Marchesa Pen Kit

I just turned and assembled my first Marchesa today. I like it. It looks nicer than its price would indicate. The crystals are a nice touch. I had no problems pressing in the transmission, I did it like any slimline pen. Check the extension of the refill tip frequently. I wish they allowed one to post photos with reviews, I have a guide I made years ago for pressing the transmissions into slimline pens. It works for the Marchesa, too.

Like the other poster said, the depth to push in the twist mechanism is not really specified, and you have to be careful not to go to far. The way I read the instructions was to go to the second indentation, and that was about 1/4 too far. Tried to disassemble but as you all know, that is always tricky. Needless to say, I burned a kit to save my blank. I doubt I would order these again.

First, as the subject says, I love Crooked Mill. I guess a guy named Erik runs this small business? At any rate, they have a nice website*, the prices and shipping time are reasonable, and I love supporting small businesses. I do buy a few of my lathe turning supplies from Amazon and Woodcraft, but prefer supporting stores like CM when I can.

* I -do- wish that pictures of bushings were of the actual bushings (they don't seem to always be), and that the bushing pics or descriptions contained dimensions - many bushings aren't needed, because they overlap with other pens.

This kit frustrates me though. Instructions say "Press the Twist Mechanism ... until the indentation line on the opposite end of the tube"

Bad grammar aside, I've built 7-8 of this Marchesa kit, and it's NEVER been enough to press -just- to that line. You have to press another 1/4-1/2 inch past it, or the pen (refill) nub will never rotate past the tip, for writing.

I doubt CM designed this kit - some of these have been around for YEARS. And we turners know we need to fine-tune things as we go. Still, this instruction is just incomplete as written.