Vintage PILOT Hi-Tecpoint pen -- discontinued but revived

[myu]

I periodically buy pens from Yahoo Japan, mainly because I enjoy vintage pens by PILOT, Sailor, and Platinum and sometimes you can find interesting pens that were never sold to the USA. You might have heard about PILOT Hi-Tecpoint pens, which are very fine line writers. There's the V5 and V7. Most of them are disposable but you can also find cartridge capable ones. They're all plastic bodied pens. It's all about the tip.

What I managed to discover was that sometime in the 1990's, PILOT had first made the Hi-Tecpoint pen in a full stainless steel body (there's also one out of brass with black lacquer over it). At that time they made a proprietary refill for it in a few sizes. I guess sales weren't as strong as they'd anticipated and eventually the pen was discontinued. They stopped making the refill for it as well.


When I saw this and discovered past auctions closed very low, I was a little baffled because it looked like a high quality pen. So I took a chance and bought it. Sure enough, it proved to be every bit as high quality as I expected. The refill is contained in a "chamber" that is sealed on both ends. Yes, there's no cap on this pen. There's a double-door mechanism in the front that slides into place when the refill is retracted. On the back end, there's a metal screw cap inside that effectively seals the refill off from exposure to air. Ingenious! I opened the refill package, installed it, and started writing. I was amazed. Shortly afterward, I went looking to see where I'd get refills. And that's when it became apparent that there aren't any. I contacted PILOT in both the USA and Japan. They regretted to inform me that there's nothing they can do to help.

Here's what the original refill looks like:


But I wasn't going to give up. I decided to experiment. The first and foremost thing to do was to find a refill that had the proper diameter. The existing refill was supposed to be 6mm in diameter. However, it's slightly smaller than that. Next, there's the matter of the tip. Some refills can be the right length, but then they don't fit through the front end. Next is the neck length, how long is the shaft from the tip to the "shoulders" where the refill widens. And finally, the whole length of the refill.

I tried about 5 different refills before I discovered one that had hope, one made by PILOT that fits in many of their vintage steel ballpoint pens: the BRFN-30. I had to apply aluminum tape to the shoulders of the refill so that it wouldn't slide too far out the front. The trick was getting the spacer cut to the right length. I'd gone through a number of them... then found this one piece from a dried out refill that fit tightly into the refill chamber screw cap, so I could nudge or pull on it until I got the best fit.



It worked, but not reliably. The mechanism would stick periodically. I had to reapply the aluminum tape in two thin strips and create different thicknesses. I also discovered that the LAMY M22 refill had the right diameter and front-end shape. The refill cap that came with it was nearly perfect. I just had to trim it a little. Obviously its short stubby appearance means less ink than your usual refill, but at the rate I'd use it this isn't a problem.



You extend and retract the tip by rotating the back end of the pen clockwise or counter-clockwise.


As you can see, in the closed position the refill is protected. Because these refills are ballpoints, there's not much risk of them drying out... but I have occasionally found ballpoints needing just a little priming. This protection helps eliminate that.

It was very rewarding to get this discontinued and essentially "worthless" PILOT Hi-Tecpoint pen working once more. I'd gotten these two examples rather inexpensively, because of this refill issue. The quality is just superb. And I like how it has this very cool "stealth" feature of a door in the tip. PILOT made something similar with the Vanishing Point, which uses a single spring loaded trap door. The Hi-Tecpoint uses two separate doors that "meet in the middle" to close off the tip. There must be metal arms from those that extend down to the rotating piece that drives the refill up and down.



I've got 4 of these now (2 cross hatch, 1 striped, and 1 black lacquer) and think I'm finally done!