The Pen Addict 128/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	128
Title:	Backer Number Three
Release Date:	November 10th, 2014
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 128
Audio File:	Audio Episode 128
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 128
Length:	6161 min <br />1.017 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: Hello and welcome back to The Pen Addict podcast on RelayFM. This episode is number 128. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined, as I am always, by Mr. Brad Dowdy, the pen addict himself. Hi Brad.

Brad Dowdy: You're barely joined by Mr. Brad Dowdy, the pen addict himself.

Myke Hurley: Yes, just about. We'll get to that in just a moment. But just before we do, I want to thank our sponsors for this week's episode. That is Squarespace, who give you everything you need to make an incredible website on the internet. We also have our friends over at Pen Chalet and Karas Customs too, and we really look forward to telling you about all of those guys and girls later on in the show. What a line-up. I know, what a great line-up. Very happy with that.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. So yes, Skype is not my friend, but we are in business now, and I'm glad because this is going to be a fun episode. We have lots of fun stuff to talk about in this episode.

Brad Dowdy: But first, Myke, I want to ask you, how is the first day of the rest of your life?

Myke Hurley: It's been fine today. Today has been a weird day because I had some family stuff that I had to do that I'll talk about on Analog on RelayFM. Definitely. Because it feels more up place there. But let's say I'm really looking forward to tomorrow. Tomorrow is my first proper day. Gotcha. As an independent and professional podcaster, don't you?

Brad Dowdy: Well, congratulations, and I'm very proud of you. Thank you. Yep, and I am excited. So yeah, I can't wait.

Myke Hurley: Thank you, buddy. If you listening out there are also very excited for me, the best thing you can do to show your excitement is support our sponsors. Yes. For the time being, that is the thing that I would like you to do the very most.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, I agree completely. All right, well, let's get into this, Myke.

Brad Dowdy: I don't even know where to begin with our first topic.

Myke Hurley: Okay.

Brad Dowdy: So, we have a new listener, as of a few episodes ago. His name is Ben Kwok. And I hope I'm pronouncing that right. It's got to be right. KWOK. I was actually familiar with his artwork a little bit on Instagram. I followed him. He does amazing artwork. And I'd never talked to him before. And he reached out one day, just randomly, basically like, holy crap, a podcast about pens. This is amazing. I love it. And I was like, man, thanks so much. I love your artwork. And, you know, I appreciate you listening. He's like, hey. Because I want to do something for you and Myke. I'm like, okay, absolutely. He said, send me your addresses. And I'm going to send something out to you guys. But I'm not going to tell you what it is. And I want y'all to get it at the same time. So, I'm going to send Myke's like a week early. And then I'll send yours out. And then y'all can get them about the same time. And then you can share your thoughts.

Field Notes Notebook

Brad Dowdy: So, what happened was, how long have you had yours now, Myke? About. At least a week. Over a week. Over a week. Yeah, probably pushing two weeks. And my package never showed up.

Brad Dowdy: So, Ben kept pinging me. He's like, hey, did it show up yet? I'm like, no, not yet, man. And I don't know. Remember, at this point, I have no clue what it is. Myke knows what it is. I have no idea. And Myke's not telling me, which he shouldn't. So, Ben says, let's give it a couple more days. And then I'll send it out again. I was like, okay, I hate for you to do that. But we waited two more days. It didn't show up. So, we sent out another package.

Brad Dowdy: As things happen, the first package shows up, like, two days later. And it was short postage, basically. So, I showed Ben what they had written all over the envelope. And for some reason, it just threw it in my mailbox.

Brad Dowdy: And I opened this package up, Myke.

Brad Dowdy: And my mind was blown.

Brad Dowdy: So, what I've done is I've taken a picture. I've made a photo set on Flickr.

Myke Hurley: Ah, good idea.

Brad Dowdy: And I put it in the show notes so everyone can see this. What Ben has done. And let's share this with the chat room here. One second. So, they can play along. Because it's impressive. What Ben has done, after listening to our show. Oh, I put it in there twice. I see. It's created our own special edition. And by our own, I mean just me and Myke. An edition of two Fiend Notes notebooks. Fiend, as in pen fiend. Or fiend of any other kind. So, the cover is a bright, bright orange, which is beautiful. And black, Futura. It looks just like field notes. When I first pulled it out the envelope, did you go, This is an interesting field note. Did you do that, Myke?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I wasn't. It didn't strike me initially. Like, I didn't see fiend. I just was so used to seeing. I didn't really know what was going on. Right. Because the way I opened it, I saw the back page first. And then sort of turned it over.

