Thread: pen types Aust V US

It is not necessarily US vs here, it is more the different manufacturers/distributers making their own style (ie copy), then calling it something else. Sometimes there is no difference, sometimes the plating, sometimes minor cosmetic differences. You can also get the same name, but then are different, Elegant Beauty is an example

and be careful even though they look the same the tubes and bushes are often different

thanks for the feed back fellas
cheers Tony

Even between Aussie & NZ sourced kits. Same names, look pretty much the same until you look closely.

I got caught out with one of my Celtic knot blanks on a GPW Sierra kit pen tube. While showing a friend how to turn them without chipping and how to apply a CA finish it came up looking very nice. All that changed when fitting the NZ kit. Their tubes must be a little larger diameter because we struck a fair bit of resistance trying to fit the end component and blew the tube & finish with a significant crack. The nib end was just OK. There was no glue waste in the tube.

I have also found some "cheap" kits are not well made - with the nibs not machined concentric which produces an offset that can easily be felt with the fingertips.

I have been buying my pen supplies from timberbits for quite some time now and find that if you have an issue with anything it is fixed up immediately so if you have a problem with any of your kits one phone call is all that is required to fix the problem. I introduced a lot of our local woodies to pen turning about 18 months ago and to my surprise and amazement I walked into our club house last week and there were 6 lathes in use and all were turning pens. They have really caught the bug and i am chuffed to think that they are experimenting with all sorts of variations and some really beautiful work is coming out