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There have been 4 items by ElaineB (Search limited from 30-March 23)


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#39786 Canadian Vacumatic (junior?) - repair advice

Posted by ElaineB on 21 February 2015 - 04:57 PM in PARKER: (USA "Big Five")

Okay, thanks for all the advice. Hopefully simply servicing it will be enough.



#39752 Canadian Vacumatic (junior?) - repair advice

Posted by ElaineB on 18 February 2015 - 11:50 PM in PARKER: (USA "Big Five")

I've been looking at replacement nibs on Nibs.com -- Seems like the average is about $50-60, with $30 installation. Is that more than this pen is worth?



#39746 Canadian Vacumatic (junior?) - repair advice

Posted by ElaineB on 18 February 2015 - 06:11 PM in PARKER: (USA "Big Five")

I got this pen for almost nothing about ten years ago on Ebay.

 

parker.jpg

 

parker2.jpg

 

Imprint says: "Made in Canada Parker Vacumatic" with some patent numbers and what I think might be a date code that looks like .o.

 

Nib says "14K Parker Vacumatic Made in USA" and again patent numbers.

 

The gold trim is in good condition, no brassing or notable scratches. The filling mechanism works well. The plastic has no transparency that I can see. The problem is the nib. It writes, a semi-flex sort of cursive italic, but it's clearly not factory condition. Under a loupe, I can see that one of the tines is very wavy and the tips don't meet well. (You can sort of see this in the second photo above.)The tipping itself is all but gone. I'm guessing that the nib got dropped and someone tried to fix it, grinding away all the irridium in an attempt to compensate for the tine misalignment they couldn't/didn't address.

 

I'd like to get this writing again, but I'm not sure how to approach the repair. Replace the nib? Get it retipped or restored? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 




#37095 Hello from Massachusetts

Posted by ElaineB on 09 September 2014 - 02:00 PM in Say Hello!

I'm delighted to be here among fellow pen nuts. I've been using fountain pens for *mumbledy mumbledy* years, since I picked up a blister pack of a Sheaffer school pen and cartridges in junior high school. My dad let me use his Parker 51 in high school (which I unfortunately broke. However he no longer holds this against me, since I have given him grandchildren by this point.) After that, in college, I picked up a Parker 45 (avocado flighter, oh those 70s colors) which I used exclusively for a good 20 years, while the world around me forgot what fountain pens were. After said grandchildren were born, I myself forgot what fountain pens were as I rarely had a chance to sit down and write anything to anyone while the kids were young. And sadly, my beloved Parker 45 was lost somewhere during those years of chaos.

Later, through the Internet, I found that there were whole communities of people who were using and loving fountain pens, and I was hit by the collector's bug. Well, very mildly by it, because finances are quite tight and I generally can't afford anything above $50 and even that might be a once a year purchase.

Still, I am a pen user more than anything else -- artist and writer -- so what I prize is pen performance. I like to buy ugly beat-up vintage pens for cheap from Ebay, and then tinker with them until they sing again. I have a dozen or so $3 Hero pens that write beautifully (because I culled the bad ones, tossing them in the trash with no regret). Inexpensive Pilots with delicious smooth fine nibs. A couple of miraculous vintage flex nibs housed in dull, dingy, olive-brown hard rubber bodies.


-climbs up on soapbox-

I use flexible nibs for sketching, but unlike a lot of fountain pen users, I don't like wet-noodly soft flex nibs. They're impractical for drawing (too wet, so it takes way too long to dry. I end up smudging the lines). I can do calligraphy with them, true, but I have other media I prefer. And they're impractical for daily writing -- I usually produce around 6 pages a day of longhand, in 2-3 hour blocks, and the last thing I need is a pen that slows me down. I absolutely appreciate the expert craftsmanship that went into the creation of gold flex nibs, but for me personally, they don't have any more magic than a good sable brush (which also required, btw, craftsmanship to create. I've watched brushes being made. The process can't be automated, and it takes years of work to build up the necessary expertise.)

Anyway, for writing I like nice smooth, velvety nails in my pens. Speed demon nibs, as efficient as possible. I know very few people share my preference, but that just means more beat-up wonder pens for me.

-climbs down from soapbox-

Lastly, over the years, I seem to have built up an aversion to black ink. I used to use it exclusively, but perhaps it has to do with all the artwork I do. Black is for drawing. Colors are for writing? For legibility reasons, I rarely use anything very bright, but I like to mix my own dark palette of colors from the inks I own. If I see swatches of an ink I like, I try to reproduce it from my existing ink collection. I can usually get pretty close. It's not much different from mixing paints.

Okay, so that's me. I'm opinionated in a way (can you tell?) but on the other hand, I find other people's enthusiasm infectious and love seeing new things. Ultimately a pen is simply a tool for me, not a precious collectible, but I do so enjoy looking at all those beautiful maki-e Nakayas, and colorful handmade acrylic pens, and... and... you get the idea.

Glad to be here,
Elaine