. Most clutch cap pens from that time with a ring that bears against the section, have a threaded joint. 51s and Fifth Avenues come to mind. The pens that I fixed will always have an uneasy relationship between uncapping, and pulling the section, so I kind of massaged the clutch fingers so that they would relax their grip, and used some thermosetting rosin/shellac mix as a section sealant. They seem to work pretty reliably now.

    I guess that for extra fun with Taperites, I could scale the slopes and toss a lever box into the flaming beast, as I have certainly sacrificed some of those. Am I the only one who broke a tab when removing the box?

    Bob

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    Senior Member Ron Z's Avatar
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    Default Re: Waterman Taperite Restore

    Am I the only one who broke a tab when removing the box?
    Heavens no! That's why I say that if you are going to move the lever box into another pen, if at all possible you should break the donor barrel to extract the lever box. Once its free, heat the forward tab before you bend it straight.

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  9. #25
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    Default Re: Waterman Taperite Restore

    Come to think of it, if people do bust the barrels, why not make 'fantasy Taperites'? They could be plenty purty!

    If anyone has some broken Taperites I'd be willing to have a go.

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  11. #26
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    Default Re: Waterman Taperite Restore

    Quote Originally Posted by amk View Post
    Come to think of it, if people do bust the barrels, why not make 'fantasy Taperites'? They could be plenty purty!

    If anyone has some broken Taperites I'd be willing to have a go.
    I almost wish I had one. I've seen Sheaffer Legacy Fantasy barrels that I like very much too.
    Regards, Chrissy | My Review Blog: inkyfountainpens

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    Default Re: Waterman Taperite Restore

    Quote Originally Posted by Chrissy View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by amk View Post
    Come to think of it, if people do bust the barrels, why not make 'fantasy Taperites'? They could be plenty purty!

    If anyone has some broken Taperites I'd be willing to have a go.
    I almost wish I had one. I've seen Sheaffer Legacy Fantasy barrels that I like very much too.
    Contact Richard Greenwald for fantasy conversions. He will be at Bertram's Inkwell tomorrow (Saturday, Nov 21, 2020), I imagine subject to Covid restrictions. The following is one of his photos sent by Bert Oser in an email.

    Fantasy-Duofold-Golden-Green.jpg

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    Senior Member pajaro's Avatar
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    Default Re: Waterman Taperite Restore

    I suppose a fantasy Taperite should be my backup plan for when I restore my Taperite and it breaks or burns up in the process. Well, it has been inop for a decade at least. So far I have burned up three old Watermans by overheating. I think they burn easily. On the bright side, it returned three nibs to use in other pens.
    Last edited by pajaro; November 20th, 2020 at 10:06 AM.

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