Old German 'war Time' Fountain Pens Again.... Part 2

[Lexaf]

In February this year I posted an introduction article about the large lot of 1930's German piston fillers I acquired.
(look here: https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/254348-an-exiting-project/ and here: https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/261675-old-german-war-time-fountain-pens-again-mother-lode/ )

They came to me in an old brown cardboard trunk, on the bottom was an old newspaper dated: HAMBURG ECHO May 4, 1946. The pens that were in the trunk looked much older, so I suppose this lot was (part of?) a factory stock that was probably hidden in war time and had been traveling around for quite some time. One can only guess what happened to the trunk, its content and its owners in the preceding years...

As I already explained in my earlier postings the pens were in a very bad condition. I worked on them for some time and now I can show some results.

Disassembly, restoring different parts, and rebuilding the pens was not easy, as the materials of the pen parts were heavily deteriorated and often beyond the possibility of repair. Oxidation of the metal parts and shrinkage of the early (thermo) plastic caused a lot of irreversible damage. So a lot of pens had to be considered as lost forever. Some pens could be restored in a good working order and by combining parts of different pens of the same model, I was able to save some more.

I decided to to take a lot of pictures of the restoration process. Most of them will be self explaining.

In this part I will show the process of repairing the piston systems.

Have fun!

 

http://i1265.photobucket.com/albums/jj504/Lex_van_Galen/1018_zps487b6c43.jpg

The trunk.

 

http://i1265.photobucket.com/albums/jj504/Lex_van_Galen/1019_zpsc871aeb4.jpg

This is how the pens were packed when they came to me. The seller already repacked them in pieces of plastic bubbles.

 

http://i1265.photobucket.com/albums/jj504/Lex_van_Galen/1020_zpsb78fbeb9.jpg

The old newspaper that was on the bottom of the trunk with some of the pens.

 

http://i1265.photobucket.com/albums/jj504/Lex_van_Galen/1001_zps80d8281b.jpg

Disassembly of a pen. The piston mechanism is completely stuck, so it has to be removed.

 

http://i1265.photobucket.com/albums/jj504/Lex_van_Galen/1002_zpse03505b6.jpg

Some heat is needed to loose the parts. The ebonite part that holds the piston system is screwed in the

thermoplastic barrel. As the plastic is shrunken, the ebonite is stuck.

 

http://i1265.photobucket.com/albums/jj504/Lex_van_Galen/1003_zpsc0f2e4f2.jpg

Still impossible to unscrew the piston system out of the barrel by hand, so a vice is needed.

A piece of rubber gas tube is used to protect the ebonite part.

 

http://i1265.photobucket.com/albums/jj504/Lex_van_Galen/1004_zps5db135a2.jpg

The piston system came out. The piston tube is screwed on the metal piston rod, so the 2 parts have to be disconnected.

As the metal piston rod and the nut in the piston tube are heavily oxidated this is not easy. The metal is a very brittle

zinc alloy called ZAMAK (http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zamak) that easily breaks.

 

http://i1265.photobucket.com/albums/jj504/Lex_van_Galen/1005_zpseb6da44b.jpg

When the 2 ZAMAK parts are oxidated together (metal oxide diffusion), there's a big chance it breaks as you can see here.

End of story for this piston part!

 

http://i1265.photobucket.com/albums/jj504/Lex_van_Galen/1007_zpsab260283.jpg

When the parts do come apart it looks like this.

 

http://i1265.photobucket.com/albums/jj504/Lex_van_Galen/1008_zps401ac18b.jpg

To be able to clean and re-polish the metal piston rod, a small modification is needed. The wide tube that receives the narrower piston tube has to be removed, in order to reach the metal parts. This is no problem as the piston is also held in place by the cork in the barrel.

 

http://i1265.photobucket.com/albums/jj504/Lex_van_Galen/1009_zps83d73f25.jpg

Removing the obsolete part.

 

http://i1265.photobucket.com/albums/jj504/Lex_van_Galen/1010_zps70c00ac7.jpg

The metal screw comes in reach and can now be sanded and polished. Also the oxide on the nut on the end of the piston tube will be cleaned using a thin round (3mm) file.

