Dykem Applicator Try an empty Sharpie.

[C-Bag]

TM51, I think most corporations could care less about what us "eaters" think. They do their best to hide behind phone trees and auto replied email bots. A lot of why HMT exists and is expanding is because quality well thought out products are hard to find. They make all the $$ they want with the Dullie just as it is. If I was going to send the Dullie Corp anything it would be "close but no cigar". There's a reason they mostly come in those packs for 4 or 5. It's not because I lose them, its because they don't last for me. If I didn't have such an iggy about adding to this stupid plastic mountain of disposable trash I'd toss them all. If this Milwakee marker works out I AM going to toss the three in the shop and the one in my office. Rant off.....

[Toolmaker51]

Yes C-Bag, that is precisely the case. There are very few stellar corporations. Substandard entities effectively cause downgrading of the field, the worst offenders 'lower the bar' further yet. Felt tip pens, Pinto gas tanks, ethylene in pet food...I'll bet on one of those 'memos' for every crap product AND service imaginable. "Oh, it's just a...", "...they'll never...", "We're gonna make millions"
I think your description of HMT.net (and a stellar few, again not surprising) is accurate; to allow us control of an important niche or process fallen into disregard elsewhere.
I hope 'we' collectively are around for the resurgence.

Perfect example; our home was burgled end of August. Alarmed and all. Occupied structure four days, rifling every room; drawer, package, closet, pantry, refrigerator, freezer. Took huge array of property; linens, crystal, silver, handmade fireplace screen, cosmetics, fashionable European women's clothing, cases of soda, tools, yet ignorant pinheads missed prominent bigger ticket items like Persian rugs. They were caught leaving; whilst police investigations conducted in immediate area for the same crew! Another caught posting fire screen on Craigslist, at fraction of value!
They cut the phone line. ADT didn't pursue lost connection, or the monthly line check. But were ready with a claim form! Took a few calls to get account closed and refunded; under continued billing...
Rant ON.

[C-Bag]

Rant on indeed TM51! ADT has always struck me as a possible scam, unfortunately my 87yrld dad just went for their services......

Personally I think the real American Dream is to have some kind of scam of continuous monetary extraction. Either through rent( the real meaning of lease), planned obsolescence (the real meaning of shoddy engineering) ,proprietary supplies( like printer cartridges) or the ultimate corporate wet dream patent/IP.

Whatever happened to "build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door"? My wife has to do tons of paperwork so uses her pens constantly. Some Corporate clone got the idea of packaging 10 pens but each pen has a fraction of the ink in the cartridge that old pens used to have. So she tried refillable, they were worse because she could never find the refill for the specific pen. The goal I think is to shoot for the idea that your product is disposable so it's taken for granted that it has a short life so you have to buy multiples where you used to buy one. It's no wonder there is an island of plastic trash in the Pacific. And it's only getting worse.

I get a lot of hope and joy out seeing folks like JR sidestep the cost cutting stupidity of a MBA's brain fart and fix it with an renewable replacement that does the job better and cheaper.

[Frank S]

Throw away and refillable without replacement support is a huge business which seams to have been around for quite a long time.
Back in high school our student desks still had inkwells. Very few of us kids actually used them though.as most used ballpoint.
However in one of my English lit. classes the Teacher demanded that all work be turned in only done so by quill. His theory was that society as a whole was on such a downward spiral that one day even cars and all home appliances possibly even the telephone would be manufactured as throwaway items,but he nor his students if he had anything to do with the prevention of societal decay would not be contributors. In some small way at least part of his teachings and almost daily rantings may have helped me through the years.

[jjr2001]

Sorry to hear about the burglary TM51, the mess they make and the disgusting feel that you get after they ramshackle your home. They should be............@@@@@!!!!!!!!....you get the idea.
I would say what I would like to see done to the purps but I don't use that kind of language and it would certainly not be politically correct!

I think the whole thing about the cost of most stuff is that not much of it is sold with a cost plus a reasonable profit. Too much of the things that we "need" are simply sold at whatever the market will bear with no relation to cost of manufacture and since everyone (well almost everyone) needs that new iPhone or Xbox they make a killing selling them every 6 months since new ones are on the drawing board as soon as the latest one has been released.

Anyhow glad my sharpie re-use helps us out a bit.

Cheers, JR

[PJs]

Thanks Jr for another great thread and a perfect HMT application for an issue we all face. I love the way this thread has evolved and all the chime in from members of the consortium. Thought I might throw in a few bits.

