Honestly, I don't know if your message is full of sarcasm because you consider that not making kitless pen means that you're not an advanced pen maker. I was just asking a question trying to get informations and new possibilities. Not to be "ridiculed".
Anyway, I know there's a lot of pen kits on the market and I like (and made) a lot of them. The objective of my question was more to find a way of create a unique "Signature pen" for my company that I'll be the only one to have...
Thanks to people that gave me options rather to laugh at me.
Well Mat I guess I did not add enough smileys to my post. Here I am again explaining another post. My point about the Advanced forum is you are asking an advanced pen making question. If you look through this forum for past posts might help with your question. It narrows it down for you.
Now a clip is a clip, a nib is a nib a cap is a cap and so forth. People have taken various kits and combined the parts. There are some (Brad comes to mind) that do some sort of electric plating with chemicals but that is dangerous.
To make a signature pen there are some who have actually used their signature as a way to designate their pens. They do this by including it somewhere on the pen, weather the clip or some have included little metal tags and implanted them in the body of the pen. Still using kit pens but now it is their brand so to speak.
Kitless is another way to make a pen your own style that is relatively inexpensive compared to going to a manufacturer to make a few pen kits. They deal in volume to make money. It takes money to make molds to cast parts and things.
There was no sarcasm intended in my post but an attempt at a little humor because I found it humorous that someone wants to create their own kit in this world of hundreds of kits flooding the market now. I gave you option as to develop your own style of pen. Maybe you can come up with something and share with us all when you do. Look forward to seeing what you get.
Here is part of a thread that I pulled when some recently asked about creating a custom pen design that may interest you if you have these skills.
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Originally Posted by TheAcadian View Post
What, if anything, do you use to design your pens, especially when you're customizing them for a customer?
For example, I have a client who wants a firefighter themed pen for her husband. I'd love to be able to take a few different pen kits into a program, change the barrel to show different woods/acrylics, and show what kinds of other things I can add to the pen to make it special.
is there an easy way to do this? I know PSI has a "design" tool on their website, but it's pretty limited.
Not to be disparaging here on my favorite forum, but I have found few people want to disrupt the status quo by using only what we have or build kitless pens. I and a few others have been trying to get new things started here with little luck. There are a few great people here (BeeAMaker is one of them!) that are excited about making custom pens or launching this industry to the next level.
Here is what I am working on:
1. 3D printing parts to design new types of blanks - Autodesk 360 (freeware) design software
2. Polly Alloys can make badass pen parts IN the USA. Custom Metal Injection Molded Parts and Components - PolyAlloys Injected Metals
3. 3D printing parts for either Cold Casting parts. I have had reasonable success with this but nothing I would put to market.
4. Lost Wax Casting. Once my Autodesk skills advance a little more I can CNC lost wax parts to cast pen kit parts.
CNC and 3D printers are getting so much cheaper for the hobbyist. The issue I'm running into is CAD/STL skills. I bought a book two days ago called Fusion 360 Operations Manual. This book has step by step tutorials to help you build items so you can learn the functions of the program.
Will anyone be able to compete with the 400lbs Gorilla, no, but that isn't really the point. The point is to be a Maker, create, push our hobby to new levels. Sure there are folks that just want to turn wood or other items, NOT a thing wrong with that at all. There are others who want to do more. For that, my hats off to you!
As far as firefighter pen kits:
Fireman's Ballpoint Pen Chrome w/Gunmetal: Pen Kit Making Supplies Berea HardWoods
Steve