My mistake, sorry...!
Well, I have to apologise and stand corrected as I was wrong...!
Was a while since I've done one of these and I honestly didn't take much notice of that plastic part, when I put the pen together was late at night and when I left the shed I put the pen over one of the printers and shot those pics, just for my records as the pen was going to be picked up the following day, Sunday morning.
When I read the first post in this thread, the first thing that come to mind was to open one of the pics of the I did and have a look, obviously I opened a couple of the ones where the part did appear to be shinning from the stand reflection so, I made my judgment call, based on that as I couldn't recall to have seen any major difference between the finishes of the black plastic parts when I assembled it. (I should be blind...!:redface
This morning I was still thinking about the issue so, I decided to go to the shed and have a look at some of these new kits never used and as I did, I certainly brought it to the outside daylight and made sure of what I had, and what I had was not was I said I did on the post so, I come upstairs to correct my statement, when I saw you picking up on my mistake.
I hadn't had a good look at the last pic until just now and most certainly, it doesn't show gloss as I said it was from the other pics, once again, my apologies...! that plastic part has indeed a matt finish...!
I particularly like this style pen and the kit is very inexpensive but the only part I seem to have problems with every so often, is the "coupler" which I tend to smash at the outer threads when assembling. I use a hand clamp and I know, that is half of the problem, as any small misalignment between the clamp jaws will make the pressure be uneven at both ends but the one that is weaker and therefore smashes is the threaded end which will allow the cap to screw into.
Obviously, plastic parts are not as robust as metals/aluminium, etc., reason why most of the more expensive kits don't have much in plastics if any.
I wonder if parts like these are available for sale as spares...??? I gotta ask...!:wink:
Cheers
George