I have several Hero pens on my desk right now.
As Cliff was advised by his son, they are cheap copies of the Parker 45 and 51 designs of the late 1950's and 1960's. And there are issues:
1. The hooded nib is very fine and gives more 'feedback' that any other pen I own. That's 'pen-speak' for the nib is scratchy, and there's not a whole lot you can do to improve it. And because the nib is very fine, it tends to dry out quickly if the pen is not used regularly.
2. It uses a really chintzy 'aeromatic' filling mechanism - essentially, a clear plastic sac that is squeezed by a really flimsy metal bar. To fill the pen, you squeeze the bar, and then slowly release it. In theory, squeezing the sac creates suction that draws ink into the sac. In practice, it actually doesn't happen every time, and when it does happen, the amount of ink that is drawn into the sac is limited, so it is necessary to refill the pen frequently.
3. The metal cap is a friction fit that slides over the section. It's reasonably attractive, but I don't think it would be practical to try to recycle the section and filling mechanism in a shop-made pen.
4. The Chinese Hero pens aren't very rugged. The first one I owned (I bought it in a gift shop in the Pearl of the Orient tower in Shanghai) literally broke in half - the plastic section cracked just above where it threaded into the barrel.
