The range of pens that cross a repairer’s desk could boggle the mind. In fact, the variety is one of the things that make doing what I do so much fun. F’rinstance, this morning I refaced the inner cap of a Waterman Patrician that was leaking into its cap.
This pen, in Moss-Agate, is one of the most beautiful pens I’ve ever had the pleasure to handle. I’m a sucker for Moss-Agate anyway (check out my Moss-Agate Lady Patricia), and this Patrician is about as nice as they come: perfect color, no scratches or other defects worth mentioning, and a wicked sweet nib. It’s as perfect a Patrician as I’m likely ever to see. You might say this pen made my day — or maybe my week!
At the other end of the spectrum was a Japanese pen that I worked on yesterday.
I’d call this pen a no-name; but I suspect that the sticker on the cap, which contains two Japanese ideograms, must identify the maker. It’s not an ugly pen; in fact, its proportions are pleasing, and the entire pen body and cap, save the transparent part of the barrel, are black urushi. On the other hand, if I were the maker of that pen I’m not sure I’d want anyone to know it.
The pen’s a piston filler. So far, so good. It was here because its piston seal, a cork, had aged out and was leaking. Nothing bad yet; I replace corks on piston fillers and safeties pretty frequently. Okay, so I took the section off. Piston fillers have threaded sections, if the section comes off at all, right? Wrong. This pen’s section was a slip fit, glued into the barrel. It’s a good thing I wasn’t intending to knock the nib and feed out of the section, because they were glued in. Yes, glued. With a hole poked through the blob of glue to allow ink flow into the feed. Maybe.
Turning my attention to the piston mechanism, I rapidly ascertained that there was no safe way to extract it from the back of the barrel. Glue again, and it wasn’t a differentially-threaded mechanism, so I couldn’t even get a tool between the barrel and the blind cap. I had to work from the front. Immediately apparent was the blob of glue on the front of the piston shaft. No nut, no washer, just glue. The bloody cork was glued to the shaft. I mean really glued; there was no other provision to hold it in place.
This whole scenario was eerily reminiscent of the bad feelings I have about repairing cheap World War II-era American syringe fillers; like them, this Japanese pen was clearly not made with any provision for repair. But I just thought about the Seabees’ motto: With willing hearts and skillful hands, the difficult we do at once…the impossible takes a bit longer.
So I removed the cork. In chunks. Lots of them. The shaft didn’t even have a step in diameter; it was the same diameter from end to end. I took the necessary measurements, fabricated and waxed a new cork, and glued the sucker in place with a dishwasher-safe glue. And set the pen aside, immediately, not to be touched until this morning, at which time I tested the piston. Praise be, it works! Not only does the cork stay stuck to the shaft, but it’s also airtight. Woo hoo! I reassembled the pen, cleaned it up, and photographed it.
Oh, and there’s no inner cap.
I’m going to finish this screed with a puzzler. Here’s a piston-filling pen that I rebuilt this week:
This photo should give you enough information to identify the pen’s maker and — presumably — country of origin. I don’t think there’s enough information in the photo to give you the name under which the pen was sold, and therein lies the puzzle. If you are the first person to post a comment here in which the the maker, country, and brand name are correctly identified, you will win a set of my four pen anatomy posters. (The catch is that I will have to be able to contact you; therefore, unless you include your email address in your comment so that I can contact you, you’ll have to watch this space until a winner is announced and — if you’re the winner — contact me.)