{"id":13,"date":"2011-11-23T15:18:15","date_gmt":"2011-11-23T19:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mainstreetpens.com\/wordpress\/?p=13"},"modified":"2012-01-10T21:38:38","modified_gmt":"2012-01-11T01:38:38","slug":"the-most-dangerous-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mainstreetpens.com\/wordpress\/?p=13","title":{"rendered":"The most dangerous moment….."},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve had people suggest that I hire someone to help me with pen repairs.\u00a0 “Let them do the easy stuff like recacing pens,” they say.\u00a0\u00a0 But there’s one thing that I have to do, and\u00a0 until they’re really skilled it’s too dangerous to just hand them the pen and tell them to go at it.\u00a0 So three guesses.\u00a0 What’s the most<\/em> dangerous moment in pen repair?<\/p>\n

Knocking out the nib and feed?<\/p>\n

Nope.<\/p>\n

Resetting the nib after cleaning?<\/p>\n

Nope.<\/p>\n

Taking the filler out of a Parker 51?\u00a0 Close.<\/p>\n

The<\/em> single most dangerous moment in pen repair is opening the pen to restore it, across the board, without exception.<\/p>\n

Sometimes a lever filler will almost fall apart for you.\u00a0 Sometimes it does fall apart, but that’s another thread.\u00a0 Even so when parts are loose there are risks because there may be a surprise lurking before the section comes out.\u00a0 But when a pen is really stuck together, you start sweating bullets, antennas go up, and your fingers go to maximum sensitivity.\u00a0 It’s the first moment of your journey in restoring the pen, when you and the pen test each other and get to know what the issues are.\u00a0 It’s the moment of the great unveiling of surprises, and the one moment when you are inclined to be the most hasty (thank you Treebeard).<\/p>\n

The inclination is to think “but I have<\/em> to get the pen apart if I’m going to repair it!…”\u00a0 and then we start to crank on the section. True, you do have to open the pen, but if you try too hard the barrel can crack, it can sheer off, it can distort, the section can snap off….\u00a0\u00a0 I’ve done it all.<\/p>\n

SO, how do we avoid breaking the pen?\u00a0 Start with gentle, dry heat applied by a heat gun.\u00a0 I like the craft embossing guns with the 1\/2″ or so opening.\u00a0 Warm gently, twist, wiggle a bit, warm gently, twist, wiggle a bit,\u00a0 repeat, becoming ever so slightly more aggressive.\u00a0 Been at five 5 minutes?\u00a0 What,\u00a0 you expect to beat a 60 year old pen that quickly?\u00a0 Maybe ten minutes?\u00a0 Getting better.\u00a0 Take whatever amount of time it takes<\/em> to open the pen.\u00a0 You can be a little more aggressive with the heat on hard rubber, a little less on 40’s Sheaffer plunger fillers.\u00a0 Just take your time.<\/p>\n

I won’t say that the problems are over once the pen is open, but that’s what I consider to be the critical, the<\/em> most dangerous moment in pen repair.\u00a0 The second – putting it back together.\u00a0 Again, heat is your friend.\u00a0 But that’s yet another whole post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve had people suggest that I hire someone to help me with pen repairs.\u00a0 “Let them do the easy stuff like recacing pens,” they say.\u00a0\u00a0 But there’s one thing that I have to do, and\u00a0 until they’re really skilled it’s too dangerous to just hand them the pen and tell them to go at it.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[20,19,17,18],"class_list":["post-13","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pen-repair","tag-breaking-a-pen","tag-dangerous-moment","tag-how-do-i-open-a-pen","tag-opening-a-pen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mainstreetpens.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mainstreetpens.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mainstreetpens.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mainstreetpens.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mainstreetpens.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/mainstreetpens.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mainstreetpens.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mainstreetpens.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mainstreetpens.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}