Pelikan M205 - ink residue behind piston

[katherine]

Just for interest; I've seen a few posts from people talking about the silicon grease up at the top end of the knob.

 

Yes, there is some grease there (I just removed it, while I'm cleaning everything), but right in the middle of the back of the knob there is also a small dot formed from what looks like an injection-moulding point. So the grease isn't entirely to blame for that opacity.

 

Kate (fearlessly foraging into the innards of a pen no pen user has ever fearlessly foraged into before)

[katherine]

Here's a cross-section drawing of the barrel near the knob-end. I've drawn it in transverse at the point indicated. There's no difference between the red and grey bits; I'm just trying to indicate 3D.

 

 

The piston mechanism has two raised rings; you can see these in the photo of the innards in a previous post.

 

Inserting the piston mechanism pushes up onto the little ramp, these rings run over the raised bits (which I've highlighted in red). These keep the piston mechanism's rings held high until it reaches the end of the red run, where they drop into place.

 

So the reason the piston assembly is difficult to remove, is that you have to get it up from between the two notches and onto the red part, from which it slides out easily.

 

The narrower portion on the left is for the piston.

 

Kate (now giving her barrel a jolly good cleaning from the rear)

Edited October 7, 2008 by katherine

[katherine]

Here's how to remove ink from the annoying little double-walled container just behind the nib:

 

After removing the piston assembly, take the empty barrel and hold it under a tap, nib-end up. Run a lot of warm water through it, under relatively high pressure (warm simply so your hands don't freeze!) The change in pressure causes the ink caught in the little double-walled part to get sucked out, replaced with water, which will eventually evaporate.

 

I found this didn't work if I held the barrel the other way up. I think the opening to the double-walled part is at the nib end, rather than at the piston end, but it's difficult to see. I assume that part is glued on, and I am not going to remove it to find out.

 

Before I'd taken the piston out, I'd spent ages trying to get that ink out by trying to suck it onto bits of tissue and such, with not much success. Flushing it through with water cleared it instantly!

 

When I reassemble this, I'm going to put a little silicon grease around the back of the nib's threads, to see if this helps prevent ink from working its way inside there.

 

Kate

[katherine]

After letting the double-walled bit at the front dry out, I sealed up the bit I believe is its entrance (just behind the nib's threads) with silicon grease, which I hope might prevent ink from finding its way in there in the future. I greased up the barrel, and reassembled it all. I'm happy with the result:

 

 

Now I just need to get hold of some of that Shaeffer Skrip red ink... thank you, everyone!

 

I hope some of my comments here might be useful to somebody searching in the future, perhaps. For reassembly, take care to ensure the knob will screw all the way down to meet the barrel.

 

Kate

[ljwahl]

Wow! Brave, complete, and successful-- well done!

[katherine]

Wow! Brave, complete, and successful-- well done!

 

Thanks

[JDlugosz]

I hope some of my comments here might be useful to somebody searching in the future, perhaps. For reassembly, take care to ensure the knob will screw all the way down to meet the barrel.

 

Yes indeed. Thanks.

 

BTW, I put PR Tangerine Dream in mine, and it looked even cooler than your first photo.

[Underskoterskan]

Awesome, Katherine ! Thank you for posting this ! Nice pictures ! I have several M200 Traditions myself but I would never dare to disassemble them like you have done, although it has been very interesting to see how it is properly done. Thank you for sharing.

 

Regards

Undersköterskan

[fountainbel]

Congratulations Katherine, excellent job !

Hope you will find an red ink which will not stain so much.

Polishing the critical part of the barrel inside could reduce staining risks, but is surely not an easy task.

However - given your actual hands on disassembling expertise - regularly repeating the cleaning job will be a piece of cake for you ! java script:add_smilie("","smid_4")

Francis

Edited October 9, 2008 by fountainbel

[andyk]

Hi,

 

Very brave but well done, problem solved, although as suggested in earlier posts probably not something to repeat too often as you may eventually find the piston assembly won't seat properly.

 

Personally I think if you use clear demos you need to live with the staining I have often thought of getting one of these but am still sitting on the fence.

 

If you like red ink why not try one of the Red M200 demos, I have one and it looks pretty nice (but accept not so easy to see everything) and may not show the staining too much. Must admit for everyday writing I tend to use one of my black O/S M200s, as they only have the ink window to stain (but had no problems so far) and you can't tell what is going on in the bits you can't see, so no worries.

