Manufacturing "A Minimal Pen" in China, failures and successes | Hacker News Reader

Manufacturing "A Minimal Pen" in China, failures and successes

kickstarter.com

150 pointsrizumu85 comments

Wonder if they even tried to find a manufacturer in the USA. Small volume, and technically very simple. No language, time zone, import, or travel barriers.

My exact thought. I'd even pay more for one knowing it was made in the US. This just doesn't seem like the type of job requiring off-shore manufacturing.

> I'd even pay more for one knowing it was made in the US.

How much? Serious question, just curious.

I can answer that.

I recently wanted to replace the brakes on my commuting bike. I narrowed it down to two possible makes; Paul or Avid. Paul is a tiny company based in California, Avid is a brand of SRAM (one of the "big three" bicycle components manufacturers). Paul's brakes cost $110 per wheel (for the polished aluminum). Avid's cost $88 per wheel (on Amazon, but list for $110) and aren't polished.

(I am not 100% sure that SRAM outsources to China, but I'm sure they move many many more units than Paul.)

Another example is Shimano freewheels vs. White Industries freewheels. Shimano makes fine equipment, but the White Industries freewheels are much better built and have proven to be much more durable. The price difference is something like $20 for the made-in-southeast-asia Shimano part, and $80 for the made-in-the-USA White Industries part. So, people will pay for quality, and there's only going to be a big price difference if you make billions of widgets per year.

If nobody even competes with you and you aren't making enough units to justify buying your own CNC milling setup, I can't imagine why you would deal with the hassle of China.

(Once I get tired of programming I think I am going to make bike parts, so I always read these manufacturing articles with interest.)

(This aside it too interesting to leave...)

Cycling is a fascinating industry. I've done quite a lot of research into it (mostly on the framebuilding side).

These days the vast majority of non-custom (and especially carbon fibre) frames are made in China & Taiwan.

Many smaller manufactures actually collaborate with a factory on a frame design, and the factory usually ends up owning the design.

In a few cases larger manufactures screw up the process as well. For example, Bianchi famously got a Chinese factory to manufacture one of their high-end framesets but neglected to manage the IP properly and ended up in a situation where the Chinese factory owned the frame moulds and the rights to use them after 1 year (or 2 years?). Now you can buy fake Bianchi frames on ebay, but ironically they are actually legally produced (although branding them as Bianchis isn't legal).

Interesting. I wonder if the Chinese factory is as careful about quality control with their own brand as they are with Bianchi's frames? I'd personally feel safer with a well-known brand frame because of the potential for carbon fiber to fail in strange ways.

Generally, anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that the frames are pretty good. Usually they seem to be slightly heavier than top-of-the-line brand name frames, mostly because of the grade of carbon fibre.

http://forums.roadbikereview.com/bikes-frames-forks/chinese-... and http://cheapcarbonframes.com/ seem to have the most information.

I've heard a few bad stories about Chinese titanium frames though (but titanium is always going to be more variable than carbon fibre because it is hand welded).

Sorry to reply twice, but I reread the Kickstarter page and discovered that people are paying $50 for these things. I'm pretty sure that one could afford to have these things made in the US and still turn a massive profit. Even if you pay someone $100 an hour to will these things into existence, I'm pretty sure you'll still come out ahead. $50 for a block of aluminum that you put a pen cartridge into. Wow.

The list price is actually $100 for a block of steel: http://shop.cwandt.com/

Manufacturing is so much more than cost. I don't about US, but I tell you about India I country that I live in.

I don't think as a country we will ever make up or compete with what China is doing currently. Although I can tell you you can hire people here at equally low prices. When you talk of manufacturing. The first sort is machine made the other ones are hiring human beings.

The latter sort of is what is most tricky. You need people who are ready to do a repetitive job, that can add nothing to their knowledge on the longer and are ready to work for long hours for cheap wages. Most of that work is generally precision work that you can't do with machines. With machines, its a different story. You begin to see how you can recover your investment over time. But with people, you have to start to look at scalability issues.

