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An Investigation On Current Retro Hooded Nib Models Inner Working .. Learn Something New


Mech-for-i

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Hmmm.. so I got my order of the new Hero 616Plus delivered almost for a week and of course instantly I tear off the packaging and get to the pen and was keen on trying to see how it goes, but even a single eyeball give me suspicions .. hard to say but I sense something really different here .. call it a hunch whatever and well ... my engineering spirit just had to prop up .. so out come all the current retro hooded models and my calipar, well even without the calipar I can see something there and some measurements proved that am on the right track . OK let's hack these open then :ninja: :ninja: :ninja:

 

so I gather in the lot Wing Sung 601, Wing Sung 613, Hero 616Plus and a current production Hero 616 ( std / mid / jumbo )

fpn_1529470117__retro-hooded-sectons.jpg

 

First the barrels, caps, and sections; well look like we should give Hero 616 credit where credits due ( all these models simply show that they were all based on the old 616 in general layout / size / profile ) ... guess what ............ they are all the same bar the finishing and colours, I can use any of the hood on any of the 4 pens without issues , Caps likewise, but well .... barrels ... well actually their external dimension is the same but they have different threading machined / molded .. the 601 of course had its own barrel / ink container, the 616Plus barrel actually now spotted 4 re-enforcement rib inside barrel end and thus will not fit the other models. The current 616 and the 613 barrel interchange but they will not fit the 616Plus having too short a threaded part making them screwed in short

 

Now here's the interesting part , the innards of all 4 pen ( sort of )

fpn_1529470131__retro-hooded-innards.jpg

 

From top, Wing Sung 601 , Hero 616 , Wing Sung 613 & finally Hero 616PLus ...................... first thing first notice the different ink collector ; the 601 and 616 use ABS while the 613 use plastic ( polycarbonite likely , transparent clearly for the Demo ), and the 616Plus, well there's no ink collector at all .. Then the nib ... except for the old 616 .. all of them now use the 18.5X3.3mm hooded nib, yes the new 616Plus do not re use the old 616 nib but now use the same as Wing Sung so you are welcomed to put onto it all those nice fat calligraphy options;

 

Now carefully check the ink collector nib end ... all of them had a rounded straight tubular part at this end which usually hold the nib and also engage the hood inside ( which had a like shaped indent to mate to that ) sealing the whole assembly .. this is molded in with the ink collector but its a separate silicone composite part on the new 616PLus. As you can see there is a black part inside the outer transparent coupler part on the 616Plus and this is actually the locking sleeve which also hold the ink nipple for the converter, this is machine push fitted into the transparent coupler and sealed in there is the integral single piece ink collector feed which then are sealed shut barrel end by another piece which sit the ink nipple / converter acceptance part. The mentioned front piece of silicone sealing plug on the front just go onto the feed from the front and can be pulled off, it will snugly fit into the hood / section's inner indent ( and sometime stuck there when that unscrewed ). Except for the 616Plus, all of the ink collector can be simply pulled off from the coupler straight. Which of course give us all the misery of trying to match the nib position to the hood. The 616Plus simply is all fixed and you screw in the hood and it either fit right or its not ( and all 4 fit right )

 

Guess Hero does not just went out and put C/C onto the 616, they rework the whole mechanism but retain the general profile / size / styling .. not a bad job , and nicely done indeed, and now I am going to figure how I want to put them back together .. you know there's literally loads and loads of color combo to be had , and finally there's one single model I did not put here, the Wing Sung 3006 which, even without a calipar; I can clearly see that its based on a different sized pen ( its size actually the same as the Hero 329-2 )

Edited by Mech-for-i
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A picture with the pen will be nice . :)

I love Fountain Pens, with hooded nib in the classic style, Parker 51/61 type .



Ionut - Marius

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A picture with the pen will be nice . :)

 

you mean all four of them lined up together ?? or is it just the 616 Plus, if only the latter, check the show and tell thread, anyway its exactly the same as a 616 standard Mid size except for the color.

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Great work, Mech!