 

Andy

 

 

[katherine]

Hi,

 

I just thought I'd follow this up, now it's a few months on, just for the sake of anybody searching through old posts who wanted to know how it all turned out.

 

I've been using Sheaffer skrip red ink, which I enjoy very much. A while ago I made a list of potential "good" red inks to find, and that was one name that kept cropping up; I'm glad I got some! Just this morning I threw away the remains of my Pelikan brilliant red (which had become contaminated with something oil-based, somehow), as I'll never be using that again.

 

Since the above disassembly, I have not re-greased the barrel. I've not needed to. Maybe I was a little excessive!

 

There has been no staining that I can see. I suspect this is mostly due to the lining of grease; the ink still does not stick to the walls of the barrel. I honestly thought I'd have to do more maintenance; I get the feeling that this ink is less sedimenty (but this is unscientific, since I have two variables).

 

No ink has gotten into the little double-layered bit just behind the nib, again probably because I managed to seal that (tiny) hole with grease.

 

The piston will come out the back if I'm rough with it. That's because the two little rings (see the disassembly) got smoothed flat a little from being extracted so brutally. I've not taken it apart since. If I had've have this post to follow, then I would've been able to see how those are structured, so I would've been able to avoid doing that - I hope that helps somebody in the same situation!

 

 

I lightly reground my nib, and it no-longer skips. I also ground it such that it can write very fine, upside down. This is perfect for making tiny annotations in awkward places on printouts of things at work, which is exactly the sort of thing I wanted red ink for. See how different it looks in the barrel to pelikan's brilliant red!

 

 

Not the most glamorous pen photo, I realise, but that's right off my desk. The top line is the usual pelikan medium width line.

 

Kate

[wykpenguin]

Get a M800 demo. They have left-handed threads so that the piston assembly screws out.

 

Knocking out a press fitted part is not a good idea.

 

Sometimes I wonder why Pelikan didn't put threaded piston assemblies in all their pens. Ink getting behind the piston is inevitable, I'm sure they know that.

[katherine]

Get a M800 demo. They have left-handed threads so that the piston assembly screws out.

 

Said so casually... those are ten times what I can afford

I'm happy with my M205! It's my first pen from a real brand.

 

Kate

[fountainbel]

Increased weight may be involved, increased cost surely is !

 

 

Get a M800 demo. They have left-handed threads so that the piston assembly screws out.

 

Knocking out a press fitted part is not a good idea.

 

Sometimes I wonder why Pelikan didn't put threaded piston assemblies in all their pens. Ink getting behind the piston is inevitable, I'm sure they know that.

[fountainbel]

The piston will come out the back if I'm rough with it. That's because the two little rings (see the disassembly) got smoothed flat a little from being extracted so brutally. I've not taken it apart since. If I had've have this post to follow, then I would've been able to see how those are structured, so I would've been able to avoid doing that - I hope that helps somebody in the same situation!

Kate

 

In most cases the axial fixation ridges on "pop-in" filling mechanism housing will be damaged when pulling the mechanism out.

Consequently the axial fixation ridges may pop-out easily when reaching the end down position of the piston when reassembled.

The housing being injection mold- hence not expensive- I even expect Pelikan always installs a replacement housing when the piston assembly is extracted.

Commercial advantage being that only Pelikan or their authorized repairers have access to these spares & can work on these pens.

Note that - at least on non-transparent pens - one might apply some shellac in the ridge grooves of the barrel to restore axial fixation.

Francis

[chirp]

Well, in the name of science, I've just taken apart my pen. (Actually, this is pseudoscience; I have no hypothesis, and no control data...)

 

I am so going to regret this.

 

On removing the piston: I tried a few various approaches, mostly revolving around pulling the knob such that the knob's threads pulled on the piston assembly, in order to get the piston assembly's lip past the case's lip holding it in place. None of that worked.

 

Then I realised that the knob has a few threads spare, and so I spent a while gently but firmly simply screwing in the knob further than it's supposed to be screwed in. This causes the knob's base to push against the pen body, which exerts an even force around the entire knob, achieving the same effect as pulling on the knob when it's unscrewed. However, move threads are engaged, and so I figured doing it this way was less likely to strip the threads by force.

 

Eventually, with a pleasant little "pop", the lip gave and the piston came out. The threads all seem fine.

