Tools

[FredRydr]

Francis made these 14 years ago, and they continue to work their magic on vintage Meisterstucks.

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[Chrissy]

:thumb: Are all of those nib removal tools different sizes? I always thought that type were the best and closest to what Montblanc probably use but when I asked Francis for one he had sadly stopped making them. :( I bought one on ebay that is a flat piece of metal similar to the one with the white handle but the end pins on there look so thin that I'm sure they would break off with the slightest resistance. I never even tried it out.

Can anyone new step up and make some like those?

[FredRydr]

:thumb: Are all of those nib removal tools different sizes? I always thought that type were the best and closest to what Montblanc probably use but when I asked Francis for one he had sadly stopped making them. :( I bought one on ebay that is a flat piece of metal similar to the one with the white handle but the end pins on there look so thin that I'm sure they would break off with the slightest resistance. I never even tried it out.

Can anyone new step up and make some like those?
Yes, each spanner is a different size for 142 through 149 with pins oriented in different fashion for the vintage versus modern collars. The tool you mention is for threaded piston mechanisms.

If your tool is made of steel, it should easily withstand the force required to unscrew the piston mechanism. If made of lesser material, then perhaps not.

Dale Beebe of pentooling.com sells tools for the same purpose but with handles on them; I've never tried them. At one time, I yearned for a knockout block made like a Montblanc original, which allowed side-entry of the nib into the hole because the width of the 149 nib's shoulders is wider than the section, but I learned to adapt.

[Chrissy]

I have two tools. One is for threaded pistons and one is meant to be for 146 nibs. The piston tool works perfectly. I've no idea what they are made from.

[bunnspecial]

Beautiful!

I have one of the tweezer-type tools for nib removal that works fine on everything I've tried it on(vintage 144, 146s and 149s up to 2014). The pins are quite sturdy, but nowhere near as nice as these.

For piston removal, I have the combo wrench from PenTooling that will do 146/149s on one end and M800/1000s on the other end. I also have one from them for telescopic pistons-it's a dainty looking tool but does the job.

Fred, I'm intrigued on the 149 knock-out block, and I'm wondering about making my own now. I killed a collar from a 149 2-piece barrel one time because I hadn't realized it was resting on the "lip" rather than the sturdier center part of the collar. It's a shame I'm not much of a woodworker as it seems as though something like that might not be terrible to make out of a block of wood.

[manoeuver]

from the looks of them they'll outlast the pens by a century or more

[FredRydr]

...Fred, I'm intrigued on the 149 knock-out block, and I'm wondering about making my own now...it seems as though something like that might not be terrible to make out of a block of wood.

I found it! (My recall of what it looked like was way off.) You can see how a nib wider than a section will not be a problem with the knock-out block that appears in this video by Horst Max Schrage: https://youtu.be/PyUpjuMENAQ Scroll to 1:57 for the knock-out block.

Here is a screen shot from the video:

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[FredRydr]

Note that Marcos Schrage (Horst Max Schrage's son) makes and offers tools for servicing Montblanc pens:

https://www.mspens.de/english/shop/tools/