Myke Hurley: So, it was very perplexed.

Brad Dowdy: So, what Ben did is not just make us an interesting field notes type notebook. He basically recreated a field notes notebook that is pen addict related. So, the cover, it says Fiend Notes. It says 48 page pocket notebook. Highly addictive materials made in the USA. You open up the inside cover. And the layout is just like a field notes. But Ben has updated every piece of information to relate to the pen addict. It says, This fiend pocket notebook is property of blank. Relevant addictions, blank. For addiction records, first signs of addiction, date, location. Last signs of addiction, date, location. In the event of a pen addiction overdose, If found, please do not contact or return to the owner. The return of this pocket notebook will enable and reinforce the pen addiction. Burn this notebook at will. Destroy all evidence that lies within these pages. The ideas written in this notebook will do more harm than good. Do the right thing. And save this person from this horrible affliction known as the pen addiction. Thank you for your cooperation.

Brad Dowdy: That's not even close to it.

Myke Hurley: There's so many. This is throughout the whole thing. There's just all these little pieces. Of interesting stuff.

Brad Dowdy: So the entire.

Brad Dowdy: It's mind boggling. What Ben has put into this. So the whole back cover is exactly the same. I'm not going to read every little thing on here. I've got the pictures up. And we'll have them in the show notes. And you can go read them all. But his story. It says, Inspired by the Pen Addict Podcast. A weekly fix for all things stationary. Pens, pencils, paper, ink. You name it. And Brad Dowdy and Myke Hurley are into it. Join as they geek out over the analog tools they love so dearly. This pocket notebook is a tribute to their hard work and wonderful addiction. Cheers. And he's got 30 practical applications in here. You know, like notes for the Pen Addict Podcast. Wishlist for pens and inks. Then he's got other good things. He's got obsessive things like why pens are my life. Reasons my wife left. File for chapter seven. And it's hilarious.

Brad Dowdy: I don't know what to say to Ben for doing this. Just knowing that the time and effort that he put this in, put into this.

Brad Dowdy: He even, if you flip over to the back cover, it's got the Pen Addict logo on the back. It's got Fiend Notes, the Pen Addict Addiction. The Pen Addict Addiction. It says, printed on 1014 edition size 2 books. Printed in shame for the seriously addicted.

Brad Dowdy: It's pretty unreal. So, I think this is definitely the most amazing thing I've seen anyone do for us on the podcast. Do you want to comment on anything, Myke, about it?

Myke Hurley: I think one of my favorite things is in the specifications that explains what it's made out of. You will notice, bound by Crest Glide Deep Clean Cool Mint Floss.

Brad Dowdy: I thought it was floss at first. I was like feeling it. And it has that waxy feel, you know, that floss has. Smell it. And I didn't realize it until I went and read in the specifications that it was actually floss. I was like, this feels like floss. And I was like, I'll be damned. It is floss.

Myke Hurley: It's mint dental floss. I'm just blown away by this. I love the stamp on the back. I really love the stamp. If it is a stamp, I want that. Maybe it was just printed in the same way, I guess. Because it's all on a laser printer, right? Yes. Even all the dots have been printed on a laser printer.

Myke Hurley: This is just what makes Panatic listeners the best. Because this is the type of stuff that you guys send me. And Brad, it's just fantastic. Like really just superbly fantastic.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's amazing and mind-blowing. But so the story doesn't end there, Myke.

Pen Addict Listener Gift

Brad Dowdy: Since my first package was possibly lost with the post office, Ben wanted to get me out another one. And I didn't know at the time that it was a special edition run of two notebooks, one for you, one for me. So he went back, printed a third one that is printed on 1114 edition size, one book, first reprint. That's what he printed on the back of the extra one he gave me. And I'm going to give that away to our listeners.

Myke Hurley: Wow.

Brad Dowdy: So Myke and I each have our one book. I got a third one from Ben, and I told him I was going to do this. He is so awesome. You guys got to check him out. It's at bioworks.com. B-I-O-W-O-R-K-Z dot com. When you look at it, you might recognize some of his work. Because I have actually seen his work before. It's that amazing. He does a lot of work for a lot of big companies. So I told him I was going to do that. And he was totally on board with that. So I have a third Fiend Notes notebook. And we're going to do it like last week's Cult Pens giveaway.

Myke Hurley: So this is edition three of two?

Brad Dowdy: No. Yeah, sort of. This is the edition size of this one that I'm giving away. Edition size, one book.

Myke Hurley: Ooh.

Myke Hurley: Wow. This is even rarer than the one that we own.

