How To Disassemble The Pelikan 100 Piston

January 7, 2016

My pelikan 100's piston has a problem. I think the rubber ring or something on the piston got damaged. So I try to open the piston but I cannot open it. My 100's barrel is celluloid(1938~1940 maybe) and please help me to open it...I need your help:)

January 7, 2016

The piston assembly should be threaded if I recall correctly. It will be reverse threaded so you have to turn in the opposite direction that you normally would. You may need to soak it a bit before it will come free. Being gentle and patient is the key to success. Also, using a material with a little grip helps too. I avoid heat as that can easily get away from you and damage a pen. Pay close attention to how everything is put together to help facilitate reassembly. Good luck getting it sorted out.

Check out the info on this site; http://www.caprafico.com/pens-88/pelikan-pen-restoration-275

January 7, 2016

The mechanism is reverse threaded indeed but please be aware that these old Pelikan 100 barrels can be really extremely fragile!

On several of these pens I managed to remove the piston mechanism without major problems, initially. But once the piston mechanisms is out, the top of the barrel is able to develop tiny hairline cracks, developing slowly into major cracks eventually resulting in a crumbled barrel. That is really not a nice process to watch.

January 11, 2016

That would be a pen to send to a professional...where the '50's not so.

It's a cork gasket....in WW2, the first generation of the plastic gasket came in...the second generation and as far as I know still the same came in @ 1955.

A cork is much better than anything else. It needs to be fitted. Boiled in mineral oil and bees wax and smeared with silicon grease....should be good for another seventy years or so.

O rings the "cheap' way is not cheap in the pens are not made to be taken apart every year to be greased.

You can get good modern plastic to cut your self and get the cutter from Richard Binder if you want to go second class. Even the better plastic gasket of the mid'50's is second class compared to properly prepared cork.

Marshal&Oldfield have the best pen repair book out.

In one place they were talking about if one had a '50's MB...if the plastic gasket needed replacement, replace it with a properly prepared cork. In it is the smoothest of all.

Fountainable probably a bit misspelled, a member here ,in Belgium does the work properly.

You could get a cork properly made that you your self can boil in oil and bees wax from Peter Twydle in England. He is the son of the famed Arthur Twydle; whom the Marshal and Oldfield repair book is dedicated too, in he was their teacher and would have worked on the book had he not died.

But once again...you have to risk taking the pen apart as a noobie.

You have been warned not doing it perfectly, can cause damage.

It should be possible to find a good trained pen repair man in Japan that can do the work, or others.

Fountainable did a gold filled MB 742 for me (stuck cork from '51-54/55) and it was worth having a professional do the work on important pens.

It was not cheap. It was expertly done, by a man/engineer who takes great pride in his work. In 70 years you will have to look for someone else. Cost vs years of use, is actually Cheap.

Use a good pro, the pen deserves it.

Edited January 11, 2016 by Bo Bo Olson