Waterman Expert-I: Inner Cap Repair

April 26, 2014

Originally posted in the wrong forum and forgotten, but I thought that some might benefit from this:

I have had an Expert I for nearly 15 years. It is one of my smoothest writers.
About 10 years ago I dropped the capped pen on hard floor. Ever since then the pen cap has felt less 'snappy' and the pen wriggled a bit when capped. Today I attempted a repair - a successful one. Here's how:

Disassembly:
At the top of the cap on the inside is a screw easily opened by a screw driver, and the cap breaks into barrel, clip, top, and inner cap, and of course the screw.

The Problem:
On closer look apparently the inner cap had cracked. It is made of black plastic and was either brittle to begin with or has become so with age. There were two longitudinal slits about 7-8 mm long where the inner cap is supposed to catch the section.

The Solution:
Slightly pressing the sides of the inner cap with the thumb and index finger, just enough to open the slit a bit, I applied some quick setting glue all along the slit. Did the same with the second. Then 2 rounds of thin paper tape over the same area for support. The inner cap would not slide in but was easily coaxed into position by a little upward pressure with a screw driver till it sat in place. Put back the clip and cap top and tightened the screw.

Viola!
The pen snapped shut as all well brought up pen should and behaved like a 17 year old just out of a Swiss finishing school.

PS
Expert II seems to have a similar cap make up (though not congruent in size). So this fix should work for that too.

June 17, 2014

Thank you so much for your posting. I've been trying to disassemble the cap for my Expert II (also one of my smoothest writers) for some time now with no luck.

There are all sorts of postings on how to change a nib or section, but none until yours on how the Expert Caps are put together.

I will be posting my experience as well.

June 17, 2014

Great! None of my Experts are a problem - yet. But if they ever get sloppy, I know what to do with them now!

July 6, 2014

I never had single mishap like this with an y of my first generation experts

July 11, 2014

Thanks! I have an Expert I that have a cracked inner cap too but I couldn't remove the inner cap. I did manage to screw out the top that hold the clip. What is the next step?

July 12, 2014

I managed to dismantled and fixed it

July 17, 2018

I own a Waterman Expert 2. It has been with me for years, always faithful. Unfortunately for some time its cap is quite loose. In order to fix it I found this contribution very instructive. But it describes the cap of an Expert 1. In the cap of Expert 2 the screw at the bottom is not directly accessible. It is covered by a smal roud pad which must be intended to protect the nib. So how do you remove this pad so you can access the screw? Thank you for your advice.