Kits

**Buzz** · 5th January 2009, 12:23 AM

To the original question: “What are peoples opinions on Kits?”

Both Dayacom and Berea make good kits, and their resellers, not surprisingly, claim that their products are the superior ones.

I personally prefer Berea for the mid range pens, eg, the Baron over the Jr Gent. I make pens to sell, and my best sellers in this bracket are the Baron, Sedona, El Grande and Churchill which are competing with Jr Gents and Statesmen etc. As far as the larger pens are concerned, the Dayacom ones such as the Statesman, Emperor and Lotus are beautifully made but too big and “loud” for my personal taste, and the majority of customers. In reality they don’t sell quickly enough for me to be interested in having too much money tied up in such kits.

Problems occur with them all. I have a batch of Baron’s at the moment whose clip finial can be pushed home with finger pressure. No big deal, as I always glue most parts anyway. I’ve had the same problems with Dayacom kits at different times too.

There are a whole bunch of makers fitting “O” rings to Dayacom fountain pens to overcome the problem of caps unscrewing themselves too easily in pockets and bags. The Berea El Grande, and Churchill have been selling for years with a particularly fragile centre coupler that breaks very easily. They are now, after heaps of complaints from makers, supplying these kits with much stronger metal rather than plastic couplers.

And as for the Rizheng kits, which I sell, they work just fine and I think are good value. I was buying these same kits for years from suppliers here in Australia before Dayacom went on-line and people started this whole (seemingly fruitless) exercise of trying to work out where all the kits originate and how many different makers there actually are.

**BoomerangInfo** · 5th January 2009, 07:11 AM

Interesting comments Chris.

My main concern is whether I'm likely to sell a lemon to a customer by going with a particular supplier. Obviously breaking couplers is serious, jammed mechanisms not something you want, but even plastings that wear off is a concern. If it's pot luck with any of the manufacturers, than I guess it doesn't really matter.

Either way we have to be happy that what we are offering customers matches our quality standard, am be prepared to live with the consequences. Those who have years of experience with certain brands will stick with what has worked best for them. Those of us newer to the game will have to learn from our own experiences, and just be prepared to offer replacement guarantees for faulty equipment, and wear the cost. Do any of the kit manufacturers offer warranty on their kits? I've never seen it mentioned.

Russell.

**Buzz** · 5th January 2009, 09:59 AM

Russell

Most adverse comments about quality seem to be aimed at Rizheng which is rather pointless, while they are not in the same league as Dayacom or Berea, they don't pretend to be. If people want to sell Slimlines with platings that will last for ever, easy, use Rhodium or Titanium, but expect to pay for them.

My Slimlines are made to a price, no apologies, I sell hundreds of them to the tourist and corporate sectors with the 24k gold ones going for $22. I've never had one returned! I make them in the three major WA species of Jarrah, Sheoak and Marri because the iconic WA timbers are what these sectors demand. The reality is that people paying $22 for a handcrafted pen really don't have any unrealistic expectation about plating durability.

Tell you what though, if customers were as critical of our work as we are ourselves, plenty of them would be coming back

Additionally, the durability of 24k plating can vary enormously with the individual, just like precious metal in jewellery reacts differently to a persons chemical make-up, so do pen parts.

As for guarantees, while it may not be stated anywhere on their web-sites, I have never head of any complaints about quality issues that were not addressed promptly by the supplier when they were made of aware of the problem, whether that is defective parts or poor plating issues.

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