 

http://i1265.photobucket.com/albums/jj504/Lex_van_Galen/1014_zps3d6cee2c.jpg

Polishing the piston rod.

 

http://i1265.photobucket.com/albums/jj504/Lex_van_Galen/1011_zps4f9e4c0c.jpg

Obsolete ebonite tubes. Who knows what they can be used for in another project...?

 

http://i1265.photobucket.com/albums/jj504/Lex_van_Galen/1013_zps284381e3.jpg

Irreversible damage. Broken piston rods.

 

http://i1265.photobucket.com/albums/jj504/Lex_van_Galen/1012_zps2f1d43e1.jpg

Damaged corks on the piston tubes can be replaced by a new one...

 

http://i1265.photobucket.com/albums/jj504/Lex_van_Galen/1015_zps78cb8a2f.jpg

Some silicone grease on the metal parts before re-assembly.

 

http://i1265.photobucket.com/albums/jj504/Lex_van_Galen/1016_zps974e948a.jpg

The rod can now freely move when screwed into the nut on the piston tube.

 

http://i1265.photobucket.com/albums/jj504/Lex_van_Galen/1017_zps1e335f5b.jpg

Repaired piston systems.

The units can now be screwed back in the Fountain pen barrel. The most complicated part of the operation is done.

 

Next posting I'll show some pictures of the reassembly of the pens.

Thanks for reading.

 

Lex

Edited May 5, 2014 by Lexaf

[Aysedasi]

Great post Lex

[Joker4Eva]

Sweet... Really glad you've got the tools and experience to bring about a new life for these pens which have been produced such a long time ago!

[Bo Bo Olson]

I've one of those....the sharpest chasing of my pens. Looks almost brand new.

Love the fancy clip too.

 

Have to look to see if it's just the new cork needed or one of your metal screws.

I'm not ready to re-cork, no time. Too much BS and western writing.

The special hiding place...is hiding.

[Maccabeus]

Wow. Nice work, Lex. Thanks for all the great pictures showing your progress.

[Betweenthelines]

Awesome. I have an old Garant piston semi flex from East Germany that writes like a dream. Glad to see you giving these pens some love.

[Ink Blotto]

Very interesting post. I look forward to seeing the rest of the process and the rejuvenated pens.

 

Thanks,

Paul

[dcpritch]

Great photos showing parts of your process. What a labor of love!

[tmenyc]

Great post! I'm looking forward to receiving my Edel.

Tim

[Lexaf]

Thanks for all the nice words!

Working on part 3 of the story....

[pen2paper]

Good that these landed into the hands of someone who cared, and was careful... And, documented their restoration.

Will be thrilling to see Chapter III.

Thank you!

[krz]

Way cool Lex!

[Lexaf]

Just posted part 3. About angry teachers and mothers and nibs and corks and seals.

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/267011-old-german-war-time-fountain-pens-again-part-3-nibs-and-seals/

 

Enjoy,

Lex

[JonSzanto]

Lex,

 

Thanks for further info. You and I corresponded a while back, as I purchased a couple of these pens. Unfortunately, both of my piston screws broke and disintegrated. I have no other spare parts for these.

 

Do you have any ideas on how to rebuild a new piston mechanism for these pens? Such a shame that I can't bring them to life again.

 

Regards,

Jon

[Lexaf]

# Jon

Yes I remember our correspondence.

 

You wrote me you bought some of the pens from a Dutch/German seller (I traced her on e-Bay). The pens she sells are 'as found', so the piston systems were stuck, When you tried to take the pens apart the brittle metal alloy (ZAMAK) broke into pieces.

 

As I showed in my posting, this is actually the end of life for this kind of pen. I did an experiment to bring the pen back to life with the use of a so called 'chip board screw' as a replacement of the metal piston rod. It worked out, so far that the pen is alive again, but do not ask me how much work it implied! I did the job already several weeks ago and I am still using the pen, filling it an writing with it on a daily basis.

 

Lets start the job:

 

1st step:

Find a so called chip board screw with a slow speed, as close as possible to the speed of the original metal rod. The screw has to have the same inside diameter (so measured without the screwing tread) and must be at least 1 cm longer than the original piston rod. The piece that is too long will be sawed off at the end of the process.

