David Nishimura has been collecting and studying old fountain pens and other writing instruments since his grad student days in the mid-1980s. He is a former President of the Pen Collectors of America and currently serves as the organization' Librarian. He regularly publishes on writing equipment history, collecting, and repair. His website, www.vintagepens.com, has been a leading online reference source since 1997, with further articles available at his Vintage Pen News blog at vintagepensblog.blogspot.com.
Nice video! I'm currently trying to restore a US Mk1 Parker 51 Aerometric which belonged to my grandmother (I believe she bought it new). The breather tube is blackened except at the section where it connects to the feed, but luckily unclogged and unbroken (I've run through it with a pair of steel strings and checked the length with a caliper - it's 69.6mm long, right on spec). I've ordered a replacement stainless steel breather tube, but it seems the original still can be used. Did you replace the breather tube in the pen under restoration in this video, or did you clean the original silver one? The breather tube as shown e.g. from 7:20 onwards (inside the new sac) seems pretty clean. If you did the latter, how did you do it? I tried polishing it with some Silvo - it did get somewhat clearer but still far from shining new.
In this instance the original silver tube was still in good condition and cleaned up readily. Often the silver's surface has become rough with fine pitting, so it cannot be made nice and shiny without removing a lot of material.
I fix mines using shink tubing for wires or polypropylene soda straws (you have to melt one side) 🤣. Prices for sacs are ridicolous here and they are not really needed for squizing anyways. I think I could even make "vacumatic" sacs using other sorts of soft pipes or latex.
Thanks very much for all the information put forth in this video. I am planning to purchase a vintage Parker 51 very soon and will be much better informed as result of your video. Thanks!
I just found few super weird pencils on online auction, one is eversharp, other autopoint, others have tip cone split in half (maybe 5mm deep slot), other look like small celluloid pencil with possibly 2mm lead. But who makes or sells 1.18mm/0.46" lead in Europe? Because common are 0.5mm. Uncommon are 0.3 and 0.7mm or 2mm and thicker for clutch pencils. 0.9mm exists, but I have them only for 1970s mechanical pencil and i was really surprised that 0.7mm falls out. Koh-I-Noor has 0.3-0.5-0.7-0.9 and then 2-5.6mm Faber Castell has 0.35-0.5-0.7-1(0.9)-1.4-2 Rotring or Staedler seem to have 0.5-0.7-1-2 Also I wonder if 1.18mm is still manufactured and if old ones are in good condition. Cause I found some leads and my parents drawer and they were all leaking some kind of glue or wax. And on 0.9mm lead was stuck and I had to push it back by a pin and clean pen mechanism with 0.5mm toothbrush
These pencils have not been made for decades. Luckily they are so solidly made that many survive in excellent condition. Fine examples are not at all expensive. Making one would require advanced metalworking skills and much time.
I love silver, especially when used for fountain pen bodies, but it seems an odd choice of material for a breather tube that is constantly immersed in a water based liquid, especially given its reactivity and propensity to oxidize. I wondered why Parker chose silver as the material for their breather tubes in the 51. Parker has made some strange decisions over the years, and this seems to be no exception, and it's more expensive than stainless steel, although it's possible that silver was actually cheaper than stainless at the time that they used it.
It is a bit of a mystery. It might have been too expensive to make them out of stainless steel; consider that hypodermic needles were costly enough at the time that they would be sterilized and reused, and even resharpened.
@@Vintagepens the one that I have has some initials engraved on it but otherwise is completely smooth and patternless. It has some slight disfigurement around where you would hold the pencil likely due to the softer metal over the course of a century.
As noted, this same method works for many different brands of metal-bodied converters. Today I repaired a Pilot converter from the 1980s, using the shaft of a drill bit to support the plug while it was wiggled out with padded pliers (it was either 5.5 or 6mm -- use whatever is a snug fit). The replacement sac was a #14 in transparent PVC, which was a tight fit. #15 would be better but is a size only available in latex and silicone, not PVC.
Hi David, this is a very helpful video. I am in the process of restoring my Parker 51 (1950 Mk1 UK) and wanted to replace my breather tube. The current one looks black in colour so potentially ebonite? - can I replace this with a steel breather tube?
Mine is from between 1920/1933 many older but giving in 1933 it was probably giving to a Jubilee I need to insert this lead into the front because what pushing the lead looks like a tool to push the lead when it stuck I really love these older pencils.
I finally figured out how these pencils work. 3:47 4:27 The inside of the exterior barrel, and the outside of the propelling pin, (that freely moves up and down in the inside barrel) must, both, have spirals. So, when the inside barrel turns, the propelling pin, (in the inside barrel), turns too, and moves forward through the exterior barrel, like a screw moves forward through a nut. It's simple, but ingenious
@@davidnishimura469 thanks! I thought it did when I looked inside the cap. Hopefully someone at a pen show can look and help. The matching fountain pen also needs a new sac and good cleaning.
There are many sellers of 1.1/1.18/1.2mm lead (all are the same, just different nominal metric conversions of .046 inches). Legendary Lead offers a wide selection in the USA
Hi David, im a little confused. Your web site you recomend " For silicone sacs, we have found that a stronger and more reliable seal is provided by a silicone sealant such as Devcon" ? So do we use shellac or sealant ? Cheers
For conventional latex sacs and PVC sacs, use shellac. For silicone sacs, use silicone. Note that Parker never used silicone sacs -- the transparent "Pli-Glass" sacs used for the Aerometric 51 etc were always PVC, as are our new replacements. There is some confusion nowadays about this, which wasn't helped by sellers past who misrepresented their transparent PVC sacs as silicone (see ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-WMvbSJAJMus.html).
Sheaffer Snorkels sometimes suffer similar shenanigans. I made a not-quite-as-thorough-or-well-produced video about that a while ago. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ngINEMn1mC0.html
Thanks David for documenting your profound experience and expertise and sharing it. Such a huge resource for current and future custodians. Very much appreciated and kudos to you.
This is an expanded video followup on a blog post from a few years back, which can be found here: vintagepensblog.blogspot.com/2021/08/yes-aerometric-parker-51s-can-have.html
I found the part just below the thread would very likely shrink if you overheated it even slightly, especially on cheaper celluloid pens. So I warp some paper tape to keep this part from being heated.
This is not an issue with hard rubber, though. Localization of heat is desirable in any case. Quality heat guns typically come with an assortment of nozzles, allowing for a suitably narrow air stream.
I'm doing my first sac replacement and this was very helpful. I was confused about measuring the outside diameter of the nipple vs the inside diameter.
You figure out how large each hole is in 64th of an inch. Sac size denotes what size hole that sac will freely fall through, denominated in 64th of an inch.
Thank you for posting this! It'd seem that with an accurate measurement of internal barrel length, and a *close enough* match to the nipple diameter, a person could make this repair fairly quickly, if a dead sac were the only problem.
