51 Cracked Barrel Repair

[Nihontochicken]

I have a forest green 51 Aero with a barrel crack at the threaded end. Since I'm unlikely to find a replacement, can I repair the crack? I was told that Super Glue (cyanoacrylate) may be used to join the crack and, if built up and carefully sanded down and polished, yields fairly good results (I know a modern replica Nihonto maker who uses this on his saya - scabbards - and it is very good at being added in layers that don't show). Is this others' experience? Also, what solvent should I use to clean out the crack that won't mar/dissolve the plastic? TIA!

[Ron Z]

Please do not use super glue. Once you use it, you won't be able to use anything else to do the repair right.

 

The best way to repair the pen is to solvent weld the crack. Acetone will not work on the plastic of a 51. Nor will most of the other solvents. Try Tenax 7-R. Or send it to Richard or me to repair. Done right, you'll have to look really hard to find the repair. Done wrong, you'll have a mess.

Edited October 19, 2006 by Ron Z

[Nihontochicken]

Thank you, Ron, for your response, and I want you to know I'm not in the least perturbed that you kept me waiting almost a WHOLE 20 MINUTES! :roflmho: If this were a potential "show pen", I would consider sending it off, but, alas, it is not. "The rest of the story" is that the barrel is monogrammed, the aluminum filler shroud is lightly to moderately corroded, there are some toothmarks on the barrel far end, and the hood has numerous flea bites around the nib and feed. So this is definitely a "user" and I don't feel I want to dump a lot of $$$ into it. Might you indicate where I might find Tenax 7-R? Certainly a new one on me! I imagine solvent welding is three goodly steps up from simple "glop-in-the-glue" repair. Since the inside of the crack is threaded, one must be sure not to distort or fill in those threads. Can this weld solvent be applied with the barrel simply screwed onto the section, or must there be some barrier provided in order not to irrevocably affix said section to the barrel? Thanks again!!!

[wdyasq]

Please do not use super glue.  Once you use it, you won't be able to use anything else to do the repair right.

 

The best way to repair the pen is to solvent weld the crack.  Acetone  will not work on the plastic of a 51.  Nor will most of the other solvents. Try Tenax 7-R.  Or send it to Richard or me to repair.  Done right, you'll have to look really hard to find the repair.  Done wrong, you'll have a mess.

Gee Ron,

 

You take all the fun out ....

 

I have a Coca 51 Demi barrel I plan on building a mandrel for the threads and gouging out the 'epoxy repair'. After that I plan on using a really bad Coca barrel I got and making a solvent paste with it and repair the thing. ...or I may fail. -"Done wrong, you'll have a mess." -yep, I've got that now.

 

Either way I will post results. I am waiting untill I need ot go into the 'big city' and purchase the proper solvent.

 

Ron

[Ron Z]

Just checking the posts before going to bed for the night. Sitting in my Ikea Poem chair winding down.....

 

You know, I can remove flee bite marks from 51s. :ph34r: Forest Green is one of the more unusual colors, so they're worth repairing. One finally came back to me after several years, and I 'ain't letten it go!! (the cap in this case is perfect)

 

You're going to repair the crack with the barrel off of the section. You don't want to weld the pen together!

 

Tenax can be found at model RR shops. You'll apply it with a brush. Lift the crack up a bit to open it, apply the solvent and then close it down. Hold the crack closed and let it set over night. "Trying" or "testing" the repair before the solvent has flashed off will kill the repair. Just walk away for at least 12 hours. You may have to clean the threads after it's repaired with a hobby knife or dental pick. But only after the repair has cured.

 

You'll have to sand or micromesh the barrel smooth. I like the buff sticks that Giovani and Martin sell. A good, handy thing for all kinds of smoothing and polishing.

[Nihontochicken]

You know, I can remove flee bite marks from 51s. ph34r.gif Forest Green is one of the more unusual colors, so they're worth repairing. One finally came back to me after several years, and I 'ain't letten it go!! (the cap in this case is perfect)

 

I appreciate your sentiment, wish mine were in better shape - in fact, I have already donated its cap to a better condition pen. Were I to successfully (i.e., without much trace) repair the crack - not likely - I would not just restore its proper cap, I'd get it a Lustraloy with gold clip!!! (Incorrect but so much better!!!)

