Vintage Waterman Eyedropper

[apple320]

I had this nice Waterman section that I built a new pen around.

Chris

 

[jskeen]

Chris; I'm very interested in the concept of building pens around vintage sections. It just seems like a cool idea, but I'm a long way from having a threading lathe right now. However , I'm curious if the 14k nib on this one is really kinda dull looking, or is that just a photo problem. If it is really kinda dull and scratched, would you want to clean it up somehow, or is that verboten, because it would kill the value as a vintage part? I'm just not sure if a vintage fp nib is like a vintage bailey plane, you only do the absolute minimum amount of cleaning to it to restore it to working condition? How much is "too much" on a vintage nib, as opposed to say, restoring a complete vintage pen to working condition?

Just curious as to your opinion on the matter.

James

 

[apple320]

Chris; I'm very interested in the concept of building pens around vintage sections. It just seems like a cool idea, but I'm a long way from having a threading lathe right now. However , I'm curious if the 14k nib on this one is really kinda dull looking, or is that just a photo problem. If it is really kinda dull and scratched, would you want to clean it up somehow, or is that verboten, because it would kill the value as a vintage part? I'm just not sure if a vintage fp nib is like a vintage bailey plane, you only do the absolute minimum amount of cleaning to it to restore it to working condition? How much is "too much" on a vintage nib, as opposed to say, restoring a complete vintage pen to working condition?

Just curious as to your opinion on the matter.

James

I don't do a lot of polishing on old nibs as I am afraid of wrecking them. If I had a customer that wanted it all done up then I would get my nib guy to polish it all up but most of them seem to be fine as they are.

Chris