Monte Blanc Fountain Pen Nib Stuck in Pen Cap! Please Help!

[Methematician]

Hello everyone,

I am freaking out a bit because my pen nib is stuck in the lid, and basically, what screws off is the hollow back of the pen, i.e. the plastic part you would screw off to replace a cartridge.

Because I've never used a pen like this, and this was gifted to me by my father, I did something stupid. I went to the store and got new ink cartridges as I wanted to use the pen.

The pen's nib was unscrewed from the cap, and the back part was unscrewed from the nib as you would normally do when changing a cartridge. After taking the old cartridge out, I put the new one in. I was trying not to make a mess, so I didn't press the new cartridge all the way in. I then went on screw the pen back tog, ether and the cartage pushed the nib into the lid, now wedged there.

Does anyone have any idea of how I could fix this? What is the best way to go about this if I need it professionally repaired? Anything would help!

Thank you in advance for all your help and suggestions!

[Chrissy]

Let's start with exactly what is stuck in the cap and work out which model it is. I'm assuming you mean the whole of the front section is stuck in the cap. If you always have to unscrew your pen to remove the cap and it takes cartridges then your pen is more likely to be a Montblanc 145 or Chopin converter or cartridge pen than anything else.

Has the cartridge now stuck into the section part of the pen or the barrel part of the pen? First action would be to remove that cartridge if it's stuck in the barrel as it might be stopping the barrel from screwing on properly. If it's stuck in the barrel use either long, thin forceps to grab it or a thin screw long enough to screw into the cartridge then pull it out of the barrel. That's going to be messy and you will have some ink spill to clean up.

Once the cartridge is out and you can screw the barrel all the way into the section try it to see if it might now unscrew the section from the cap. If it doesn't then you may need professional help.

I'm not sure what I might try if this happened to me. Maybe someone else will come in if this has happened to them.

Or maybe Ron can suggest something fairly straight forward.

Musing out loud I wonder if carefully adding a tiny dot of two of shellac to the internal barrel thread, screwing it onto the section, and letting it set might be enough to hold it onto the section for long enough to screw it out of the cap? Then after removal warming it up would mean the shellac could be dissolved either with hot soapy water or naptha? It sounds like it might be a possible workaround for someone who doesn't have any special tools or spare barrels that a professional might have.