I don't know about America. But I think its worthwhile to ask a few questions.

a. Is it possible to hire such large volume of people at such low prices in America.

b. Will those people, be ready to work for long hours on repetitive mechanical oriented jobs. Which gives no value on a persons career on a longer run.

c. Since these jobs are low paying, the retirement long term financial benefits won't be exciting. The health care benefits won't be much.

d. Since industries have to be all at one place, for inventory co ordination, infrastructure issues et al. People will be forced to live in low rent houses. Often of sharing and accommodation basis. Is this lifestyle ok with those mass quantity of people.

The way I see American lifestyle is more driven by spending, and expenses are really high for an ordinary American. Both in terms of daily expenditure and other issues like sending kids to college and medical benefits.

The larger question is will the mass American crowd adopt to the lifestyle I describe?

If the answer is yes, I see no reason why this can't be done in the USA. In fact if it can be done, then it must be encouraged. The government must make it easy and facilitate them. Why should the average American suffer because of me in India or some one in China. If any thing that can be done here(India/China) it can be done there(America) if the conditions are suitable.(both in terms of economic and other factors).

Even if they did shift manufacturing overseas eventually, it still would have made more sense to have the initial fabrication done locally until they ramp up to higher volumes and dial in the process. The pictures look like a small job shop, and this doesn't look like the kind of labor intensive product that would benefit the most from being made in China. I used to work with local machine shops that would do small runs of similar complexity for a reasonable piece price. I'd be interested to know how they costed it out.

Exactly what I was thinking. I keep reading about all these small machine shops all across the US desperate for work, even taking work on at a loss so they can pay part of their overhead.

My guess is that they looked mainly at larger outfits that couldn't take on a small job, or they just didn't look very hard. Not blaming them: if you don't know where to get something made, it can be hard to figure out where to start looking.

No one jumps into manufacturing in China as a 1st choice, especially not small time producers. Who would skip the convenience and assurance of having stuff domestically?

I'd wager they did their research and could not find any in-country manufacturers that would custom produce a design (along with creating any custom tooling required), in such small quantity, at economically viable pricing.

In the past, I've tried to get relatively "ordinary" products (e.g. luggage & cosmetic packaging) made within North America (had to expand local to regional) to almost no avail. I found many "manufacturers" here import their products from China. Only a handful businesses actually make stuff here and their minimum requirements often do not make sense for small/new businesses. And the differences in pricing between local & overseas producers far exceeded the examples discussed here.

That said, as that kickstarter post showed, nominal pricing is only part of the cost of overseas production (they underestimated foreign logistic issues, refinement costs, etc) and final cost may make it not worth making the leap. Many products are simply too expensive for small businesses to produce at home OR abroad. They would have stopped their experiment earlier but they do have 11,280% of requested capital to play with in this case.

For anyone who found this tale interesting, "Poorly Made in China" is a well-written and eye-opening account of similar antics.

http://www.amazon.com/Poorly-Made-China-Insiders-Production/...

Much like the kickstarter project mentions, this book covers repeatedly broken promises, misleading claims (like the laser etching that turned out to be CNC), continuous reassurances followed by convenient disappearances, completely mythical factory sites and machinery, supposedly mechanical processes that turn out to be skilled hand-labor, and the need for vigilant and cynical quality control. It makes a convincing argument that once you account for the cost of all these shenanigans, export manufacturing is nowhere near as good a deal as it seems.

Are there any explanations about why China is like that?

capitalism at work. price has always trumped quality there, probably due to a much poorer middle class than any other 1st world nation.

And capital will flow to the more ethical shops that don't lie to their customers.

An interesting hypothesis, but I would guess not an accurate one on average, due to difficulties in the information-transmission process.

Well, judging by the fact that this particular group switched to a more ethical factory, I don't know what you are talking about.

The question is whether the unethical factory would go bankrupt. Information inefficiency and asymmetry prevents stories like this from being widespread to other potential product companies. So other product companies don't know what to expect and then have to experience the same mistakes. Even if an online directory and feedback mechanism were created, those are horribly easy to game if one wanted (see Yelp). My friend who used to work at Alibaba said fraud was rampant among the vendors listed on the website. I expect that the large demand for production facilities from abroad, coupled with information inefficiency and asymmetry, will allow the unethical factory to continue to make money.

