Gullor 3266 Blue Fountain Pen 360 Degree Nib, Blue

Love the pen This is my third 360 nib. Errors well with this nib, no matter the direction you hold it. Comes with its own converter, once it's inked it does what it should, and that writes a smooth medium to fine line.

I liked the idea of a 360-degree fine nib. And I've only given this a short test. The first thing I noticed was that it has a "squeeze-bladder" filling system, which is my least favorite way to ink a pen. I never seem to be able to get a complete "fill-up" with these systems. After the first squeeze-and-release, I just seem to have a very small amount of ink in the bladder reservoir, and repeating this just seems to push the ink back into the bottle and to draw up the same amount again. If I use a paper towel to clean the tip after submerging it in the ink, hold it inverted (so the air bubble is toward the tip), then try to squeeze the air out, I invariably wind up squeezing out ink all over my fingers. I've just never had any luck with these filling systems and would much prefer a cartridge/piston-type converter. Aside from this matter of personal taste, I wasn't unhappy with the pen. Even with the cap posted (which I'm hesitant to do, because I don't know if the finish will stand up to repeated posting and un-posting), it still seems a bit front heavier than is my absolute preference, but again, this is a matter of personal taste. The aluminum body and gray finish (on mine) are attractive. Again, I'm hesitant to see how many times I can post the cap without affecting the finish, though. Still, it's nice looking. It took a while for the ink to fully saturate the feed so that I was actually getting a full "360-degree" writing angle out of it, but it did happen. One direction (and I can't tell which without getting out a loupe to look at it) is a tad scratchy, which I suspect can be polished out with a thorough tuneup. I doubt this will be my daily writer, but I'm glad I added it to my collection.

The color received is a granite grey - very dark. The converter is "squeeze" variety, that cannot be exchanged, for fear of ruining the bubble. I'm not willing to try it out with ink, I want to send it back. update1/2016 - I didn't send it back wasn't worth the bother. So I have been using it, with a single ink color. It writes wonderfully, but it's hard to see how much ink is in the pen. I haven't tried to clean it out yet. It's pretty impossible to get the metal off the "bubble" now, dried ink. Also the ink splatters a bit when I open the cap, small specks to be sure but still. I end up with ink on my fingers. This pen is no longer in my collection (Dec 2016). The ink dried out too much and rendered the pen useless.

Hero of Shanghai makes a lot of pens, and a lot of different models. It is perhaps most famous in the USA for its line of knockoffs of the brilliantly designed and made Parker 51 pen. That's not surprising as Hero was once a Parker subsidiary and its manufacturer in the Far East. I happen to collect Parker 180 pens, a design that had a blade-like nib with iridium beads on both sides, one rather broader than the other allowing the user to write a medium width line and a fine line with the same nib, simply by flipping it 180 degrees. Amazon's small picture of the nib of the Hero 360-series pens made it appear quite similar to the P180, but didn't give a good idea of the intent of Hero with the 360 design. Because I was curious to find out more, I ordered a Hero 360 in blue. After all, at $7.00 for the pen, it was cheap enough. The 360 nib does look much like a smaller version of the Parker 180, but that's where the resemblance stops. The idea behind the 360, according to the Hero website is that it should be a fountain pen that writes like a ball point pen. That is, it shouldn't matter how the user holds it on the paper. In principle you can rotate the pen through 360 degrees, and it should write equally well in any orientation. The thin blade of the nib has a plastic feed on each side of the nib, and an iridium ball on each side too. The ink feeding slit cuts both iridium tip so that the pen feeds equally well, no matter which side of the nib plate faces the paper. To achieve the 360 degree performance something else is needed, and its clever. The nib plate is cut in the plane of the blade. As if you tried to cut a piece of paper into a top sheet and a bottom one. This cut also divides the iridium tips on either side of the plate. Looking at the nib from the business end, one sees a cross or plus sign dividing the iridium tip into four quadrants. This gives the user four nibs in one. Whichever slit faces the paper is the one through which ink flows. It isn't exactly 360 degree continuous coverage, but the sweet spot for each of the "independent" nibs is wide enough that one can rotate the pen while writing. This is not easy to see; I needed a 10x magnifier to find the tiny slit in the edges of the blade. OK, that's how it's supposed to work. In practice it falls somewhat short of its goal. One of the flat nib blade sides writes very well. It's smooth with just a hint of "tooth" on the paper. The two blade-edge faces, where the slit divides the nib blade, are almost silken, and if you want an EF nib, they are good! Finally, the other flat blade side nibs simply stinks. It is scratchy when it writes, and it feeds erratically. I might try polishing it with a very fine nib polishing board to see if it improves. It might not be worth the trouble. After all, if you want a "Hero 270 Degree" pen, it is a decent writing instrument. I find the aluminum(?) pen a bit too light and much too thin for comfortable writing. Your hands may be smaller than mine. The clip on the pen cap looks quite similar to the arrow clip on the Parker 51. It holds securely. Given the other reviews for the 360 degree, Hero is having some quality control issues with the model. Not surprising because the nib is complicated to make, and it is being sold for a very low price in the United States. I hope they develop a more expensive line with better QC because the pen represents an interesting compromise between ball points and conventional fountain pens. Some choice of nib width would also be useful

If you want to buy a Hero fountain pen, I would suggest one of their pens modelled after the Parker 51; one of those has become my favorite daily writer. This model has several things wrong with it: 1. It's uncomfortable in my hand and actually hurts to use. 2. The nib is scratchy and, I find, hard to align correctly so that it writes a consistent line -- it's a 360 degree pen in that all positions seem to be equally bad. 3. The ink flow is terrible and the nib frequently stops delivering ink in the middle of words. 4. It's too fine 5. It's incredibly light and feels less substantial than other pens. The only upside is that when this this pen is actually writing, it seems to excel at doing so on lower quality, recycled paper. I've only been using this pen for about a week with "Private Reserve Lake Placid Blue" ink. This ink is very good, but it does tend to clog in another pen of mine, so this could be an issue here. I will keep the pen in my rotation when I try different inks and see if it gets better. EDIT: I am now using a lubricated ink with this pen and it has improved its performance slightly. Not enough to make it a go-to pen, so no more stars.

En la foto parecía de más calidad. No cierra muy hermetico y consecuentemente puede soltarse el capuchón y manchar de tinta pantalón o chaqueta, dándote un serio disgusti

Le système de pompe à encre ne fonctionne pas: j'ai essayé à plusieurs reprises sans succès... (pas de notice fournie). C'est dommage car le stylo est parfait: bonne qualité (corps en métal), belles finitions, léger et corps très fin. Il aurait été souhaitable que des cartouches standards puissent être compatibles.

nice duty but didn't work with some inks

Questa stilografica ha un buon tratto ed ha materiali eccellenti per il prezzo stracciato. Deve essere caricata schiacciando ripetutamente la vescica interna mentre è immersa in una boccetta/calamaio di un inchiostro specifico per stilografiche, soluzione che in Europa deve essere approntata quasi esclusivamente "ad hoc". Consigliata solo agli appassionati.

Basic fp suited for novice