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Thread: Parker Parkette - did I break my beautiful new pen?

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    Senior Member Jon Szanto's Avatar
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    Default Re: Parker Parkette - did I break my beautiful new pen?

    Quote Originally Posted by Biber View Post
    THIS is why lever fillers scare me. I have more than a handful of them and I simply don't use them because they are so easy to spring. It might be a different story if I had the means and inclination to work on them myself, but I don't. The only ones iI do use are my Esties, which I usually pull the nib and fill with a pipette. But more often they're sidelined.
    That is an irrational fear of lever fillers, when properly restored, will operate as well and reliably as any other pen. At least a third of the pens I keep inked and in use are levers or button fillers.

    Pulling nibs to fill a pen? No, just no.

    I urge you to reconsider your thinking.
    Last edited by Jon Szanto; December 22nd, 2020 at 10:52 AM. Reason: typo
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    eachan (December 20th, 2020)

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    Default Re: Parker Parkette - did I break my beautiful new pen?

    Quote Originally Posted by Jon Szanto View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Biber View Post
    THIS is why lever fillers scare me. I have more than a handful of them and I simply don't use them because they are so easy to spring. It might be a different story if I had the means and inclination to work on them myself, but I don't. The only ones iI do use are my Esties, which I usually pull the nib and fill with a pipette. But more often they're sidelined.
    That is an irrational fear as lever fillers, when properly restored, will operate as well and reliably as any other pen. At least a third of the pens I keep inked and in use are levers or button fillers.

    Pulling nibs to fill a pen? No, just no.

    I urge you to reconsider your thinking.
    I agree on all accounts. Though I also don't trust them to clean effectively. Not such a big deal I suppose. Like many I tend to keep my pens relatively monochromatic.

    Only on those with threaded nib units like Esties.

    Meh, not likely. I have my German piston fillers and CC pens to keep me happy for the most part. Though if I really really want to use one of my vintage lever fillers I do, just very carefully.
    Sent from my constipated POS computer at work.

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    Senior Member Jon Szanto's Avatar
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    Default Re: Parker Parkette - did I break my beautiful new pen?

    Quote Originally Posted by Biber View Post
    Though I also don't trust them to clean effectively.
    Oh, yes, complete agreement! I do pick inks with more care for those pens and stick to one ink in a leverfiller, as they are a PITA to flush thoroughly. In their era, there was a more limited palette of ink colors and people tended to not swap around. I do similar with piston pens, though I will swap occasionally. C/C pens are perfect for robust flushing and swapping

    Only on those with threaded nib units like Esties.
    Ok, I took "pull the nib" literally. While I wouldn't choose to fill pens by unscrewing the nibs, that isn't a harmful procedure (with care).

    I guess I have enough really great pens, wonderful writers, that come from the lever area that I don't consider it an issue. A classic YMMV moment, and as long as you have pens you enjoy, you don't have to go the lever route. My main reason for replying was to counter the concept that they were fragile or prone to problems.
    "When Men differ in Opinion, both Sides ought equally to have the Advantage of being heard by the Publick;
    and that when Truth and Error have fair Play, the former is always an overmatch for the latter."

    ~ Benjamin Franklin

  5. #24
    Senior Member eachan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Parker Parkette - did I break my beautiful new pen?

    Usually the slack lever is easily repaired. One of the exceptions is pens with swing pressure bars, like vintage Watermans and Conway Stewarts. CS used a flange lever for a time, where the recess into which the lever fitted was small and a little pressure was required to press it home. That held it there. If that locking part becomes worn it takes a little creativity on the part of the restorer to keep the lever in place. Many pens have j-bars and the spring action holds the lever where it should be. The pressure bar might need replaced from time to time - every half-century or so.

    Lever and button fillers are hard to flush. There's no escaping that failing. I have a 1930s Duofold on my desk at the moment. I thought I had flushed it thoroughly of the blue ink that was in it last and I filled it with Diamine Oxblood. Now I'm writing with a browny/purply ink. It's ok but it wasn't what I had intended!

    @Biber: Lever fillers really aren't easy to spring. It's OK to use your pen as it was intended. If lever fillers were so fragile they wouldn't have been the most successful filling system for the forty classic years of fountain pen dominance.

    ETA to restore some semblance of logic to my rambling.
    Last edited by eachan; December 20th, 2020 at 12:55 PM.

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    welch (December 22nd, 2020)

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    Senior Member welch's Avatar
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    Default Re: Parker Parkette - did I break my beautiful new pen?

    Quote Originally Posted by Biber View Post
    THIS is why lever fillers scare me. I have more than a handful of them and I simply don't use them because they are so easy to spring. It might be a different story if I had the means and inclination to work on them myself, but I don't. The only ones iI do use are my Esties, which I usually pull the nib and fill with a pipette. But more often they're sidelined.
    Don't worry. I started working on lever fillers when I got my first unrestored Estie almost 15 years ago. The started buying Eversharp Skylines and Symphonies, resacking those that needed it. (Note, the Skylines were about $25 back then, unrestored). Usually, it is easy to re-sac a lever filler, usually the easiest repair. Most levers are OK...oh, and I went on a Third-Tier binge, back when they were easy to find and cheap in large bunches. The only fluky things: one had a kind of plastic that stretched and bent when I applied a little heat. Plastic was a new thing, I guess, in 1947. Another had some kind of ink window that shattered when I tries to wiggle&twist off the grp and nib.