On the topic of cheap product mass production for profit, the one thing not brought up is the packaging/marketing costs in relation to the actual product...good or bad. Dykem layout fluid is inherently a Good product, been around for almost a century, and a defacto standard. They do seem they follow the markets with innovation, like their pen applicator to thwart the onrush of Dully use by the trades and craftspeople. However the cost of the fluid and the applicator is pittance compared to the packaging and eye candy approach we see, ever invading our markets. The blow molded bottle and injection molded cap are penny's in quantity also. The rolled ink label is also cheap and cheerful but does require a lot of maintenance on the line and the Inks are gosh awful expensive and a class 3-4 shipping hazard...therefore Expensive. So for 30 cents of fluid, bottle & applicator, the cost is probably around $2 for all the rest on ~$6-10 product. A good profit on 30 cents but Ok for the other $1.70 on a low dollar item. I also agree that the "Market Will Bear" is one of those Marketing Terms I loath and goes back to the craze of the Pet Rock and how Marketeers jumped on the band wagon and never got off, and have now added i-candy to the mix to invoke Pavlovian responses from the masses.

I am thinking that having a felt applicator on the bottle lid might be the way to go. I've always just used the nylon bristle brush that came with the bottle and just developed the technique of wiping the excess several time before applying it. I also use Dully's once in a while but don't like them very much because of the tip issues. I would bet that if it was suggested to Dykem your idea of a wide felt applicator they might run with it...they've been around for a long time for good reasons, imho. Hopefully someone from there reads this and doesn't market the Heck out of it driving the costs up even more. In the meantime JR your fix is brilliant and the suggestions abound once again on this great forum.

An interesting note on Dykem with a bit of rabbit hole diving...Established in 1920, Dykem was acquired in 1987 by Illinois Tool Works (ITW), now ITW Professional Brands. ITW Professional Brands is headquartered in Olathe, KS. So who knows if they would listen??

Thanks JR and All for the great thread and rabbit hole toward making our world a better place, at least for ourselves.

~PJ

P.S. TM I'm sad to hear about your kerfuffle and hope the bastiches are handed a rope long enough for such a violation and skullduggery. Perhaps public atonement should be brought back.

[jjr2001]

Thanks to all for all the great comments in this thread.

Ok, I think this will be a great Dykem brush in the can solution. The Dykem brush is just a plastic tube with some very coarse bristles pushed in the end and the other end just pushed into a short shoulder built into the cap. Why not just put a good quality brush in the can. We discussed this in an earlier post. I also had trouble with that lid seal. It would always stick to the can and then I would have to grab it and put it back in the lid. Blue Finger Again!..

Pictures show the story. Remove that plastic tube with bristles. Put some CA on the gasket and then glue it to the cap. Get a good camel hair fine bristle brush. Cut to length, I like mine short so the metal brush holder does not fill up with Dykem. I can always tilt the can. Turn down the end of the brush so it fits the lid and put it in with some CA. Very nice fine layer of Dykem. So now we have the best of both. A refillable felt tipper and a good brush in the can.....

Cheers, JR

[Toolmaker51]

Back in high school our student desks still had inkwells. Very few of us kids actually used them though.as most used ballpoint.
However in one of my English lit. classes the Teacher demanded that all work be turned in only done so by quill. His theory was that society as a whole was on such a downward spiral that one day even cars and all home appliances possibly even the telephone would be manufactured as throwaway items,but he nor his students if he had anything to do with the prevention of societal decay would not be contributors. In some small way at least part of his teachings and almost daily rantings may have helped me through the years.

Well, I hope he should rest easily on our account; upholding his ideal and adopting it as our own. Maybe not inkwells per se, but in preservation, redefining, making it interesting to others, and so on. The world wide aspect fascinates me no end.

[Frank S]

Well, I hope he should rest easily on our account; upholding his ideal and adopting it as our own. Maybe not inkwells per se, but in preservation, redefining, making it interesting to others, and so on. The world wide aspect fascinates me no end.

Yep,It is funny how things that really irked us while we were young produced many of the values we hold dear in our later years.
I am predominately left handed so writing with a quill was a challenge, often I would get so frustrated that I would write with my right hand. I have always had horrible penmanship anyway,and no matter how many thousands of times I would have fill every chalk board during my elementary school years sometimes even have to stay after school doing it I didn't improve much.

[thehomeengineer]

Just bought a 30mm and 15mm width empty maker pump action dispenser off eBay. I really like this great idea. Thank you again for yet another great post.
The Home Engineer