Getting A Vac Plunger Out Of Of 1936 Vac

[nefsigh]

Hi all. I have a Vac I started working on and I need to resac the plunger and I am unable to get it to budge. Used heated (controlled) water (125 degrees) to attempt to soften any glue or varnish-No movement. I am using a Vac block to tighten onto this section but for some reason, unlike others I have repaired, this guy refuses to listen to me. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance, Lenny Dowhie, nefsigh@aol.com

[gregamckinney]

It could be shellaced in. If memory serves, 125F is not quite warm enough to soften shellac.

 

Best Regards, greg

[Chrissy]

Could you safely try a hairdryer? Or very slightly hotter water?

[PaulS]

Plastic bushes can apparently be very difficult and can end up broken anyway, although the metal bushes should eventually come out o.k., although if you overdo the grip you may end up making the bush oval. I'd recommend continuing with hair dryer heat rather than water, but it may take several goes.

Sections are found to have been shellaced in, but I don't think bushes are/were, but I bet there's someone out there who will now come in and say they have seen that.

 

Edited to remove the unnecessary, bits as I obviously wasn't reading slowly enough

Edited July 23, 2017 by PaulS

[ac12]

The barrel could have shrunk down onto the filler.

Water is a BAD idea, as it it could start rust/corrosion of the spring and depending which filler unit the other metal parts.

I would use a hair dryer and keep below 160F.

Be VERY CAREFUL of how tight you clamp down onto the filler. I have one plastic filler that is so compressed that the blind cap no longer screws onto it That was an expensive lesson.

PATIENCE. You may have to heat the pen MANY times to get it to finally let go of the filler.

 

There may be a certain point that you reach where you have to decide to punt, and send the pen to a pen tech to replace the diaphram.

 

Worst case is that the filler has to be drilled out/destroyed to remove it, and a replacement filler used.

[Ron Z]

Plastic bushes can apparently be very difficult and can end up broken anyway, although the metal bushes should eventually come out o.k., although if you overdo the grip you may end up making the bush oval.

 

This is a 1936 Vac, so an earlier version with a metal thread bushing. The plastic ones weren't introduced until WWII.

 

Parker didn't shellac the filler units in, but someone else may have. Even without shellac (which should never be used) they can get quite stuck as the sac can adhere to both the seat in the barrel and the cone. If there is white dust around the filler, the threads are corroded. Sometimes naphtha works as a light penetrating oil to loosen it a bit. I recommend dry heat, not hot water which can cloud the celluloid. A soak in vinegar over night, or sometimes a day or two, can wick into the aluminum oxide that has formed enough that with heat you can unscrew the filler. Rinse very well in clear water and dry before reassembly.

 

You also need to go from the inside to get the filler out of the pen. This is especially important on the "disposable" fillers - i.e. the ones found in 51s and most pens of the 1940s. If you try to just pull the pump out you can break the pellet cup, or pull it off of the rod. Use a piece of brass tubing mounted in a dowel to push - not a rod, so you don't crush the pellet cup. Richard Binder used to have an article about "the other Vac tool" that describes how to make them. Push from the front while pulling at the back end. On occasion you have to tap it out. Make sure you support the back end of the barrel so that you don't delaminate in the middle.

[nefsigh]

Thanks to all who responded. I have yet to try the dry heat but will quite soon once I pry the hair dryer from my spousal connection and get the cat that got caught in the garage door loose.

[nefsigh]

PS- Cat is free-Somehow he got on the door as it was closing and got a part of his tail caught in the UPPER part of the door and frame-(Fortunately, not the bony part of the tail) This is a stray who is slowly ingratiating himself to us and the other cats.. Sigh, a sucker for pens and a sucker for cats.

[FarmBoy]

Should be a metal filler. Water is a no. Try naphtha. Drip a bit on the seams and walk a way. Do this regularly for a while then try DRY heat.

[Ron Z]

Thanks to all who responded. I have yet to try the dry heat but will quite soon once I pry the hair dryer from my spousal connection and get the cat that got caught in the garage door loose.

