Penbbs 487: Come For The Magnets, Stay For The Pen

[peroride]

Straight outta Shanghai, crossing vast oceans and lands, comes the latest from PENBBS, the model 487 magnetic filler eyedropper.

 

By now, you've all read about the revival in magnetism in fountain pen filling with the likes of Piedmonte Pen Design and the PENBBS Year of the Rat 492

Well this here's the one for the masses. Same set up as the 492 but a bit more accessible to purchase and just as competent on the magnetic cap pulls magnetic piston.

 

Goodies

My first fill brings out the delightful novelty, look ma, no rods! Neato, speedo!

The mechanism is very easy with the clear instruction card provided. Initially the push/pull of the piston was stiff and ChrisRap52, Douglas Rathbun, What I Ink, Inky.Rocks YouTube reviews are good for unstuckth tips by turning the piston.

• This thing holds a lotta ink sans rod and the magnet is plenty strong, heck you can even turn it into a deskpen

• Fit and finish are superb. This is my first PenBBS pen and I am very pleased beyond the mechanism, if replaced or broken, this would serve as a superlative eyedropper regardless and that is a very good thing.
• It posts securely but makes the pen over long and I don't post even though I'm a serial poster.

• Purdy - Chatoyance, pearly pearls all the way from cap to barrel. Described as brume, mist or fog in French and I had to look that up; there went the college French.
• Balance - this pen has "it" unposted which very few pens do for me. I love the taper and grip section, very well balanced like another fav balance, the FPR Himalaya v2 or Sheaffer ... Balance!
• Smoother writer - the RM, round medium has no skips and no leaks. The flow gushes with Monteverde Blue Black. Very surprised for my first PenBBS pen. Waay waay better than the (bleep) Moonman M8 dry junky nibs coming out recently

 

Neutral

This pen is long, like Cross Peerless, Pilot 743 length. But not an issue for me unposted

 

Baddies

Hard to say for only a week in of usage. There is so much good!!

• Well this pen does have magnets so I steer away from mechanical watches and maybe some electronics unless data scrambles from poor to nil gauss shielding. It does not stick to the titanium Conid though.
• Design flaw alert: Unlike the 492, the back end cap does not appear to unscrew meaning the end is not user accessible to poke a chopstick on the magnetic piston if it gets stuck. And oh boy, it done stick, stuck, stooky.
• I'm still on my first fill despite using it onstop daily journalling, scribbling, todoing. For fun, I tried moving the piston to dispel the empty void but no go. Argh!!! I had to syringe out the ink as my theory was the magnet is not strong enough to dispense against the feed. It did start moving again thankfully once the barrel is emptied with ink, but it shows a fatal design flaw where if the magnetic piston does get stuck at the end cap on full fill there is no way to release the piston short of a more powerful electromagnet. What I surmise is that the piston attaches to only one side and may displace at an angle if a weak push/pull attempt is made. If the piston gasket is askew from perpendicular from the inner barrel, stuck city.
• When I made another attempt on a full pen, the piston finally moved and jerkily burped ink successfully out the feed and onto my hand. This is definitely in need of some user practice or I'll settle for long serial fills at a time.
• That said, if the piston is irrevocably stuck, one still has a very competent eyedropper pen

Summary

Despite the non-end cap user accessibility, PenBBS 487 is a wonderful pen on its own write/right. Pretty, functional and balanced aside from its nifty novelty of filling mech.

Edited July 30, 2020 by peroride

[Honeybadgers]

Really like it - Might get one just because I like my year of the rat, but don't love the big section.

 

I have had mine get stuck - it seems to stick if it sits without the piston being used for month or so, so kind of a big issue - but I like the novelty, and I just use a very, very powerful neodymium magnet which breaks it loose smoothly (to break it loose without making it burp - use the magnet to "twist" the magnet in the barrel instead of moving it up/down. This will break it loose.

[peroride]

Thanks @Honeybadgers for the tip on the twist-to-loosen. The ink is still going and the piston is seized for lack of use but the pen is still a joy to write with on it's own even if it were just a plain eyedropper.

[Honeybadgers]

Just get a cheap, really strong magnet and keep it around the house. You'd be surprised how often it comes in handy for a variety of tasks!

[peroride]

I was thinking about this one, but the wife said, NO!

 

https://youtu.be/T24miGHKwrQ

[Cyclohexene]

According to its Taobao listing, in its Chinese description it says that the metal end piece can be twisted off to access the magnet if it's stuck. I guess yours is maybe extra tight so it doesn't appear to unscrew.

 

Also never knew about the Piedmonte; though I think that PenBBS executed the idea in a more streamlined fashion.

