A Wahl-Eversharp Skyline Repair

It recently came to my attention that one of my Skylines did not have a breather tube installed in it. Skylines do not hold a lot of ink. They hold even less without a breather tube and so I decided to install one.

A valuable Skyline repair tutorial is available on FPN. For a reading list on Skylines see my post here.

Supplies needed
To repair my Skyline Demi I needed a breather tube, #16 tapered pen sac, shellac, talc and, as always, pen patience. (If you are repairing a regular size Skyline also use a #16 tapered sac. If you are repairing—lucky you—an Executive size Skyline use a #20 straight sac.)

Extra breather tubes are not sitting around for the taking. Some people have been creative in their tubing substitutes (e.g., WD-40 straws). I ordered my tubing and some tapered sacs from Vintage Pens. The shellac came from Pendemonium. The talc from Tryphon. The patience came from hard won experience.

Skyline Parts
In the illustration below note the breather tube sticking out from the feed. Also note how long it is. In earlier illustrations you might see a shorter tube with a curve, but the convention for repair is, I believe, for a longer tube as illustrated below. To get the full benefit of filling with the breather tube, the tube inside the Skyline must be just shy of the length of the pen sac.

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If you’re a visual learner like me, photos are a great help. What I couldn’t get a photo of (by myself anywhere) was when I put the nib, feed and section back together. The nib and feed needed some heat to be fit snugly back together. If you read the FPN tutorial you will find information about heat-setting the nib and feed. Use a heat gun whenever possible. Proper tools make all the difference in aiding the ease of repair!