When Is It Really Too Far Gone?
A short while ago I was able to pick up a pen that is fairly rare, a John Holland eyedrop filler in mottled red/black hard rubber. $20 seemed like a good price, but it did have a problem..
the pen is 6 5/16 long capped, not to common finding a vintage pen this big. so I thought it would be worth the attempt to find a fix, not easy to accomplish with hard rubber nothing likes to stick to it. the big problem is the break went 360 degrees around the cap in a spiral so I needed to hold everything in place while trying to get it stuck together, and what to use? I tried super glue, it wouldn't hold the tension of the break wanting to unwind. you can't heat hard rubber and get it to melt, I think the sulfer used in the making of this stuff keeps that from happening, it just burns. while poking around the hardware store I saw a new item, the timing couldn't have been better, it is a new flex super glue made by Devcon called grip-ton-ite.
I wrapped a rubber band around the cap to hold everything in place at the upper part of the break and worked this new glue into the crack, after this set I rolled the rubber band up the cap and finished filling, I wrapped plastic wrap around the barrel to protect the pen and to keep everything round. oh there was another little problem, a big chunk missing from the cap lip
after I let the glue sit for a few hours I pulled the rubber band off and tested the joint, after twisting, pulling and squeezing it looked like I had found the right stuff. I filled the low spots and sanded the joint down after the glue set
now it was time to do something about the missing piece. I mixed up some epoxy and added a little red tint, the flash makes it look green. I filled in the missing piece and then filled in the top of the super glue repair to strengthen the repair
I also filled in the vent holes because they had been mangled and wasn't sure if they were original. I hope to find an example of this pen is better condition someday, then I can put the proper vents is the right place.
I sanded it down and did a touch up
here you can see the lip repair before I darkened it up
I sanded it down using 320, 500 and 600 grit paper
it was looking pretty good
I did a final polish and buff
and called it close enough
the nib is a huge piece of gold, it has a crack and is missing a piece
if iridium on one tine
but until I find an expert on nib repair i'll be happy just having such an interesting piece in my display cabinet.
I hope you find this interesting, I have a few more projects coming up and will try getting them done soon.
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