Kara's Kustoms Ink - Finish Failing?

[WillyWonka]

Greetings,

 

I recently purchased an Ink, in red with a brass section - which I am really loving using.

 

But after only a few weeks of use the finish is starting to fail on the threads where the cap screws on to the body. I contacted the retailer where I purchased it, who in turn contacted Kara's. According to the retailer Kara's response was:

 

This will occur on every one of our capped pens where the threads meet. Especially pens that have a dark anodize. There is nothing we can do to prevent this from happening on a threaded pen as the wear of uncapping and capping the threads will abrade the surface of the threads and strip off the anodize. Red, Blue, Green, and Brown are the worst offenders. But it will occur on all colors except silver.

 

Personally I think this pretty poor, I was under the impression anodising provides a hard wearing finish?

 

I don't recall seeing this mentioned in any review I saw of the Ink either, I'd be interested to know if anyone else had this issue?

 

Cheers

[Mech-for-i]

Anodizing for sure is more durable than normal plating but then neither of them are designed to be used on parts that are tailored to be used as gears or in this case, threading or any mechanical movements. You will not see gears in a car painted either nor even plating on gears on a bicycle. This is just the nature of the material and finishing. I for one do not understand why , given the knowledge , Mfr would still choose to do a nude thread on anodized or painted surface. This to me is just design fault. Some metal plating or better still filling or PVD yield much more durable surfacing but over time and use they will , still , fail due to constant meshing of surfaces. Again this is the like of gears in a mechanical setup like a bicycle gear and also why they use Oil as lubrication ( it form a very thin film on the surface not just lubricating the movement but protect the material )

 

I've don't had any of Kara's but I've had many anodized parts on my bike having their surface wore off over usage, elements, abuse, and just daily use

Edited September 11, 2017 by Mech-for-i

[sirgilbert357]

Aluminum anodizing wears off VERY easily. This is the very reason I never bought a Karas Kustom pen -- I knew the finish would take on a hard and rough looking patina in no time -- and the blue was my favorite color, so I expected it to show quite badly. The tumbled raw silver finish is the only one I would expect to retain its appearance over time.

 

You can see this effect with a variety of aluminum carabiners, Mag-Lite flashlights, etc. They just show the use very easily.

[WillyWonka]

Thanks for the replies guys.

 

Maybe I'm expecting too much, but in my experience an anodised finish would last a lot longer. Also it strikes me that the finish is not wearing off at the points of contact caused by friction, but rather cracking off in 'chunks', as if just not attached properly.

 

What's annoying is that I nearly went for the tumbled aluminium finish......

[amberleadavis]

I have a lot of these pens and I love them. You can't expect the color to stay in the threaded areas. However, I can see that it looks really cool on the copper pens when the copper oxidizes.