When the average annual income in China is around $4000 USD, it's no wonder that people would lie through their teeth to get at a contract. This is the answer to the "lowest price at any cost" game. Capitalism at work. No one wants the company that offers the best quality, only the company that is the cheapest.

When outsourcing to China, anyway. Your new quad-core Intel processor was not outsourced to China, because it's cheaper to get quality in the US.

I believe your Intel example has very little to do with the cost or quality of manufacturing in China and more to do with export restrictions on current generation semiconductor fab equipment. Intel does operate a fab in China but is based on an older 65nm process.

> Capitalism at work.

Bullshit. It's Chinese at work. Similar stories from dealing with Indians. Poverty is not an excuse. Wild hypothesis: Maybe they're poor because they cheat each other all the time.

When the Japanese were dirt poor back in the 60s people didn't have complaints about them regularly shafting everyone in business. Same for the Taiwanese.

> "back in the 60s people didn't have complaints"

How do you know? There was no internet back then and such stories usually don't appear in newspapers, even now.

> "Maybe they're poor because they cheat each other all the time."

No, they're poor because it's been just 30 years and 20 years since China and India opened up (liberalized) their economies respectively and these two countries have massive population.

Any data this time for your wild yes-I-will-call-them-racist assumptions? Nope? Didn't think so.

Most Chinese are extremely honest. There's plenty of stories about restaurant owners running out in the street, because the crazy westerner left some money on the table (Chinese don't tip).

There are dishonest Chinese, and sadly, they are the ones who seem to do well at foreign trade. The honest ones will make realistic quotes. The dishonest ones will figure they can deliver 80% of the product volume (after which point, your legal costs will outweigh the cost of suing for the last 20%), steal the IP, steal the moulds, screw their own workers and suppliers, and deliver a substandard product. The really dishonest ones just pretend to own a factory (when they just bribed or bluffed someone for use of a conference room), take your deposit and run. Guess who can deliver the lowest quotes?

China's growth is nothing special. It's similar to Korea's or Taiwan's, but about 20 years later (due to slow growth until 1989). It's slower than Japan's post-war bounce, but Japan was building back from a high mark (having had it's factories bombed to the ground, but still having the technology know-how).

The reality is, people are easy to con when they get greedy. Virtually every con in the book is based on a get-rick-quick scheme. The myth of cheap Chinese products is one such myth. Given that labor is only ~30% of many goods, it is a myth that you can cut costs in half just by employing cheaper labor.

> Virtually every con in the book is based on a get-rick-quick scheme.

This is something people like to believe because it makes them think they're immune to being scammed. It is not really the case: For example, look at fake charities, which are based on generosity, or the grandparent scam, which is based on generosity and love.

If scammers can find an emotion, the can get rich from it.

One nice thing about the book is that it gives sympathetic economic context to some of these issues, humanizing what might otherwise seem like utter fraud. Briefly, it's a combination of:

- inevitable human motives when faced with a chance to escape poverty

- different cultural expectations about what it means to deliver on a manufacturing contract (i.e. does it have to always be exactly to spec, or can it just be roughly equivalent in the important ways)

- different cultural focus on surface appearances vs. less visible qualities

- information asymmetry between local operators and distant foreign counterparties

- greed on the part of foreign counterparties, which the Chinese manfucaturers exploit to get deals and then ruthlessly trim back everywhere they can get away with, backing off only when they push too far and get called on it

What's almost as interesting are the similarly misaligned incentives within the foreign counterparties. Western capitalist companies are unabashedly greedy, short-term (gotta make the quarterly numbers), share-price-oriented, and have all their own dysfunctions as a result. That's not to say the kickstarter guys are guilty of any of that -- just that there's plenty of parties trying to screw the other on both sides of this international dynamic, and finding a truly honest partner is difficult in business anywhere.

> humanizing what might otherwise seem like utter fraud

Most of your list can just be filed under "unscrupulous and untrustworthy". No need to make excuses for Han Chinese characteristics.