You answered so many of my questions before I even asked them. The ability to swap nibs, hoods, and caps between the 616Plus, "jumbo" 616, and Wing Sung 601 opens up numerous possibilities for mixing and matching. I'm looking forward to installing the calligraphy nib and 12k nib from the 601. If the old 616 nib won't find fit, does that mean the 666 calligraphy nib won't fit either? Too bad the barrels won't interchange, but I guess you can't have everything. I hope this new model sells well so they will start offering more traditional body colors.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Belated but here's the pens themselves lined up together

 

fpn_1530658928__retro-hooded.jpg

 

From Left : Wing Sung 3006 ( Pale Yellow ) ; Wing Sung 601 ( Lake Blue with a Black Green hood pirated from a 616 ) ; Hero 616 Plus ( White ) ; Wing Sung 613 ( Teal with a Black Green barrel from a 616 ) .. and I care not to include the standard / mid / jumbo Hero 616 as its externally the same as the 616 Plus except for the color.

 

For the part, really all of Hero 616, 616 Plus, Wing Sung 601 & 613 pretty much the same size, profile, even the caps, differing only in color and finishing ... and as I've stated and show on this photo , plenty of body parts interchange. The Wing Sung 3006 ( also C/C filling ) though is a totally different pen and careful scrutiny will show that its both slimmer and shorter

 

fpn_1530659490__retro-hooded-nibs.jpg

Edited by Mech-for-i
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I did some more experiment and have some new finding to report

 

  • The 616 Plus barrel can be used on the Wing Sung 612 , but not the Hero 616
  • The 616 Plus barrel, as stated before spot a new molding with 4 internal re-enforcement rib, well, it also now spot not end venting hole, so in theory one can use that for Eye-Dropper conversion on a Wing Sung 612 / Hero 6161 Plus and I've try it with silicone grease on the thread together with just water and it do show working just fine on both. I would however figure adding an O ring would give that bit more security.
  • Try a collection of converter and the Hero 616 plus obviously is using the Hero standard 2.6mm opening though quite a few of my International standard fit just fine but I would not bet on it
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"Mech-for-i" Wing Sung 3006 it is a new model ?

I love Fountain Pens, with hooded nib in the classic style, Parker 51/61 type .



Ionut - Marius

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"Mech-for-i" Wing Sung 3006 it is a new model ?

 

No its actually an old models, been around for a couple of years

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I have not heard of this model so far and I could not find it for sale anywhere .

I love Fountain Pens, with hooded nib in the classic style, Parker 51/61 type .



Ionut - Marius

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I have not heard of this model so far and I could not find it for sale anywhere .

 

Probably and should already on - Last Stock Clearance -

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Do you got any link for this pen ? I could not find anything .

I love Fountain Pens, with hooded nib in the classic style, Parker 51/61 type .



Ionut - Marius

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Don't think I am seeing them around lately but I'll check .. if I got any I will update here

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So the Jinhao 51A arrived yesterday and I got to hack it last night .. adding some here ... Ok first thing first .. I've try all the usual method but the coupler simply will not butch, I just cannot get the hood off no matter what .. but luckily there is the demonstrator around which help me to understand some important aspect of info hidden under there. I may end up breaking / cutting one open if come last I still unable to break one loose .. overall the 51A is a mix of old 616, 616 plus and add in some of Jinhao own

 

  1. Check the photo carefully especially at the coupler. The 51A is still a 616 variant clearly from the coupler part. its still taking the same engineering basics, but Jinhao, likely out of manufacturing ease and cost cutting, decide to not use the two thin steel ring bushing but thicken the part that made up the mid ink window at the 2 ring area both end there to act as force distributing buffer , that account for an overall increase in length of the whole pen by roughly 2.5mm.
  2. Not really visible but the barrel is a thicker molding than all the others , I wager this is due to the need to have the demonstrator not going through so many cracking issue as they have with the 992 and also for the same purpose, despite a new model it did not take the route the 616 plus do and fellow with old molding style, but molded without a barrel end vent hole
  3. The hood , check the photo carefully again ... the 616 plus had everything contained inside the coupler and the hood is added on only functional part is the end seal, not the 51A, see there is re enforcement rib molded into the hood, this is not present on all others. Careful scrutiny tells that Jinhao now use the hood as the container for the inner sleeve and sealing end ; and the coupler / locking bushing is affixed to made all thing stay put. Engineering vise this is what I would term a economization / rationalization of design. So what made up the pen part now is the feed which is housed in that sleeve, this sleeve then go into the hood with an end plug that engage the hood nib end as sealing, the coupler go in next screwed in fixing all the positions with the sealing bushing / C/C receptacle part machine push fitted in to seal the whole assembly. I suspect strong industrial grade glue used , and that's why I am having trouble getting these loose
  4. now an interesting side effect of point 3 is that since the coupler no longer holds and the hood doing it, it loose some weight and girth and thus follow the barrel and hood, so overall the pen is slimmer by a shade ( roughly 0.2mm ) than the 616

So by now you would have guess it .. no the 51A parts except for the nib and cap would not interchange with the 616 / 616 Plus / 613 / 601 etc ...

