Jinhao 992 Informal Review

[otw]

The solid ones are definitely fine, they don't leak or don't have any crack.ossues

This is not quite accurate -- others in this thread have reported cracking issues with their solid 992s.

[Sailor Kenshin]

Is there any particular demo color that cracks more than others? My coffee cracked almost immediately, but so far I haven't seen the same in the green, blue or black.

[TSherbs]

You guys are brutes. My blue demonstrator (on the way) is never gonna crack. I'm a sophisticate.

[Sailor Kenshin]

You guys are brutes. My blue demonstrator (on the way) is never gonna crack. I'm a sophisticate.

I resemble that remark!

[InsuranceMan]

You guys are brutes. My blue demonstrator (on the way) is never gonna crack. I'm a sophisticate.

PMA is always a good thing. Just remember to use hairspray on the stain and don't rub. Just blot and wash. LOL Cliff

Edited July 14, 2017 by InsuranceMan

[Helen350]

You guys are brutes. My blue demonstrator (on the way) is never gonna crack. I'm a sophisticate.

 

Nothing like positive thinking!

[bob_hayden]

Elaborating on the posts from Seele...

 

I am a retired mechanical engineer and one of my basic principles is to never use plastic for anything that functions as a spring. (The clip on a fountain pen for example.) Stuffing a force fit plug into a plastic cylinder means that the cylinder is under constant stress. It is only a matter of time until it cracks even just sitting in storage.

 

A famous example of this is the Pentax 35mm SLR film camera sold as the ZX-5n in the US. It was auto-everything with the everything run by a little motor buried deep inside. Out of the motor came a shaft, and on the shaft a plastic gear was force fit. It ran everything in the camera, and after it cracked the camera was 100% inoperable. The shaft turned but the gear was now a loose fiit. The fix from Pentax was a new motor-sharft-gear design that cost only $17 but the labor to install it was in the $150-200 range.

 

So I would favor pulling the plug on these (literally) and either tossing it or getting it to stay in place with something other than tension from the surrounding body.

 

In the meantime I just received three opaque 992s and see no cracks so far. They seem to work and write fine except that the blue one burped some Levenger Cobalt Blue right after filling -- possibly due to my not wiping thoroughly.

 

My advice to Jinhao would be to just eliminate the stupid little bump on the end and make the body a single piece of plastic.

[Seele]

Bob,

 

One peculiarity of the 992 is that Jinhao elected to have the shaft of the plug as solid, rather than hollow as in the Lorelei. Being solid, it would not be able to offer any "give", so the expanding force acting on the circumference of the hole would be much stronger; Lingmo uses a much tougher - and costlier - material for the Lorelei so that was a belt-and-braces solution to lessen the chance of cracking. After all, they are both homages of the Procolor 500 so the plug is meant to be there.

 

That said, I am waiting for another 992 to arrive so I will make a tutorial video on how to fix the problem. What still puzzles me is that, as the design has never been intended for eyedropper operation, it would not make much sense, to my mind, that it is forced to do so.

[bob_hayden]

I may be prejudiced but I would like Chinese manufacturers to hire more designers and engineers;-) Often they seem to try to manufacture something that LOOKS like the real thing but without checking whether mimicking the appearance guarantees mimicking the functionality. Jinhao DO seem to have gotten their nibs functioning well even on such cheap pens so it may be time to work on their bodies. If they really feel the need for a bump on the end that could be molded into a single piece body (though I could do without it). That would also be nice for the eyedropper crowd;-) (The O-ring suggests somebody was thinking this might be used as an eyedropper, but that could have been the designers of the pen they copied.)

[Mech-for-i]

I would like to re confirm, that the cracks are all confined to the area where the plug meets the barrel ... I have quite a number of 992 but since I was buying them for hacking, this does not bother me too much. I am more interested in whether this also apply to the cap finale. At least on my work bench where I have disassemble ten 992, all the section and nib unit come out clean and I am not seeing any cracks in the caps. though I do got to crack 3 or 4 barrels myself when trying to ply the plug off. And if anyone got a good idea to completely disassemble the cap I would like to hear about it .. still experimenting here

[Seele]

Bob,

 

I do not have a Sailor Procolor 500 as yardstick for comparison, but Jinhao uses a screw-in nib unit for the 992 for accommodating their own existing nib and feed, and the inclusion of an O-ring between the screw-in unit sleeve and the front of the section is, to my mind, a certain degree of thoroughness: this prevents ink from seeping between them and the chance of contamination, which is definitely something insisted by the designer/engineer. But no matter how good a design, it comes down to the production department to change the specifications to match the cost, and production methods available.

