Sonnblick 1040

[m127]

Hi,

here I have and old Sonnblick 1040 which I recently bought on ebay. I absolutely _love_ its nib, it's very wet, yet fine, and flexible, everything I need in one. Beautiful, pressure sensitive lines. The best nib of all my pens.

Unfortunately the pen is quite small, I think it was designed for children to be used at school. Anyway, it's beautiful. It's from about '65 I'm told.

 

Now, the problem is it's piston is worn, with all the typical signs. It fills well, but some ink can get above the piston and it can sometimes leak at the top (by the filler screw), and sometimes huge amounts of ink appear on the feed, which is maybe connected to too much air getting into the pen (also a problem of the piston I guess). The feed was cleaned recently, no problems with the nib or feed at all.

 

My question is, can this be disassembled somehow? I just can't see how. I'd like to replace the piston (or at least get some silicon grease in there).

Can anyone post some info on this pen? I just can't find anything about it on google.

 

Thanks,

Miklos

 

[fountainbel]

Hi Miklos,

Unfortunalely there is no picture showing the barrel end & the filling knob.

It would help if you could post a picture of the barrel end with the filling knob fully open.

Francis

[m127]

Hi Miklos,

Unfortunalely there is no picture showing the barrel end & the filling knob.

It would help if you could post a picture of the barrel end with the filling knob fully open.

Francis

 

Thank you for the reply Francis.

I quickly made a few more pictures. Here you can see the whole pen and two macros of the filling knob. This is the most open position it gets. (I didn't want to force it). The piston is all the way down in this position.

 

[fountainbel]

Hi Miklos,

I've never worked on Sonnblick pen, sand I hope someone familiar with this brand will zoom in.

Here are my suggestions & thoughts in the meantime

Seeing the edge of the barrel end on the new pictures , the filling system housing could be screwed in the barrel.

It looks (at least to me) there is screw thread inside the barrel bore

In this case I would however expect there are transversal anchor hole(s)/slot(s) in the housing allowing to introduce a tool to screw the housing out.

Are there any transversal anchor removal hole/slots provided?

When this is not the case, then I expect the barrel/ housing could have been made as one part, or at least glued permanently.

The piston is then disassebled from the section side .

I would therefore suggest to screw the section out, after moderately heating the threaded part of the barrel.

The complete piston can be disassembled from the section side when the inner thread of the barrel is at the same diameter ( or slightly larger) as the barrel bore. In this case just screw the piston fully out of engagement & pull it out.

Make new cork, (preferably soak in (liquidized) parafine) clean parts and reassemble.

Francis

[m127]

Thank you for the answers Francis.

 

I think I'm out of luck here. There are no holes or slots in the housing to screw it out from the end of the barrel, so I checked the section, and I just can't see if and how it can be removed. Is there any chance that the section cannot be removed from this pen?

 

I made a few more pics, this one here shows that the threaded part of the barrel is semi-transparent. If the section had a narrower root screwed or fitted inside the barrel, that would show here:

 

 

To me it looks like I won't be able to remove the section from this pen.

 

The only part where it seems that different parts are connected is the top end of the ink window:

 

 

Again, I can see no way it can be opened here.

Is there a chance that this pen was glued everywhere permanently? (So as it cannot be serviced in any way?)

[ZeissIkon]

There are a number of less expensive piston fillers that appear to be assembled by gluing the section to the ink window after assembling the piston mechanism from the section end of the barrel (the Dollar 717i, and at least some Osmiroid 75 pens are made this way). The only way to get inside one of those would be to saw the section off the window, and glue it back after repairs are completed; this could be done by a careful worker without much if any visual evidence other than loss of a millimeter or two of length from the cut kerf (using a very thin saw) and the smoothing necessary to get a good ink-tight joint when rejoining the pieces.

[fountainbel]

There are a number of less expensive piston fillers that appear to be assembled by gluing the section to the ink window after assembling the piston mechanism from the section end of the barrel (the Dollar 717i, and at least some Osmiroid 75 pens are made this way). The only way to get inside one of those would be to saw the section off the window, and glue it back after repairs are completed; this could be done by a careful worker without much if any visual evidence other than loss of a millimeter or two of length from the cut kerf (using a very thin saw) and the smoothing necessary to get a good ink-tight joint when rejoining the pieces.

 

Could be, although I doubt this is the case here

The pen seems rather well made, so I would expect there is a way to dissassemble it whitout sawing or cutting.

The filling system housing could also fit in the barrel with a tight pretensioned fit, similar to vintage Pelikan120/140/ 400 pens.

In this case one pulls the nib & feed and uses a hard wood of plastic pin to knock the system out from the section side.

The pin should have a diameter as close as possible to the feed diameter.

Screw the piston fully backwards before knocking the filling system out.

You can surely try this whitout harming the pen.

Clamp the pen barrel in your left hand (use preferably a rubber gripping mat) install the pin & knock with a light hammer on the pin.

If the housing is mounted with a tight fit it will gradually come out.

When is is threaded in the barrel it will logically not move.

In the latter case you could try to screw it out after making a split nylon ring and a set of pliers.

The ring bore should fit on the exposed diameter of the housing, outside diameter 3-4 mm larger as the barrel & a width just fitting between barrel & open filling knob -

This impleis however that you have the possibility to make such a ring.

Francis

Normally the theadfit is not secured with shellac, but it could be left handed thread!

[m127]

Thank you all for your answers. I haven't had time in the past few days to work on this but I'll keep this thread updated (with photos) so as to create some online source of information on this pen for anyone needing it.

[ZeissIkon]

Wanted to come back and thank fountainbel for the suggestion on getting the piston out -- don't know if it was any help to the OP, but it turned out that my Osmiroid's piston did unscrew at the rear (this pen has the section permanently glued to the ink window); about two full turns of the knob beyond where the piston bottomed and the fine rear thread popped lose (very distinctly, the inner rod was under a bit of stress by then); once that was off, I was able the push the piston out from the section end.

 

This simplifies my quest to repair the Osmiroid (which has a cracked section), even if it's no help with the Sonnblick...

[m127]

about two full turns of the knob beyond where the piston bottomed and the fine rear thread popped lose

 

How hard was it to make those two full turns? The knob of the Sonnblick sturdily stops when the piston gets down to the bottom and I just don't want to force it. (Though I tried and it did move a little bit, but I couln't tell if that was normal or I was on the way to destroy the pen).

[ZeissIkon]

about two full turns of the knob beyond where the piston bottomed and the fine rear thread popped loose

 

How hard was it to make those two full turns? The knob of the Sonnblick sturdily stops when the piston gets down to the bottom and I just don't want to force it. (Though I tried and it did move a little bit, but I couln't tell if that was normal or I was on the way to destroy the pen).

 

I'd liken them to the force needed to turn a wood screw in a pre-drilled hole -- it was about all I could do with the grip available on the smooth operating knob. The plastic rod that carries the piston was most likely bending a little to accommodate, which is why that last couple turns were so stiff; it also seems as if the rod anchor was turning in the body once the rod reached some level of compression. I went ahead and tried it because the pen was broken anyway (cracked section, missing clip and tassie from the cap).

[m127]

...In this case one pulls the nib & feed and uses a hard wood of plastic pin to knock the system out from the section side.

The pin should have a diameter as close as possible to the feed diameter.

Screw the piston fully backwards before knocking the filling system out.

You can surely try this whitout harming the pen.

 

Yes, this was the case!

Today I've managed to knock the filling system out, and it was easier than I expected (though I wouldn't have tried without your advice).

Nothing was hurt/damaged in any way.

Thank you all! Now I hope the rest of the work will be okay.