[phth]

Has anyone done this, know a reference, or cost benefit analysis?

[Arkcon]

People haven't packed HPLC columns since ... well, ... ever really.  People have poured their own flash columns, or some pressure assisted low pressure columns, but HPLC columns require very high pressures.  Again, in times past, a damaged column would be disassembled, and a void filled with glass beads or compatible media, and reassembled, to give new life to a failing column.  But even since the 1990's when I started as an intern at Waters, there were columns where the media would expand out of the tube as soon as I opened them, so the prospect of column repair was hopeless. 

As for cost benefit, the answer is negative.  I mean to say, the hourly pay rate of a lab technician or chemist is far above the possible value gained from analytical column packing.  And no, if someone wants to do it for free for some reason, the value still isn't there.  A university or small contract lab needs quality results they can depend on the first time, not something possibly sloppily done.

Now in the case of a prep scale column, often costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, may be repacked by a manufacturer.  Or in the case of some dynamically packed columns, repacked by the user on system.  Both Danprocess and Pharmaceia produced very large scale HPLC prep systems of that sort.

[phth]

Thanks again Arkcon. Much appreciated.  I'm quite the noob when it comes to analytical strategies such as this.  We're low on grant money haha.