Brad Dowdy: I know. I know. So we're going to do it like last week. Where this is for the Pen Addict listeners. There's not going to be any note or anything special. Saying, hey, go sign up for this giveaway. You guys know what to do. You go to the blog post on penaddict.com. It'll be up Tuesday morning, 8 a.m. And you just leave a message that you've listened to the show. And we will pick out someone super, super lucky. To get this edition. It's, as you can tell, I'm a little bit of a loss for words for it. I don't know what to even think about it.

Myke Hurley: It's an incredible little memento that I've actually put back in the envelope that it came in and stored it safely.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So that was my question. Are you going to use it? No way. Yeah, no way. I'm not going to use it. I want to frame it. I want to do something with it. And yeah, store it away safe. It's amazing. So thank you, Ben. We will definitely talk to you in the future. And Ben might be a good guy to get on the show one day. Talk about how he uses pens and all of his artwork and everything like that. So it's pretty, pretty, pretty cool. So and we have one for you guys, too. So I'm excited to be able to do that. And y'all can thank the United States Post Office for that opportunity.

Myke Hurley: This episode is brought to you by the U.S. Postal Service.

Myke Hurley: No, actually, this episode of The Pen Addict is brought to you by our friends at Karis Customs. Karis Customs are an awesome pen maker based in Mesa, Arizona. And all of their stuff is made in their own shop. And they're proud that they are based in the U.S. of A. These guys make a whole range of incredible pens like the Bolt, the Retract, the Render K and the Ink, which I recently put in my top five pens at the moment. You can choose the materials that these pens are made of. You can make them out of, you can have them made out of aluminium, brass or copper. And they allow you to customise your pen this way with the right balance, weight, texture and feel for you. If you like a lighter pen like I do, you can go aluminium. If you like something heavy that's got a real sort of thunk to it, you can go maybe all brass or all copper. And they do awesome colours that you can choose from, too. The really bright, vivid aluminium models that they have with some of their models do let you express yourself with some flair. Maybe you want to go blue and orange like I have by buying a couple and mixing them up. These pens that Karas Customs make are made with such great care. And the materials that they pick and choose only get better with time. They make the very best in these types of products. I love them. And I buy everything they do because I know that they are made with such love from pen addicts just like us. The folks over at Karas Customs have a real connection with their customers. And this is something that they're proud of. They make the pens by hand. They ship them out by hand to you guys. And then they interact with you directly about them. And Dan Bishop and Karas Customs and Bill Karas are a great part of this little community that we have. So show your love for them by buying some of their awesome stuff. Karas Customs are offering you a fantastic 15% of anything in their store. If you just use the code penaddict before you check out. So it's when you go to the basket. You can add the code penaddict before you check out. This code is valid from now until the end of the year. Thank you so much to Karas Customs for supporting this week's episode of the penaddict and RelayFM.

Brad Dowdy: They're so good. And I'm not saying that just because Dan's listening in the chat room as we're speaking. And I think he was checking you out to make sure you got this ad read in, Myke. Yeah, he's going to compliment me. I mean, they're legit. I mean, it's... And I say that meaning that they're legitimate people. And that's some of the most important things you can look at when you're choosing to spend your money with a company. That the people behind it are, like, legitimately good people. And, you know, want to really care about their products and care about their customers. And Karas Customs does that. So I really appreciate them sponsoring the show. It means a lot to me and to our community that they're so involved in it. And it's nothing but good stuff.

Kickstarter Campaign

Brad Dowdy: So you saw what happened about the time when I was having a Skype fit, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, so we were having some technical issues before the show. But whilst that was happening, basically, what... Well, the guys over at Karas Customs and our friend, the dude, Mr. Myke Dudek. We'd mentioned this before, right? That their product that they're working on together. However, the Cube is now live on Kickstarter. And you'll find a link in this week's show notes at relay.fm slash penaddict slash 128. I think the project launched at... I'm going to find it here because I have an email from Dan. Where is it?

Myke Hurley: Somewhere around here.

Myke Hurley: Do you know where it is?

Brad Dowdy: Oh, well, I can tell you. It says it'll be funded at 5.10 Eastern Time. So that means it launched at 5.10 Eastern Time. Oh, okay. Look at that. So one hour and 17 minutes ago.

Myke Hurley: So, yeah. In an hour and 17 minutes. Fully funded. Yeah. Those guys. Congratulations, guys.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. They know how to do it. And while I was having a Skype fit and waiting for various downloads and installs, I was able to jump in and get early birded.

