What do you guys usually use for a heat source for getting parts loose and whatnot? A heat gun seems pretty fierce... I can imagine a hair dryer might work, but could get too hot also. A candle isn't diffuse enough, I'd think, though I suppose if you were very careful...

Ideally I think I'd want something that you don't have to hold to operate also. Like a desktop bunsen burner, only much more gentle (no, I wouldn't use a real bunsen burner of course... ).

What's the standard?

Thanks!

The one repair man that I have watched work on pens uses a hair dryer and keeps his fingers on the work not far from where he is heating. He keeps the hair dryer moving back and forth and if it starts to get too hot for his fingers then he backs off.

A hair dyer will work, and is what I used for about a year. I now have an Embossing Heat Gun from a scrapbooking store, same as Ron Z and Richard use. Personally for your first venture, use a hair dryer. Less chance of pen flambe. Oh, and keep some water in a glass nearby, just in case. Remember what I said about being able to hold the heated pen for a few seconds, any hotter and let it cool and try it again. Actually heating and cooling cycles do help, as the expansion/contraction usually loosens up stuff a little.

Cheers,
Sean

I did some checking, and found out that the 'low' setting on most heat guns is almost identical to the embossing guns (wattage comparisons) - and mine cost half the price of an embossing gun. (and I now have something I can put on 'high' and blister paint off of wood)

I took a piece of copper tubing and soldered a cap on. This sits in a water-bath I heat with a hot-plate to 150F. I place the pen in the dry tube for 8 minutes, pull and take the pens apart. I have never cooked a pen and, all of the pens I have tried, except one, have come apart.

The one suborn pen is an Aikin-Lambert 'Vis-O_Pen' with a beautiful celluloid body. I guess at some time I will need to go ahead and bore the section out and fit a new one. (I rummage through my nib collection looking for a flexy nib.)

Ron

QUOTE

I took a piece of copper tubing and soldered a cap on. This sits in a water-bath I heat with a hot-plate to 150F. I place the pen in the dry tube for 8 minutes, pull and take the pens apart. I have never cooked a pen and, all of the pens I have tried, except one, have come apart.

Now that's a real novel approach, Ron. Would you mind describing that in a little more depth, please? I would like to try this for my own workbench.

For example, what size tube do you use? Does the tube stand upright in the water bath or does one lay it across, on a diagonal? Why the specific time of 8-minutes? If you would be kind enough to paint a verbal picture so that I can "see" it, I would appreciate it.

Peace,

Phroneo

My first heat source was a hair dryer. That was hot enough for about 70% of the pens I have reconditioned. The rest needed more heat.

I tried an industrial heat gun that puts out a minimum 500 degree heat, but that is too tricky to use; things get too hot too fast.

I ordered Tryphon's heat gun. That is good, but you still need to be really careful with it. If you get a little too close with the wrong kind of plastic, things can still melt.

If I really want to be careful with a pen I really value, I use hot water. You can heat water and, using an oven thermometer, get the temperature precisely where you want it. To remove a stuck section from a barrel, for example, I tie a narrow strip of cloth around the part of the barrel that surrounds the section tennon. I then use an eyedropper to drip 140 degree water onto the cloth. No danger of fire from nitrocellulose pen parts; no danger of melting plastic parts. The cloth wicks the hot water away from the section, which could be HR.

So far, I have used the hot water trick on upwards of 60 pens. There is only one of that number that I have never been able to get apart.

Paddler

Thanks for the recommendations. I think for starters, for me, Tryphon's heat gun looks like the way I'll go. It also has the advantage of having a stand, at least it looks like it from their picture, so I don't have to have one hand holding it while I use it. I'll be conservative with it until I have a better feel for what I'm doing, certainly... and I'll start on a couple of junkers just in case.

I have that gun. It works pretty well. Just be carefull for the distance of the pen to the gun. Closer the hotter. I melted the thread of an estie the first time I used the gun. Advice for caution. Quick, easy and not too wide as a hairdryer is.

I built a couple of them. The first was a 3/4" copper cap and pipe I put in my 3 cup rice cooker, raise water to 150F, cut off rice cooker. Once that was 'proven', I took a vegetable or tomato sauce can (I can't remember which) sourced an old 'cup' hotplate and hooked a dimmer to it. I gradually got a beer can holder taped about it for insulation and a light dimmer to control heat input. A bit of cooking oil will prevent evaporation (I used canola (rape/turnip) but actually cook with olive oil). Preheating the water a bit first will cut the time needed until the water is at proper temperature. It eventually evolved to three pipes so I could heat more pens at one time.

The 8 minutes is the minimum time found by experimentation. I keep a few timers about and if I am repairing pens, one is set to 8 minutes.

Well, that is about it. I am not accumulating pens as much any more. About all I do with pens now is use them. I am buying a few "51"s and pulling hoods, cleaning collectors, straightening a few nibs, replacing vent tubes and replacing diaphragms. They do take a bit of heating at times but are a lot more forgiving than celluloid barrel pens.

Ron

[quote name='chud' date='Nov 4 2007, 07:40 PM' post='409984']
What do you guys usually use for a heat source for getting parts loose and whatnot? A heat gun seems pretty fierce... I can imagine a hair dryer might work, but could get too hot also. A candle isn't diffuse enough, I'd think, though I suppose if you were very careful...

Ideally I think I'd want something that you don't have to hold to operate also. Like a desktop bunsen burner, only much more gentle (no, I wouldn't use a real bunsen burner of course... ).

What's the standard?

Thanks!
[/quot
HI
JUST A THOUGHT WONDERING IF T WOULD WORK BY PLACING THE PEN IN A PLASTIC BAG FIRST THEN IN HOT WATER (BOIL IN THE BAG)
I WILL HAVE T GET HOLD OF SOME MORE JUNKERS AND TRY IT
SEARCH EBAY HEAT GUN THE EMBOSSING ONES ARE ABOUT £12 HERE IN UK
REGARDS
LES