I've never really understood the concept of cheap kits for beginners. Its a bit like learning to drive in a British Leyland Mini Metro with a slipping clutch and a dodgy gearbox. The cheaper they are, then yes, the more kits you will get for a beginner's budget, which as your confidence, knowledge and skills grow, and your hobby develops, will usually grow in line with them.
But cheap kits are often laden with problems. The example of the cartridge not fitting the Jr Gent has already been mentioned, which is a symptom of poor component design. The components not fitting the tubes properly, too tight or too lose, is more commonplace than is ever read about on this forum, possibly because those experiencing such problems believe that is the norm. Threads buckling during assembly. Platings that wear off. Transmissions that break after a week. Shall I go on? Many of the problems that are associated with cheap kits are ones that require the skills of an experienced turner to overcome, which is something of an irony.
There is a world beyond cheap kits, and the skills required to turn the more expensive pen are exactly the same as those needed to turn the cheaper pen. If you can turn a Jr Gent you can turn a Mistral or a Majestic. What does have a bearing though is the prospect of making rooky errors on an expensive kit, so it's very tempting to think it much better to mess up on a cheap kit. The point is, you are not making errors on the kit at all, you are making errors on the tubes. Spare tubes cost pennies and are available for almost all kits.
Therefore, my advise to anyone seeking a good choice of kit for near beginners is forget about preconceived conceptions that a pricier one is only for more experienced turners - choose a kit on the basis of 1. you can afford it, 2. you like the look of it, and 3, it fits in with what you have gleaned along the way about being of reasonable or good quality. The better the quality of kit, (and I don't mean the more bling and gimmicks it has welded to to it to whack up the price) the easier it is to put together, the nicer the end result, and the greater the sense of achievement and satisfaction at the end of the process.
So get some spare tubes for your good quality pen kits and make your rooky errors on them. Turn off the blanks and start again if you get it wrong, or bin them and start afresh if you need to - they are much, much cheaper to practice on than ANY kit, and when you get it right, you will have a lovely pen, hopefully a fine writing instrument, and the enthusiasm and skill to do it again, not the disillusionment of a makeweight that is "not bad for a first attempt". You will also be set up with the paraphernalia to continue making nice pens, not the stuff that will eventually fall by the wayside as you move on to the better kits in the end anyway.
Without naming either kit or supplier, I sent 50 kits (ballpoints) back the other day because the finial was too tight for the mechanism, and I am just about to return 20 kits of a different type to someone else because a part is too fat for the tube. These problems DO exist.