 

fpn_1531469839__jh51a-od.jpg

 

My final though regarding .. the 616 plus and the 51A is certainly a new development of the old 616 formula but under the hood ( literally ) its a totally new mechanism , the 613 is really taking the old one and switch it to a C/C filling. from a user point of view this does not really matter, both work equally well. As far as user repair goes the old one while fiddly at times is more end user friendly as user can easily disassemble all and get to all the individual parts but not the new ones. And my thought on the demonstrator .. well the hood part is pretty pointless and so do the ink window as all we see there is the outer sealing sleeve for the feed and for the ink window, the C/C receptacle. in short those part do not demonstrate at all. Somewhat a waste to put the effort into making them transparent. They can be any color otherwise.

Edited by Mech-for-i
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  • 2 weeks later...

Do you have any advice on how to unscrew the hood/shell of Hero 616 and Wing Sung 613?

 

In one of my 616s the hood once unscrewed accidentally. In the second one, and same in 613, it won't budge. I tried to soak it, nothing. I tried to heat it with a hair dryer - worked for Parker 51 - nothing.

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The hood of the 616 and WS 613 , well similar , I just soak them in hot ( 80 C ) water until they are fully heated up , and in the mean time put dry towel on top of the covered pod / cup to also heat up the cloth. once I got them all sitting heated up for say roughly 8 to 10 min, I take out the pen and quickly dry it using the heated cloth and with the cloth ( or a piece of rubber ) grabbing both the transparent coupler and the hood itself ( give good traction ) then all it need is some force to wist / unscrew it normal fashion. As the glue / sealer will now be softened; do remember to clean them up and re apply sealer before re-assembly.

 

A good extra is to just use the aerometric filling to suck hot water into the section / ink collector when soaking this made sure the screw in part is exposed to the heat from inside

Edited by Mech-for-i
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  • 2 months later...

here's an update and for those who might have the need to clean these pens ... first off forgive me for the poor photo quality, weather not cooperating I had to do it indoor and compression to made it falling within the file size limit pretty much limits.

 

fpn_1539178363__hooded-innards.jpg

 

From the top row :

 

- Hero 616 hood and Sac protector

- Hero 616 in its classic vintage configuration assembled minus the external part

- Hero 616 in its disassembled state , minus the breather tube which goes onto the feed

- Hero 616 Plus parts with nib, hood tip seal bushing, feed, nib unit tube with integral C/C receptacle in the transparent coupler

- Jinhao 51A , hood , hood tip seal bushing, feed, nib unit tube with integral C/C receptacle, coupler in smoky grey transparent plastic ( no steel ring bushing )

 

The photo very well illustrate the evolution and big differences between the classic and the contemporary mechanism used. The 616 Plus and the 616 basically is externally sized, profiled the same but the inner working is all different; the old school aerometric filling with a fixed sac goes with a no frill feed ( which had its own breather tube ) which goes into the single piece ink collector which is just push fit into the coupler. The ink collector tip had molded in seal to mate with the hood tip inside which is thickened in the molding with like indent to mate

 

The 616 Plus is somewhat over engineered ; it had the nib unit housing permanently machine push fitted into the now rather long transparent coupler, the housing also carried the C/C receptacle. Put the nib to the feed and the feed go into the housing from the front and then the separate translucent hood tip seal bushing goes in next. Noted that the feed had a step that prevent the nib going in too far. It also do not re-use the old 19.5mm nib but spot the more common ( today ) 18.5mm nib as the same spec used by all Wing Sung old and new. The whole assembly then screw into the hood.

 

The Jinhao 51A fellow 616 Plus but with a big difference, since the nib housing already constitute a sealed part Jinhao choose to just use the hood to hold them all instead of making an extra layer of sealing with the coupler. Again put the nib to the feed and then the feed to the housing, then the hood tip end bushing ( this bushing is also made of the same PU material instead of Hero's PET / Silicone ). The housing is molded with 2 wing that engage the hood inside reinforcement rib ( indent ) thus you slot it in making sure the bushing fit tight into the hood tip indent, this is at very last push in tight by the smokey transparent coupler.

