I don't have illusions of becoming a pen repairman. If I need difficult work done on a really nice pen, I'll send it to a professional. Still, putting a new sac in a cheap pen seemed like something that would be fun to do, and well within my capabilities. So I picked up some cheap pens to work on. The Wearever pen/pencil combo on the right was bought separately; the two Wearevers and the Esterbrook that you see left to right, were part of a lot.
It went very well. I had the Wearever that you see in pieces on the left completely assembled before, but I took it apart again, and am going to store it this way. The nib is pretty much a lost cause (it's not a stub, it's broken, but not worth paying for a nibmeister) but maybe another one will come my way. Anyway, it holds ink just fine. The sort of camouflage one next to it writes well, and shined up nicely, although I didn't try to shine the nib. The combo on the right is a very nice writer, at least the pen is. The pencil takes an old size 1.15-1.2 mm lead, which I do have, but it was hard to get the short piece that it holds to click into place and stay there. Got it in the end, though.
The Esterbrook was a minor disappointment. The seller had said that he hadn't tried any of the pens and didn't know if they would work, so I expected to restore it. In fact, it turned out that the sac was just fine, and no work was needed, although I did swap out the nib. Well, I got a working Esterbrook for $7 and change, so I guess I shouldn't complain.
Now of course I didn't need any of these, but it's nice to have a pen that you fixed up yourself, even if it was only something simple like this. I followed the instructions on Richard Binder's reference pages. The camo Wearever was the only one where I needed a heat gun to get the section out.
It went very well. I had the Wearever that you see in pieces on the left completely assembled before, but I took it apart again, and am going to store it this way. The nib is pretty much a lost cause (it's not a stub, it's broken, but not worth paying for a nibmeister) but maybe another one will come my way. Anyway, it holds ink just fine. The sort of camouflage one next to it writes well, and shined up nicely, although I didn't try to shine the nib. The combo on the right is a very nice writer, at least the pen is. The pencil takes an old size 1.15-1.2 mm lead, which I do have, but it was hard to get the short piece that it holds to click into place and stay there. Got it in the end, though.
The Esterbrook was a minor disappointment. The seller had said that he hadn't tried any of the pens and didn't know if they would work, so I expected to restore it. In fact, it turned out that the sac was just fine, and no work was needed, although I did swap out the nib. Well, I got a working Esterbrook for $7 and change, so I guess I shouldn't complain.
Now of course I didn't need any of these, but it's nice to have a pen that you fixed up yourself, even if it was only something simple like this. I followed the instructions on Richard Binder's reference pages. The camo Wearever was the only one where I needed a heat gun to get the section out.
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