Because you get what you pay for, and because there are too much demand that they don't care if they screw you and lose their reputation (to you)--They can simply find another buyer. At least those are the reasons my friend told me about his experience with manufacturing in China.

While these types of horror stories are everywhere - some of the best consumer goods manufacturers (by quality and price) are in China / Taiwan. While working to find injection molding and CNC suppliers - people continually referred me to their vetted suppliers in Asia.

The general consensus in my work was that Asia wants it more than we do. There are a lot of superfluous American manufacturers that survive based on old relationships and word-of-month, not on quality, price & innovative marketing - the former ones are becoming harder and harder to win with. The Chinese manufacturing sector is ultra-competitive with each other, more than in the US, and this leads them to their position - beyond just being cheap labor. This is at least my experience.

"The general consensus in my work was that Asia wants it more than we do. There are a lot of superfluous American manufacturers that survive based on old relationships and word-of-month, not on quality, price & innovative marketing "

The general consensus in my work(engineering on a German multinational company) is that ANYTHING that is worth something on China is made from Europeans, Americans, or Japanese people.

This multinational is going to China because you don't pay taxes for something like 5 years, minimum taxes after 10 years there and so on...

Of course, once there they steal your plans and know how(as they force you to have Chinese partners), and a Chinese company starts making exactly what you used to, with very poor quality but at half or quarter of the price(they got their knowhow free from western greediness).

I'm amused at the mindset of trying to do low-volume and hence (for the factory) low-profit manufacturing runs in China and complaining when it turns out to be more difficult than uploading a file and waiting for a box of Apple-quality products to arrive at your front door.

Simple economics - if it was easy, everyone could do it.

I work on construction projects in China so I have an idea of the difficulties re: quality and expectations

How much better would the world be if it was easy and everyone could do it?

I'd go so far as to say that it should be this way and will be this way. The more people who run headlong into the frustration and disappointment of this exercise, the sooner some talented people will realize that this is broken and fix it.

The issue with trying to fully automate manufacturing, even just the quoting, is that it's such a complex process and the most efficient means of mass production require lots of fixture costs (molds, dies, automation programming, etc.) to see the technological gains.

This means that, in order to afford to get these types of cost gain, you must produce a lot of something in order to justify it. Also, it means your engineers working with their's to optimize the design. This isn't as easy as it should be - like the interpreter throwing errors on line #X - because much of manufacturing engineering is still the art of try-and-see. Whoever is closer to the production line knows best.

I'd love to see a world where CAD files go in and fully made products are quoted, interactively optimized using simulations, and then produced on demand. However, these systems are hard to justify when large costs allow humans to do this for only slightly less efficiently than an amazingly complex computer system for this purpose.

We'll get there - look at the full-auto sites like Ponoko where you can get laser-cutting, 3D printing and CNC in this manner, but it's a while until full products can be made this way.

Reminds me of what Jeri Ellsworth told about making electronics in China[1]: "After getting to Hong Kong I opened one of the units to find that they had cost reduced my reference design without telling me. "

[1] http://www.eeweb.com/spotlight/interview-with-jeri-ellsworth

Quick Context link: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cwandt/pen-type-a-a-mini...

Short version: They want to take the venerable Hi-Tec-C pen and put it in a steel body with a steel ruler sleeve. It will retail for $99.

Retails for $50.

https://img.skitch.com/20110926-fgc35nm4q2wr8mspaq7c8fpyf7.j...

If you got in on the Kickstarter round. After that, it's $99 according to the link on the front of the kickstarter page.

A ruler is someone who rules.

A rule is a device for measuring length.

Shame the project homepage introduces this error. Language barriers are cross domain, not just cross culture.

The OED and Merriam-Webster (along with the wiki, and many more) agree that a 'ruler' is also a 'a straight strip or cylinder of plastic, wood, metal, or other rigid material, typically marked at regular intervals and used to draw straight lines or measure distances.', so your pedantry is a bit out of place.

ha, hoisted by usage

Pen Type-A is a stainless steel replacement for the Hi-Tec-C's cheap plastic housing. To us, the Hi-Tec-C cartridges deserve a more durable home.

