A friend of mine has loads of cheap Chinese clones. They are all of various quality. He complains endlessly about them, about the brass decks, screws that are not made of SS and that rust, pressure driven atomisers that are not airtight, poor machining and finish, fill valves that fail etc etc. However, he has some that are fantastic, that cost barely anything, are finished really well with really very good threads, and are pretty flawless. It is a lottery out there, and the lack of QC is what you pay for. Sometimes it pays off though, his Ithaka clone is extremely good.
The only problem is that the Kayfun clones come in a box identical to an authentic SM ome, with SM logos on the packaging, SM logos on the atomiser base. That's wrong. WRONG. It's not that I hate clones, I don't - hell I even own a Kebo/UDC Russian 3.1 style atty myself, but at least they had the guts to make it look different. I prefer the Russian over the KFL these days, the airflow in that Russian is perfect, and aesthetically, it's amazing. As soon as I saw it I wanted one.
But here's where the clone market may become useful. What happens if your authentic SM Kayfun 3.1's fill port valve fails. Can you get a replacement for it? SvoeMesto have discontinued that atomiser and only have a few remaining spare bases. You can buy a 1:1 clone for peanuts and replace the entire deck. Thanks China and here's to the Horse
