I picked this up at a local antique store. It was pretty beat up, dirty, bent nib, brassing, however, nothing was broken so I decided to flip the tag over and see how much they wanted. $4! I bought it up to the cashier and she said they were running a sale and it would only be $3. SCORE! I got it home, scraped the old sac out, and dis-assembled the pen. I had to straighten the nib, someone had dropped it at some point because not only was the nib bent, once I had it back in place and tried to write with it, it was crazy scratchy. my 10x loupe revealed micro abrasions all over the tipping material. I had to smooth the nib slowly on micromesh and although it's considerably better, it's not glassy smooth yet. I think I'm leaving it that way, it has a nice amount of paper feel without catching or snagging. I then moved onto the exterior of the pen which was a train-wreck. Bite marks, scratches, grooves, it definitely looked close to a hundred years old! Slowly I wet micromeshed both the body and the cap taking care to tape off and avoid the imprints and trim. This took forever. I would estimate a good 10 hours on the cap and body alone. Turned out fantastic! I shellac'd in a new sac, waited about 8 hours, talc followed and I re-assembled the pen. It was after re-assembly that the nib smoothing session began. That took quite some time as I made small adjustments each time, making sure to look with my loupe and write with ink after each pass on the micromesh. Although this pen is epic and has some monster flex, it is too small for my taste and I will be tossing it on ebay in the next day or two.
Photos!
This is a photo of the body and cap. I have already started to polish the body in this shot. The body looked identical to the cap when I started. It seemed like an impossible task before I started but seeing the two compared gives you motivation to finish the whole pen.
Knocked out the nib and feed. Cleaned the feed. Cleaned the nib. Straightened the nib. You can see where it was bent yet. Close enough for me as it writes at this point and the less I have to play with a tiny, ancient, bent piece of metal, the better.
OH SNAP! Is this the haggard cap pictured above? Yes it is. Elbow grease and patience worked their magic.
The finshed pen:
The Write Stuff:
I hope you enjoyed the photos!
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