The Super Glue Solution

My most recent purchase from JetPens included 4 Pilot DR Drawing Pens. These are "felt tip" technical pens. Actually the tip is a fibrous material (felt was used in the past and is still used in some pens, hence the name "felt tip") encased in a plastic sheath. The "felt" gives the tip it's porosity while the plastic gives it strength and stability. The result is a relatively strong, porous tip that is very free flowing and which can be made very fine. These pens are made with a 5mm long shaft, similar to the lead sleeve on a drafting pencil, which supports the tip and allows the pen to ride up against the edge of drafting tools such as triangles. But while the main purpose of these fine pens is mechanical drawing they are quite often used as writing pens for the same reasons that they are used for drafting. I like them not only for their excellent drawing qualities but also because the tips, when compared to other pens such as rollerballs, are not as strong thus I am forced to use a lighter hand when writing.

The 4 pens that I purchased were the 4 finest tips available, the #005 (0.20mm), #01 (0.25mm), #02 (0.30mm) and #03 (0.35mm). Any larger and I can use gel pens or rollerballs. Of the 4 I like the #005 the best as it is the finest. However when the DR's arrived and I began to use them I noticed two things about the #005 pen. It wrote a bit wider than it should and it made a scratchy crackling sound when used. Both of these are signs of a tip with a cracked or split plastic sheath. This spells death to a "felt tip" pen. When notified JetPens was kind enough to ship me another one, free of charge without requiring the return of the defective pen. So now I had a good set of pens and one defective one. What to do with the defective one? Well most people would just toss it, but not a true penaholic! I didn't toss it, so what does that tell you about me?

Ever thinking I quickly came up with the idea of using super glue to fix the defective tip. This is not as crazy an idea as it may sound. Because of the way super glues work and harden they are best applied in a very thin coat, unlike other types of glues. The idea was to over apply the super glue then remove most of it allowing the tiny bit remaining to seal the crack in the plastic sheath. Because super glue hardens almost instantly when exposed to water it is ideal for this kind of repair. It was the technique that was to be the key to the solution.

Besides the super glue I needed some tools: a strong light source, a toothpick as an applicator and a 10 power eye loupe that attaches to the temple of my glasses so that my hands were free. Fortunately for me I have all those things. The procedure was as follows: I used the eye loupe to magnify the pen tip and the light from a small lamp to illuminate the tip. Using just a tiny drop of super glue on the end of a toothpick I applied it to the entire circumference of the tip in the general location of where the metal shaft intersects the tip and along the sides of the tip itself but not on the very end of the tip (see illustration). Waiting only a second or two I quickly removed the super glue with a tissue and then waited another second or two before I began to rub the sides of the tip against a sheet of paper in order to remove any excess super glue that might prevent the tip from writing at an angle.

Well my first attempt at the fix was only partially successful in that the line width seemed to have improved a bit. But the crackling was still there. That's when I noticed that the super glue was thicker than normal. The tube of super glue was too old and had partially set. Using a new tube of super glue I repeated the process. The glue flowed much better this time. And this time I had complete success! Not only was the line width as thin as it should be but the crackling was gone! I had saved a $2.50 pen with less than $0.02 worth of materials! Now that would bring a smile to any penaholics face.

Many thanks to JetPens for the replacement pen and for the use of the photo.