Parker Pen fibre tip adaptor
Thursday, June 8, 2017 at 6:34PM
Please note I don't provide Parker adaptors for old pens but the article below suggests a suitable third party source of bespoke parts.
A new lease of life for a favourite old pen
I have a trio of engraved Parker pens from the 1970’s that have sentimental value, comprising a ballpoint pen, a propelling pencil and a fibre-tip pen.
Parker pen (and compatible) ballpoint refills are commonplace but refilling my fibre tip pen has been a problem as the refills went out of production long ago. Fibre-tips were a relic of the 1970s - a time when the Japanese Pentel rollerball first came to Britain - and they quickly fell out of favour with the advent of rollerballs and gel ink. In practice fibre-tip refills often dried out, or the tip would get scratchy and damaged, so they were unrewarding to use anyway.
My Parker fibre tip pen in need of a refill
How to give my precious Parker fibre tip pen a new lease of life? The obvious answer is to see if another kind of refill would fit, but there are so many variables (length, diameter, shoulder height, tip length, end cap design and so on) that I found it impossible to get an alternative.
Then I came across a very helpful precision engineer called Darryl Kingshott based in the UK. He describes himself as an ex-Parker Pen engineer and he manufactures individual adaptor sleeves to fit your choice of Parker pen and pen refill. His website shows many examples of his work at
http://www.moreengineering.co.uk/parker-fibre-tip-adaptors/4582872279
Turned brass spacer adaptor for the tip...Adaptor components can be precision-made to fit both the tip end, so your choice of refill sits properly, and also an extension piece may be needed at the cap-end to get the overall length right within the pen.
... and an alloy spacer piece for the endDarryl identified mine as a Parker P61 and offered to take a look. I also suggested the refill I’d like to use. I recommend Cult Pens for refills, so I chose a Schneider Slider 755 (blue). It needed to be something that would not go obsolete overnight. Also, the pen will only be used very intermittently so I hoped to avoid leaks.
The final result, new refill fitted with adaptorDarryl obtained the refill and then machine-turned suitable adaptors, one as polished brass to fit the gold-plated end of my pen, and an alloy extender for the cap. He also tweaked the pen clip a bit. At a cost of less than £30 including recorded delivery, the pen was soon back in my hands, an old friend from 1978 ready for work once again.
Darryl’s friendly helpful service was terrific and is highly recommended – if you have a Parker pen and want to adapt it for a modern refill, you can get in touch directly with Darryl via his website.
Reader Comments (1)
Superb article. I recently was after a Parker 61 Cirrus (Cloud series) Fibre Tip conversion for a possible purchase from eBay. I had heard from Darryl Kingshott and got in touch with him to arrange the conversion. Ever so helpful and accommodating. At the end I finished purchasing the pens from him. Superb examples, brilliant work and certainly deserves to be recommended to anybody contemplating bringing up to date these fantastic pens. Nevertheless... reasonable priced as these conversions are for the top end pens, it can be somewhat dear for the lesser brushed s/s models. We know that the old fibre tip refills are obsolete but... not useless! The old fibre tip refills can be cannibalised to make both end adaptors that would fit the Parker ballpoint refills, for example. It does takes a little bit of imagination and some care but the end result is good enough to allow anybody to carry on using these pens, at the cost of a simple Parker ballpoint refill. I have just done one for my Parker 45 Flighter brushed s/s and it works.