 

You're going to repair the crack with the barrel off of the section. You don't want to weld the pen together!

 

Okay, so I surmise that the section is the same or similar plastic that will also bond to the glue. Wasn't sure about that. Thanks! I think I have a scheme to deal with that.

 

P.S. - Luckily, I don't have the same grandious Frankenpen aspirations as do some other of our FPN brethren:

 

I have a Coca 51 Demi barrel I plan on building a mandrel for the threads and gouging out the 'epoxy repair'. After that I plan on using a really bad Coca barrel I got and making a solvent paste with it and repair the thing.

 

Oh, wow! Makes my back room surgery moves look puny! :roflmho: :roflmho: :roflmho:

[wdyasq]

Oh, wow!  Makes my back room surgery moves look puny!  :roflmho:  :roflmho:  :roflmho:

Once someone does an epoxy repair.... or Stupidglue (my term for superglue), it leaves one with few choices.

 

If it were not the Coca color - rare, I wouldn't bother. But the pen is an slender. I bought a spare barrel and nib hood so I will still have a pen ..... make that '51' if all else fails and the borg queen will still be happy.

 

Ron

[PaulLeMay]

Wouldn't it be easier just to buy another barrel? Maybe I'm just lazy.

[wdyasq]

Wouldn't it be easier just to buy another barrel?  Maybe I'm just lazy.

I'll take one Coca slender barrel and one Forest Green barrel, thank you.

 

I don't think I'll be finding any at a decent price - If so, I'll take a few six-packs of hoods and matching barrels and easily recoupe my costs by scrapping good 51's and using the parts to make rare color pens.

 

Ron

[cuteline]

Has anyone tried/thought of painting the crack a bit using some matching Testors' color to cover the crack? Is this a dumb idea?

[OldGriz]

Has anyone tried/thought of painting the crack a bit using some matching Testors' color to cover the crack? Is this a dumb idea?

That may cover the crack, but will not fix the structural integrity.

[Richard]

Paul's idea about just buying another barrel has the most merit -- especially to those of us who are so anal-retentive that even a fused crack, executed perfectly but still detectable under close inspection, is one crack too many.

 

Yeah, that's me. In August 2005 -- yes, more than a year ago -- I acquired a Plum "51" that was really peachy keen (dating myself, right?) except for that ugly half-inch stress crack about halfway down the barrel. It looked as if someone had dropped something heavy on the pen. The barrel was still perfectly sound structurally, but the surfaces of the crack were whitened by being stretched before the material cracked.

 

I loved the pen, but in my innermost being there was an ache. That crack... I went looking. And looking. And looking...

 

A year later, in August 2006, I got an email from a friend who had acquired a Plum "51" barrel and shell. The shell was damaged, the barrel wasn't. Guess where that barrel is now.

 

http://www.richardspens.com/images/collection/zoomed/51_plum.jpg

 

:)9

[Nihontochicken]

I'll take one Coca slender barrel and one Forest Green barrel, thank you.

 

Uh, point of order, please! I wuz here first!!! Would-he-ask-you can have the cocoa barrel, but I demand first right of refusal for the 51 Aero forest green. After all, fair is fair!

 

P.S. - I do not have a first born.

 

:roflmho: :roflmho: :roflmho: :roflmho: :roflmho: :roflmho: :roflmho: :roflmho:

[smbaugh]

I was told that Super Glue (cyanoacrylate) may be used to join the crack and, if built up and carefully sanded down and polished, yields fairly good results.

Well, since others more expert than I have weighed in, I hesitate to add my contribution .... but I will anyway!

 

I just had a nice success fixing a cracked barrel with CA (super glue) and want to share the results. So, answers NC's original question in a long-winded way.

 

I received a great looking 1944 cedar blue "51" vacumatic a few months ago, but it had a torshion crack in the barrel about 3/4" long. There was rubber debris from the diaphram caught in the crack and the crack was relatively wide accordingly. EDIT: I cleaned this all out very carefully! Thin CA only works when the two parts can mate very closely with no glue etc. intervening.