Myke Hurley: Yep. So did I, actually. I think I was back at number three.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, look at you. I was like 26 or 7, something like that.

Myke Hurley: I don't think... Is it possible to find out the number anymore?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It'll do a reverse order. Once they get 100 backers, it'll do the backer list and then it'll show you.

Myke Hurley: Oh, okay. You have to wait for 100. I think it's... Because I thought, like, where is that? Because it's not there.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, well, they're up there now. It updates every 10 backers. I'm sorry. So let's see. Michael Hurley. Well, maybe it's not in... Does it do it in reverse order? Nobody knows. Or any order? Maybe it does it in order. Whatever. I don't know.

Brad Dowdy: I don't know. But anyway. We're both backers. We both sandwich Father Kyle Sanders in the backer list.

Brad Dowdy: I'm sure he appreciates that.

Myke Hurley: I'm sure he does. But yeah, this is awesome. This is, like, doubly extra special.

Myke Hurley: Because it's two of our favorite groups of people, you know? Yep. And this project is kind of like... I don't know. There's, like, this beauty that ties this project to our show, I think, in some really interesting way. Yeah, I think so. Which I really like. I like it when stuff like that happens. That, you know, it's around the community, of course, as a whole. But, you know, I really like that everybody that's involved in this project is friends of ours. And we've helped them. And they've helped us. And it's nice. And I like seeing this stuff. And I love seeing that they've made that the goal already. I imagine a project like this comes with a little bit more uncertainty than, like, a pen. You know, the guys at Karas Customs are used to selling pens. And Dudek's used to selling what he does. But it's like, you know, I'm used to selling small batches. I mean, he could sell millions for all I know. I actually don't know how many the dude sells. But I think you come into a project like this and you're like, I don't know if people are going to be interested in that. Maybe. And then they go and just knock it out of the park. And they're just about to, very shortly, I think, cross 6,000. I mean, so they will have doubled the goal this evening. You know, I'm so happy for them. And the video is really great. It's a nice, fresh, like, just a little interview video. And it's kind of like a little love story, you know, like how these two great companies met each other. And, like, you know, they all remember the donuts and stuff. It's fun. And I'm just really happy for them. And I love the colors. I'm going to get myself an orange one.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I'm really happy. So congratulations, guys. And I hope that this is an absolute rip-roaring success for you both.

Brad Dowdy: Yep, for sure. And it's just random that it launched right when we were going to do this episode because they had launch failure yesterday. And I'm going to have to talk to Dan about that. Or launch failure this morning, I should say. And it was supposed to go earlier in the day. And we're going to have Dan on, I think, next week to talk about Kickstarter and the trials and tribulations that we've all gone through. Him and myself have gone through in running Kickstarter projects and what all it entails and all the back-end fun stuff. So we're going to have some inside baseball stuff next week on Kickstarter and all the nitty-gritty. So that should be fun. I look forward to that. And we'll find out the story on why this thing had a launch abort until later in the day today. So more people who are awesome, Michael, are cult pens. And last week we talked about the Brown Kaweco Sports that we had two of to give away. The pen that you have and I still do not have. Just going on the record, I do not have this pen. And I'm saying it out loud.

Giveaway Winners

Brad Dowdy: We picked two winners from the comment section on the podcast blog post. And winner number one is Carol at Curly McD on Twitter. The comment is Christmas is coming. What can I possibly get that Brad doesn't already have? That's true. And the second winner is the appropriately titled win.

Myke Hurley: Oh.

Brad Dowdy: That was the name in the comment.

Myke Hurley: What a great name.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And the comment is interesting option to pop over to Paris from England to buy a German notebook taunting an American in the process. That was amazing. There were so many amazing comments in that comment section. I think I read all of them. If not, I read most all of them and was just cracking up. So what we asked you guys to do was to leave a comment in the blog post just saying, you know, making it known that you actually listened to the show and you guys did a great job.

Myke Hurley: Same deal for the, you know, it would be the same deal for the Fiend notes as well.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. For the Fiend notes, we're going to do the exact same thing and we'll announce it next week. But Carol and when Carol, I can actually tweet you on, on the Twitters and get your information. And when you need to get in touch with me via Twitter, email, somehow you need to get in touch with me. And we will arrange these very cool Kaweco Sports to send out to you guys. So congratulations and thank you, CultPens, for doing that. That's really, really cool. I appreciate that.

Myke Hurley: Yes, thank you very much, CultPens.