 

Here's a photo of the parts; nothing surprising here. I shall attempt to diagram a cross-section of how the lip looks from the inside, for reference for anybody in the future.

 

Kate

 

 

-----------------------------------------------------

 

Ah~ Kate... thank you for your inspirational tips!

 

I loathed the transparent silicone grease blobs inside my m205's barrel so much that I even stopped using my m205 for a while.

 

And suddenly I came to see your post & finally removed the excess blobs!....

 

 

Inspired by how you screwed it out,

 

at first I tried to do it like you did,

 

but the knob got so tightened up and It seemed that going further more might just break it.

 

 

 

So, I broke one of my CD's in half, and made a "spacer" (see the attachment)

 

which gives some "space" for the piston to come out.

 

 

I turned it to the point of stop...

 

At first glance , thought the attempt failed,

 

but who knows~

 

It was out!

 

The piston block was slightly on top of the stopper.

 

so I pulled the knob & it's out!

 

 

 

Thank you very much for your corageous attempts & posting it.

 

I hope everyone enjoys the true beauty of M205.

[holgalee]

Hi Kate, thank you for sharing this! I just took apart my M205 demonstrator as I thought there was a hair behind the rubber sealant. Turned out to be little strings of nylon-like things which I could easily remove, and I'm not sure how they got in there in the first place! I also cleaned the annoying drops of condensation, but now have trouble putting the entire assembly back. When I screw in the blind cap, the 'cockscrew' thing retracts and butts into the blind thread, and the entire assembly seams to be sticking out too much.

[kushbaby]

Here's a cross-section drawing of the barrel near the knob-end. I've drawn it in transverse at the point indicated. There's no difference between the red and grey bits; I'm just trying to indicate 3D.

 

 

The piston mechanism has two raised rings; you can see these in the photo of the innards in a previous post.

 

Inserting the piston mechanism pushes up onto the little ramp, these rings run over the raised bits (which I've highlighted in red). These keep the piston mechanism's rings held high until it reaches the end of the red run, where they drop into place.

 

So the reason the piston assembly is difficult to remove, is that you have to get it up from between the two notches and onto the red part, from which it slides out easily.

 

The narrower portion on the left is for the piston.

 

Kate (now giving her barrel a jolly good cleaning from the rear)

 

katherine: I just stumbled upon this thread. I have two M205s - one with orange ink (MB Gandhi) and one with red ink (Diamine Ruby). While staining of these probably wouldn't bother me much (hard-core user that I am), I needed you to know...

 

You have just been added to my super special "cool person" list for (1) your fearless and methodical deconstruction of your M205, and (2) sharing ALL of the details for the rest of us.

 

You ROCK.

 

If I had a gold star and you were in the room, I'd stick it on your forehead.

 

Thank you for your contribution. :clap1:

[katherine]

 

katherine: I just stumbled upon this thread. I have two M205s - one with orange ink (MB Gandhi) and one with red ink (Diamine Ruby). While staining of these probably wouldn't bother me much (hard-core user that I am), I needed you to know...

 

You have just been added to my super special "cool person" list for (1) your fearless and methodical deconstruction of your M205, and (2) sharing ALL of the details for the rest of us.

 

You ROCK.

 

If I had a gold star and you were in the room, I'd stick it on your forehead.

 

Thank you for your contribution. :clap1:

 

Yay, thank you! Hope it's useful to someone, somehow.

 

In lieu of our geographic proximity and lack of suitable gilt substitute, I have taken the liberty of applying a post-it note to my forehead on your behalf.

 

Kate

[kushbaby]

 

katherine: I just stumbled upon this thread. I have two M205s - one with orange ink (MB Gandhi) and one with red ink (Diamine Ruby). While staining of these probably wouldn't bother me much (hard-core user that I am), I needed you to know...

 

You have just been added to my super special "cool person" list for (1) your fearless and methodical deconstruction of your M205, and (2) sharing ALL of the details for the rest of us.

 

You ROCK.

 

If I had a gold star and you were in the room, I'd stick it on your forehead.

 

Thank you for your contribution. :clap1:

 

Yay, thank you! Hope it's useful to someone, somehow.

 

In lieu of our geographic proximity and lack of suitable gilt substitute, I have taken the liberty of applying a post-it note to my forehead on your behalf.

 

Kate

 

:roflmho:

 

(Imagining the post-it on your forehead...)

 

:ltcapd: