Thank you so much! I really appreciate it. This is something that I know isn't shown to people online, and it's an important subject, so I thought that somebody should talk about it a bit and show people good practices.
@selhurst69
4 ай бұрын
Thanks for sharing your pen knowledge Todd.
@singlesideman
4 ай бұрын
You are most welcome! I'm very glad to share what I can. This is an important topic, and people aren't told anymore what to do when it comes to these old fountain pens - older siblings, parents, teachers and mentors don't typically use fountain pens from the 1920s anymore, so it behooves me to show folks how to do this stuff.
@robertcalkjr.8325
3 ай бұрын
Thanks for the video. That pen doesn't come apart? I thought that the real old pens had the ink sacks inside them.
@singlesideman
3 ай бұрын
You're welcome for the video. Your question is kind of a strange one because the only time that fountain pens are meant to be taken apart is when they are being serviced after having been used and not maintained for decades. The only pens that need any taking apart to fill or clean them routinely are pens where the barrel unscrews for filling, such as aerometrics, cartridges and cartridge converters, and dropper filled pens (and possibly some lesser used pens I'm not thinking of at the moment - even vintage safety pens don't need to be taken apart to fill, unless you consider taking off the cap taking it apart). The fact that fountain pens don't have to be dismantled to fill and occasionally clean them is central to the whole point of fountain pens. They were designed to be practical, and easy to use and maintain. This recent spate of people new to fountain pens thinking that they have to take them completely apart all the time and clean them out constantly, and sand down their nib points, and floss their nibs and so on, is really weird, and if anything like this needs to be done to a fountain pen it's either because the pen was badly made, or it has been used heavily for decades and hasn't been maintained and serviced for decades. Yes, my vintage fountain pens do open up, and my vintage self filling fountain pens all have rubber sacs (although I may have an odd silicone or pliglass sac here or there), and yes, they can be taken apart, but the only time it is appropriate to take one apart is to service it or restore it - to do major work on it. Taking one of these pens apart just to clean it out before refilling it would be like removing the gas tank of your car and flushing it out with chemicals and brushes, and then rinsing it out and reinstalling it every time you fill your car with gas. It would be absurd. There's no need to do it, and in fact, over time it's a bad idea because you start wearing out parts needlessly and even start ruining how parts fit. The only reason why a little cleaning is ever necessary at all, if one is using appropriate inks, is if one doesn't use up all of the ink in the pen every couple of days or so, or doesn't refill the pen with the exact same ink. Those of us with more than one vintage fountain pen, and who don't write as much with our fountain pens as we used to in the 1980s and earlier, will probably have to clean out our pens more frequently than people who use their pens heavily and constantly, especially with only one ink.
@robertcalkjr.8325
3 ай бұрын
@@singlesideman Thanks for the detailed answer, Todd. I'm sure that you can tell that I'm new to fountain pens. Back in the 80's two fountain pens leaked on me and ruined one of my favorite shirts and I swore off of them. I just recently decided to give myself another chance figuring that it was probably my fault for not doing better research on them before I started using them. I see your point, but I just figured that it would be quicker and easier to take the pen apart to thoroughly clean it. I haven't tried any vintage fountain pens yet. I didn't even know that some of them use internal ink sacs until I found the sacs for sale on a website. But some of them are gorgeous! It just seemed to me that if you don't know how long it's been since a pen was cleaned that it would be best to take them apart to make sure that it is clean. I just fixed my new Opus 88 Omar nibs. I wanted to try the 1.5mm stub and the broad nibs. I found out that the nib tips were too close together. I don't have any brass shims yet, so I carefully used my feelers gauges to open the tips up and they are flowing good and wet now. I also opened the ink slit in the feed to 0.003". I bought an ebonite feed for it but maybe I don't need it now. But the broad nib is too wide for me so I can't wait until my fine nib gets here. And in case you're wondering, I sand the edges on my feelers gauges before I use them. I also entered the nibs from the topside. It seems that I've done a great job with my first job of nibsmithing. I have two other pens, a Pilot 912 with the posting nib, and a TWSBI Eco with the EF nib. I gave my two Lamy Safari's to my grandkids.
