Nib Came Apart In The Body... >.>

[Pensfan]

I was trying to change the 9556 nib in my copper J and nib wouldn't turn at all. I had just installed this nib yesterday so I am sort of frustrated now with it. I tried soaking it in room temp to warm water for about 10 minutes. When I tried to unscrew the nib, the feed and point twisted right out, leaving the threaded housing in the barrel!?!

 

Ugh... so now the barrel is soaking trying to loosen anything that might be in there.

 

Any suggestions on how to get the threaded nib housing out of the body??

 

Thanks everyone!

[PenFisher]

Let is soak overnight and in the morning heat the section with a hairdryer to warm things up. In the mean time find a wooden chop stick (or similar) that gets narrower towards the end. Pre-fit and test that it won"t go too far into the section so that it breaks anything or ruptures the sac. You may need to cut off some of it. The idea is that in the morning, after soaking you can gently wedge the chip stick against the inner diameter of the threaded nib collar that remains. The operative word is gently. The rotate the stick so that the treads of the collar will twist and come out. I have used this many times with great results ... just be sure to soak, heat and be gentle...and patient. If it doesn't work perhaps there will be other fixes from other members. Good luck !

[Pensfan]

Excellent idea... thanks PenFisher.

 

I knew that by only owning vintage pens I would have to do my first repair sooner or later. I was just hoping for later! haha. At least this one seems easy enough.

 

Thanks again!

[Pensfan]

Thanks PenFisher! Your advice worked great.

 

Seems that the real problem was the nib collar just disintegrated in the section... haha. Soaking it all night and alternating between using the chop stick and a few small tools I used when I used to work on violins, did the trick. I gently pulled the pieces out, flushed the section and the sac, powdered it up and she is back together writing perfectly.

 

Esties sure are easy to work on once you get over the 'fear' of tearing them open and just doing it.

 

Thanks again!

[Rabbit]

Ahhh, I had one crumble on me a month or two ago (here). Not pretty! I made the best of the situation though and did my first collar transplant, which was a lot easier than I thought it would be. If you have a renew point with a damaged nib or a badly worn down 1xxx or 2xxx nib, you should give it a try with your 9556.

 

On a related note, I noticed recently that I have a couple NOS nibs that have collars which just seem to look "dry," if that makes sense. I wonder if those are likely to crumble too?

 

--Stephen

[Pensfan]

I just saw that thread yesterday as a matter of fact when I was looking for info on fixing my nib in this thread! haha. You did a beautiful job cleaning up that italic nib. Congrats!

 

Now that I have broken an Estie down to the very core, I am going to go buy 4-5 non-restored pens at the local antique mall. They are all around the $10 price but I shied away from them before since I hadn't taken an Estie, or any FP for that matter, apart yet. I am going to restore the ones that can be, and use the others for parts. Restoring these great little pens is a new hobby for me now.

 

It really is easy to work on the Esties. They are engineered so well, it really is fun to work on them.

 

[PaFitch]

I've only had one collar disintegrate. It was a 9xxx series pen. Years ago I twisted too hard on a 2xxx series nib and pulled the nib and feed loose from the collar but was still able to remove the collar whole.