Peter in my experience I have paid over £30 each for kits and will name one fairly recent instance, Majestic rollerball kit sent to Terry who was deliberating whether to go for Majestic or Roman Harvest.
His feedback was that the Roman Harvest was a better quality pen.
I surmise here and I am sure Terry will be happy to add to the debate I believe he bought his RH kit from timber bits and I don't mind naming Dave because his was the better item at probably less than half the price and maybe twice the quality.
All the jnr gents I have made have had issues of some sort either threads breaking after little use, tubes ill fitting or plating wearing thin very quickly.
We all know that Dayacom kits / Taiwanese kits are of better quality than the Chinese alternative but in my opinion only marginally and still not upto the mark I want to build on.
Yes I still make pens from kits but they are all either old stock of various types from various suppliers or have been purchased by the customer for me to build, I still have about 100 to get through and when they are gone I will revue my situation.
My solution would be to manufacture the kits in England and if I had found this hobby when a younger man I may have ventured down that road but that is not going to happen.
There is no manufacture in this country any more we are a nation of call centers or carers but that is a different issue.
