DickBrowne
December 3rd, 2018, 10:46 AM
A few weeks ago, whilst idly fiddling with a Parker 51 in my study, the clip suddenly went loose. Closer examination showed that the jewel thread had sheared, leaving only around 2 threads still attached. Disaster!
43998
Actually, the pen was a real cheapy from a pen show, I had no emotional bond with it but, you know... Pens, right? I hate anything being broken.
I spent a while looking for replacement jewels, but they were almost half what I'd paid for the pen. I considered buying some old broken Parkers for spares but, having sufficiently matured to recognise my own nature, I resisted, knowing that a broken pen would have been more than I could have tolerated and I know I would have ended up spending far more than I'd paid for the spares-pens fixing the darned things.
Given that I hate anything being broken (who am I kidding? I love broken stuff, it's a challenge!) I set my mind to finding a cost-effective repair. Bear in mind that this was a real cheapy, there's a split in the barrel (which doesn't affect performance at all) and it has plenty of what we in the watch-trade call "wabi" - good old fashioned wear and tear. It's scratched, it's bitten, the cap is brassing all over the place and has dents-a-plenty. It's no looker.
But, still, it had no clip, it was non-functioning (in a way) because of this and I couldn't let it go.
I tried a variety of increasingly-strong adhesives to re-attach the broken portion of thread back onto the broken stub, but no dice. It didn't want to play ball; every time I put even the smallest amount of torque through it, the stub would shear again.
This afternoon I had a little bit of time free so I fired-up the lathe and set about making a solution to the problem. I figured there was enough space in the top of the clip that I could get a very small machine screw, small enough to screw into the brass insert in the cap, but with enough of a head on it that it would hold the clip. I figured I could make the top of the machine screw domed and attractive enough to replace the jewel, or flatten it and leave enough gap that I could use one of my increasingly strong adhesives to attach it for purely aesthetic reasons.
I made several versions of my screw but, in one way or another, they each failed to fix the problem. Too high, too narrow, just plain unattractive.
As I was flattening the top of version 5 of the screw, I had a revelation!
I removed the threaded brass insert from the cap:
43999
I then screwed the insert back in, sandwiching the clip between it and the cap - this held the clip sufficiently tightly
44000
Finally, I used the few remaining threads on the jewel to screw it back into the brass insert - because the clip was no longer in the way, there was sufficient thread for the jewel to also be held securely.
44001
Maybe it isn't the most "honest" repair - the correct thing to do would have been to replace the jewel itself, but given the price and condition of the pen, I was loathe to throw more money at the problem than I absolutely had to and, besides, I do love a challenge.
I reckon that the re-use of all the original parts must count for something on the purity scale, and the little, slightly scruffy Parker lives to write another day!
43998
Actually, the pen was a real cheapy from a pen show, I had no emotional bond with it but, you know... Pens, right? I hate anything being broken.
I spent a while looking for replacement jewels, but they were almost half what I'd paid for the pen. I considered buying some old broken Parkers for spares but, having sufficiently matured to recognise my own nature, I resisted, knowing that a broken pen would have been more than I could have tolerated and I know I would have ended up spending far more than I'd paid for the spares-pens fixing the darned things.
Given that I hate anything being broken (who am I kidding? I love broken stuff, it's a challenge!) I set my mind to finding a cost-effective repair. Bear in mind that this was a real cheapy, there's a split in the barrel (which doesn't affect performance at all) and it has plenty of what we in the watch-trade call "wabi" - good old fashioned wear and tear. It's scratched, it's bitten, the cap is brassing all over the place and has dents-a-plenty. It's no looker.
But, still, it had no clip, it was non-functioning (in a way) because of this and I couldn't let it go.
I tried a variety of increasingly-strong adhesives to re-attach the broken portion of thread back onto the broken stub, but no dice. It didn't want to play ball; every time I put even the smallest amount of torque through it, the stub would shear again.
This afternoon I had a little bit of time free so I fired-up the lathe and set about making a solution to the problem. I figured there was enough space in the top of the clip that I could get a very small machine screw, small enough to screw into the brass insert in the cap, but with enough of a head on it that it would hold the clip. I figured I could make the top of the machine screw domed and attractive enough to replace the jewel, or flatten it and leave enough gap that I could use one of my increasingly strong adhesives to attach it for purely aesthetic reasons.
I made several versions of my screw but, in one way or another, they each failed to fix the problem. Too high, too narrow, just plain unattractive.
As I was flattening the top of version 5 of the screw, I had a revelation!
I removed the threaded brass insert from the cap:
43999
I then screwed the insert back in, sandwiching the clip between it and the cap - this held the clip sufficiently tightly
44000
Finally, I used the few remaining threads on the jewel to screw it back into the brass insert - because the clip was no longer in the way, there was sufficient thread for the jewel to also be held securely.
44001
Maybe it isn't the most "honest" repair - the correct thing to do would have been to replace the jewel itself, but given the price and condition of the pen, I was loathe to throw more money at the problem than I absolutely had to and, besides, I do love a challenge.
I reckon that the re-use of all the original parts must count for something on the purity scale, and the little, slightly scruffy Parker lives to write another day!