Modified Groove

[Kenny Durrant]

I was interacting in another thread about the PSI Groove. I received the kits and finished this up this morning. I had a plan in my head before getting the kits so when they arrived I jumped in right away. Needless to say when I was ready to assemble the pen it didn't work because the spring is on top not the nib end. After disassembling and cutting new tubes this is what I ended up with. This wasn't my fist choice in blanks but I didn't want to cast another just for a trial run. Thanks and Questions and Comments Welcome.

 

[its_virgil]

nicely done.
Do a good turn daily!
Don

 

[pshrynk]

Cool! Can't wait for mine to get here!

 

[magpens]

@Kenny Durrant

I am very interested in this new kit from PSI. . It seems there is quite a bit of interest in general in this new kit.
I notice your thread title refers to this pen as a "Modified" Groove ... how did you modify the kit ?
EDIT: - Oh, maybe your mod is that you made it as a single barrel.

I see that you painted the brass tube white .... right ?

Also, I see that the push button is fairly long .... is that actually true, or is it just an artifact of the photo ?

Oh, one other question .... is the position of the spring (on the top half) any problem .... once you know about it ? . Things work OK ?

 

[Kenny Durrant]

Thanks for the complements. The reason it's modified is that the original kit is a 7mm 2 piece pen. I ground down the center band/ coupler smooth with the tubes and pressed it all together. I then took an 8mm tube and cut it the length of the 7mm tubes and the center band combined. I drilled my blank and epoxied the 8mm tube in and turned. I then took the top half or clip end and epoxied it into the blank. When the glue cured it inserted the bottom/nib end and screwed it into place. I lost a spring so now I'm down to 2 kits and one spring. My goal was to get a long body pen with a Cross Refill in a click style pen. I guess I accomplished that but not sure it's worth the extra work having the Tenacious / Blade ready to go with no extra hassles. I'm going to glue up and cast another blank and see how it looks. If I can find the spring or a replacement one I'll probably make the last kit as it was intended. The pen works great now that I assembled it the way it was designed internally.

 

[Kenny Durrant]

Sorry I didn't answer all your questions. The push button isn't that long itself. The top assembly is cone shaped so it adds to the total length. When I had to replace the tubes I had one the correct length that was already powder coated so I used that. Thinking after the fact since that tube will come out to replace the cartridge it makes the whole thing look finished. I'm not sure if I would've gone the extra mile to paint the tube if I didn't have one already.

 

[magpens]

Kenny, you mentioned the Tenacious and Blade pen kits (which are identical kits, and probably made in the same factory).

Just on the pricing (chrome version) of those ...

I see on the Woodcraft website that the Tenacious is $26.31, whereas on the Berea website the Blade is $14.30

I know that Woodcraft is expensive, but is it really that much more expensive ? . The Tenacious is a factor of 1.84 more than the Blade.

Could be that the Woodcraft website is automatically detecting that I am in Canada and is converting to CDN $ but there is nothing to say that.

And even if that is the explanation, the pricing is way out of whack because the dollar conversion is only a factor of 1.41

Anybody got any idea on why such a big price diff going from the Blade (Berea website) to the Tenacious (Woodcraft website) ... ??

 

[Kenny Durrant]

The kits are the same. Why the price difference I wouldn't have a clue. I mentioned those because that's what I've turned the Groove kit into with more work. My Son like the Parker refills because you can get the gel ink and he likes that better than the standard ink. So unless someone just wants a Cross refill I'll just go with the Tenacious or keep the Groove an as is kit. I do plan on making one more of these Mod Groove to see how the tobacco looks with it.