Kit pieces?

[thefunkyP]

I am still fairly new to penturning and would fall into the other 80% of people on IAP that don't post in this forum, but I am very interested in modifying pens. I am interested in doing kitless pens, and would love to by kits without all of the extra pieces. Is there any supplier you guys know of that sells kit parts or pieces? I typically do barons and slims, but am considering El Grandes. I don't sell my pens and so don't have much to spend on kits. So it seems logical that if I buy just the parts I need it would be more economical. Just curious though, and I am quite content buying kits as they are and possibly implementing the extra parts in other pen designs.
Thanks for any and all help.

 

[aurrida]

i remember a post recently showing schmidt parts and i think lou of heritage pens said he could get them. cannot remember exactly hopefully someone can better inform you. search schmidt.

it seems using donated parts from other kits is the main option to start with unless you able to engineer the parts yourself. again hopefully someone can contradict me.

 

[Hello]

thefunkyP,
I've made these same inquiries somewhat recently.
I modify slimlines pretty often. Unless you'd be buying the specialized clips, I'm finding that one would be hard pressed to get slimline parts piece-mail. I was interested in additional CB's for the satin finish kits.....not an easy thing to come by. Its nearly as expensive to buy the individual pieces as it is to just buy the whole kit and have a "spare parts bucket" for future types of modifications.

 

[DKF]

A member here....xylostyle.....sells separate parts....nibs, clips, etc....but not slimline. It is more for complete custom, kitless designed fountain pens. Hope this helps.

 

[Nolan]

try this it may be what your looking for
http://penmakers.com/used.html

 

[pipeyeti]

as stated above other than clips and centerbands the kit parts are really not available. If there are specific parts that you need you can try calling the vendors that sell those kits. They often have extra parts from incomplete kits or ones that had a damaged part returned to them. If you ask nicely they will sometimes sell them. I have had succsess with both PSI and CSUSA.

 

[SuperDave]

Buying kit parts separately would not necessarily be more economical. It's like buying "salt free" or "sugar free" products. It costs more to not put the salt or sugar in the product because they are setup to produce volume based on customer demand.

The same goes for pen kits. The majority want complete kits, so that is how they are provided. Separate components would be considered a "special order" and, should any supplier consider that option, rest assured they will charge accordingly to cover all the hassle of handling hundreds of small parts for the occasional customer that wanted a separate center band, etc. They do not get thousands of separate parts and then bag them into kits state side. They would have to un-bag the kits and restock all the separate components. And forget about a manufacturer selling separate components... unless you are buying in a quantity that you would never use in your lifetime.

Buy the kits. Strip the parts you don't want and when someone loses a "TI Gold trim ring" you can sell it to them I remember a post a while back where a member had copious amounts of stripped kit parts they wanted to get rid of because they did just that.

 

[alamocdc]

I have ordered parts piecemeal in the past, but it comes at a price. Not a bad monetary price per piece, but you have to order them in quantities of about 1000.

 

[Jarheaded]

If you are looking for the satin slimline centerbands, just buy the kits and use the centerbands from them. Then take the rest of the kit and use it for making pens without a center band. I make a lot of pens with no centerband and they seem to sell pretty well. If you want, I may have some of the kits and will sell the center bands that I don't use. I probably won't have a large number of them as I like to use TN and Platinum or chrome. Pm me and let me know how many you need if you want. I may also be interested in buying kits that are missing the centerbands.

 

[ldb2000]

Hi
Ben which parts are you looking for...Tubes and transmissions are widely available and nibs and refills are too.
Centerbands and finials can be cast in PR and machined on the lathe with no problem .
Clips and rollerball nibs are a different story . Rollerball nibs can also be cast from PR but drilling and turning them can be difficult but Clips are the stopper . They also can be cast from PR (seen a couple of nice examples) but I'm unsure about the strength required to hold up to everyday use , follow the thread here in advanced pen turning to see if there are any other answers to this problem .
The Satin centerbands can be cast in PR and colored to match most kits well

 

[thefunkyP]

Thank you all for your suggestions. I'm not in any immediate need of specific parts, but wanted to see what my options were. If I were to buy parts I would probably be looking for baron nibs or grande/churchill nibs.

I have started to look around and my findings are pretty much in agreement with what everyone here has said. The individual parts price is not much of a discount from the original kits, so it would be better to buy the kits, save the extra pieces and use them on other pen ideas.