I was looking for a way to post my before picture as well, but couldn’t figure it out. The metal was dull and dirty, the rubber pen sac was cracked and hardened and, the pen was full of dried ink. I disassembled the pen, soaked it, polished the parts and fitted a new ink sac. I think it is a Whal Machine Turned pen from the 1920s.
When I write with it, the first few centimeters have no ink, then it flows. I gather this can be fixed, but I don’t want to press my luck with reshaping the nib and potentially breaking it.
I found a stash of old pens when cleaning out a relative’s house. So, maybe I’ll be able to share more of the ones I’m able to revive.
That looks great! That takes a lot of patience to pull off.
I'd reckon the hard starts may have something to do with the cap and/or ink. I've heard it's better to use period friendly ink with vintage pens. Modern Japanese inks are particularly ill suited to them due to basic pH levels.
Is the hard start with every letter or word? Or just each cap/uncap? If you fill the cap with some water do you see any dripping through the clip or elsewhere? If so the ink will dry up in the nib between uses and cause that hard start. Or it could simply be a threading issue. A lot of modern metal pens have an o-ring to help seal the pen when capped.
It’s only on the very first stroke. I’ll see how annoying it becomes as I keep going.