Hero 100 Flighter Vs Plastic

[DeanKW]

I've been looking at getting a Hero 100 and am trying to choose between a Flighter and a Plastic one.

 

I have only found a few posts comparing them, the most useful being https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/303529-hero-100-variants-a-comparative-review/.

 

The weights seem to be fairly similar. According to mentag/yespen's ebay postings, the Flighter model is 23g, the Plastic model is 21g, and the Glorious is 45g. For anyone curious, Here are the weights of similar pens; my Parker 51 (black plastic) is 20g, Parker 21 Super is 19g, Hero 616 Jumbo is 16g, Hero 616 Small is 13g, Hero 616 Regular is 14g, Hero 338 is 16g, Hero 329 is 15g. These weights are all uninked and measured by myself.

 

Where do the Hero 100s sometimes crack? Is it the barrel or the section? If it is the section, do cracks occur more commonly in either the flighter or the plastic models?

 

I'd love to hear anyone's opinion about the two. Aesthetically, it's hard to choose!

[Mech-for-i]

Hero 100's main fault on design is failed section. The section can crack sometime and since the section is all the same among all version of Hero 100 it will not matter.

 

That is unless you got to buy a post 2014 production piece. Hero managed to finally nail down the cause to the problem and implemented an engineering change to the assembly starting 2014 production ( one of 2 engineering change Hero made to 100 ever ). So 2014 and later production pieces do not suffer the problem

 

That said many Heto 100 are used daily and never develop a crack and the problem seems not too much a issue for most. As for the 100 itself; well in these vintage models the steel barrel version are always the up market option. Guess that answer yours. The other option is to just buy a plastic one and invest in an after market barrel acrylic , wood, or even exotic Titanium

[Seele]

DeanKW,

 

Like Mech's post, it is my understanding that the infamous crack occurs in the rear section, and I also understand that it's due to the wear and tear of the tooling that some of them did not get to be totally round, thus developing uneven loads around its perimeter.

 

The new tooling must have eliminated the issue altogether, but of course, a large proportion of the units built during the worn tooling era are perfectly fine, it's just that those whose pens work correctly won't join forums to complain about them.

[DeanKW]

Thanks!

 

I couldn't decide, so I bought the pen and found another retailer who sold me an extra barrel. Then I also ordered a custom wooden barrel. I'm excited to have everything arrive, though it'll be about a month.

[TSherbs]

Dean, how did these work out for you?

[apastuszak]

Is there a way to tell if your pen is 2014 or newer?