Parkette Zephyr Cap Will Not Screw On Properly

[ice70]

Hi,

 

I have a Parkette Zephyr and I have taken it apart to replace the perished ink sac.

 

The problem I have is that the cap no longer screws back onto the barrel with the section in place.

 

If I remove the barrel and just screw it into the cap, it screws on tightly.

 

If I add the section / nib back into the barrel, the cap threads only just meet the barrel threads and with the slightest of pressure will jump off the threads. It's something close to 1/8th of a turn and then then it jumps.

 

The section is pushed as far in as it will go so that the barrel sits against the section and there is no gap between the two.

There is a tube like unit inside the cap that creates a 'step' and this stops the section from going any further into the cap.

 

I am not sure what it was like before I started the ink sac replacement, but I do not recall the cap coming off so easily.

 

Any ideas of what I may have done or how I can fix it?

 

Thank you for your help,

 

ice70

 

 

Edited August 8, 2017 by ice70

[PaulS]

Hi - welcome to the FPN. Funny you should mention this - I've just noticed that mine also doesn't hold on the threads too well - not that it matters too much with my pen - I don't write with any of them.

A quarter of a turn on mine and then a not too firm pull will make the barrel part company with the cap, and like yours, turning further simply causes the barrel to jump off the cap threads. Also like yours, without the section in place, the barrel screws home properly.

Possibly a combination of slight shrinkage plus less than an ideal depth to the threads.

Believe the barrel threads can be built up using shellac, but unsure if this might cause things to 'stick' at some point, later.

Presumably removal of the clip screw will allow the inner sleeve of the cap to be removed such that the sleeve can be very slightly shortened.

Will see if I can remove the clip screw, unless someone has a better idea before then.

 

It's possible that with care a small amount might be removed from the inner sleeve using a reaming tool, or similar.

 

Postscript .............. as you can imagine, the clip screw will ​​undo quite easily with help from the hair dryer, but then I couldn't seem to get the inner sleeve to budge, nor the inner threaded sleeve that the clip screws into.

So, not wanting break parts, I taped up the cap, centred on the chuck, and used a 10mm centre point bit to drill into the cap and remove a mm or so of the inner sleeve length. My pen now screws home into the cap properly.

For obvious reasons there are reams of warning about letting the nib venture too far into the cap, but having peered into this one it seems the point is still some safe distance away from hitting anything.

Appreciate this is not feasible if you're without a lathe, but would imagine that patience and using a similar method manually, should eventually do the trick.

Of course if you do find a way to remove the inner sleeve, please let me know

Edited August 9, 2017 by PaulS

[ice70]

Hi PaulS,

 

thank you so much for your help. My inner sleeve was the same, almost as if it was part of the cap.

Looks like I have an evening of carefully removing some of the inner sleeve manually.

 

Thank you for your help and investigations

ice70

[FarmBoy]

Parker machined the inner cap as part of the cap on some pens. It may well be one piece.

Edited August 9, 2017 by FarmBoy