    Lever-work is a different matter. A top-level repair person (Ron Z?) described replacing an Esterbrook lever as like doing brain surgery on yourself by going in through your ear. Those I would leave to someone like Danny Fudge or the Hamiltons or other skilled people.

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    Default Re: Parker Parkette - did I break my beautiful new pen?

    Quote Originally Posted by RobJohnson View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by eachan View Post
    There are various ways of ensuring that a lever doesn't flop around loosely. The Parkette depends entirely on a well-sprung j-bar. Lever fillers weren't Parker's strong point.
    There was a question at the London Pen Club christmas quiz a couple of years ago, what was the last lever filled Parker?

    I haven't thought about it but perhaps the next question could be what was the first lever filled Parker pen branded as a Parker.
    If you want to split hairs, I don't think that there ever was a lever filled Parker. Parkette was a sub-brand. Marketing stuff, or perhaps family dynamics, where the Parkette can be elevated by the quality standing of its parentage with the hope that their sloppy behavior won't embarrass them. Parkette, Writefine and Duotone are all 1930s Parker-made pen lines. Parker also made a Fifth Avenue, and some Good Service lever fillers for specific retailers. The last lever is probably the metal capped and hooded nib Parkette of the early 1950s.

    Bob

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    Default Re: Parker Parkette - did I break my beautiful new pen?

    Quote Originally Posted by Seattleite View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by RobJohnson View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by eachan View Post
    There are various ways of ensuring that a lever doesn't flop around loosely. The Parkette depends entirely on a well-sprung j-bar. Lever fillers weren't Parker's strong point.
    There was a question at the London Pen Club christmas quiz a couple of years ago, what was the last lever filled Parker?

    I haven't thought about it but perhaps the next question could be what was the first lever filled Parker pen branded as a Parker.


    If you want to split hairs, I don't think that there ever was a lever filled Parker. Parkette was a sub-brand. Marketing stuff, or perhaps family dynamics, where the Parkette can be elevated by the quality standing of its parentage with the hope that their sloppy behavior won't embarrass them. Parkette, Writefine and Duotone are all 1930s Parker-made pen lines. Parker also made a Fifth Avenue, and some Good Service lever fillers for specific retailers. The last lever is probably the metal capped and hooded nib Parkette of the early 1950s.

    Bob
    Thanks Bob, the question was really on Parker branded lever filled pens, I thought that 51-52 Parkette was branded Parker on the clip in the style of the striped Duofolds of the 1940s, but I was wrong. I cannot think of any Parker branded lever filled pens.

    I therefore agree your point, no lever filled Parkers and marked as such but a number of filled pens made by Parker or their subsidiaries.
    Last edited by RobJohnson; December 22nd, 2020 at 10:52 AM.

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    Senior Member NumberSix's Avatar
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    Default Re: Parker Parkette - did I break my beautiful new pen?

    Personally, I think I am over lever fillers. I wish I had come to that realization before I ordered a couple of more Esties a few weeks ago (someday, the USPS might even deliver them to me). Of course, once I open the box and see that gorgeous copper color, I will probably be back under lever fillers. I am nothing if not fickle.

    This Parkette has continued to be trouble. Even after repair, the lever continued to be lightly floppy. And the other day, it opened 180 degrees, even though I was being super-careful. The whole thing feels rickety, and the nib is too fine for my daily use anyway.

    I may need to just sell it off as a "needs work" pen. . .

    Any of y'all want it?

  11. #29
    Senior Member Ron Z's Avatar
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    Default Re: Parker Parkette - did I break my beautiful new pen?

    I wouldn't abandon lever fillers because of issues with this pen. The filling method was about the most common of all. In some ways the other systems were developed as ways to get around the patents of other manufacturers. Without the lever you wouldn't have the Wahl Eversharp rosewood pens, the Patrician, the Sheaffer Oversize Balance, the Wahl Equipose, Waterman #5 or #7 pens, Esterbrooks, and a host of other very nice, well made pens. Lever fillers are about the easiest pens to restore, even when you run into problems.

    Most of the time the problem is either a pressure bar not placed right, or bent in the right place to insure that the lever lays flat at the top end, or the lever is bent because it was pulled too hard against a petrified sac. The result being that it doesn't reach down far enough into the barrel for the pressure bar (J bar) to push it up and hold it in place. Maybe the repair guy didn't know how to fix that, or was afraid to...

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    Senior Member NumberSix's Avatar
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    Default Re: Parker Parkette - did I break my beautiful new pen?

    Quote Originally Posted by Ron Z View Post
    I wouldn't abandon lever fillers because of issues with this pen. The filling method was about the most common of all. In some ways the other systems were developed as ways to get around the patents of other manufacturers. Without the lever you wouldn't have the Wahl Eversharp rosewood pens, the Patrician, the Sheaffer Oversize Balance, the Wahl Equipose, Waterman #5 or #7 pens, Esterbrooks, and a host of other very nice, well made pens. Lever fillers are about the easiest pens to restore, even when you run into problems.

    Most of the time the problem is either a pressure bar not placed right, or bent in the right place to insure that the lever lays flat at the top end, or the lever is bent because it was pulled too hard against a petrified sac. The result being that it doesn't reach down far enough into the barrel for the pressure bar (J bar) to push it up and hold it in place. Maybe the repair guy didn't know how to fix that, or was afraid to...
    Fair enough, and I appreciate the sensible response to my emotional one. Hehe

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