What Pens Have You Broken? How Did It Happen And What Broke?

[Garageboy]

So, what pens have died in your hands? (not counting nib damage from dropping) What happened? What did you do with it?

[perth]

Kind of destroyed a Sonnet's nib by sticking it in whiteout/liquid paper. This was during my pre-obsession days, so I went on with my life without attempting to fix it.

[Lorna Reed]

Someone gave me this sweet little Conway Stewart Dinkie pen. It was heavily encrusted with dried ink so I gave it a good long soak. In my ignorance I didn't realise that it shouldn't be immersed in water, and this is the result.

 

I haven't as yet done anything with it. I don't even know if anything can be done.

Edited March 31, 2014 by Lorna Reed

[Paddler]

In learning to recondition or repair pens, I have broken approximately 8% of them. These were all third tier no-name or store brand pens, bought at flea markets. Some were stubborn and I applied too much heat trying to remove the section. One caught fire and burned to a smoking cinder in under a second. The rest had been glued together by someone doing repairs before me.

 

There was evidently a repair person in the area. I have seen evidence of his work many times over the years. One of his favorite dodges was to peen the slit in a gold nib, apparently to decrease ink flow. He used glue on press-fit sections. He used lacquer to install sacs.

 

I saved the parts of the broken pens. They have proved handy to have.

[KBeezie]

So how was their funeral?

[KBeezie]

Someone gave me this sweet little Conway Stewart Dinkie pen. It was heavily encrusted with dried ink so I gave it a good long soak. In my ignorance I didn't realise that it shouldn't be immersed in water, and this is the result.

P1010037.JPG

I haven't as yet done anything with it. I don't even know if anything can be done.

 

Well some celluloids can be soaked, but not for that long (a couple hours at best, just to allow you to get the separation apart, soften the sac and loosen the glues a little).

 

So how long was your 'long soak' ?

[Guest Ray Cornett]

Someone gave me this sweet little Conway Stewart Dinkie pen. It was heavily encrusted with dried ink so I gave it a good long soak. In my ignorance I didn't realise that it shouldn't be immersed in water, and this is the result.

P1010037.JPG

I haven't as yet done anything with it. I don't even know if anything can be done.

It looks mainly cosmetic. I am thinking the pen will still work although the edges around the lever are messed up. They may also be able to be built back up.

[novarider]

Recently my Montblanc Boheme rollerball tip was pushing out of the resin. I figured I could apply some of RonZ glue that is used in Vacumattic repair. When I applied a little heat to softed the "glue" it melted the resin!

 

I sent the pen off to MB today to have it repaired.

[Mrsal]

In learning to recondition or repair pens, I have broken approximately 8% of them. These were all third tier no-name or store brand pens, bought at flea markets. Some were stubborn and I applied too much heat trying to remove the section. One caught fire and burned to a smoking cinder in under a second. The rest had been glued together by someone doing repairs before me.

 

There was evidently a repair person in the area. I have seen evidence of his work many times over the years. One of his favorite dodges was to peen the slit in a gold nib, apparently to decrease ink flow. He used glue on press-fit sections. He used lacquer to install sacs.

 

I saved the parts of the broken pens. They have proved handy to have.

Indeed, having the parts from broken pens is nice to have. I keep a cigar box full of them around and so far have pieced together a few Esterbrooks from it.

[Mari1013]

A red Safari broke in my hand as I was changing the cartridge. The barrel cracked all the way across, right where the cut-outs end. Not knowing what to do -- this was sometime in the 80s, pre-Internet, when there weren't so many easy sources of information and help (I could go on and on about how it was "way back when") -- I just put the pieces away and went and got myself an Al-Star, which is still in frequent use.

 

Recently, I figured I might as well pull the broken pen out, crazy-glue the barrel, and put it to use. I did that and let the glue dry overnght. When I went to put the pen together, the cap cracked in two. No Safari, but my Al-Star has two nibs, one F, one M. And that's ok.

[inkstainedruth]

I have a cheap Chinese pen, a Guanleming demonstrator. It was my dedicated pen for Noodler's BSB, because it had a hooded nib, and looked good with that ink in it (and I didn't care if the barrel got stained.

Then one time last year I was pulling it out of a zipper case and the clip caught on the elastic strap and it snapped the finial clean off the pen: I can see the threads from the finial still inside the cap. Tried to crazy glue it (yeah, yeah, I know, but we're talking a $5 pen here) but it didn't hold. At this point the pen and cap pieces (including the clip) are in my pen tools/repair box.

My options are to try and find someone who will be able to do the plastic work to fix it inexpensively -- which might include trying to get the screw threads out of the cap. Or to hope my husband's friends get their 3D printer up and running and try to figure out how to manufacture a replacement -- either the finial or a whole new cap and finial assembly.

In the meantime, a Noodler's FPC has become the "new" BSB pen.

Oh, and there's the Parker Urban with the nib unit that has apparently has found a stable wormhole link to the ink universe -- I swear more ink has come out of the feed from the top of the nib than I think ever ran through the converter.... And that's the *replacement* pen (there were multiple issues with converters, and the original pen got sent back to Parker -- read, Newell-Rubbermaid -- twice under warranty).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[rwilsonedn]

My faithful Rotring 600 died in my hand, actually. I was writing one day--not with any undue pressure that I was aware of--when the feed split in two and the nib fell out. Rather dramatic. I ended up with a Rotring 600 with half a feed sticking out of it, a broken piece of feed, and a spare nib. Still have all the pieces somewhere, I think. So much for bullet-proof.

ron

[Inkysloth]

 

Well some celluloids can be soaked, but not for that long (a couple hours at best, just to allow you to get the separation apart, soften the sac and loosen the glues a little).

 

So how long was your 'long soak' ?

Many Conway Stewarts aren't made of celluloid, but of casein, which swells in water.

[cjseibold]

I just ruined an extremely expensive, hard to find Pilot Varsity by dropping it nib down on a tile floor...

[hypnostene]

My first Waterman Hemisphere met the floor nib-down. I somehow managed to find a cheap(-ish) replacement nib. Two years later the pen got stolen. It wasn't very lucky.

[BT-7274]

As of the moment, two: a Sheaffer Touchdown which had its feed snap during adjustment, and a 51, which got run over in a parking lot. The 51 lives to tell the tale thanks to a new barrel and hood while the Sheaffer sits in parts and pieces, down to the bent, and rather flimsy nib.

[kmart_security]

Noodler flex was my first pen and I couldn't get the ink flow right, kept spitting on my paper. Anger took over and after days of messing with it I snapped it. Thankfully I wasn't pushed from fountain pens. May revisit a noodler...., someday.

[Runnin_Ute]

My Al Star. The threads on the section broke - in the barrel. I was able to get the broken piece out easily, go to lamyusa.com and bought a new section and nib. $25. But it was worth it. Put a fine nib on it, now it has a 1.1 mm.....

[Inkysloth]

I had a 1.1mm TWSBI nib & section, the feed end snapped off in the barrel (apparently a known issue) and I was sent a replacement feed & barrel. I got the nib & feed out of the broken part OK, but struggled to seat them in the replacement properly. In a moment of not thinking I popped the cap on and screwed... the tines both twisted slightly and bent over.

 

Pants.

[mirosc]

No fountain pen in the last decades.

Different with wooden pencil though. I have broken several of these in half while playing with them (I don't do this with fountain pens).