Montblanc Meisterstuck 147 - Cracked Tail Cap (REPAIRED!)

[Dt123]

This is my first attempt at a pen repair and polish. Before pics included.

 

With all the reports about the difficulty of repairing Montblanc's resin i was initially discouraged about taking this on.

 

But my background in Effects work, all the great Youtubes i watched and these two blog posts buoyed my confidence @Pencilcaseblog https://www.pencilcaseblog.com/2017/07/pens-chemistry-materials.html  & https://blog.andersonpens.com/zen-and-the-art-of-pen-polishing-micro-mesh/  

 

As a DIY'er i dove in.

 

Materials use:

 

Teflon tape

230 Mold Release

Loctite 408 CA Low Bloom

Micro Mesh

Micro-Gloss #1

 

First some prep - sprayed the carrier threads with mold release, then wrapped them with teflon tape - did this because i wanted do the repair on the cartridge carrier to keep the threads aligned.

 

Next, 408 CA w/ 24hr cure - spent a bunch of time searching for a glue that would work and it also had to be zero to low bloom. Bounced around from a few different CA's - only to find that every adhesive i thought would be perfect was now discontinued. Eventually I found a dealer on eBay selling unexpired Loctite 408 at a totally reasonable price. Applied the adhesive with a silk pin after seeing someone doing a repair applying the glue with a tooth pic - mad sense to me - went thin layer by layer to till i was sure i filled most of what i wanted. The cap was in pretty bad shape and only wanted to fix the major areas. In all with some touch up of the CA it cured for about 48hrs.

 

Sanded with micro-mesh -started with 3500 working my way up to 8000 with tons of water. I've read about moisture failure issues with some CA adhesive - that issue factored into my choice of the 408 - the SDS suggested it shouldn't be an issue. No issues so far - rock solid.

 

Hit it with some Miro-Gloss #1 i just got from @Anderson Pens

 

And, voila!

 

A very close friend gave me this - so i wanted to keep some of the of the pens character. My real goal was to fix the cap and just clean it up a bit. Also you can still see some of the split on the underside post repair.

 

P.s. For anyone with one of these - The De Atramentis Document cartridges i just got do not seem to work, tried and tried and unfortunately the size of the cartridges are different is small ways, but ways that count.

 

P.s.s. Went with refilled Montblanc cartridge topped off with a Lotte SketchInk sample i also picked up from @vannesspen

 

 

[georgeb]

Looks good

[KAC]

That was a heroic, bold, very successful, skilled and nicely done repair job. Super professional. Congratulations!

[Dt123]

@georgeb Thank you!

 

 

@KAC  I gotta say - at first i thought - oh no i cant do this - this is a Montblanc! Then i thought, well I did my homework and I've done work like this plenty of times and didn't psych myself out so why not go for it. So I put on some music and had some fun. I gotta say - having a well behaving adhesive made a massive difference - if I had been fighting bloom and whatnot that would have made this much less fun. And thank you very much for the complements! Appreciate that.

[CS388]

Nice work.

Congratulations.

And thanks for sharing.

[KAC]

Pen surgery of that difficulty and complexity is far beyond my skill (and courage) level. If you decide to go commercial, post a contact here. I don't have any broken pens but maybe that's only a matter of time.

[Toll]

I applaud your courage and your conviction! Well done! Many years ago I sent in a vintage Pelikan, for the repair of a crack, to a Pelikan expert who said he could repair it.  It came back with apologies, but no refund, for a repair that worked but was aesthetically unpleasing. 

[Dt123]

@CS388 Thank you very much! Hope my effort adds to the collective knowledge.

 

@KAC I would like to try this on some other Montblanc pieces but i guess any brands bits would work. If anyone have pieces they don't need - very curious to run some water and ink submersion tests and see how well this particular CA holds up over time. And If i ever consider repairs I'll be sure to post that up here. Thanks

 

@Toll Thank you very much! I appreciate that. Ugh sorry to hear about that - must have been disappointing. Despite the aesthetics, has the repair held up to use?

[Toll]

Thanks for asking Dt123.  This was at least 20 years ago and somewhere along the way I sold or traded the pen, so no idea!

[KAC]

Too bad I didn't know about your skills around a decade ago. I had a really nice Conklin "cracked ice" fountain pen and vintage Schaefer. I sent both to a "pen repair service" in the Bay Area which - thankfully - no longer exists. The caps of both were damaged. The business (it wasn't just "some guy") stole both pens. After acknowledging receipt and beginning repairs, months passed with no contact. When I finally succeeded in obtaining an email response, the "service" denied having received the pens. I never saw them again. I lost a vintage MB the same way. I don't think I knew the FPN existed at that time or this wouldn't have happened.

[Dt123]

On 7/23/2023 at 2:31 PM, KAC said:

Too bad I didn't know about your skills around a decade ago. I had a really nice Conklin "cracked ice" fountain pen and vintage Schaefer. I sent both to a "pen repair service" in the Bay Area which - thankfully - no longer exists. The caps of both were damaged. The business (it wasn't just "some guy") stole both pens. After acknowledging receipt and beginning repairs, months passed with no contact. When I finally succeeded in obtaining an email response, the "service" denied having received the pens. I never saw them again. I lost a vintage MB the same way. I don't think I knew the FPN existed at that time or this wouldn't have happened.

Yikes! What a nightmare...