@singlesideman
3 ай бұрын
@@robertcalkjr.8325 you are most welcome. There's nothing about cleaning out a vintage fountain pen that isn't easy - you're just filling it and letting it soak. It does take time, but it's time when you're not using it, like when you're asleep, unless you're impatient, which I covered in the video, and you can use a different pen in the meantime. If you don't know how long it has been since a fountain pen has been cleaned it's for one of two reasons - you neglected to maintain your pen, or you've just bought a used or vintage one. If you haven't maintained your own pen that's your own fault, and you should probably treat it as a used or vintage fountain pen that needs to be serviced, and maintain your pens in the future so you don't have to deal with any of that. If it's a used or vintage fountain pen then you have to assume that the pen needs to be serviced, just like a used or vintage car or just about anything else that's used or vintage. In the case of a vintage fountain pen with a filling system that would mean not playing with the lever or button or other means of filling the pen because the sac could easily be hardened, and moving the lever or other filling device could break or otherwise damage it. It should be assumed that the sac needs to be replaced. Modern fountain pens that need the kinds of adjustments you're describing are inferior and do not work properly. That is a matter of quality control and they should be returned. This very recent infatuation with flossing nibs and spreading tines and smoothing nibs and removing baby's bottom and doing anything else to get their pens writing properly is bizarre and shouldn't be happening at all, and it simply enables manufacturers to get away with selling an inferior and essentially broken product. Even the very cheapest Chinese fountain pens have undergone so much improved quality control in the past couple of years that they almost never suffer the kinds of problems you're describing. If you're keen on doing work on pens it would make much more sense to find vintage fountain pens that need restoration, but to start with very inexpensive and broken vintage fountain pens so that you don't worry about ruining a good collectable pen, and to use best practices. The pen repair book by Jim Marshall is the one to get, and you can get the tools you need from Dale Beebe at Pentooling. He has a website, and he sells the Marshall pen repair book with a twin wire binding so it lies flat when working on pens. He's the only person who does, so I recommend getting it from him. Very few KZitem videos show best practices, but David Nishimura's vintage pens channel does. Check out his website, too, vintagepens.com. He is one of the leading authorities in the world on the subject.
@singlesideman
3 ай бұрын
@@robertcalkjr.8325 also, responding to your comment that you figured it would be quicker and easier to take a pen apart to clean it, taking apart any fountain pen wears parts needlessly, and you risk damaging or breaking them, and if it has been less than several years since a pen was last cleaned, and it hasn't been filled with inappropriate ink like India ink (never use India ink in a fountain pen - only safety pens with properly working seals can use India ink safely, and you have to use the same ink only in the pen) or boutique inks like Noodlers or Private Reserve, then you just need to do what I showed in the video to clean out your vintage fountain pen. If the pen has been filled with a boutique ink that has clogged the pen, or it wasn't cleaned out before storing it for years then it should be taken apart and the sac removed and the nib /feed /section assembly cleaned with 10% Rapido-Eze and the rest distilled water in a small jar in an ultrasonic cleaner filled with water, and then rinsed out. If it's really bad then the nib and feed should be removed with a knockout block and the ink channels of the feed scrubbed gently with a small brush, etc., but all of this is restoration work, not routine maintenance.
@robertcalkjr.8325
3 ай бұрын
@@singlesideman Thanks, Todd. I sent an email for the book, thanks! The Opus 88 uses a Jowo #6 nib, so I decided to try and repair them myself - they're not expensive. And it worked great. My ebonite feed/housing came in a little while ago. It works even better. I noticed that the ink channel is pretty wide in it. It looks too small, but they say that it's for the #6 and it's working well, so I guess it is okay. I'll wait and see if I have any hard starts now. I probably already have most of the tools I need since I have so many hobbies including, electronics repair, watchmaking, and others. I've noticed the "best practices" on YT. Some of them should be removed from YT, especially concerning firearms repair. I was appalled by some of things people were saying and doing. I haven't had any problems at all with my Pilot, TWSBI, or Lamy pens.
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