 

While I agree with you that the Chinese makers could do with more original designs, they have always come up with them since the early days; Jinhao certainly has a catalogue of them, but as long as there is a demand for homages, then someone would want to satisfy that.

[grainweevil]

I would like to re confirm, that the cracks are all confined to the area where the plug meets the barrel ... I have quite a number of 992 but since I was buying them for hacking, this does not bother me too much. I am more interested in whether this also apply to the cap finale. At least on my work bench where I have disassemble ten 992, all the section and nib unit come out clean and I am not seeing any cracks in the caps. though I do got to crack 3 or 4 barrels myself when trying to ply the plug off. And if anyone got a good idea to completely disassemble the cap I would like to hear about it .. still experimenting here

 

As the top of my cap cracked off all by itself I was able to disassemble the cap from the wrong end, so to speak, but I would imagine the correct way would be to pull the inner cap (a simple friction fit) and then find a suitably sized nut spinner to remove the finial. Easy with the right tools; potentially fiendish without.

[Seele]

 

As the top of my cap cracked off all by itself I was able to disassemble the cap from the wrong end, so to speak, but I would imagine the correct way would be to pull the inner cap (a simple friction fit) and then find a suitably sized nut spinner to remove the finial. Easy with the right tools; potentially fiendish without.

 

grainweevil,

 

Thanks for the tip; now it is known how to disassemble the cap; kudos to you

[Flounder]

Very helpful information, grainweevil. As a pre-emptive measure against shear stress, I slackened off my cap fastening and retightened to just snug and a bit.

 

I couldn't find a socket with narrow enough walls to fit inside the cap, but section pliers worked on the other end without fuss.

Edited July 18, 2017 by Flounder

[TSherbs]

received mine today

 

section is a little small for me, but the pen writes great, without any fuss!

[Seele]

Here is my video on the 992's barrel cracking issue, the remedy to prevent it from happening, and to stop the existing cracks from progressing further. Please note that it is not meant to be a method to seal the barrel for eyedropper operation!

 

[suharsh]

Here is my video on the 992's barrel cracking issue, the remedy to prevent it from happening, and to stop the existing cracks from progressing further. Please note that it is not meant to be a method to seal the barrel for eyedropper operation!

 

 

All I can say is wow!

[truthpil]

Here is my video on the 992's barrel cracking issue, the remedy to prevent it from happening, and to stop the existing cracks from progressing further. Please note that it is not meant to be a method to seal the barrel for eyedropper operation!

 

Thanks so much for this brilliant video! This is a great contribution for all 992 fans.

 

Is there any other type of glue that could be used to seal the plug that would allow for eyedropper use?

 

An unrelated question, has anyone dropped a 992 and experienced any cracking or shattering of the brittle plastic?

I'm wondering just how brittle it is for daily use.

[Seele]

 

Thanks so much for this brilliant video! This is a great contribution for all 992 fans.

 

Is there any other type of glue that could be used to seal the plug that would allow for eyedropper use?

 

An unrelated question, has anyone dropped a 992 and experienced any cracking or shattering of the brittle plastic?

I'm wondering just how brittle it is for daily use.

 

TruthPil,

 

Thanks for your appreciation.

 

There are glues which are inherently resistant against water, but they might react poorly with the polystyrene material, getting it totally mangled.

 

Besides, I do not really know why there is that movement trying to make a pen inherently unsuitable for eyedropper operation to do so. As Bob said, the O-ring between the section and barrel would have given the false impression that it is designed to allow for eyedropper operation, but Sailor sure threw a curve ball here and got countless shirt pockets ruined...

 

If - and only if - the pen was designed with eyedropper operation in mind, the O-ring would have been placed inside the barrel thread, so the compression and seal is before the ink reaches the barrel thread, nowhere near the exterior of the pen. With the O-ring placed like the 992/Lorelei/Procolor 500, it is certainly not meant to act as a seal, as it would be expected to stop the ink already making its way out of the barrel thread. The internal gasket is instanced by a number of Penton models, but knowing that they use the same brittle material as the 992, I still would not use them as such.

Edited July 19, 2017 by Seele

[bob_hayden]

So save all your irreparably cracked 992 barrels for glue compatibility testing!-)