Eversharp Doric Cathay Crumbled End Barrel Successful Repair

[Hardy08]

I wanted to share with you the repair of a a crumbled barrel end of a gorgeous oversize Wahl Eversharp Doric in cathay color.

 

A soon as I get this pen (50$) I had the bad idea to push a little on the crumbled crown from the barrel end and boom, it broke up in pieces... Here is the initial state...

 

I cleaned the end barrel removing all the crumbled celluloid.

 

I decided to rebuild the Barrel end crown using another broken doric cap in cathay color (junior size) (also crumbled at the end): here is this cap (yellow arrow shows instable cracks, I got it on ebay for 30$):

 

I first removed all the "unhealthy celluloid" (broken or crumbled parts) from the broken doric cap. I then used sand paper to remove the discolored superficial layer of the cap. Here is what remained of the cap:

 

Then the barrel was split in half using a fine jeweler's saw and sawn the splited barrel in "tiles" of the width of the barrel end: here are the tiles:

 

Then the tiles were flattened and glued together using acetone welding. You must immerge a short time each tiles in acetone to allow them to soften. The tiles are then ready to be assembled two by two by pressing them against each other. On the left of the picture you can see tiles already assembled and on the right a fresh one ready to be soaked in acetone and welded to the other ones.

 

You then get a kind of celluloid dice formed by successive acetone welded layers:

 

And now the hardest part!: you have to wait for 3 months to allow the dice to dry (to shrink).

 

It's now time to acetone weld the dice onto the end barrel:

 

 

Then the crown is sculpted, sanded it down to the 12 lateral facets of the doric barrel with rough sand paper. To guide you and to avoid damaging the lateral facets of the barrel you have to protect each facet with a piece of metal taped with double sided scotch tape onto the barrel facet:

 

 

Here is the rough result on the left (without fine sanding) and with fine sanding on the right (up to 5000 grit sandpaper):

 

When you have finished with sculpting the 12 lateral facets it's time to sculpt the crown (end side). You have to sand it using a metallic guide taped with regular tape on the lateral facets:

 

After finishing and sanding using Micromesh (grit 8000/12000) here is the result:

 

The pen after a year of use didn't show any signs of crumbling, there was no celluloid shrinkage either:

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 21, 2020 by Hardy08

[SilverStoneMetallic]

Wow! Great repair!

[Hardy08]

Thank you !

Hope this helps !!

[Mr.Rene]

[Paul-in-SF]

That's an impressive amount of work, but clearly worth it in the end for such a beautiful pen. Congratulations!

[Tweel]

That really is an excellent job, and nice that you found such a good match to the original celluloid.

 

I have a pen I want to repair the same way, but have no idea where to get a donor part with the same celluloid.

[fountainbel]

Impressing and clever repair approach, congratulations Hardy !

Francis

[FredRydr]

Fantastic work!

[cunim]

You know, you could offer this as a commercial service. Lot of Doric rot out there.

[como]

Nice work! Thank you for sharing.

[PAKMAN]

Great job!

[Hardy08]

Thank you very much for your comments:

@ cunin: Yes, a lot of those doric, especialy in lightest colors like cathay, tend to rot... But offering a repair service is impossible because it is even harder to find a source of matching celluloid for the repair. I was lucky to find a broken cap with the matching color for this one.

Thanks again !

[siamackz]

Excellent thread - very instructive! Thank you!

[Hardy08]

Thank you siamackz ! Hope this helps !

[amk]

Fantastic repair. I stand amazed by your skills and patience.

[Hardy08]

Thank you amk it took some time but now the pen is a true good daily writer !

[penburg]

Fantastic! Great job of restoration.

[Wahl]

Just great, thank you for sharing !

[Ron Z]

Nicely done. I'm curious... how many hours did you have into the project?

[EdwardSouthgate]

That is just way too cool .