How to fix a broken centerband

The pen I featured in my previous post "The Penmakers Dilemma" had one problem, the golden ring in the centerband was loose. Upon calling my supplier I found out that it was a common problem they had with this run of kits and were happy to replace it for free. The problem being that I had already assembled it and didn't want to disassemble the entire pen just to get that out. I went down and visited my good friend Roger at Craft Supplies USA and he gave me this idea for how to remove the centerband without disassembly. WARNING following this will destroy the center band. DO NOT do this if you need to preserve the original centerband.


First thing you need is a hacksaw blade. I bought this mini hacksaw for 4 dollars at wallyworld. If you look closely you can where I used a grinder to make the end smaller so it would fit in the pen barrel.


Next use the saw inside of the centerband and gently hold the barrel while you saw through to the copper barrel. I did this in two different spots to give it more flexibility when I remove it.


After I had two clean lines cut through on the inside I gently pulled the metal centerband out with needlenose pliers.



Next do the same thing with the plastic insert that is left inside of the barrel.



Now you can reinstall the new centerband after cleaning out all of the plastic and metal bits. I did this with compressed air.


Hopefully in the future I won't ever have to do this because I will always check the centerband, but on the off chance one comes loose on a customer after the fact I now have this in my arsenal to solve it.