Brad Dowdy: One of the things we haven't been doing, and I tend to do this, it seems like about every month or two, I kind of go through some of the news and things that have kind of launched in the pen world on the podcast. And this one really, really caught my eye yesterday. Stephen Owen on Twitter sent me a leak. Hey, have you seen this? And apparently, Esther Brook, the name Esther Brook, has been bought and is relaunching as a new, as a, basically the Esther Brook brand is relaunching. So the vintage Esther Brooks that we all love and rave about, they're coming back as a new, fresh brand.

Brad Dowdy: And he sent me the link of these pens that is the first batch that they're coming out with. And I retweeted that. And let's just say the comments were less than stellar.

Myke Hurley: I don't like the logo. Wow.

Brad Dowdy: I'm not sure I like anything about it, except the color in the middle of the barrel. Those are kind of the vintage, some of the vintage Esther Brook colors.

Myke Hurley: The more I look at it, the more I don't like. Yeah. So. Oh, that's a shame.

Brad Dowdy: So there's not too many redeeming aspects to this pen, but this is an introduction.

Brad Dowdy: They're doing 150 of each of these three colors. It's a green barrel, blue barrel, red barrel. We'll have the link in the show notes, which you can get at relay.fm slash pen addict slash 128. Did I get to do that right? You sure did. Look at me. Props to me. Y'all should go look at these pens.

Brad Dowdy: I don't like them. I mean, that's not something I would ever want to own.

Brad Dowdy: But when I went to the website, I think it's esterbrookpens.com. This is the introductory pen. And then they're going to redo some of the J series pens. And I hope they're more accurate reintroductions to the traditional Estabrook model. This does not look like any Estabrook I've ever seen. It looks like some concept pen that they've come up with and felt was the right thing to do. So, you know, maybe this will sell well. But I'm more interested in what's coming next. And so hopefully the next reworking of the Estabrook J series will be a more traditional pen.

Myke Hurley: Why do you think that, though?

Brad Dowdy: I think they were just trying to get their name out there for this one.

Myke Hurley: But, like, the website is just so...

Brad Dowdy: I know.

Myke Hurley: It's like... I think we should have found out about this and we should have bought them. Yeah. Because I feel like we probably could have done. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Or, yeah, I'm not sure what's going on.

Myke Hurley: Or at least had, like, a whip round.

Brad Dowdy: It's something to keep an eye on. So hopefully they do the brand right.

Myke Hurley: This stuff is always so upsetting.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it is. It is. It is. Sometimes it's done right and sometimes it's an attempted money grab. Even though that's not really the right word. But it's a, you know, it's trying to force something that's not necessarily there when you could do the brand right by, you know, keeping it... Doing respect to the older models instead of trying to trade off the name.

Myke Hurley: Any highlights of it being done right that you can think of? Like, who's come back and done it in the pen world?

Myke Hurley: Maybe, like, the pencils, the Black Wings.

Black Wing Pens

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, the Black Wing. I want to say Conklin. I think that was a... That might have been one that went away then came back and at least they, you know, they remade some of their old models and new materials. I could be wrong about the lineage of that if that was one. And it's hard to do for sure because these people that are buying the new names, right, they're trying to, you know, make money off of this. And it's hard to do. So we'll see. You know, I'm willing to take a wait and see. This just kind of caught me by surprise. I didn't know this was even a thing until I saw it. And then I was less than impressed with these pens. But I'm anxious to see what they come up with next because they're already talking about, you know, the next round of the standard pens. So we'll see.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, okay.

Brad Dowdy: Wall Ever Sharp. Yeah, that was another one. But they kept... They held true to kind of the traditional pens and have kind of stayed on the same path.

Brad Dowdy: Twisby.

Brad Dowdy: Our buddies at Twisby. I just put the whole page in here. Because I haven't checked in on their...

Myke Hurley: I haven't seen all of this.

Brad Dowdy: So I saw the wood. So they're doing a Project PP019 wood version. This was like a month ago. And I think I meant to... I may have mentioned it in the podcast. I think we talked about it. Do you remember talking about this? Which one? The wood ones there. You got to scroll down. It's from September 29th.

Myke Hurley: No, we have not spoken about these. Okay.

Brad Dowdy: If we have, I've blanked it out in my brain. So they're doing away with the micarta. And they're bringing in some other... They're looking at some other wood options. So what Twisby does, which I appreciate, is they're very big on the sharing of their prototypes and testing. You know, a lot of this stuff may not come to market. And they're upfront about that. They're like, you know, check this stuff out. And this is what we're kind of playing around with. And if we can get it right, we're going to bring these to market. So if you haven't been keeping up with Twisby's Facebook page where they put all this information, there is some crazy, crazy stuff going on there. You know, they got all kinds of new materials.

