The New Collector
By Donna Swartz
All rights reserved by author
James S. Day, Jr. of Bowling Green, VA, has written to us with a description
of his first fountain pen restoration. Restoration is usually covered
elsewhere in the PENnant, but Jim’s description of his first experience
in this area will strike a chord with other new collectors. Who among
us has not been tempted to try some repairs but has been daunted by
the possibility of wrecking something of value. Everyone will tell you
to practice your repairs on cheap pens at first, but what happens if
you only have one pen needing repairs and that one is your treasure?
Jim’s treasure is a product of Sheaffer’s, the company that
prior to the end of WWII had an apostrophe before its final “s.”
We don’t necessarily recommend Jim’s course of action (there
are good restorers out there to work on your most valued pens) but he
got a lot of satisfaction out of tackling this one. He calls his contribution
“Pen Restoration 101.”
My first total restoration of a fountain pen was of an old Sheaffer’s
vacuum filler that had been a gift from my Aunt Kate.
Until I entered high school, I would spend four to six weeks of each
summer vacation with my aunt and grandmother. I think my fascination
with fountain pens started way back then. My earliest recollection of
a fountain pen was this Sheaffer’s that resided in a pigeonhole
drawer in my Aunt Kate’s tall secretary desk in the corner of
her living room. It had a 14k gold filled cap and a Triumph “Lifetime”
nib with a black “striped” visulated body.
I was five or six years old. This was the only pen I had ever seen
with a streamlined gold cap and the perfect conical nib that was Sheaffer’s
trademark in the 40s and 50s. The pen had to be used as a dip pen even
then as the vacuum
filling mechanism had already ceased to work.
I had a routine of daily chores to perform. After completing my chores
I was allowed to use the pen but it always had to be used at the secretary
and returned to its appointed storage drawer. It was at this same secretary
desk that the pen was used by my aunt for almost all family correspondence.
In these years before television, my hours between dusk and bedtime
were filled with reading, listening to the radio and writing with the
Sheaffer’s.
I grew up and summer vacations went the way of other childhood memories.
I went to college, served in the Navy, married and raised a family.
Although I had accumulated several fountain pens, none had the mystique
of the gold capped Sheaffer’s that belonged to Aunt Kate.
One Christmas many years later my Aunt Kate was visiting with my family
in Virginia. After dinner she called me aside and placed the gold capped
Sheaffer’s in my hand and said she wanted me to have it. I hadn’t
thought about that pen in several decades.
Most of my fountain pens were in working order, or enough so that restoration
wasn’t necessary. Here was a pen that I had always admired, that
in my memory had never worked. Now it was mine. I had to restore it
if possible!
I began reading up on the Sheaffer’s Vacuum Fillers. I met Sam
Fiorella, who referred me to Father Terence Koch from whom I could get
washers and seals as well as some special tools I would need to complete
the restoration. Some weeks later, with all the items I thought I would
need on hand, I retired to my study on a wintery Sunday afternoon to
begin “pen surgery.”
The Sheaffer’s Vacuum Filler of the 1930s and the 1940s is one
of the more difficult pens to repair. I probably would not have had
the patience and tenacity to figure out how best to repair this particular
pen had it not been such a part of me for over forty years. Once I was
able to get it disassembled (using warm water soaks and a hand held
hair dryer) I determined that all of the internal parts were in very
good condition. The most difficult part of the disassembly was removing
the small plastic cylinder that holds the feed and prevents the plunger
from being removed from the nib end of the pen section. That part finally
succumbed to about 140 degrees of warm water soaking and a screw extractor.
The stainless rod that operates the filler piston and the restraining
nut that held the moveable seal in place were in good shape. Nothing
was cracked or corroded. I was also lucky that the packing and seal
assembly in the plunger end of the section came unglued and I was able
to rebuild the packing gland and add more layers of seals to make the
repair more thorough. This part of the repair is much easier to do with
the packing gland and seal out of the pen.
After replacing all of the seals, fixed and moveable, and careful reassembly
with attention to alignment of the feed and nib, I had a brand new 1939
or 1940 Sheaffer’s Lifetime Vacuum Filler. I have been using it
several times a week for over a year and it works perfectly and doesn’t
leak.
The vacuum fill design has a limitation of probably only about one
hundred or so refills before the moveable seal will have to be replaced
again. That is a small price to pay to be able to have a working model
of the very pen that fired my interest in fountain pens almost 50 years
ago.
Incidentally, restoring a Sheaffer’s Vac Fill pen successfully
requires a good deal of patience. Sometimes you just have to put it
aside for several days until you are “in the mood.” The
good news is they are beautiful and functional pens once restored, and
almost every other pen rebuild after a Sheaffer’s Vac is a piece
of cake!
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