Search the Community

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.

Hello, As much as I wanted it to work for me, I couldn't get into the Staples Arc. Being used to spiraled legal pads I had a hard time with the ARC's discs blocking my hand. I wanted something customizable with my own printed templates, legal pad style, and looking a bit more elegant than just a clipboard. Poking around online I found a Kickstarter project that got funded, went into production, and looked interesting enough for me to purchase one to try out. Should be here in about 7-10 days. Anybody else have one of these and have an opinion? http://clipbookshop.com/ It only holds about 25-30 sheets of paper (I'm assuming with 32# it will be less), but that is likely all I'll need for daily notes until I archive into binders. They say that they are making new version that will hold a traditional legal pad which will likely hold more loose leaf, but I haven't seen that yet to confirm. --kulte