‘This site describes my facility for the restoration of vintage and classic fountain pens.

Collecting fountain pens and the study of their history is an absorbing activity, but nothing quite matches the satisfaction of bringing the pens back to their state of health when they were made.  Only by handling a pen and using it in the manner originally intended can you recapture an appreciation of the quality of the instrument, and in your imagination, the various people who have written with it over the years.

My main interest is in pens that are generally  regarded as difficult to restore, including De La Rue Onoto piston fillers, Parker Vacumatics, Sheaffer Vac-fill, Eversharp piston fillers, Sheaffer Touchdown and PFM, Swan Visofil, Blackbird Topfill, Ford piston fillers, Waterman safety pens, Conway Stewart piston fillers etc.



 I have completed repairs on over
250 pens in the past year, and
many letters of appreciation have
been received (see ‘Testimonials’).

Please note that there is no ‘we’ in this
operation - each pen is assured
of my personal attention.



I encourage others to do their own repairs, so I am preparing a series of technical articles (Visofil, Ford, Blackbird and Stephens button filler in the technical section of this site).  I also offer tools that I have developed to enable some of the more difficult tasks, and there are some good serviced pens for sale.






Pen Repair Books

1.  Pen Repair (Marshall and Oldfield).

The book was produced in honour of Arthur Twydle (the UK pen guru).  Arthur was starting work on the book with our cooperation at the time of his death, so we have completed it and added as many of his hints and tips as we can remember.  The book has nearly 200 pages and over 400 colour photographs covering all aspects of pen repair. The three sections cover general topics, specific pens (such as Vacumatic, VacFill, Swan Visofil etc.) and advanced topics such as nib work, cap lip replacement, plating, threads, machines and equipment etc.
The price is £25.  Post and packing to the UK is £3, to Europe £6 and to the rest of the world £9.    I will sign your book if you request it.

For ordering information, click the Pen Repair Books link.

Sorry - now sold out!  Please send me an e-mail if you would like to be informed when the revised and enlarged second edition appears in about  April 2010

If you already have the book - please e-mail me for free supplementary pages.


2.  Onoto Pen Repair (Crook, Hull, Marshall and Oldfield)

Since writing Pen Repair, we have realised that the enormous interest in Onoto pens has justified the writing of another book to include far more information than it was possible to put in the first one.  Steve Hull has shared his knowledge of Onoto history and Peter Crook has contributed engineeering expertise.  The 34 page high quality full colour publication covers all aspects of Onoto pens that we are aware of.
The price is £10.  Post and packing to the UK is £1.50, to Europe £2.50 and to the rest of the world £4.

Site updates:
1 December  Sales of ‘Pen Repair’ have been excellent.  All copies sold from over 1000 printed.  No more will be printed until April/May 2010.

09 December  The repair queue is 4 months long.  I am only accepting repairs that cannot be done elsewhere or from old customers sending not more than three pens at a time.   I am reducing my repair activities to concentrate on the design and production of tools, writing, and repairing pens for sale on this site.

05 January  Some more Visofils for sale.  The PFM’s went like ‘hot cakes’, but I have another - a grey PFM mint!

Pen of the Month

Sudoku Solver
This will provide you with an assessment of how difficult the puzzle is, and it will solve all the 9 by 9 puzzles that I have tried.  If you would like a copy of my solver (written in Fortran!) please drop me an e-mail and let me know the operating system you have.