149 Friction Piston Stiff

[Wolverine1]

bunnspecial:  I was at our local CVS superstore this morning to pick  up some diabetes test strips. Since I was there, I checked their stock of petroleum jelly products. All of them were in the skin care aisle. And every single package had many chemicals or medications mixed in  them. Didnt find a single product that was pure petroleum jelly.  I guess one has to go to a specialty shop to find absolutely pure petroleum jelly that would be a good lubricant without the added chemicals gunking up the insides of your pen.

[bunnspecial]

I haven't looked recently, but I can't imagine this would be too difficult to find

 

https://www.vaseline.com/us/en/products/healing-jelly/vaseline-healing-jelly-original.html

[Wolverine1]

bunnspecial- after your post I called the local CVS store where I was this morning.  The manager told me that the Vaselin Healing Jelly is a product they usually stock, and thet he will have the product up on the shelves by Saturday morning.

[bunnspecial]

Can I assume this was out of stock too?

 

https://www.cvs.com/shop/cvs-health-petroleum-jelly-prodid-1010437

 

BTW, didn't make it to the office today so no GC-MS work. I also remembered that I still haven't migrated my libraries yet. Back in May, I had some serious upgrade work done to it-from a computer running Windows 2000 and talking to it over HPIB to a current Windows 10 computer communicating via LAN. I've barely used it since, but I need to pull the spectral libraries off the old system(actually I need to get the old computer running since it still operated a second GC-FID instrument...)

[Frank C]

http://web.mit.edu/8.13/www/shopSDSs/petroleum_jelly_sds.pdf

 

Is this what you're looking for? It doesn't say much, my favorite part is, "odor: characteristic". 

[Michael R.]

You need to look for composition: 100 % petroleum jelly (check ingredients on label). And it should be pharmacy/care/medical grade refined.

 

https://www.walmart.com/ip/2-pack-Vaseline-Original-Skin-Protectant-Petroleum-Jelly-13-oz/647878660

 

 

Cheers

 

Michael

 

[bunnspecial]

So, to change the topic a bit, a bit of bad news followed by good news of the subject pen.

 

After a quick clean and rinse, I'd noticed that it seemed to get ink on my fingers when I wrote with it. Soaking or sonic cleaning would show ink coming from the threads, so I figured I just hadn't cleaned all the residue out of the threads.

 

When I pulled the nib, I also didn't exactly scrub the barrel, but I did my typical water/Dawn/dilute vinegar(for residual iron gall)/dilute ammonia/water routine to get the last remnants of ink out of it.

 

After replacing the nib and inking it, I still had inky fingers when I wrote with it, so finaly took a good look and found bad news. There was a crack running from about the middle of the section up through the threads and into the ink window. I knew this was a potential problem with the early resin barrels, but thought I'd avoided it. It came from an unknowledgeable seller, and asked for a careful look, but I didn't find it until I specifically went looking for it.

 

I knew the easy route was to send it to MB and that $80 later(probably) I'd have a brand new 149 with this nice 18C tri-tone nib fitted. I'd also loose the early style 1 piece barrel, Ebonite feed, and some of the other charm of this pen.

 

Reading a bit, I read about "Capt. Tolley's Creaping Crack Cure." Since this crack isn't structural in my mind(it doesn't go to the end of the section) I figured I didn't have anything to lose. $25 on Amazon had a bottle sitting here the next day.

 

I've spent the past couple days applying it every hour or so until I could barely see it flowing into the crack.

 

I let it sit for a little while, and inked it up again with Quink Blue(what I had handy) and I'm happy to report it's been holding fine since last night.

 

The crack can still be seen and felt, so it's not perfect, but I at least have a useable 149 out of this.

 

Of course for whatever reason I don't like the nib on this one as much as I like my late 70s solid ebonite/14C two tone B, but it's still a nice writing pen.

 

[Michael R.]

Sorry to hear!

 

You could get in touch with one of the German Montblanc restorers (Tom Westerich, Horst Max Schrage, Osman Sümer, …) who might have a replacement barrel. Better than a modern replacement…

 

good luck

 

Michael

[bunnspecial]

Thanks.

 

That would be ideal, but for now I'll see how this holds up.

 

At least since the pen is functional now and the crack is only there if you look close for it, I'm inclined to leave be. Still, though, if I could get a replacement barrel I'd do it.