 

The trick to using CA glue is to have the two parts meet snuggly (I used a hose clamp protected with rubber hose over the barrel), then apply a very small amount of the thin CA glue to the inside to penitrate the crack, then snug the parts together even more. Thin CA glue has next to no filling qualities, but forms a microscopic layer on each side of the part and bonds together. I finished by smoothing in a very thing layer of the thick CA glue on the outside and sanding and buffing. The crack is not visible without magnification.

 

In the attached pic, you can see the beginning of the crack on the right by the plunger side marked by an arrow. It extends down to the other arrow. In the middle is a white spot where the crack was too wide for the CA glue to fully adhere, but I will fix that soon. Right now I'm enjoying using this great writing pen!

 

I bet Ron's suggested bond to melt the two sides together is a better fix, but I have more experience with CA and it worked great in this instance.

 

Steve

Edited October 22, 2006 by smbaugh

[smbaugh]

P.S. Here's the whole pen...

 

SmB

Edited October 22, 2006 by smbaugh

[Ron Z]

The problem is that most OTC superglues are activated by, and eventualy break down in the presence of moisture. In a barrel where you have ink, you have moisure, and therefore I think that the repair is likely to fail at some point. I've used superglues with special activators for use on plastic that held for a number of years, and then just let go for no apparent reason.

 

Epoxy is too thick to flow into the joint, and the contact area is too small to have the strength to hold well.

 

Solvent welding on the other hand, is a disolving and fusing of the plastic. When the solvent evaporates, you have just plastic again. The joint maybe not as strong as the original piece, but a joint that's stronger than the molecular bond of an adhesive.

 

Not that there aren't cyanoacrylates out there that might do the job - it's just thqat the average person doesn't have access to them.

[wdyasq]

Epoxy is too thick to flow into the joint, and the contact area is too small to have the strength to hold well.

I'll respectfully disagree with that. Epoxies can have viscosities from water like to puddy, depending on the formulation. I will agree it is not the proper adhesive for the project. For a good epoxy repair one would need to have access to the backside of the crack to apply a patch of reinforcing fabric and increase the area to do a mechanical bond. It would still not be 'right'.

 

It really boils down to the fact there are proper methods and materials to do jobs. For some folks, there is good enough. For a few, there is only the right way if it is possible to do it that way. There are many times when it is not possible or practical to fix things 100% "right" but it is possible to fix thing and get more use and sometimes repair 'better' than original. For tools this may be the proper way. A fountain pen can be clasified as a tool in many instances.

 

Ron

[smbaugh]

The problem is that most OTC superglues are activated by, and eventualy break down in the presence of moisture. In a barrel where you have ink, you have moisure, and therefore I think that the repair is likely to fail at some point.

Ron, thank you very much for sharing your wisdom and experience here. As I said in my post, I used CA because I'm familiar with it from model-building days and know some of its tricks. I'm not sure I follow your point above about CA breaking down by moisture. I have read that once activated and cured it is waterproof. But I'm no expert and if/when the cedar P51's crack above separates in a few years, I'll let you know.

 

I received a pen from fleabay yesterday with another crack on the fill unit end, but this one's like the grand canyon and looks like it will leave a slight gap in places along the crack after repair.

 

I bought a bottle of Tenax 7-R today and will practice on some broken shells before trying to fix this one, but any suggestions on what to do if there are any small gaps afterward?

 

Many thanks,

 

Steve

[SMG]

I can't beleive this thread. I just got a Cocoa 51 set off of ebay and there is a stress crack in the back half of the barrel and a small crack at the threads.

 

I am comfortable in fixing the thread crack, if I can find the suggested adhesive, but the stress crack looks unfixeable (if that is a word).

 

Anyone know where I can get a decent cocoa barrel for cheap, nudge nudge, wink wink.

 

Cheers,

SG

[Ron Z]

I bought a bottle of Tenax 7-R today and will practice on some broken shells before trying to fix this one, but any suggestions on what to do if there are any small gaps afterward?

I've had mixed results with Giovanni's dental resin. Some spectacular, some duds. Better than I've gotten with super glue. (nuff said)

 

I recommend buying some of the buff sticks that Giovanni and Martin sell. You will find that the resin polishes away much more quickly than some of the plastics used in pens, so you can not buff the resin with a buffing wheel. Micromesh (buff sticks gray side) and pen polish work much better.