Better Quality Pen Kits

[Ron Kaplan]

Granted, I have not made hundreds of pens, as many of the turners on this site have. I am really tired of making a pen and using it for a few weeks and having the thin plating on the pen wear off. Going to the time and effort of turning a pen out of a beautiful piece of wood is really discouraging, when the pen kit doesn't hold up. I do realize that you get what you pay for and a $4 pen kit is not going to be high quality. Before I spend $30 for a "high end" pen kit, do any people out there have recommendations for sources that are truly worth the extra money?

Thanks,
Ron

 

[Robert Taylor]

pen kits

check out lazerlinez.com solid stainless no plating and made in usa

 

[John Walsh]

Quality Pen Kits

Berea pen kits (http://www.bereahardwoods.com/) are some of the better ones I've seen and worked with. As I understand it, Woodcraft uses Berea kits for most of their kit stock. Need to check with the sales team to find out which are Berea. Penn State Industries also carries some Berea kits.

 

[Ron Kaplan]

Quality Pen kits

After reading John Walsh's post, I went to the Berea Hardwoods website and looked at their explanation on plating and durability. This answered my major complaint, that the gold surface on pens always wore away. I didn't realize that most of these pens used vapor deposited layers of 24K gold. that certainly explains a lot. I tend to like the gold color as opposed to the silver or black finishes. However it seems to me that I have had gold pens in the past like Cross pens that held up and didn't have this wear issue. I wonder if they are made with thicker gold coatings or even solid 14K gold. Yes, I realize that the pen kit would be more expensive, but would people other than me have an interest in buying this type of product?

Ron

 

[Ed_McDonnell]

Ron - In my opinion, there are very few pen makers that would be willing to pay the super high price for a kit with solid gold components. I doubt very many would even be willing to pay the price for thicker gold plating (if you could convince one of the chiwan manufacturers to do it (and trust that what they shipped you was actually what you paid for)).

Most pen makers willing to spend that kind of money on pen components will be looking to specialized craftsmen to create something unique for them. They don't build pens from kits for their high end customers. Take a look at some of the work Mike Redburn does at silverpenparts.com. For the right price (likely to be insanely high) he might be willing to make some solid gold parts for you.

If you don't want to do completely custom pen work (no kits) and you want really durable pen kits then you either learn to love "silvery" kits or decide you like the look of gold titanium. Forget the real gold.

Just my opinion.

Ed

 

[DOCworks]

Ron,
I have found the 10k kits hold up better than 24K. The 24k gold is too soft and wears away very quickly. 10K holds up much better also keeping Rennisance wax on it will also slow down the wear factor. I don't use the less expensive gold kits for that reason. M2CW.
Bill