 

So after some more hacking around I can safely say that these new one are truly NEW one in all sort of sense but yet the are also old ; as end users goes, I hope it help those who might in due time need to service or clean them. One note : while you cannot use the 18.5mm nib on the old 616 ( it will be too short and the nib would be inside the hood somewhat ), it is actually OK to use the old 19.5mm nib on the new one, of course it will stick out more which might or might not be a issue and my experience is general writing it work fine. In fact using these new pen with the old 19.5mm Calligraphy nib might help a lot as it allow some space between the hood and the actual nib / paper surface that you write with and allow more liberal stroke and angle.

 

Hero's single piece integral feed for hooded nib was developed way back in the mid 80's and basically almost all the newer models carried with them this feed / housing mechanism so this disassembly could be applied to similarly equipped models ( some of them though would had the housing needed to be pulled from the barrel side out )

Edited by Mech-for-i
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P.S those integral feed tend to fit pretty tight in their housing and the part itself is fairly thin so be a bit more gentle when pulling

Edited by Mech-for-i
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The 616 Plus is somewhat over engineered ; it had the nib unit housing permanently machine push fitted into the now rather long transparent coupler, the housing also carried the C/C receptacle. Put the nib to the feed and the feed go into the housing from the front and then the separate translucent hood tip seal bushing goes in next. Noted that the feed had a step that prevent the nib going in too far. It also do not re-use the old 19.5mm nib but spot the more common ( today ) 18.5mm nib as the same spec used by all Wing Sung old and new. The whole assembly then screw into the hood.

 

 

 

 

So after some more hacking around I can safely say that these new one are truly NEW one in all sort of sense but yet the are also old ; as end users goes, I hope it help those who might in due time need to service or clean them. One note : while you cannot use the 18.5mm nib on the old 616 ( it will be too short and the nib would be inside the hood somewhat ), it is actually OK to use the old 19.5mm nib on the new one, of course it will stick out more which might or might not be a issue and my experience is general writing it work fine. In fact using these new pen with the old 19.5mm Calligraphy nib might help a lot as it allow some space between the hood and the actual nib / paper surface that you write with and allow more liberal stroke and angel.

 

 

Thanks for the extremely helpful picture! I just got my 616 Plus and was wondering how to take it apart without messing anything up. This helps a lot.

 

Also, that is some fantastic news about the 616 Plus using a standard 18.5mm nib and also functioning with the old 19.5mm. That means I can put in the same pen the fude nib from my 666 as well as the complete range of Wing Sung nibs I've collected. Really great versatility!

 

I'm thoroughly impressed with the 616 Plus after writing with it for some days with a supplied cartridge. Unlike the old 616, I'm totally comfortable giving these away to introduce people to the hobby without having to worry about them getting ink all over themselves or the pen just not functioning as it should (I have many horror stories from trying to use 616s).

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Thanks for the extremely helpful picture! I just got my 616 Plus and was wondering how to take it apart without messing anything up. This helps a lot.

 

Also, that is some fantastic news about the 616 Plus using a standard 18.5mm nib and also functioning with the old 19.5mm. That means I can put in the same pen the fude nib from my 666 as well as the complete range of Wing Sung nibs I've collected. Really great versatility!

 

I'm thoroughly impressed with the 616 Plus after writing with it for some days with a supplied cartridge. Unlike the old 616, I'm totally comfortable giving these away to introduce people to the hobby without having to worry about them getting ink all over themselves or the pen just not functioning as it should (I have many horror stories from trying to use 616s).

 

ha ha ha none other than cutting your own finger on the twin ink window steel ring bushing, actually I've got myself cut quite a number of times on the 616 over the years .. but actually while I from time to time get caught with flow issue on the 616, I've never ever get ink spilled all over On the contrary the issue usually is ink not flowing out of the reservoir. Like I've stated multiple times over on the show and tell thread, the new integral feed equipped hooded nib are usually smooth, reasonably wet and just about work reliably. its just that its literally under the hood and cannot be seen and I've got so many time people asking if that hooded nib actually got an ink collector thinking that they are still the same old aerometric and P51 style mechanism. I am happy that Hero finally come around and put that mechanism into the trial and true 616 wit an affordable price to boot.

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Good point about the sharpness of those metal rings! On my 616 Plus they actually stick out more than on my old 616. I almost cut myself just moving my fingers around on the pen, not even trying to take it apart. I guess that would be my own complaint about the pen.

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