Hero Ink Experiences

[dgerson]

I heard about hero inks a few months ago on FPN and picked up three bottles (black, blue, and blue/black) on ebay given the ridiculous price. I've been very happy with their performance, but a couple questions have bubbled up in my mind and I wanted to see what you all thought.

 

There's a sharp smell to the ink. Not the most unpleasant but it's there alright. I hear people on FPN talk about the smell of phenol in other inks. Is this what's causing it? Does it mean anything?

 

Wow was the blue black hard to clean out. Thank goodness it was in an easy to clean pen (Invincia), where I could take it down to pieces and wash each one. Looking at my 580 inked with the blue I see that's it's pretty viscous and probably going to take a bit as we'll. anybody else experience this?

 

Finally, when I was done cleaning my Invincia I noticed that a fair amount of the black plating had worn off the nib. It's relatively new so I was surprised (not floored as this wasn't the most expensive pen but still). I hesitate to blame the ink but like I said I'm curious.

 

Thanks!

 

Darrin

[mhosea]

I've only tried the carbon black and the 232 blue black. The ink in my bottle of 232 blue black is iron-gall and has always been super easy to clean out using an IG-appropriate cleaning procedure. In my case the pen was always clean and dry when it was inked. Otherwise, I guess it could be a bear. The carbon black is not easy to clean, as expected. Have heard of plating loss with Hero inks before, but I haven't used them enough to experience it myself probably.

[majorworks]

I have only a bottle of Hero carbon black that I got very cheap in NYC's Chinatown a few years ago. My experience with it has not been very good. I find it tends to clog pens, is quite hard to clean out, and is just generally unfriendly stuff. And yeah, it has a strong chemical aroma. On the plus side, it's a very black ink. I still have my bottle but haven't used it in quite some time.

Edited June 5, 2014 by majorworks

[dgerson]

I don't know if I should be relieved I'm the only one or sad that these inexpensive inks (that write nicely) produce such problems.

[scrivelry]

I'm not sure all of the colors do. Have you had any problems with the regular blue, or the red?

 

Carbon Blacks in general have one set of issues, iron-gall inks another - neither are bad inks per se but it seems from what I've been reading that you need to know what you're using and choose pen, and ink to work together - a hard to clean ink you put in an easy to clean pen, etc.

 

No personal experience with Hero inks but I do intend to try them.

 

T

 

[dgerson]

I'm with you on this and I hope it's understood I'm not slamming the inks. I just wanted to bring up the questions for discussion and see if the issues are ones other people have seen as well. I'm not afraid of "difficult" inks - my dedicated BSB pen submitted as evidence of that!

[mhosea]

Well, I definitely have not seen any cleaning issues with Hero 232 Blue-Black. The Hero 232 Blue-Black that I have is extremely easy to clean out. Because mine is IG, I don't leave it inked for longer than a few weeks without flushing the grip section with plain water. I kept it inked for about 6 weeks, IIRC, in a refilled cartridge. At one point I just pulled the cartridge, flushed the grip section, wicked out the excess water, and then reinstalled the cartridge. Never seen any ink flush out easier.

[Gloucesterman]

If you do a search on the Hero ink and look at the reviews there have been several comments regarding then possible corrosion of nib plating. There was nothing absolute and I chose not to purchase any.

[ttakacs]

I kept Hero Blue Black 232 in my Sonnet with 18k gold nib for about three weeks. The ink flowed nicely, no clogging, and cleaned out easily. And no damage to the pen.

 

BTW, I paid $4.50 shipped for a 60ml bottle that arrived by US mail three days after I placed the order.

[Kansas Pen]

I bought some Hero ink in late March. It was a bottle of Black and bottle of Blue. After I ordered I emailed the seller and said to make sure the the Black was NOT the "Black 234 Carbonic" Black. Of course it was received and sure enough the Black was the 234 and the Blue was the 233. I put the #234 away and marked it "for Dip pens only."

 

I have been running a self test on two pens with the Hero 233 Blue since March 31st. I really like the color, the depth and flow of this ink. I have run it in a Jinhao 950 and refilled it twice and denoted no build up of sludge. I have used the same convertor and of course it remains very blue but not really stained.

 

The other pen is an older Hero # 50 Silver Panda with squeeze convertor. So I can't be sure how bad staining might be on it if at all. I use it for a Planner/ Diary book so it is used less often. I refilled it once and the Hero Blue ink started right up again. It even writes if left unused for several days.

