Stratus Click Pen Kit - Chrome

I really want to love this pen kit. I think it looks great, the quiet click mechanism is interesting and can be very appealing to some.

My issue comes with the wood splitting upon assembly. I have made several of these now, one kit gifted by a friend, and two kits purchased myself. In all three of these kits, the wood has split where it meets the tip coupler during/immediately after assembly. The splits are roughly 1/4 inch long, and are quite visible even in light wood and would stand out much more with darker wood. I don't know if it would be a problem with Acrylic. I used the same epoxy and process as I always do for gluing the blanks and brass tubes, and other kits haven't had this issue. The 3 blanks themselves were the same woods as I've used for many other pen kits without splitting issues. Honestly all my other processes are no different than the other 15 or so pen kit styles that I've done. So I'm left to conclude that the tip coupler itself is just a bit too big, and that when pressing it into the brass tube upon assembly it is enough pressure to split the surrounding wood.

Could I wrap the tip coupler up nicely, throw it on the lathe, and sand it down a little bit so that it's not too big? Probably, but it's just not worth it. I'll stick with other kits until I hear through the grapevine that this has been fixed.