51 Stuck Barrel

[jackoguit]

The local antique mall has a 51 or something very much like it. It is dark green with gold cap. They are asking $20 for it. But when I try to inspect what must be an Aerometric filler, the barrel unscrews to the end of the threads, then won't come any further. It still turns, but doesn't come free. I don't want to crank too hard, or else I just bought a seriously broken pen, maybe. The nib looks fine. The cap has a dent in it, but for $20, maybe ... . The mall system doesn't allow me to talk face to face with the seller, so I can't offer $5 and walk away with a good pen with a minor problem.

Any opinions?

[Richard]

Are you positive it's an aero? Could it be a Vac filler that's unscrewing at the wrong place? Odds are, if it's really an aero, that it'll be easily fixable. Vac would be a little more potentially problematical.

[jackoguit]

I'm going to go look at it again today.

 

Richard, I'm fairly certain it is not a vac fill.

 

I'm wondering if it could be a 61 and the plastic sheet used to store the ink could have become unattached and unraveled.

 

I'll probably buy it anyway- $20 might be good a good price, even for parts!

[jackoguit]

It is a Parker 21 with a gold cap and dark green body. The Dark Green though, is lighter than my 51 aeros.

Anyway. I bought it, took it home and put it in my ultrasonic cleaner with some dishwashing liquid.

After a couple of cycles I took it out and gently pulled off the barrel from the nib section. At this point I discovered it is a 21 (although if I'd studied Richard's site a little more, I could have figured it out from the non-arrow clip) It's aerometric sack had been pulled out of it's position and had become jammed against the squeeze bar and the side of the barrel.

The sack is permanently kinked, so I'll have to replace it (altough I'm tempted to soak it overnight to see if it straightens itself out!)

Does Da Book cover removing the aero frame and installing a new sack?

I'm buying enough pens and fixing them to probably warrant purchasing it.

[jackoguit]

Well, I got it working. I reattached the original pli-glass sack by going in through the nib housing-

Thanks to Richard Binder's reference materials, I was able to remove the hood, the nib and feed. I was stymied when I tried to remove the plastic threaded inner core from the metal frame to access the nipple to which the sack attaches. I gently heated it, as I had done with the hood, but it just wouldn't budge! So from the top of the tube I cleaned off the nipple with alcohol on q-tips, thoroughly cleaned and dried the sack, then coated the inner rim of the sack about 1/4" up with shellac and guided the sack down the tube and seated it on the nipple by scrunching from above and also by inserting a threaded end of a probe up throught the section opening and tugging down. I used teflon tape over the threads for the hood. I let it dry and filled it and now I have a new hooded beauty that lays down a fine wet line.

 

I paid $18 for the pen. Whether that is too much or not, it doesn't really matter- I had a lot of fun doing this. And even if the sack pops off tomorrow (I hope not in my pocket!) I have learned about the mechanics and design of this pen.

 

I will definitely wait 'til I get Da Book before I tackle a 51!

Edited June 6, 2006 by jackoguit