This is kind of funny, I sort of did the same thing -- though my solution was much cheaper. I write a ton with ink and I had a hell of a time finding a pen that wrote smoothly, was gel, was rectractible (pen tops are a PITA), didn't smear, gave consistent lines, and was available at office stores for an affordable price. Well, the Pentel Energel pens met these requirements but the pen casing is flimsy and fat and very cheap feeling. So I just buy the refills and put them in a Sarasa SE pen casing. My only gripe is I would prefer a finer point. The Pentels only go to 0.7mm and I'd like at least 0.5mm, but this is good enough. Every gel pen I've used that size has problems (scratchy, suffers roller ball blowouts, etc.) so maybe good gel roller balls at that size present engineering problems.

Oh, and I also tried that Mont Blanc "hack" where you modify the refill cartridge so it fits in a cheapo Pilot G2 casing. I'm not willing to regularly pay $10-$15 for 2 ink refills, I just wanted to see what the fuss was all about. The writing was mediocre at best. Most noticeable was the problems I had with skipping and inconsistency. The value of Mont Blanc pens certainly does not come from the ink cartridges.

Had the same experience with the Mont Blanc+G2 "hack" and don't really recommend it. At first, there was a noticeable increase in smoothness, but it was horribly inconsistent.

During my honeymoon phase with the G2 "hack", however, I recommended the hack to a friend who kept complaining about his cheap pens. He tried it soon after I introduced it to him and to this day he still swears by them -- it is about 2-3 years now since I introduced it to him.

EDIT: Also I found this from a quick Google search since I did not know what a Hi-Tec-C pen is: http://www.jetpens.com/Pilot-Hi-Tec-C-Cavalier-Executive-Gel...

It looks like a Hi-Tec-C with a better case. And for much less than $50.

Dude, you owe yourself the $10 to try one of these: http://www.amazon.com/Fisher-Space-Pen-Non-Reflective-SM4B/d...

Pretty sure they're gel. They sure as hell don't smear. And that model is retractable.

I fucking love the Space Pen cartridges. Finding the right pen body can be kind of annoying though.

I have one. They are cool because they can write on almost any surface at any angle. The writing isn't remarkable, though, and the pressurized refills are too much for how fast I would go through them.

Just get a $30 lamy fountain pen with a refillable cartridge, and a large bottle of ink. You're done worrying about pens and cartridges for the next 15 years or so.

I assume there was some context in previous posts in this series, but I have no idea what's going on here.

Why are these guys trying to build a pen? What's a "minimal" pen? What's wrong with a fifty-cent Bic?

It is a pen snob thing. Apparently, there's these Pilot G-Tec-C gel roller ball pens that write really well and are available in really fine points (down to 0.25mm). The pens themselves are cheap plastic and are also not available in most retail places in the US. So they engineered a pen casing that they felt addressed these shortcomings (well... still not available in US retail stores) and that fits these G-Tec-C refills.

I have met a couple 'pen snobs' but I'm not sure the Hi-Tec-C falls into their category.

I write very small and the Hi-Tec-C's three or four tip sizes made it a good choice. The 0.25mm tip is insanely tiny and I actually had to kick-up one size to the 0.3mm.

They're relatively easy to find if you know where to look. I think the last time I purchased any, I found them online at JetPens.

I don't know why you need a $99 pen body. Pentel sells a slim, metal pen body that cures everything these guys are going after. Their only complaint may be that it's not 'substantial enough' in the writer's hand.

I'm always skeptical of the kind of snob who claims that the best X in the world just happens to be the X which is only available in some country on the other side of the world.

That's a convenient coincidence, isn't it, Mr Snob? Because y'see, if you tell me that the best pen in the world was (say) a Parker that you can buy down at Staples for sixteen dollars, then I might have tried it and be forced to disagree with you. But if you tell me that it's some random Japanese pen then I'll have to smile and nod and bow to your superior knowledge of pens.

