Blue Diamond Paint

PARKER BLUE DIAMOND PAINT.  Restore the paint on blue diamonds with this oil based enamel. Be advised that many parker pens DID leave the factory with un-painted blue diamonds on clips. But if you have damaged or chipped paint and want to repair the blue diamond on your clip, or, in the case of first year desk pens, on the barrels, this will do a nice job. This oil based paint will cure to a tenacious, rubbery coating. I apply it with a toothpick, let it "skin-over" for about 12 hours, and then trim it using a scraping motion while the paint is still soft.

REPLACING BLUE DIAMOND PAINT ON PARKER 51 CLIPS 

Restore the paint on blue diamonds with this oil based enamel. Be advised that many parker pens DID leave the factory with un-painted blue diamonds on clips. But if you have damaged or chipped paint and want to repair the blue diamond on your clip, or, in the case of first year desk pens, on the barrels, this will do a nice job. This oil based paint will cure to a tenacious, rubbery coating. I apply it with a toothpick, let it "skin-over" for about 12 hours, and then trim it using a scraping motion while the paint is still soft.

REPLACING BLUE DIAMOND PAINT ON PARKER 51 CLIPS 
Clean & polish the existing blue diamond depression, making sure to remove all old paint, polish or wax residue.  The old pain residue is usually removed easily with a small pointed tool such as a dental pick.  
Be careful not to scratch the gold surface.  If you leave a section of the old paint, the boundary will likely show through on your final product.  Wipe down the area with a solvent such as paint thinner or Goof Off, but if you’re doing it on a plastic barrel, make sure you use a solvent that won’t attack the plastic surface.  If you are good with a tiny brush, disregard the rest of this and go for it.  If not, and you are good at mind/hand/tool coordination, try the directions below; it’s what I find works well for me. 
IF YOU ARE A KLUTZ WORKING WITH YOUR HANDS MECHANICALY, DON’T TRY THIS. 
TAKE NORMAL, SANE PRECAUTIONS WHEN USING BLADES AND FOLLOW PRECAUTIONS ON SOLVENT LABELS. 
I use a round toothpick and dip the tip into the paint (this bottle of paint will get a skin after a while, but just poke the toothpick through the skin – don’t destroy the skin, your toothpick hole will heal and close back up), getting a small drop on the toothpick.  You probably want to be working under lighted magnification.  Dab the paint onto the inside of the bordered blue diamond area, replenishing the supply on the toothpick as more is needed, being careful to avoid slopping paint beyond the blue diamond raised border and onto the feather pattern of a clip to the extent  possible, but push paint into all of the diamond corners.  If you really make a mess, wipe it off with solvent and start over.  However, a small amount of slop can be tolerated, as it can easily be cleaned-up per instructions below.   When the paint application looks fairly clean, set it aside somewhere it can’t roll-over and mess-up your work.  
Let it set overnight, but not much longer so the paint just skins-over but does not harden.

BE CAREFUL BELOW; YOU CAN DO DAMAGE TO THE GOLD FILLED SURFACE IF YOU ACT TOO AGGRESSIVELY.  Take a new single sided razor blade or an X-acto knife with a new blade and GENTLY, using the blade LIGHTLY as a squeegee, remove the skinned-over paint from the raised border around the perimeter of the blue diamond.  If you waited the right amount of time in the drying process, you should get a nice, clean edge around the interior of the blue diamond (If the paint inside the diamond tears off, clean it all off and start over).  After you get a clean edge on the border, you can now GENTLY remove the paint slop beyond the raised diamond border in the feather pattern by GENTLY using the corner/point of the blade.  GENTLE wiping with a soft rag outside the diamond boundaries may help at this point, but be careful you don’t remove your results.  
If you’re doing a blue diamond on the plastic barrel of a first year desk pen, there is a diamond shaped indentation there also that you can fill with paint and GENTLY trim off by scraping the edges with a flat razor blade.  Let the paint finish drying and if the edges are still not clean and straight after scraping, you can use a buffer stick flat on the surrounding surface to clean the residual paint off that is beyond the diamond depression boundary.  The 4-way buffer sticks are the most well suited for apps like this – go to the ABRASIVES page for these buffer sticks.  No need to start out with the most course grit (black) for this purpose – try the pink followed by the white and then the grey. 
This is an oil based paint and will provide a tough, rubbery finish once it cures for a day or so. 
2013 Dale Beebe