 

The blue color is lighter ( a good saturated mid tone blue) than both my Aurora blue and Private Reserve American blue, and that's good.

You can get tired of dark blue after a while. I am very disappointed the Aurora is selling in the $13+ range. Thankfully I have another unopened bottle. But after that I needed to have a blue that was economical. I think the Hero #233 Blue is it.

 

The Hero ink is available from a couple of sellers on eBay for around $4,50 Prepaid from a New Jersey whse. If you want the seller link - ask or private message me as I don't want to just slap a seller recommendation on here after t2 buys from them. There are several sellers using the same ship point - probably a contract jobber shipper or whatever. Comes to Kansas in three days though.

 

But be careful of the black #234 as some of these seller seem not to know what "High Carbon" is or does to fountain pens. The one I bought the pack of two bottle had no clue what is was.He had no detail and there is only one tiny place where the #234 shows up on the box along with Chinese kanji.

 

But the Hero Blue #233 is looking to be a favorite, and cheap does not hurt once in a while.

Edited June 6, 2014 by Kansas Pen

[mhguda]

I got some of this Hero blue ink (#233) based on this and other favorable reviews/posts. I tried it as soon as it arrived, as it had taken a while to reach me. But I must say I am disappointed. It is a nice enough blue, but it is very close in both color and behavior to Quink washable blue. In fact I find it worse - you can actually see it fade when it dries. I tried it on both Tomoe River paper (the nicest paper I have) and run-of-the-mill white copy paper, with no discernable difference in behavior. It goes on, nice enough, no feathering, no bleeding, no ghosting - but also, no color fastness. It starts fading almost immediately to a pale washed out blue. This behavior persists even in mixes. So far, the only mixes with a tolerable behavior are when 30% or more of another ink is added.

Too bad, as I was really prepared to like this ink a lot - good behavior and an excellent price... but no staying power.

[disillusion]

I have several Hero inks, all of which are obtained for under $2 from Taobao.

Hero 204, the basic black. Quite wet and has a good flow in most pens. Very black but not water-resistant. Absolutely abysmal on poor papers, but alright on better ones. I have better blacks but this ink is alright in my book.

Hero 234 carbon black. Thick, viscous and dry in the pens I have tested it in (all cheap Chinese and Indian pens). A little hard to clean out, and stained the sac of my Hero 616 grey but I don't really care. Very black, quite waterproof and behaves fairly well even on my cheapo toilet-paper-like writing pads. I use it mostly for dip pens.

Hero Boshi (Doctor brand) 403 blue. I would imagine this to be quite close to the 233 but this ink does not fade on any of the papers I have used. Dark blue, wet, good flow, not water-resistant, some feathering and bleedthrough on poor paper, and very easy to cleaning without any staining whatsoever. I quite like this ink.

 

I am going to buy a bottle of 232 blue-black next week. And maybe the 233 too, just to compare to the 403.

None of my inexpensive Chinese inks (I have 10) have given me significant troubles, unlike my Noodler's Bad Green Gator, which crystallised in pens and feathered on the best paper I have.

Edited June 7, 2014 by disillusion

[Coop]

I have the 232 Blue/black. Haven't had any problems with it other than the regular iron-gall issues (which are to be expected, I just didn't know it was iron-gall at the time). It didn't work in all my pens, especially the dry writers, but it worked flawlessly in my Jinhao X750(m) and TWSBI Mini(1.1 stub).

 

As (IMHO) an iron-gall ink isn't the best choice for everday use, I now use Sailor Jentle Blue/black for that. The Sailor ink is a tad greener and slightly lighter in colour, but if you don't see the 2 inks side by side you probably wont notice the difference.

[pfactorial]

What are the regular iron-gall issues of an ink? Should I be worried about using this in pens with steel nibs and vintage pens?

[Coop]

What are the regular iron-gall issues of an ink? Should I be worried about using this in pens with steel nibs and vintage pens?

 

Iron-gall inks are fairly acidic. Usually it isn't much of a problem, as long as you clean the pen regularly.

 

The acidity of the ink may affect the steel of a nib. "Vintage" is a bit too general as it doesn't really say anything about the material of a pen. Some vintage pens will have no problem with iron-gall inks (after all, many of the pens we call vintage now, are from a time when iron-gall ink was pretty much the standard), while others might not handle it all that well.

 

My advice is to clean pens that you use with iron-gall inks regularly. And to not leave iron-gall inks in your pens for longer periods of time. Also, when it comes to vintage pens, play it safe