Pilot Vanishing Point (kinda) nib unit full disassembly

[1reeper]

I bought a Majohn A1 (Pilot VP knockoff) and it's well-known that these are verrry similar to real Pilot VPs (interchangable with my Decimo).  Unfortunately, mine had an off-centre feed when I received it, and while trying to adjust it, I broke the feed.  At that point, I wrote it off and decided to try and get the feed out entirely.  Noticing that there weren't any photos or posts re: the removal of a VP feed anywhere, I thought this might be useful for future reference.

 

This is the whole feed unit compared to my decimo feed.

 

This is the nut and feed holder that keeps the feed in place and makes the VP such a PAIN to clean.

 

What I'm sure people are wondering about is how to get this nut out, so...

A Pilot cartridge.

 

How it all fits together (as always, lefty loosey):

 

Yep.  I thought about using a metal pipe of some sort, when I realized that a cart was already the perfect size, and an older (reused a LOT) cart was also loose enough to go all the down to the nut.  Trimming it down to size to leave a couple of little nubs in the right spots got it to fit the nut, and turning it a few times got the whole thing out.

 

The broken feed (there's an O-ring at the end, forgot to add it in the earlier picture):

 

I wish I tried this BEFORE I broke my feed, but I ended buying another Majohn anyways, so now I got some spare parts, I suppose.

 

 

Having done this, do I feel remotely comfortable doing it to a real Pilot? No.  Not for a while.  But I also have to note for people who might want to try this:

This Majohn is less well-put-together than a real Pilot (yeah, big surprise), I also removed the nose cap (it was out of alignment) and that just fell off.  So the nut holding the feed on a real Pilot may be more difficult to remove than this.

 

Edit: So interestingly, there's no visible threads at the bottom of the metal feed holder.  Some bits of glue fell out when I removed the nut, so it seems that the nut is retained by chemical, rather than structural, means.  This may make re-assembly less secure.  YMMV.

Edited April 12, 2022 by 1reeper

[A Smug Dill]

Welcome to FPN, and thank you for sharing your experience and insights. 👍

[RNBearson]

Wow, what a fascinating experiment. Thank you for your sacrifice to show us the internals.

[Ron Z]

FWIW, the folks at Penpractice in the UK sells a steel tool just for unscrewing that nut to take the Pilot VP nib units apart.  It might work better on some of the more stubborn nuts.