pen 30: pentel bk420

today's pen, the pentel bk420 is a perfect example of a pen i want so badly to love despite the fact that its a piece of... let's just go with junk.

i'm guessing that it derived its designation from the feeling that whoever designed this pen was probably high. god i hope they were high, i would hate to think that this was the product of a sober mind.

for starters, i bought these at the dollar store, so yeah, i wasn't expecting a copic quality pen. in case you feel like giving them a try, at a dollar for four pens, it's something that isn't going to hurt too badly in your wallet.

the pen is made of cheap plastic it is a clicky pen with a twist, that twist being that in order to retract the tip you press down on the cheap plastic clip and a little tab on the underside pushes the ink tube far enough back to let the spring do its work.
this wouldn't be so bad except that when i was drawing it had a tendency to get triggered either by the  pressure i was placing on the tip, or far more often, by my index finger as i moved the pen around, it got old really fast. another why did they bother feature was that it has a rubber grip, a grip that is too thin to make any difference.

aside from the price the biggest asset this pen has is its ink. this pen glides, it has a bite, it can go from almost invisible to pitch depending on the pressure, it doesn't get build up and leave deposits on the paper and that it dries pretty fast, that and the cost make this pen great for sketching, inking, and filling in black areas. but it always comes back to the stupid clip getting triggered all the time.

i solved this problem pretty easily, i snapped off the clip and then applied a little bit of superglue to the plastic depressor and a drop in the side where the plastic tab used to sit. i filed down the rough edges with an emery board and, voila!

problem solved.

so, at a quarter a pen and a little creativity this is a pretty fair pen, i know that this entry has been kind of back and forth as far as is it a good pen or not.

once i modified this pen i really liked it a lot, despite it's cheap construction, and its hard to go wrong with a dollar.