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Multi-pen Pencil Empty Or Broken? How To Fix It

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Multi-pens are great, but their pencil part can be fragile and prone to breaking. Don’t worry, the part is replaceable on most quality multi-pens. Here’s what you need to fix your multi-pen’s broken mechanical pencil.

Multi-Pen Refills Basics

Most multi-pens use a D1 refill size, which means the ink refills are a standard type that will fit almost any multi-pen regardless of when it was made or that brand made it.

The mechanical pencil component of a well-designed multi-pen is also a universal (or nearly universal) component that is replaceable.

Hi-Tec-C Pencil Component

How to Fix a Multi-pen’s Pencil

With most multi-pens, when the pencil breaks the process to fix it is very simple. You simple need to…

  1. Pull out or fully push in any lead in the pencil
  2. Move the pen to a neutral position where nothing is selected
  3. Remove the front end of the pen or otherwise unscrew the two halves of the pen
  4. With the refills exposed, find the pencil component and pull it. The part will move easily at first because of the internal spring and then stop. You need to keep pulling until the part slides out.

At the point you can replace the component or you can put more lead inside it and replace it.

Multi-pen Pencil Replacement Parts

If your pencil part is broken, not jammed, then you can simply replace it. You’ll know the part is replaceable if you pull it and it comes out of the pencil, leaving an empty barrel where a new one can go. Most companies will sell their own replacement, but if your brand doesn’t you can try another brand’s part.

If the pencil is jammed, the fix will be much different. Here’s our guide on how to fix a pencil jam.

Rotring

This part explicitly works with the Rotring Trio and Rotring Quattro, but it should work with other multi-pens.

Lamy Z61 Pencil Unit
Lamy Z61 Pencil Unit

Lamy

  • Lamy Z60/5 lead refill unit
  • Lamy Z61/7 lead refill unit

The Lamy Z60 uses 0.5 mm lead and is designed to be a replacement part for all of Lamy’s twin and tri pens. The Lamy Z61 0.7 mm lead and is the component for Lamy’s quad-color multi-pens.

Pilot