Brad Dowdy: A little bit different barrel shape and design. They have this great looking aluminum barrel classic that I am all over if this comes to bear. They're trying to get that down. Because I really like the classic barrel.

Myke Hurley: Is this the one with the angled hexagonal or something? Yes.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And it's the solid color barrels. Blue, red, and black is what it came in.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And it's a really, really great pin. A lot of people didn't like it or didn't love it, you know, as much as the 580. I actually quite enjoyed it.

Myke Hurley: They got it in like the green here, right?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Like really bright colors. Like a hot pink, a fluorescent yellow, and a bright blue.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So these aluminum barrels. So anyway, I wanted to point that out. That keep an eye on these guys. They always have something up their sleeve.

Myke Hurley: They've got these like weird acrylic ones, and then they've got the wood ones, and then they've got like a neon green and neon red 580 for Christmas, right?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I don't care for those.

Myke Hurley: I like them both, but neither enough to buy.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I like the aluminum one. With the aluminum section.

Myke Hurley: No, I want a wooden one. Get me a wooden Twisby of any kind. I'm all over that.

Brad Dowdy: Those are sweet. So anyway, you know we're big fans of Twisby, so I wanted to point out and at least show Myke all this stuff that they're coming up with, which is just, it's good. I appreciate a company that likes to mix it up and likes to share and show what they have on the plate that's coming up. So, um...

Myke Hurley: See, I follow their Twitter account, and they're less forthcoming with this stuff on the Twitter account.

Brad Dowdy: Even on Instagram. It's all on Facebook.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So I follow them on Instagram, and they don't put all this stuff on there.

Myke Hurley: No, they don't. I think that's kind of best for my heart. Yeah.

Diamine Inks

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Best for your wallet, too. That's a good point. Yeah. Not best for my wallet is the new Diamine 150th Anniversary Inks, which we were asked early on in the chat room if we were going to talk about today, and I said, absolutely, we are.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, a few people sent us these.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Thomas Hall sent me the link primarily to show me the Diamine. Is it Diamine or Diamine, Michael? It's a British company, so you're going to have to find that out for me.

Myke Hurley: You're in charge of all things British. I would say Diamine, so we're going to go with that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So you need to go over to the factory and get some early samples of these, okay?

Myke Hurley: Okay. I didn't know they were British, so I'll go through that.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. Yes, they are. So you're in charge of that. But this blue-black looks awesome. There's eight ink colors in this really neat triangular bottle where they can all kind of fit together and form a large circle if you buy all eight. But I haven't been buying too many inks recently because I'm pretty happy with what I got, but I am all over this blue-black. And surprisingly, the red in this, at least from the pictures that I can see on the Fountain Pen Network, and we'll have this link in the show notes. The Carnival. Yeah. The Carnival looks amazing. Looks like a great color, yeah. It's so bright. I like a really bright red, not like a brick or bloody type red. I like just reds that really pop off the page. And this actually has me, my interest pinked to get a red ink. But I am all over this blue-black whenever they come out.

Brad Dowdy: They're coming out later in November. I don't know when vendors will start carrying them. But Diamine has pretty much every company that we talk about and shop at carries Diamine inks. So I would look for them, hopefully before the end of the year.

Myke Hurley: I might get this blue-black, because it's kind of like the color we use for the Relay logo.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it is.

Myke Hurley: It's quite similar, isn't it?

Brad Dowdy: It's very similar. It looks like it's got good shading, good color. And yeah, I'm interested to see what the cost is. Diamine always has good prices, so I expect they'll be fairly priced.

Myke Hurley: I don't understand terracotta. Like, I don't get that as a color. Yeah, it's like a... It's not a very good-looking color.

Brad Dowdy: So do you know what terracotta is?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it's like what you use to make pots.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so... I don't know. It's that muddy, orangish-brown. I mean, yeah, that's not a color I would ever use. And, you know, I don't think the Safari is something I would ever use either. But, you know, part of the whole range of inks, I guess it looks okay. Some people will buy the whole set. What is it? Six inks? I said eight. It's six inks. One, two, three, four, five, six. Oh, seven, eight. I was right the first time. Eight inks. So, yeah. Anyway, check that out if you want to see some new inks coming out. Because I will be very interested in these. And I will definitely pick up at least two of them. And surprisingly, the red one really looks cool.

