Kit design limitations

[Guest]

I started using custom center bands after making one slimine pen.The reason?I hate skinny pens.Of all teh pens I have made/sold,not one has been a slim line.(Cross-Style)I have sold to two jewelery stores and a couple at flea markets.
If you look at a Euro style pen it is nothing more than a slimline with a cap( ,(finial) and a fancier center ring.
(I now have the components to turn my own caps)
Look at the cost of a Eurostyle vs. a Slimline.Quite a difference if you ask me for what's included in the kit for the additional cost.
My earlier thread on custom bushings was meant to address this.
THere's not musch you can do about the tip,presently you are limited to center rings that either come with the SL kits or make some out of wood or synthetic materials.
I have modified some SL kits to mimic a Euto style but use ebony for center rings,but I have done modified SL's and had a brss ring plated.because there were 2 pens of similar size and I only had one ring it was easy to compare the two.
Off the soapbox
Aren't there times when you would like to add something to a pen that you have experimented in the design with and wanted to add something that is just not available?

 

[tipusnr]

I agree with you, however, sometimes the cost of those "innovations" become a limiter. I don't do metal turning and don't know enough people who do to get a good price at modified bushings so I have to "make do" with making wooden "limited use" bushings or make the caps and centerbands freehand without regard to being able to replicate them again.

I think many of us have the same limitations on being able to exactly replicate good designs but we work around them using calipers and tracings, etc.

Personally I haven't tried to duplicate any of my pen designs unless it was designed to be a pair of pens.

 

[Guest]

Regardless wheter a pen is duplicated or not, there are restrictions with certain kits. I don't duplicate any pen exactly but I normally don't sell pens out of my case.I show "display pens" and take orders. I will tell the owner or prospective cusomer that they have been handled and possibly not up to my standards(this is not an untruth, I normally find something wrong with every pen I make) and won't sell them.
Here's an example of what I am talking about.
Both of these pens are antler,similar design style and shape.
Both are slimline kits.
When I turned the one on the right I also turned a brass ring for it.
Though the deminsions are close the ring is not interchangeable from one pen to another.
I was on a sales call talking to a jewler and we got on the sublect of plating.HE asked if the one with the ring was gold and I said no its' brass. He asked if I'd like it plated.Isaid yes and he took me to his work room and in a few minutes I had the "brass ring"
When I asked how much it cost he said a $.50 and also offered that if I had any other parts to plate he would plate them and we could take it out in trade.(By the way he placed a $300.00 order.)
In essence I took a PSI slimline kit modfied the design and came up with what I think is a unique good looking design.
I would like to do that with other pens also but I like working with antler.
Thus my reason in the other thread for custom bushings.
Flea market brass is cheap, I can cut it on my band saw,turn it on my lathe.I just don't want to make a bunch of pens with different rings and try to match them after the plating process.
I would like a larger size component (one that's not available, at least not that I can find.)


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