Some pens, especially pens made in England, Conway Stewart and others were made of casein plastic. It is a milk byproduct and water soluble, and will melt if you soak in water! Hard rubber pens can discolor if you soak them in water. Never soak the whole pen barrel or cap. Most of the barrels have metal internal parts that will rust and the caps have metal parts that can corrode.
Removing fountain pen sections that have been put in with shellac or glue can be tricky to remove.
It would be helpful to know what brand and model your the pen happens to be and if the cap and barrel are made of plastic or hard rubber. It would help to determine if the section is friction fitted into the barrel or if it is threaded into the barrel.
Do NOT try this on plastic pens! On hard rubber pens only, if you know the section has been fitted to the barrel with shellac, I have successfully used denatured alcohol to loosen the section. It is poisonous, so do not get it on your hands or fingers! I would suggest that you wear rubber gloves. I put some denatured alcohol in hypodermic syringe and shoot a bit of it in through the lever slot, in Parker button fillers, remove the button, then carefully stand the pen with nib down in a drinking glass and wait awhile. Clean off any of the alcohol that comes out of the pen. If the section does not come out the first time repeat. The reason you cannot use denatured alcohol on plastic pens is that it will melt the plastic and you will not like the outcome.
Plastic pens that have been glued and not shellaced can sometimes be soaked in cold water. Carefully place the pen in a drinking glass and stand the pen on the nib. Put enough cold water (always cold water never hot!) in the glass to cover the barrel threads and maybe two or three millimeters above the threads. Let the pen stand for about 24 hours. If the section does not come out then try it for and extra day or two. If it still doesn't work then the section has been installed with shellac and not water soluble glue.
Heat can help with removing sections that have been installed with shellac. I use an 1800 watt hair drier. First I wrap the nib, feed and section with some rubberized dental tray liner, just up to the barrel threads, then slowly rotate the barrel about an inch away from the end of the hair drier. I think I do that for about a minute and a half or two, then take the dental tray liner off of the section. I hold the pen barrel vertically with nib pointed upwards. Then try to pull the section straight up with my fingers. A little slight wiggling of the section is okay, but too much can split the barrel threads or break them off. If that does not work, I reheat the pen and then use padded section pliers and try to pull the section straight out.
Do not point the nib and section towards yourself and do not pull it out towards your chin! You do not want to stab yourself with the nib!
Parker Duofold flat top pens and some other early Parkers have sections that screw into the barrel. Also some of them had some amount of shellac on the threads. Some hard rubber Waterman's had slip-fit sections that had shellac on them. Probably the most difficult of the early Waterman's to get apart are the ring tops. The barrel wall on them is very thin and I have bought pens that someone tried to take apart cold and the threads stayed on the section, when they tried to remove it. Usually they replaced the ink sac then would glue or shellac the section back in place and sometimes it is difficult to see that funky repair.
If you are new to vintage fountain pen repair, I would suggest buying cheap pens to learn and practice on. Breaking a nice looking quality pen is very disheartening! Also, if you have better quality or expensive pens, I would (and always have) suggest that you send them to a professional pen repairman. Don't send them to me! I stopped custom vintage pen repair in 2009, and now only work on my own pens for my collection and for resale.
Above all, be careful repairing and restoring your pens and have fun. Pose questions to professional pen repair people. Most of us are willing to try to help you. We are all in this hobby together.
*NOTE* Some will disagree with standing a pen in a hard drinking glass on the nib's tip. If you do it, place the pen in the glass very carefully. The tipping material is harder than the glass and it will not hurt the tip as long as you do not drop the pen in the glass!
Michael
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