Brad Dowdy: So Thomas cost me some more money this week. And this is something I've been, I've asked him about for a couple of years now. He always, whenever he writes me a letter or sends me pens in the mail, he always, you know, writes a note. And he signs it. And then he stamps it with his chop. It's, you know, like a little seal. Like a stamp with his name. He did this whole post on what a chop is, why it's important to him, how it's part of his heritage and lineage. You know, that his mom got it for him. And there's this whole great story in this blog post. And, you know, well, that's linked in the show notes too. So you can go read about what it is and why it's important. I've always told him I wanted one. And I just kept forgetting to, like, really research it and get into it and go buy one. Then he put in the link to a good place to go buy one. And I've bought one. So we'll do a further report on this later once I get mine in.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I'm interested because I wonder what yours is going to look like.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so it should be cool. And I've been wanting this for a long time. So I will let you know once that happens. And they ship pretty quick, so I might even have it by next week. But I've went ahead and bought it, and it's on the way. So I'm anxious to get that in, and we'll talk about it more maybe next week or the week after.

Myke Hurley: I already have a thousand questions. Can I show you one really quickly? Sure. Is it Western that you've gone for?

Brad Dowdy: Yes. Okay. No. No? What do you mean Western? Well, like Western style or like traditional, like Far Eastern style? Yeah. No, I've gone for the Far Eastern style.

Myke Hurley: Okay, so now I have like 100 more questions. Yeah. Okay, I'll wait for that. I'm very intrigued about that, actually.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yep. So we'll save those questions for a later date.

Pen Purchases

Brad Dowdy: I'm saving this next item for a later date too, Michael, because I've spent too much freaking money recently. I have more pens coming. And the last thing I need is another new pen. But this is perfect for my Atlanta pen show 2015 shopping list because they are always there. And that's my good friends at Franklin Kristoff who like to take all my money. The Franklin Kristoff model 66 has always been on my radar. It's their tester pen, but it's this really good shape. And they made it out of solid black. And it was just really good. And they have added the ice barrel into this lineup. Whoa. This is dang near the perfect pen for me. And I'm just going to hold off. Our friend Chris Gottlieb reviewed this on his blog. You need to go check it out. It's the model 66 ice. And it's just an amazing, amazing looking pen. If I can hold off until the Atlanta pen show, I'll be impressed with myself. They've already sold out two batches of these on the site. You can go in and order, pre-order it now. I think the next batch is coming like November 18th or something. I'd have to look at the site, but they had a date on it. And last year at the pen show, they were out of several of the ice models before I had a chance to buy it. So hopefully they will have enough to have this one available for me to pick one up there. Because I'm going to try my dangest not to buy another pen until the Atlanta pen show. But probably next week we'll have a conversation that I bought some other Nakaya or something like that. So I don't want to say things like that.

Myke Hurley: Is this one different because now by standard the reservoir is the icy one and you put the ink in it? Because wasn't that with the original Fire and Ice?

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So the original Fire and Ice, they're cartridge converter pens. But they're easily converted into an eyedropper.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, but the point was that they didn't make them that way, right?

Brad Dowdy: Right, but they sold them as definitely eyedropper convertible.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, but you had to go out and do a bunch of stuff yourself. No.

Brad Dowdy: They didn't give you a kit or anything. No, all you have to do is apply silicon grease to the threads and that's it. Which, if you own a Twisby, you have silicon grease because Twisby ships with silicon grease in their...

Myke Hurley: Right, but then it's weird because it's an eyedropper. Yes, it is weird.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, it is weird. If you've never used an eyedropper before, it's definitely weird.

Myke Hurley: What is the filling system in this? It's...

Brad Dowdy: I think it's a cartridge converter pen that's converted into an eyedropper, just like the Fire and Ice ones. Oh, yeah. It says it here. Use it with a cartridge. Use it with a converter. But if you're buying the Ice model, the way to go is eyedropper.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, so I'm still not going to buy one. I'm just waiting for the... It gives me a reason for one, but I'm waiting for the day when they can just do... They just do something.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. But they have this one in solid black if you like the barrel style, which I've always liked. I've just never bought one. But now I have no reason not to buy one because this is a beautiful, beautiful pen. And I will be adding one to the collection, but not until the spring, which will be fun. Something to start... Something I can kick off my list with, which I usually do pretty good from like January to April when the pen show is of holding off until the pen show and saving my space credits for a pen show splurge. So that will be on the top of the list.

Pen Chalet Deals

Brad Dowdy: All right. So we got... We got a big topic that's actually not going to take too, too long to get into. But I want to talk about our friends at Pen Chalet first, Myke.