Edited August 12, 2020 by Cyclohexene

[peroride]

FP PSA - more reviews rolling in ...

with my notes added

• What I Ink with @alanlight https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/355222-video-penbbs-487/ - play discussion with Doug Rathbun. Mag fill mech is finicky and i concur. Still decent eyedropper. Can't get the end cap to unscrew like me Does have a good point about the gimmicky filling as this is easily filled with syringe, like why bother?
• Inky.Rocks review https://youtu.be/KSk855ZTtRo Always a delight! Platinum 3776 F + FNF nib/feed adapter works! Disassembly layout and cleaning routine shown. Was able to unscrew end cap with superhero strength. i wanna be her friend
• Bryan Marsh does unboxing https://youtu.be/AMWToYbuYs0 likes the purdy resin, broke his pen buying moratorium, haha!

 

@Cyclohexene - Thanks for the tip, i cannot get my puny mitts to unwrangle the end cap even using silicone backing,probably permastuck I'll silicone the piston on the next fill just in case

[essayfaire]

On 7/30/2020 at 1:31 AM, peroride said:

Well this pen does have magnets so I steer away from mechanical watches and maybe some electronics unless data scrambles from poor to nil gauss shielding. It does not stick to the titanium Conid though.

I went looking for a review of this pen as I like playing with different filling mechanisms.  Your review is excellent, and I was about to go ahead and order until I read your comment about mechanical watches; I only wear mechanical watches.  So thank you from making an expensive mistake, even though it sounds like a lovely pen that would be fun to have around.

[amberleadavis]

5 hours ago, essayfaire said:

I went looking for a review of this pen as I like playing with different filling mechanisms.  Your review is excellent, and I was about to go ahead and order until I read your comment about mechanical watches; I only wear mechanical watches.  So thank you from making an expensive mistake, even though it sounds like a lovely pen that would be fun to have around.

 

But you need a refrigerator pen don't you?

[essayfaire]

14 hours ago, amberleadavis said:

 

But you need a refrigerator pen don't you?

Monteverde replaced it!!! Came yesterday; I had already bought a plastic Kaweco that won't break if dropped.

 

🤣

 

 

[ruby.monkey]

On 7/30/2020 at 6:31 AM, peroride said:

Design flaw alert: Unlike the 492, the back end cap does not appear to unscrew meaning the end is not user accessible to poke a chopstick on the magnetic piston if it gets stuck. And oh boy, it done stick, stuck, stooky.

Coming to this a few years later, because I now have a couple. The rear end cap/jewel does indeed unscrew to give access to the piston. You just need something grippy (like a soft rubber sheet) with which to press on it and turn it.

[peroride]

On 3/21/2023 at 5:04 PM, ruby.monkey said:

You just need something grippy (like a soft rubber sheet) with which to press on it and turn it.

Yes indeed!

 

Excellent correction; i too confirmed that a silicone pad potholder found at 99 cent stores can indeed gain purchase on the metal cap to untwist and access to the stuck piston.

 

Unfortunately the magnetic mechanism as a whole suffers from a design defect in that is it only a single fill for me.  After the piston is dislodged, * a 1 time fill will work but over time the piston will get stuck again and not move, then it is untwist cap, poke piston with chopstick, and refill, repeat from *

 

Fortunately, the ink volume is sufficiently large that makes up for the design flaw, but it is still annoying.

 

I do not think the Piedimonte Pen design suffers from the stuck piston issue due to the use of a metal ball weighted behind the movable piston so that is maybe an hacking option.

 

Another fun use is swapping in a Pilot Falcon flexible nib as discovered in this blog post by the fountain pen artist, Andrew Lensky: (MODERN) HYBRID PILOT NAMIKI FALCON WITH PENBBS 487 (note: not https)

 

I tried it and it works! though I find the Pilot Falcon (resin) a classic balance as posted which the PenBBS 487 does not.

 

Lastly, I have not been able to replicate the extreme supreme smoothness of this peculiar steel fine mini fude nib. It still writes like gold soft butter with permainked Noodler's Proctor Ledge/MB Corn Poppy red mix. I have many other exact spec'd PenBBS fine mini fude nibs and they do not write like this one specific nib, short of getting a custom grind.

 

 

[ruby.monkey]

10 hours ago, peroride said:

Unfortunately the magnetic mechanism as a whole suffers from a design defect in that is it only a single fill for me.  After the piston is dislodged, * a 1 time fill will work but over time the piston will get stuck again and not move, then it is untwist cap, poke piston with chopstick, and refill, repeat from *

A sticky piston isn't a worry - I doubt I'll be refilling this pen away from home (if ever, given its capacity) and I have a couple of much stronger magnets lying around my office.

 

I ordered two - one with a 'normal' round-tipped RM nib, the other with PenBBS's regular shaped F nib. The RM nib is nice enough, but the F is a real revelation - very smooth and a real joy to write with.