Somewhere out there is the town that brews the best beer in the world. This must be frustrating for the beer snobs who live there.

edit: Oh, incidentally I am a big fan of Parkers, and you can indeed get one down at your local Staples for sixteen dollars. I don't like the "gel" type pens, which always seem to come out blobby, I like ordinary ballpoints. I think investing tens of dollars in a decent pen that always writes without the need for drawing half a page of ovals is a worthwhile investment. But that's as far as my pen snobbery goes.

Meh, if Parker pens work for you, then great. I tried a lot of pens before finding the Hi-Tec-C. Surprisingly, I purchased it somewhere local but, when I went back to buy more, they said it was a one-time order kind of deal. I didn't really seek them out -- I saw it laying there and gave it a rip and bought a few of the plastic ones.

I know what you mean about gel pens though. Takes a couple circles to get em going. I'm more of a pencil kind of guy anyways.

--not a pen snob :)

I wouldn't say it's the best in the world. But if you're into very fine line pens, the Pilot Hi-Tech C, Uniball Signo DX, and Pentel Slicci (I much prefer the Slicci to the Hi-Tech C and Signo DX) are a lot better than the usual ballpoint and gel pens you'll find on the shelf at Staples and Office Depot. (The Slicci is supposed to be distributed in the US now, but I've never seen one on the shelf.)

Due to the fine line and precise tip, they're more like technical drafting pens (think Koh-I-Noor Rapidograph) than ordinary ballpoints.

> if you tell me that the best pen in the world was (say) a Parker that you can buy down at Staples for sixteen dollars, then I might have tried it and be forced to disagree with you. But if you tell me that it's some random Japanese pen then I'll have to smile and nod and bow to your superior knowledge of pens.

Meh, that's not really true anymore. With JetPens stocking all the popular Japanese pens, you can experience their superiority first-hand.

In fact, I'd say it's more of a pain for me to go to Staples and get a Parker pen than it is for me to use JetPens (though no doubt I could buy that Parker on Amazon with a similar level of facility).

Oooh, a pen thread on HN. How fun. :)

The best pen in the world is not at all obscure. It's the "aerometric"-fill Parker 51 made from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. Costs between $100 and $200 today on the vintage market, depending on condition, color scarcity, and the seller.

A 51 has been my daily writer for about ten years now. I lost my first one, probably on the subway, and was heart-broken. Luckily, Parker made millions of 51s, so it was easy to find a replacement.

>>Pentel sells a slim, metal pen body that cures everything these guys are going after.

Reference? Pretty please with sugar?

Pretty sure it's called the Cavalier. Nice weight on that sucker.

I have this pen (linked to by joe_bleau above), and it is absolutely amazing - the best pen I've ever used. I strongly recommend it, along with this mechanical pencil: http://www.jetpens.com/Uni-ball-Kuru-Toga-High-Grade-Auto-Le...

http://www.jetpens.com/Pilot-Hi-Tec-C-Cavalier-Executive-Gel...

Correction: $50 pen body.

https://img.skitch.com/20110926-fgc35nm4q2wr8mspaq7c8fpyf7.j...

If you got in on the Kickstarter round. After that, it's $99 according to the link on the front of the kickstarter page.

Thanks for the JetPens love cobrabyte! I'm the exact same on the Hi-Tec-C as you - the 0.3mm is the sweet spot.

You don't have to be a pen snob to appreciate how much nicer a good gel pen (and they don't have to be expensive, there are great ones for $2 or so) writes than a Bic. Really, just try one...it's a night and day difference. Darker, more consistent line, less pressure needed to write, which means you can write longer without your hand tiring, ink that is more permanent and less likely to smear, etc.

BTW, disclaimer...I AM a pen snob. I have a 25-year-old Montblanc on my desk.

I don't know, I've heard the same for so many pens in my life and I just can't get rid of my bic... I do everything with it, I even draw with my bic and it looks better than with a lot of other kind of pen to me.

I have been known to be particular about my writing implements (though cheap netbooks now mean that hand writing more than the shortest of notes is now increasingly redundant for me) but, in all honesty, I've never found a device I prefer writing with to a mechanical pencil. A much nicer feel for me than any pen I've tried, never leaks because there's no liquid to leak and frankly the cheap disposable ones are almost as good as any more expensive model.

