Jinhao 85 disassembly

February 9, 2021

So today I was thinking it as a shame that the new Jinhao 85s are all glued together, because the feed in mine is cockeyed. The nib pulls out and pushes in the front for easy swapping, but I haven't been able to find a way to get ahold of the feed well enough to rotate it. This afternoon I thought I'd take another look. I went to unscrew the barrel and instead... the hood unscrewed! After watching ChrisRapp's video I wasn't planning to try and disassemble the hood; I hadn't given it a hot-water bath or anything. It just fell off in my hand!

The coupler is *not* the same as the one from the Jinhao 51A. The threading is different, so the hoods can't just be swapped between them.

I thought that, since I'd come this far, I might as well go ahead and see if I could get the feed drum out of the hood. If it was indeed the same as that found in the 51A, I have plenty of spares, so I don't mind destroying it to get it out. It was stuck in there pretty good, although I'm not sure with what. There doesn't seem to be a lot of glue residue inside. I mashed it pretty good getting it out. It does seem to be the same as the 51A assembly, except the collar is glued on (I haven't been able to get it to move, even twisting with two pairs of pliers) and the O-ring is missing. Here it is with a 51A assembly exploded for comparison.

So, curiosity assuaged, I guess.

UPDATE: Interestingly, the coupler on a 911 is thread compatible with the 85, although the reverse is not true (i.e., the 911 section will go on the 85 barrel, but the 911 barrel will not go on the 85 coupler - and for that matter, neither will the 911 hood). This gives a strange sort of gold/steel effect. The longer 911 section still fits in the 85 cap just fine, though, so I guess this is a way to save my 85 from the "dead pen drawer."

UPDATE #2: After some further inspection under the loupe, it turns out that the collector drums aren't as similar as I first thought. The orienting fins are thicker on the 51A drum, so you have to shave them down in order to get it to fit into the 85 hood. In addition, the glued-on collar seems to be made of thinner plastic, giving it a slightly thinner overall diameter. The 51A drum wouldn't go in with the collar on *at all.* The reason for this seems to be that there's a counterpart collar, made of metal, integrated into the hood of the 85, and the 51A collar is too thick to mate with it.

Oh well...