It's time that Beaufort Ink entered the kit market.
The first thing to make perfectly clear is that anything that I do will not conflict with anything that Dan at Taylors Mirfield does. He is fully aware of what is going on, and the new Beaufort kits are being designed and made to be right at the top end of the market. They are premium kits with premium platings, and I'm afraid they will have a premium price tag too, although I will guarantee that all forum members will receive a healthy discount in perpetuity.
As a pen turner myself, I am aware that four key points keep rearing their heads. One is that fountain pens sometimes need to be slender the second is that if you want a matching pair, you don't always want to match a fountain pen with a rollerball, sometimes you want to put a ballpoint or a pencil in the mix. To the best of my knowledge, there are no such suites of kits currently available. The third point is that currently available mechanical pencils, have pretty poor mechanisms.
To address those three issues, I have decided to design a suite of 4 kits, all from first principles, which will be a fountain pen, a rollerball, a parker type ballpoint and a mechanical pencil, They will all stand up on their own as top end writing instrumnets or can be paired up in any combination to make a set.
The FP and RB are now off the drawing board and in the process of prototype manufacture. To keep the price down, I have decided not to supply a Bock nib as standard with the FP, although it will feature a Beaufort converter and the RB will have a Beaufort refill. I will probably put an online package together whereby you can get a nib at a discount if you buy it as a package with the kit, but that's a small detail which i can work on when the kits are ready for sale.
The ballpoint and the pencil are both still on the drawing board. They are being designed to include top end German mechanisms, not Taiwanese, and or course will also come with Beaufort refills. A Beaufort pencil refill is also being designed to cater for the new kit.
The picture below is really just a preliminary sketch to give you an idea of how could look, - the ball point and pencil in particular are still subject to change - and all comments are more than welcome. If you have any points to make, it's still not too late to alter anything - it's input from pen turners that have brought these about in the first place, and I hope your input will help to iron our any creases.
The fourth point by the way, is that the majority of click mechanisms are useless. The ballpoint kit here is a twister, but a brand new clicker is also on the cards.
Phil
The first thing to make perfectly clear is that anything that I do will not conflict with anything that Dan at Taylors Mirfield does. He is fully aware of what is going on, and the new Beaufort kits are being designed and made to be right at the top end of the market. They are premium kits with premium platings, and I'm afraid they will have a premium price tag too, although I will guarantee that all forum members will receive a healthy discount in perpetuity.
As a pen turner myself, I am aware that four key points keep rearing their heads. One is that fountain pens sometimes need to be slender the second is that if you want a matching pair, you don't always want to match a fountain pen with a rollerball, sometimes you want to put a ballpoint or a pencil in the mix. To the best of my knowledge, there are no such suites of kits currently available. The third point is that currently available mechanical pencils, have pretty poor mechanisms.
To address those three issues, I have decided to design a suite of 4 kits, all from first principles, which will be a fountain pen, a rollerball, a parker type ballpoint and a mechanical pencil, They will all stand up on their own as top end writing instrumnets or can be paired up in any combination to make a set.
The FP and RB are now off the drawing board and in the process of prototype manufacture. To keep the price down, I have decided not to supply a Bock nib as standard with the FP, although it will feature a Beaufort converter and the RB will have a Beaufort refill. I will probably put an online package together whereby you can get a nib at a discount if you buy it as a package with the kit, but that's a small detail which i can work on when the kits are ready for sale.
The ballpoint and the pencil are both still on the drawing board. They are being designed to include top end German mechanisms, not Taiwanese, and or course will also come with Beaufort refills. A Beaufort pencil refill is also being designed to cater for the new kit.
The picture below is really just a preliminary sketch to give you an idea of how could look, - the ball point and pencil in particular are still subject to change - and all comments are more than welcome. If you have any points to make, it's still not too late to alter anything - it's input from pen turners that have brought these about in the first place, and I hope your input will help to iron our any creases.
The fourth point by the way, is that the majority of click mechanisms are useless. The ballpoint kit here is a twister, but a brand new clicker is also on the cards.
Phil
