How to remove a 51 aerometric breather tube

[Ron Z]

I'll post this once, and may pin it for future reference.

 

There's been a lot of discussion over time about the aerometric breather tubes, and how to remove them. Most of them are wrong. The method that I'll give below works nearly every time. There are always exceptions of course.

 

First, you are not going to try to drill out the remains of the breather tube. If you try to drill it out, chances are that you will end up with an oversize hole, and the replacement breathe tube will not stay in the feed. The reason is that to get all of the breather tube out, you have to a] drill exactly on center and b] have to be slightly over size.

 

You'll need a pin vise and a drill that is slightly larger than the ID of the tube, but smaller than the OD. I'm not specifying the size because it's not critical. It just happens that the one that I use from a bunch of Harbor Freight mini drills is about 0.037" or 0.95 mm.

 

Using the pin vise to hold the drill, drill by hand into the end of the breather tube. Don't try to drill in all of the way. As a matter of fact, DON'T go all of the way through.

 

Then heat the end of the feed over your heat gun. When warmed, twist and pull out on the drill and breather tube at the same time. The bit of tube should be stuck to the drill, and will come out of the feed. Heat again to allow the hard rubber to return to shape, allow to cool, and then insert the new breather tube. Use a bit of a twist as you push the new one in place.

Edited June 19, 2009 by Ron Z

[ZeissIkon]

Nice.

[Vintagepens]

If you can find one small enough, a miniature tap makes an excellent extractor for this purpose. Heat, of course, is essential.

 

[Gerry]

Ron, from your post I would assume a #63 drill is what you use. Hobby shops often sell miniature sets covering #60-80 for surprisingly little.

 

David, your suggestion sounds great too!. I often use a tap to extract Estie inner caps (not at the pro inner cap remover stage yet). Not sure what size tap would be appropriate - but 4-40 is about the smallest I have in my set.

 

From the size Ron suggests I think a 4-40 is too big, perhaps a 2-56 would be better. 4-40 is pretty common, 2-56 would probably be special order. Both require tap drills much larger than the #63 Ron uses, so they may be too large as far as taps go. It would be nice to know the OD of the tube to try and guess - or you could hint...

 

Regards,

 

Gerry

[Richard]

I generally accomplish this task by chucking the feed up in the lathe and using a Nº 57 (0.043") drill in the tailstock chuck. Go slow, and pretty soon the drill binds on what's left of the breather tube. Then I can just back the drill out, and with it the fragment of breather tube.

 

For them that's interested, I have a drill size reference on my site. I'm seeking suggestions for things to color blue. (You'll understand this request when you see the chart.)

[Gerry]

Very, very nice Richard.

 

I wonder if you'd think of adding a table of common taps and dies with the same Blue areas... Like the 5/16" 36 tap for the Parker Vac filler blind cap / filler unit threads? Useful if one wants to make a vac wrench if one can't afford the much better vac wrenches available from various suppliers of FP tools - like Tryphon or Wood Bin just to name a couple? Or use the more expensive die to chase the threads if they were a bit damaged by someone trying to remove the unit with pliers (grimace).

 

For my contribution - a 5/16 x 16 NC works fairly well to remove an Estie inner cap - if you don't have an inner cap remover (but does mark the inner cap).

 

Regards, and thanks for all you do.

 

Gerry

[meyeryang]

Is there any one here from Ottawa that I can meet to

find to fix my stuff?

 

THANK YOU

 

 

Meyer

 

myersan@hotmail.com

[Gerry]

Is there any one here from Ottawa that I can meet to

find to fix my stuff?

 

THANK YOU

 

 

Meyer

 

myersan@hotmail.com

 

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=128135&view=findpost&p=1269065

 

Gerry

[returnofpenguy]

This may be a silly question, but what does this breather tube do? And why does it need to be replace or taken out? I suppose take it out to replace it. I suppose my question is towards to understand the signs of needing to replace the breather tube.

 

Please enlighten us.

[kirchh]

On 11/19/2009 at 8:10 PM, returnofpenguy said:

This may be a silly question, but what does this breather tube do? And why does it need to be replace or taken out? I suppose take it out to replace it. I suppose my question is towards to understand the signs of needing to replace the breather tube.

 

Please enlighten us.

You can find a discussion of the features and function of the breather tube in this article I wrote.

 

--Daniel

 

Moderator edit 4/2022

 As of this date, the article above is no longer available.  Go to the end of the thread for a short post on breather tubes.

[SherryMaggio]

Your article is really great and I truly enjoyed reading it.

[kirchh]

Your article is really great and I truly enjoyed reading it.

Thank you very much! it's nice to know that someone actually made it all the way through it -- I know it is a topic with very narrow appeal.

 

--Daniel

[thepusher]

Daniel,

 

Thanks for an excellent article!

 

As a side note, when I was in India, Parker 51s were manufactured by Wilson, under license from Parker. They were called Wilson 81, and were the finest pens in India for a long time. The license agreement expired some time in the mid 1980s and they stopped making these excellent pens. I have never used a real Parker 51, but the imitation ones available from China, are the closest that I have come to using that legendary pen.

 

Thanks again for the explanation and history of the Parker 51's development.

 

Best regards,

 

-thepusher

[Douglas]

Can anyone tell me the inner diameter of the metal breather tube for the aerometrics?

[Vintagepens]

Can anyone tell me the inner diameter of the metal breather tube for the aerometrics?

 

0.036 inches or 0.9 mm

[claudewick]

I'm not sure if I get it right. Is this the method I have to use to remove the piece of broken breather tube from the feed, like this one?

 

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y262/claudewick/2015-10-14%2008.03.57.jpg

[Ron Z]

Yes.

[mitto]

I use a little screw used in wrist watches that I got from a watch repairer of the exact size of the tube and screw it carefully into the tube end stuck in the feed and then use a heat gun. After the feed is warm enough I pull the screw and the stuck piece of tube comes out on the first or second try. I have used this method even today while restoring a recently acquired forest green 51.

[surprise123]

Or you could use the sac itself as a grippy and carefully pull out the corrodes pieces, like I did. Then, you wash everything to get the gunk out and put in a new one. I also found that for less corroded tubes, you can use a toothpick.

[Ron Z]

Or you could use the sac itself as a grippy and carefully pull out the corrodes pieces, like I did. Then, you wash everything to get the gunk out and put in a new one. I also found that for less corroded tubes, you can use a toothpick.

 

Not if they're snapped of flush with the end of the feed.