Disassembling a rollerball

[Jonkou]

Made this Majestic Jr a few weeks ago and put it in the box with the rest. Pulled it out today and the buffalo horn has cracked on both barrels. Want to recover the parts and rebuild it but not sure how to remove the center band assembly with the plastic threads, the other parts are no problem. Have a set of punches but hesitant to tap on the plastic. What's the safest way of breaking it down? Thanks.

 

[mick]

All you really can do is get the biggest punch that will fit into the cap. That way you'll drive it down into the coupler ruining the threads. Most jr thread inserts are extra long so if it boogers the end you can just trim it a like to clean it up.

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[Mr Vic]

Not sure what the thread size/pitch is but a bolt the correct size screwed and drive on it. The pressure would be distributed and less chance of damage

 

[magpens]

What a pity !! . Would have been a lovely looking pen.

Seems that the brass tube expanded during assembly, as it always does during the press-in process. . And that expansion, though small, was enough to crack the buffalo horn. . This is one of the critical steps in the usual pen kit assembly process, unfortunately. . Sometimes such a crack does not show up for a few weeks, as in this case.

It's not going to help you this time for me to say this, but before assembly in the future, you can ream out the I.D. of the brass tube enough to give you just a snug fit on the hardware parts, and then glue on the hardware parts.

Sorry to hear you have this problem on what would have otherwise been a stunning pen .

 

[Dehn0045]

Buffalo horn is notorious for cracking. I did one once, looked awesome for a week, then cracked. Some folks have methods for working with horn, at a minimum reducing heat during drilling is a must. But there are more tricks that are probably necessary, like Mal's recommendation.

As for disassembly, I always recommend getting one of these golf grip rubber vise clamp things https://www.caddiesshack.com/products/rubber-shaft-vise-clamp-universal?variant=33084447822 You can find them on Amazon or ebay, all are basically the same. Cut in half, works great for securing a pen in a vise for disassembly. Another tip is to use something to catch the fitting like a rubber gloves -- if you're not careful it'll take a few hours of crawling on the shop floor to find the little bugger.

 

[Chasper]

One thing you can be sure of with buffalo horn, it will crack no matter how you put it together. All you can do is to salvage the parts. Knock out the top finial and clip, then come in from the the space you opened up with the largest punch that will fit. Push the punch down to the top of the black plastic piece, grip it tight in you hand and start pounding with a heavy hammer.

Don't be surprised if it takes 50-100 solid wacks and a fair amount of bad language to get it out. Try to remember to breath when you are pounding or you might start turning blue before it comes out, but eventually it will come out, I've disassembled many dozens of them. The extra bad news is that with a cracked blank, sometimes the tube breaks loose and comes out along with the centerband and plastic threading still attached. The solution to getting it out of the tube is the same process, but it becomes much more difficult to hold while you pound on it.

 

[Jonkou]

Thanks all for your tips. Will try to punch it out. Don't want to damage the plastic so if no come easy going to break off the horn and split the tube using a dremel abrasive wheel then rip it with vice grips. Lesson learned, wont use horn again.