Pencils rock.

I chipped in $50 and I am not a pen snob.

Kickstarter has less to do with buying things and more with supporting people that do stuff that is genuinely interesting and original. This pen - or rather the pen casing - is a really unique piece of design work and I happen to like it so much that I wanted to let the designers develop it into a real product. For fun and profit, yay.

What's a "luxury" car? What's wrong with an $11k Hyundai?

What's a "designer" suit? What's wrong with $50 Walmart-brand?

What's a "classy" watch? What's wrong with a $10 Casio?

What's a "perfectly cooked" steak? What's wrong with an $8 Denny's one?

What's a "sleek" laptop? What's wrong with a $300 Dell?

You could essentially use your line of logic to make any purchase of a product bought on qualities more than just practicality look absurd.

We all enjoy looking for that one thing of great quality. Apple is evidence enough. And what's it to you if I like to spend a little extra on a great looking pen? You've certainly paid a bit more for things because they "felt or looked better".

Whoa, hugh3 had a question about pens, and we've multiplied it into cars, suits, watches, steaks, and laptops?

Those are all fascinating topics, but maybe we could take them one at a time? :-)

I thought the original question was sincere: he wasn't sarcastically saying there's no difference between these pens and a 50 cent Bic. On the contrary, he was asking in the genuine spirit of hacker curiosity: what is it that makes these pens special and interesting and worth building?

Edit: In other words, hugh3 was looking for this page:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cwandt/pen-type-a-a-mini...

(Thanks, fishtoaster!)

What's wrong with a fifty-cent Bic?

Nothing that $281,989 can't fix, it seems. Amazing project.

Try the project home page http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cwandt/pen-type-a-a-mini...

I'm always confused why if we have to outsource we don't try to build up our physical neighbors (Mexico) instead of propping up a communist government that we do not get along with (China).

Imagine the reductions in delivery cost and time if everything came from Mexico instead of China.

Because cross-ocean bulk shipping costs basically nothing these days, so you build wherever has more competent infrastructure, work culture, and whatever else you need. Having been to Mexico a few times and being in China right now, China's got a huge edge on Mexico in many, many areas.

Also, it's not communist here and hasn't been for a while, but that's another story for another time.

Yes but US companies built up that infrastructure by consistently contracting to China over the years instead of Mexico.

China could market to Europe, middle-east and Oceania - Mexico could have been China to the US.

China is most definitely ruled by the Communist Party - just because there is economic freedom doesn't mean there are other freedoms and we feed that power, just like we feed the oppression in the middle-east when we buy oil from there. We're 100% guilty considering there are other options.

"The factory owner tried to tell us that in China laser etching is synonymous with CNC milling. We were not amused."

Really?

I bet this was with regard to making the ruling marks on the sleeve. In which case - CNC etching & laser marking isn't that much different and could have just been the Chinese trying to optimize costs - which frankly makes a lot of sense for something like this in my mind.

did they actually receive $281,989 in funding or is that a bug on kickstarters side?

They got a lot more than they ever expected and I think that's the right number. I remember checking it a few times and couldn't believe how successful the campaign was.

Yep - that is the right number. I was backer #15 (I think) and just watched the numbers climb and climb. It was pretty amazing.

Keep in mind that in this case "funding" also equals pre-orders for the actual pens at half the price they intend to eventually sell them for.

Alternative HN submission: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3036351

Another highly regarded pen is the Pentel Stylo MLJ20: http://www.cultpens.com/acatalog/Pentel_Tradio_Refills.html

The images from an artist who works with it: http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?1332

This situation instantly reminded me of this recent Wired piece: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/02/ff_madeinamerica/all/1 (Made in America: Small Businesses Buck the Offshoring Trend)

Being a pessimist, I foresee many owners bending the casing just enough to make it useless ...

If not that, a grain of sand down the shaft will probably jam it good.

And, to be a complete spoilsport, "how it will look in fifty years" must be minus the nicks and dents on the sharp edges.

The way they smile, talk, look at each other and all that buzz in the promotional video is probably the key factor for so much money on funding.

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