Solution To Ink Dripping (Hero 616,329,..)

July 17, 2016

Hello Everybody

I am not a pen collector but I bought several fountain pens (I use pens for drawing) including some Hero 616, Hero 329 and other similar models. They drip ink like crazy. Shaking the pen in any way will mess up the paper.

I searched youtube to see if there is solution to this. Surprisingly enough dripping is not even mentioned in the reviews of these pens.

I have tried fiddling with the nib, washing the inside, changing the ink. Nothing has worked so far.

1. Do all fountain pens drip?

2. If not do all Hero pens drip?

3. If not, how can it be fixed?

Thanks in advance.

InvisibleInk

July 17, 2016

No...they should not drip. All my vintage 616s and 329s worked like magic out of the box, without even a first flushing.

However, within the past month or so, I have been 'donated' a drippy 616 (which I believe is a fake) and a couple of similar-to-329-332s. They are all recent models. All drip and blurp.

First, check and see if the breather tube is attached. If not, push it in. This can ne accomplished without disassembling the pen, and it fixed the fake 616, though it is far from a smooth writer now.

Still working on the 332s. One has a big gap between feed and nib. You might check that, and try to re-adjust so the gap disappears.

July 18, 2016

Thanks for your reply. Your answer made me search a little about fake Hero pens (the thought had never occurred to me previously) I like to meet the blasted fool that has gone to business of faking 1 dollar pens.

Pushing the breather more inside unfortunately did not help. I pushed so much the nib and the plastic thing shot out (and more ink).

I took some pictures because I can not figure out if my pens are fake or real.

In the first photo A,B,C are supposed to be 616 JUMBO although I don't think they are that much bigger than the other pens.

D is the 329 which is the best writer (although it leaks too). The last two I do not know their names. I bought them from different sellers on ebay and each says GENUINE in the title. The price was around 2-3 dollars each so no major loss.

Do they seem real to you or fake? Also any other suggestions to solve the problem is greatly appreciated. The pens as they are practically useless so I do not mind trying anything that has a chance of fixing the problem.

regards

InvisibleInk

July 18, 2016

The nib and feeds will pop out if you push the breather hard enough. In fact, that's one way to work on the nib and feed assembly.

Here's a good explanation.

There's also a thread somewhere here on FPN about how to tell a genuine from a fake Hero...can't locate it at the moment, but you can always search.

Draining your Hero of ink before working on it is probably a good idea. There's also a Repair sub-forum here if you want to try that for other causes of leaks.

Hope you can get these writing!

PS: it's also not certain whether there are 'fake' Hero pens or that the quality of some models suffered a dramatic drop. I have a 332 that's one of the nicest writers I own; the third spews, dribbles, and has that misaligned feed/nib problem.

Edited July 18, 2016 by Sailor Kenshin

July 19, 2016

Fountain pens are NOT supposed to drip when in normal use.

#1 Do NOT shake the pen over your paper. Why are you even doing that?

#2 What ink are you using? If you want to slow down the ink flow, use a dryer ink, like Pelikan 4001.

Edited July 19, 2016 by ac12

July 19, 2016

well. have been using those old Hero models since way back when I am just a junior school kid. Have had no problem with them then and not any right now with mine, but I can see where the problem lies. In short the Hero(s) favor usage and even better they favor tweaking. The most common way for people to tweak and run in theirs are taking out the nib and feed ( and if possible the sac protector, then just put the whole section ( the sac is not removable ) into warm water and let it soak for an hour or 2 before flushing , can do that to the barrel, but really not needed ( nothing there ).

The nib can do with some smoothing usually ( extra fine grid sand paper and just a few swipe lightly in your usual writing configuration ) and the feed usually need no work other than just a simple wash in warm water. I generally do that to all of the pens part ( except the metal sac protector which I clean with denatured alcohol ) in case any grease / oil left from factory assembly / manufacturing process.

Generally, people put the nib and feed together as a single unit and push fit them into the pen when re assembling. Well for the Hero(s) a better trick is to slightly place the nib further back and then take the whole unit and push that into place until the nib sit tight, then take some small tool and gently push the feed in until its tight also. Making sure that all units are centered. This create a better fit and usually will cure any ink flow issue quite well. For most of the ink flow issue with these pens, majority of the issues had been with poor / improper / ill-done feed / nib / collector fitting,

But seriously, all fountain pen, will drip if you intentionally flick the pen ( or as you say, shake it ; if hard enough ) , that's just physics. there is an ink flow channel and ink are suppose to flow freely from storage to nib .. so any force exerted will simply well ... you know ..

Edited July 19, 2016 by Mech-for-i

July 19, 2016

Thanks for reply and explanation you guys.

I use different inks from Parker Quink to J.Herbin I different pens and more or less they all drip the same way.

Yesterday I received a regular Hero 616 from another ebay seller (mentag). This one is of course smaller, but material, proportions and functionality is superior to the 3 jumbo ones in every respect. So now putting them side by side I am pretty sure the 3 jumbos are poorly manufactured fakes.

The differences in case anybody is interested are:

1. The ratio of length of before and after glass ring (Real one is less)

2. Ink container is proportionally bigger is real one

3. The metal cover of ink container is made of thicker and more sturdy metal.

4. Breather tube in real one is longer reaching almost 80% of the ink container.

5. There is very small gap between feeder and body of pen in real one while in the fake one when nib and feed are pushed in completely there is a much larger gap.

6. Clip is better constructed and more substantial

7. The ink container is made of thicker plastic and color when un-inked was white compared with transparent and thin appearance of the fake ones

8. Pen fills up better

These are my observations and I am not an expert by any mean.

InvisibleInk

PS. You are right I should not shake the pen on top of paper