Dropped my Pelikan M-800 - broken

[morten]

Well, there goes my day.  The pen was dropped from pocket height onto linoleum and broke where the feed meets the barrel.  But I need advice here.  It seems to me that a lowish fall onto linoleum should not cause a pen to break in half.  Do I have a case with Pelikan?  Any experience with such things?  Thank you all.  

[sandy101]

No, but you might be able to make a claim on your accidental damage insurance, if you have any. An M800 is probably worth more than the excess. 

[Bo Bo Olson]

Write Pelikan in Hanover, sometimes they do stuff for free.

 

You don't mention where you are....or flag yourself.....it helps to know where you are if someone wants to recommend a paper, ink or repairman if you are in the US it would be different than if you were in Europe.

 

If in the US Chartpack takes care of $$ repair.....but try Hanover first.

[Dione]

12 hours ago, morten said:

Well, there goes my day.  The pen was dropped from pocket height onto linoleum and broke where the feed meets the barrel.  But I need advice here.  It seems to me that a lowish fall onto linoleum should not cause a pen to break in half.  Do I have a case with Pelikan?  Any experience with such things?  Thank you all.  

You don't "have a case with Pelikan" if by that you might mean can any "fault" be attributed to them. You need to find someone who can repair your Pelikan M800 and depending on where you are in the world Pelikan or their agents might be one place to ask as a starting point. It would be interesting to learn if your home insurance might cover it's accidental loss.

[A Smug Dill]

13 hours ago, morten said:

But I need advice here.  It seems to me that a lowish fall onto linoleum should not cause a pen to break in half. 

 

My advice is that if you want to make “a case” or a claim on that belief you described as “it seems to me…”, then first look for some sort of technical standard or authoritative statement that led you to that belief and would support your claim.

 

Neither your personal opinion, nor the amount of pain or despair you feel from having broken your pen, can be counted on to have any standing, so that's certainly isn't how you should argue your case. By the way, even if you can find ten other pens that does not break in your experimentation and/or effort to prove the impact “should not cause a pen to break in half”, you still cannot effectively argue that Pelikan is therefore bound to that level of robustness.

 

13 hours ago, morten said:

Do I have a case with Pelikan?

 

Not on the face of it. Time to start researching what would back up your argument so that an independent third party would rule in your favour and not out of empathy as a fellow consumer who doesn't like being out of pocket.

[Karmachanic]

Not to be harsh.  You weren't paying attention and you broke your pen.  Your fault, not Pelikan's.  From my own experience I can say that when I break things it is because my hand, for example, is here, and my mind is there.

 

As mentioned above there are two choices: 1] Sent it to Hanover.  They may, or may not charge for the repair.  2] Send it to a fountain pen repair person.

 

The advantage of sending it to Hanover is that you can be sure the repair/rebuild will be invisable and will last. Carelessness aside.

 

Good luck!

[gyasko]

I disagree with the previous posters.  Pelikans have been known to separate at the join between barrel and section.  If that’s where this one came apart — I’m not sure what is meant by “feed” — then i would attribute the separation to a known weakness in Pelikan’s construction.  

 

If it’s the join that has failed, it’s relatively simple to solvent weld back together.  I had to do this when my m800 spontaneously deconstructed itself.  No fall necessary!

[Ron Z]

Failure of what I call the nose piece that the section is glued onto is a common failure, more common with the 800 pens, but I've also repaired some of the lower number pens as well.  There have been times when I've repaired 4 or 5 800 pens  a month.  But I have no way to know how many of the pens were sold, or how old the pens that I've repaired are, so no clue what percentage of the pens have broken VS number of pens in circulation. 

 

If all that you have to do is to glue the section back onto the nose piece, its a relatively easy repair.  If you want a durable repair when that piece has broken off with part still in the section, and part on the barrel, that's quite a bit more involved.  My understanding is that Pelikan doesn't glue them unless its just a case of the section itself coming unglued.  They replace the barrel of the pen, to the tune of $250.

[Bo Bo Olson]

What I had heard now that I've been reminded of it, of problems with the 800 and separation; I had read of before.

Having no 800's until a month or two ago, I'd not paid attention.

Ron says there were other models, but I didn't remember them, just the 800's mentioned over the years here.

