Single tube ball points

[Neil]

There are several that fall into this category of pens. I used to make and sell the “Executive Clicker Pen” from Timberbits, but it got a bit uneconomical when TNT sharpened up their customs act. This retails at Aus$9.90 which is currently £5.63. It works well and used to be a reasonable seller.

Then had to buy the Rizheng equivalent, the Artisan Clicker pen kit, which might as well be free because the is complete crap, or I am totally incompetent and can’t put the thing together in such a way that the mechanism works. I need to free myself from the excitement and expectation of waiting for the postie by pushing the tenners straight into the shredder at the outset! This pen probably equates to about £3.50 after carriage and customs or you can get it from penkitzandbitz and probably one or two other resellers a bit more expensive.

Then there’s the Atom2 from prokraft. Never dealt with him before, obviously a reseller and advertises the pen as a Taiwan manufactured pen. Does anyone know the manufacturer, but more importantly has anyone had experience of this pen kit, specifically the reliability of the click function? At around a fiver it’s not cheap, but having just thrown four artisan clicker pens across the workshop in annoyance at their quality, it’s worth paying a bit more for my sanity!

Any views on the quality?

 

[Chriscb]

Evening,

Not much to say about the Atom2 - made a few, sold a few - it's OK I guess.
But my best seller is this Craftprokits Wave Top Pen Kit | Axminster Tools - made lots, sold more (!). It's robust and can take a lot of punishment and keeps on going. The clicker is good, and putting it all together is a breeze as long as you're gentle and take it slow.

Regards,
Chriscb

 

[Neil]

Evening,

Not much to say about the Atom2 - made a few, sold a few - it's OK I guess.
But my best seller is this Craftprokits Wave Top Pen Kit | Axminster Tools - made lots, sold more (!). It's robust and can take a lot of punishment and keeps on going. The clicker is good, and putting it all together is a breeze as long as you're gentle and take it slow.

Regards,
Chriscb

Thanks Chris. I made quite a few of these when I started out on the craft fair circuit about twelve years ago. I think I sold them for about £12 to start with before I became aware of overheads! Wasn’t going to get rich that way. I guess you could sell it at about £20-£22 nowadays?

 

[flexi]

Tbh the only click pen I make is the Vertex, its the only one I have faith in and know it works. Dan at some stage was going to do a stainless clicker and I think it may even have been prototyped but its all gone quiet on that front.... In the US the weapon of choice is the EDC, but you run the gauntlet importing them, with postage and customs.... Not cheap anymore

 

[daveygee]

Hi Neil
I have sold absolutely 100's of this kit without problems. In saying that there has been a batch where the ridges in the sleeve are not as large as they should be and the clicker mechanism slips round inside it. I am waiting for some some replacement sleeves to be sent to me. Takes no time at all to replace it and everything works perfectly.
I would always suggest to my customers that if there is a problem, phone me. I am more than happy to work with people.
Throwing them across the workshop does not do the blood pressure any good at all...
Hope this helps.
Cheers
Dave

 

[Penpal]

Saved by Dave sounds good to me.

Peter.