 

I like cats. There is a cat that has been hanging around that is very sweet, and hungry. It is tempting to take a cat in and adopt it. Thank you for reminding me that cats and fountain pens, especially clients pens with little pieces, don't mix. Cats, as one meme has pointed out, are proof that the world is not flat. If it were, everything would have already been knocked off.

[njomd]

furthermore, cats are directly descended from boomerangs. Have you ever tried to remove a cat that's in the way? He's back before you can blink

 

njomd

[Chrissy]

PS- Cat is free-Somehow he got on the door as it was closing and got a part of his tail caught in the UPPER part of the door and frame-(Fortunately, not the bony part of the tail) This is a stray who is slowly ingratiating himself to us and the other cats.. Sigh, a sucker for pens and a sucker for cats.

 

I hope the cat is OK and that the ingratiating process hasn't hit a big setback due to the accident.

[Chrissy]

Should be a metal filler. Water is a no. Try naphtha. Drip a bit on the seams and walk a way. Do this regularly for a while then try DRY heat.

Would 'naphtha' work in the same way as 'Industrial Denatured Alcohol' (that is the latest name for 'Industrial Methylated Spirits')?

[Ron Z]

ACK! NO! Seriously, naphtha will not harm a pen. Denatured alcohol may damage some plastics and not others, but it can dissolve celluloid. Even brief contact can cloud the surface and worst case can dissolve a pen faster than you can imagine.

 

I had a pump container with denatured alcohol on my bench very early on, and it got knocked over. Some of the alcohol flowed into the plastic bag that had a pen in it. Before I could pick the container up, and then grab the pen out of the bag, it had already softened. Pen ruined. That container went away immediately, to be replaced by a bottle with a spout that could be closed, and that gets stored in a holder under a side bench.

[Chrissy]

ACK! NO! Seriously, naphtha will not harm a pen. Denatured alcohol may damage some plastics and not others, but it can dissolve celluloid. Even brief contact can cloud the surface and worst case can dissolve a pen faster than you can imagine.

 

I had a pump container with denatured alcohol on my bench very early on, and it got knocked over. Some of the alcohol flowed into the plastic bag that had a pen in it. Before I could pick the container up, and then grab the pen out of the bag, it had already softened. Pen ruined. That container went away immediately, to be replaced by a bottle with a spout that could be closed, and that gets stored in a holder under a side bench.

 

Thanks. In that case I'm not sure I know what 'naptha' is.

[ac12]

 

 

 

Thanks. In that case I'm not sure I know what 'naptha' is.

 

Here in the US, it is "lighter fluid."

At least that is what I was told to get as naptha. I probably should go read the can, to see what the ingredient is.

[Glenn Atkins]

some of the lighter fluids no longer contain naphtha. get it at a big box store or a paint store.

 

Glenn

[nefsigh]

Just out of curiosity, what exactly causes pen plastic to go "cloudy"? If it's the moisture, logic says that thoroughly drying the pen should return it to near its original state. On the other hand, logic and pen collecting don't seem to go hand in hand at my house.
If one has inadvertently dropped a red striped debutante in water and one didn't notice it had fallen in for say..many hours later and it had that funny weird cloudy look, has anyone had any success at restoring something like this or should I mount it and frame it as "art"?

[Ron Z]

Hot or warm water will do that. Cold won't.

 

Naphtha is also known as VP&M Naphtha, or Varnish makers and Painters Naphtha. It is a thinner used for thinning oil based paints. It is lighter than mineral spirits, and is used primarily to thin for spraying, or to speed up the rate at which the oil based paint dries. The EPA is trying to limit its use to lower the VOC (volatile oil content) of paints used, so is getting harder to find. You might still find it in quart cans in the big box stores (Lowes doesn't carry it now), but you can still buy it at paint stores, which tend to work more with industrial clients who need the hardness of oil based paints.

[tamiya]

Naphtha = Coleman gas = zippo fluid = Shellite = petroleum spirit