 

$250 for a new barrel may not be much,  but it is a design fault of Pelikan.

 

Think a good repair man can fix it for much less than $250. I think that is a rip off by Pelikan.

[morten]

Well, I may have rendered this discussion moot.  Thanks to everyone who offered advice.  But last night, I carefully re-attached the barrel to the nose piece with gorilla glue.  It has held beautifully.  Trouble is, I seem to have clogged it, because it will not longer draw ink.  So, time to say goodbye to my M-800 I'm afraid.  Thanks again.  

[kazoolaw]

Before you give up on the pen send to a repair person to get their opinion.  A minor investment compared to the cost of the pen.

[morten]

Agreed Kazoo, good advice.  Can forum members recommend a repair person in Canada or the US?

[Runnin_Ute]

@morten Ron Zorn who posted in this thread is very well regarded. 

[Dione]

With respect, the best time to ask a repair person to fix it was before any sort of fix ensured it was bunged up with Gorilla glue. The potential fix has now become significantly more difficult now that every trace of previous glue needs cleaned off before a solvent weld can be attempted. The repair price probably doubled due to the extra work time involved.

[Ron Z]

5 hours ago, Dione said:

With respect, the best time to ask a repair person to fix it was before any sort of fix ensured it was bunged up with Gorilla glue. The potential fix has now become significantly more difficult now that every trace of previous glue needs cleaned off before a solvent weld can be attempted. The repair price probably doubled due to the extra work time involved.

 

Indeed.  

 

If the pen is clogged, it leads me to believe that the section was attached with the nib unit still in it, so it is likely to be glued in place as well, making salving the nib a bit of a challenge. 

[Bo Bo Olson]

Some where in history of the last decade, there has always been folks saying don't use superglue, and other saying do it, I got away with it.

It may be ones minimum is the others too much.

 

One should always go over to the repair section for a couple of days.

 

It's like those being told not to use O rings in piston pens because of problems with plastic barrel expansion caused by O rings....but it's cheap and one reads 'it's my pen'..........................

My WAG is there is a conspiracy of shamed silence from the my pen folks....when cheap leads to less than hoped for. 

 

Often going cheap....from my reading, has made for problems.

 

Some folks insist a pen has to have a certain value to be worthy of professional repair...............so will cheap out given the opportunity.

 

I think, on the whole*** it's mine, so should work; not the pen is too cheap to be worthy of being fixed...(even professionally)...and if doing it oneself, one should buy 'Pen Repair' by Marshall and Oldfield and do it right.

Got the book, but can't find my bottle of willpower.

 

*** Of course one has pens one didn't buy one's self...oh you collect fountain pens; here have a handful......super corroded clips/nibs...3rd and 4th no name tier  pens...whose nib may be worth saving or not.

 

Ones one may keep hidden someplace in case that individual asks do you still have that pen I gave you and one can say truthfully, yes, I've not gotten around to repairing it yet.....(When Hell thaws out enough to plant geraniums, one could worry about repairing them.)

 

But if you bought it your self, it should be in good enough shape to be 'worthy' of repair. .....even if cheap.

 

 

 

[IHaveAPenProblem]

On 10/2/2021 at 2:52 PM, Bo Bo Olson said:

Some where in history of the last decade, there has always been folks saying don't use superglue, and other saying do it, I got away with it.

It may be ones minimum is the others too much.

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, the reason I don't recommend superglue in pens as a first choice is that pens tend to get wet, and superglue actually has quite poor performance when it's in constant contact with water. 

 

Not to say you can't use it - I have, but only on the back of a cracked barrel, behind the pump, so where it's dry. It also wasn't a particularly wonderful pen to start with, and I know that pen has been repaired so know not to soak it.

[boilermaker1975]

I had the bottom ring break at the bottom of the cap of my Onoto Pi. Since I was buying another Onoto, they included that ring piece, actually 3 of them, at no charge and instructions. What they recommended gluing it with was Devcon epoxy glue. 

 

[Ron Z]

There are very few applications for superglue in pen repair.  There are some hardened, water resistant forms, but I rarely use them. The good ones are really expensive.  Besides most superglues (hardware store variety) breaking down when exposed moisture and heat, once you use them the surface is contaminated and you can't solvent weld the plastic.