The Importance Of Lubing The Fountain Pen Piston

[ItsMeDave]

I change inks often, which means flushing lots of water through the pen with many excursions of the piston, which means the dilution of the lubricant on the piston seals.

This morning as I was flushing my M805 Demonstrator, the piston was so stiff in the barrel that the piston mechanism unscrewed from the barrel. It frightened the (bleep) out of me because I initially thought the something was stripped. A few minutes later, with the help of the lube and wrench from my TWSBI, everything was right in the world again. :-)

[hari317]

Good job.

[inkstainedruth]

I ran into something similar with my older model M400 Brown Tortoise. And ended up having to pay to get the pen repaired, because the seal disconnected from the piston. Turned out that some prior owner tried to tinker with it (unbeknownst to me), and had damaged something.

It's all fixed now, but I'm out nearly $60 US.... And the pen was not exactly cheap to begin with.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Joe in Seattle]

Worst case, piston will snap

[Claud]

Is there an instruction on lubing the piston, especially the old 100N and 400NN. A You Tube video would be nice.

[OCArt]

https://thepelikansperch.com/2014/08/30/how-to-lubricate-a-pelikan-piston/

[Mister5]

There is a demonstration on how to do this in one of the recent Goulet Q&A videos. It is basically the same method as shown in the link OCArt provided. I didn't think about bending the toothpick slightly, that's a good trick.

 

I had to do this before when my M200 started getting a bit tight when advancing the piston, and I'll have to do it on a 140 I got off eBay recently.

[Ron Z]

It takes very little silicone to lubricate the inside of the barrel, and a toothpick will leave way too much inside the barrel. Excess silicone can/will wash off and get into the ink and feed.

 

Rather than a toothpick, you are better with a cotton swab. Twist the swab to tighten the fibers, touch it to the silicone. If you can see much on the swab, you have too much. Unscrew the nib and wipe the silicone around the inside of the barrel, then move the piston up and down a few times. You'll feel it loosen up. Replace the nib, and you're done.

[sargetalon]

A very tiny amount of silicone is all that is needed. It's amazing how a little will go a long way.

[Runnin_Ute]

Bo Bo describes it as a "half kernel of rice". That might be to much. Head of a pin might be closer.

Edited January 30, 2018 by Runnin_Ute