 

2nd step:

Check the thread on the screw. It must have about the same speed as the original part. Try if it fits in the receiving part. Do not force anything. It will most of the time turn out that there is too many tread to fit in the receiving part (the driver). So you will have to make the thread thinner and less sharp/edgy, to make it resemble the original. This can best be done with a sharp steel file with the work piece placed in a lathe or a stationary drilling machine. To fit/fix the screw in the machine you will first have to saw off the head of the screw. Use a high quality steel saw, because the steel this type of screws is made of, is very hard!.

You'll have to try and file and fit several times until you see that the screw is going to fit and turn smoothly in the nut of the piston tube. Not only that, the nut in the tube has to take up the tread of the screw in order to move the screw up and down. The nut in the piston screw is also made of brittle ZAMAK, so be very careful! If you screw up (pun intended) that nut it is really end of story. I do not know if there exist any nuts that would fit a chip board screw on the inner side and in the piston tube in the outside...

 

3rd step:

Now you will have to remove the turning knob that is fixed on the original rod. This can only be done by drilling a small (2.5mm) hole in the end of the ebonite knob, until you reach the metal. Then you can carefully drive out the piece that is still in the knob, by using a driving pin, a knock out block (as is used for driving out feeders and nibs from a section) and a light hammer. The knob is ebonite so it helps if you heat it gently to soften the material. Do not force! Old ebonite is brittle and breaks easily. In that case you will have to fabricate a new knob as well.

 

4th step:

Once you freed the driver knob from the old broken part of the rod, you will have to file or turn of enough metal from the new rod to fit the knob. This is done in the lathe or drilling machine also.

Now there comes a tricky part: on the old piston rod there is a small metal ring that fixes the rod into the driver tube. You will have to replace this ring or if its gone any other non ferro ring of the same measure to the end of the piston on the place where the thread-less part ends.To fix it you have to use some cyan-acrylate glue (super glue) be sure to use a professional quality, not the cheap stuff from the supermarket! Let cure for one hour.

Then place the rod in the driver so the smooth end is sticking out for about 6 to 7mm on the end. Then replace the driver knob. The knob must fit tightly on the metal rod. Use the same glue to fixate the parts. Let cure for another hour. During all this work, take care the cork is not damaged, else you will have a new problem!

 

5th After this is all done you can re-assemble the pen. Use some silicone grease to lubricate the piston rod in the piston tube. Pray it works....

 

I did this only once ('praying' included). It worked, but it was more a sort of laboratory project than a really efficient repair, as this is actually far too much work for a pen with this value. If these pens were really very very rare and valuable, say on the level of an old Pelikan or Montblanc it would make sense, but in my case, as I had/have so many of these pens left I just throw the damaged parts in the junk box and proceed with the following pen. Till now about 60% of the total batch could be repaired with the original Zamac metal rod intact, so there is no worry for me.

If you like the work as a hobby (like repairing and restoring an old car), its another case. It is a kick indeed to see the result when you finish a job like this, and realize you just accomplished a 'mission impossible'.

 

There is another solution, when you just would like to have two working pens of this type and model. Buy one!

They have a value that is in no relation to all the work you would have performing the act I described above. I do not have any spare metal rods, and every other spare pen part I can save is adding to more pens I can save for my own stock.

 

There is also another method to bring this kind of pen back to life again and that is to rebuild / convert it into a button filler. I did that too, it works fine, but of course then it will be the ultimate Frankenpen. How I did it is another story. If you are really interested I can tell you, so let me know. I might post that story in the forum also...

 

I hope this info made sense for you.

 

Keep in touch, best regards,

 

Lex

Edited May 21, 2014 by Lexaf

[JonSzanto]

Lex,

 

How can I thank you enough, for such a detailed post! Indeed, I had given thoughts about recreating a new screw-drive mechanism. As you say - a lot of work for such a pen. I am going to copy your comments and save them along with the pen for future work. Nonetheless, very much appreciated, and thank you for the inspiration to resurrect these pens.

 

Jon

[Lexaf]

My Pleasure!

[georges zaslavsky]

well done