One of the major benefits of using kit pens is the consistency of dimensions. If you make 100 pens from the same good quality kit then, assuming you can accurately cut your blank to the same length as the tube(s), you should end up with 100 identical length pens. What's more all the individual components (caps, sections, clips, finials etc.) will be perfectly consistent across them all and everything will line up perfectly.
When I moved away from using kits I hadn't fully appreciated how big a deal this is. Especially when uniformity is important - for example when somebody orders more than one pen at a time. I remember the first time this happened and it was a bit of a nightmare because I found it hard to get the accuracy right. A customer ordered two pens of the same model that that I'd designed which relied on the section registering onto a lip inside the cap. In this scenario if the sections are a fraction of a millimetre different in length and/or the lip inside the cap is slightly deeper in one compared to the other then, even if the cap and barrel are the exact same length on each pen, one pen will be shorter than the other when closed. I remember it took me ages to get it right that day because I wanted them to be identical. I think they would be referred to as a loss-leader…
The good news is that I suspect many customers are not seeking total perfection - they're hand made items after all and I think most people will generally accept small nuances within reason. But if you're considering venturing into this world, and you're as fussy as I am, then it's worth keeping in mind as this is the stuff that really sucks up a lot of time. It's a lot easier and more efficient to build the accuracy into your process up front, rather than trying to fix things afterwards.
I was thinking about all this as I made these three pens this week, all in different shades of the same acrylic, but the same dimensions and design. They have 13mm triple lead threads and 1.5 rotations to open/close. Bock no6 nib fed by c/c.
Cheers
Ash
When I moved away from using kits I hadn't fully appreciated how big a deal this is. Especially when uniformity is important - for example when somebody orders more than one pen at a time. I remember the first time this happened and it was a bit of a nightmare because I found it hard to get the accuracy right. A customer ordered two pens of the same model that that I'd designed which relied on the section registering onto a lip inside the cap. In this scenario if the sections are a fraction of a millimetre different in length and/or the lip inside the cap is slightly deeper in one compared to the other then, even if the cap and barrel are the exact same length on each pen, one pen will be shorter than the other when closed. I remember it took me ages to get it right that day because I wanted them to be identical. I think they would be referred to as a loss-leader…
The good news is that I suspect many customers are not seeking total perfection - they're hand made items after all and I think most people will generally accept small nuances within reason. But if you're considering venturing into this world, and you're as fussy as I am, then it's worth keeping in mind as this is the stuff that really sucks up a lot of time. It's a lot easier and more efficient to build the accuracy into your process up front, rather than trying to fix things afterwards.
I was thinking about all this as I made these three pens this week, all in different shades of the same acrylic, but the same dimensions and design. They have 13mm triple lead threads and 1.5 rotations to open/close. Bock no6 nib fed by c/c.
Cheers
Ash
