51 Vacumatic Mark I - What this?

[hamag]

A friend of mine gave me this pen that belonged to his father.
I had to go through a complete cleaning (and disassembling) plus a new diaphragm (thanks a lot to Steph from Grandmiapens.com for the tutorials)
What startled me was a small piece in the feed that I didn't dare to touch.
It is not recorded in neither "Da book" nor in "Pen Repair" and there is no document in the Internet showing it.
It looks like a very small tube or a very thin solid cilinder (not sure about it) I don't know what it is doing there.
Does anybody know whether it is an original part?
I'm attaching photos.
Cheers everybody
Horacio (from Buenos Aires)

[Farmboy]

"It" is a hard rubber rod used as a spacer to hold the air channel open when inserted into the barrel. On later renditions, the slit is welded to prevent collapse.

[Paul-H]

Yep, as Farmboy said, it was not used for very long which is probably why its not mentioned in either of the two most popular repair books.

Although this is the second time in a week I have seen reference to it on Pen Forums so there must be a few of them out there. Never seen it on any of my pens though.

Paul

[Farmboy]

Should be present until 1950 or so. OEM equipment through the early Aero years.

[thelonestranger]

I remember the first time I ran an early aero 51 through an ultrasonic cleaner... and found that rod in the bottom of the tank.

I ended up watching one of Grandmia's vids to find out where it went in the pen.

If you lose one, I think you can replace it with a small piece of monofilament fishing line.

ken