Help! Can't Unscrew The Cap Off My M100

[CaptainBA]

Not really sure what happened but some friends came over to play with pens over the weekend. The M100 cap was fine over the weekend but today I picked it up and I can't get the cap to budge or rotate either way. Tried putting it in the fridge in the hopes that it would contract a little but that didn't work. Then I tried to lubricate the threads a little with dishsoap but it's still stuck on. Not really sure if there is a safe way of disassembling the pen. Any help would be wonderful as this is a NOS pen that I'm very fond of.

Edited September 10, 2014 by CaptainBA

[joss]

Strange! Possibly, the cap is stuck because of dried ink (although you do not expect a new pen to leak significant amounts of ink).

 

It would not hurt the pen if you place the pen, cap down, in a beaker with warmish water for a few hours.

[FPFan]

Strange! Possibly, the cap is stuck because of dried ink (although you do not expect a new pen to leak significant amounts of ink).

 

It would not hurt the pen if you place the pen, cap down, in a beaker with warmish water for a few hours.

+1 - My thought, too

[CaptainBA]

Hm, I'll have to try this tomorrow. My thought was that it was because my friends tightened it down too much but it can't hurt to try anything that comes to mind. Thanks, I'll have to report back.

[ac12]

Oh, another reason for me to remove the cap from the pen before giving the pen to a friend.

 

I will put the cap back on "properly" after you give me back the pen.

Edited September 11, 2014 by ac12

[sargetalon]

This is admittedly an odd problem to have. The only two possibilites that I can think of is that it was simply screwed on very tightly or that there is a problem with the threads. I would think that any over-tightened cap could be undone without too much force required. I'm not sure how the threads could be damaged except....I have seen people who didn't know better try to push on and pull off screw on caps which could damage the threads. Are you sure that this did not occur? The only other possiblility would be dried ink cementing the cap in place but this would seem highly unlikely.

[CaptainBA]

It could have been likely that the threads were damaged but my friends know about fountain pens. I only mentioned that because I didn't keep an eye on them the entire time. I'm going to try and free the cap by soaking it in warm water so we'll see what happens. I'll report back soon.

[ac12]

gud luk

[CaptainBA]

Hm...Soaking it in warm water didn't help. Trying to put dish soap into the threads to lubricate it didn't work. Attempting to leave it in the fridge in order to get the plastic to contract didn't work. I guess someone jammed the cap on or cross-threaded it. Regardless, I couldn't get the cap off.

 

There's a local pen repairer who has offered to help me so hopefully he'll be able to help me out.

[Tadeusz]

Hopefully your repair person can sort the problem out. If not, do you have a pair of those section pliers (the ones with red rubberized jaws)? Maybe you could put the barrel in those pliers and then you would have a better grip with which to twist the cap off gently.

 

I am unsure if Pelikan/Chartpak would be able to help with this issue, but it might be worth a try.

[CaptainBA]

Would Pelikan/Chartpak even help me since I bought this pen on eBay? I was under the impression they wouldn't.

 

And no I don't have section pliers but perhaps the repair guy does .