Myke Hurley: Sounds good to me. So you know our friends at the Pen Chalet by now, but let me tell you about them if they don't. And don't worry. We do have an incredible deal as always, and we'll get to that in just a moment. Penchalet.com. They are the people to go to if you're looking for incredible roller balls, fountain pens, ballpoints, mechanical pencils. Maybe you want pen holders, pen carrying cases, refills, fountain pen converters. Basically any pen or accessory you want, you should be going to Pen Chalet. Pen Chalet first. They have all of your favorite brands like Monteverde, Pelican, Lamy, Pilot, Namiki, Sailor and Kaweco. They're an authorized dealer of all of them. They have very fast and reliable customer service. They're always doing great discounts and deals, which you can find all the time, and they give special ones to pen addict listeners. They have free shipping on orders over $50 in the continental United States. And they also ship internationally with very reasonable shipping rates, and that conversion will work in your favor. Pen Chalet has low prices on high quality pens and offers a 100% satisfaction guarantee. If you go to penchalet.com and use the code penaddict at checkout on anything that you buy, you're going to save 10% on your order. But what you really want to be doing first is clicking the podcast link at the top of the website, enter the code penaddict, and you will find some special savings just for penaddict listeners. Today, I have a fantastic offer for you, courtesy of the pen, shall I? They are offering a 35% discount on the Platinum 3776 Psy and Shoji fountain pens, Brad? Yeah, Shoji. These are limited edition demonstrator style pens. The Psy is clear and the Shoji is a tinted blue. And they have the slip and seal mechanism, which Brad can explain in a moment because I believe he owns one of these. The full retail for these pens is $270. But with the 35% discount and then the 10% discount you'll get if you use the penaddict coupon at checkout still. You'll be able to pick one of these up for $157.95. That is close to $100 off of one of these fantastic Platinum 3776s. Thank you so much to Pen Chalet for sponsoring Real AFM and the penaddict. Go to penchalet.com and use the code penaddict at the top of the page to get these great deals.

Brad Dowdy: So this is ridiculous. I rave about penchalet's deals every week because there's always something awesome and then they end up topping themselves like every week it seems like. I own a Psy, the 3776 Psy.

Brad Dowdy: It is an unbelievably good pen. This price is, you're not going to find a better price than this. I think I paid $180 for mine if not more. And this is what, like $157? Is that what you said?

Myke Hurley: $157.95.

Brad Dowdy: So these, what I love about the Platinum pens are the gold nibs that they use. 14 karat gold nibs. These nibs are very similar to the nibs that you'll find in a Nakaya. Nakaya came from Platinum. They have the very similar feel and feedback and smoothness. It's some of my favorite nibs. I love everything about this pen. That slip and seal mechanism you're talking about, Myke, it's in the cap of the pen. And when you, it's got like a little spring in it, which you can see through the, through the demonstrator barrel. And you, when you cap the pen, it tightens up around the nib. So you can leave the pen capped and the ink doesn't dry out. So you can actually keep the ink in the pen for a longer period of time without it drying out in the nib. It'll start up immediately. There's no hard starts, no scribbling. So it's a, it's kind of an airtight seal when you cap the pen. So that's one of the features there. These are, the Psy and the Shoji are part of a line of limited editions that they do around different lakes in Japan. That's what these names are for. And that's why they're clear. They're meant to be like water, you know, like a clear water. Like one is clear, the other one's kind of got a blue tint, things like that. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful pen. I love using mine. I use mine all the time.

Brad Dowdy: I can't rave about it enough. It's really one of the great pens from Platinum. And I enjoy it because it's one of the few 3776s that uses the silver furniture. Almost all of them are gold and they're hard to get otherwise. So this is how I was able to get a Platinum 3776 with silver furniture. So there you have it. And I'm going to get, I'm going to get killed if I get this wrong, Myke. But 3776 is the height and feet of Mount Fuji. That's where 3776 comes from.

Myke Hurley: Oh, how nice.

Brad Dowdy: So if I got that wrong, I will know very quickly. But I'm going to go with that because that's what I think it is. Our pen blog of the week is a blog called Mirror Blather. And you probably haven't heard of this, but one of our readers and listeners, Glenn HK, on Twitter, writes this blog on occasion. And he made a really, really good post about knives that is 100% related to pens. And I'm not going to read this whole article, but it's titled The Escalation of Pointy Stabby Things. And you can imagine it's about the way that we purchase items and we have the mindset of how much we're going to spend and why things are worth a certain amount. And then how we break through those levels of pricing as we get further and deeper into our addictions, whether it's knives in the case of this article or pens. I mean, it relates directly. It's a really good article. I won't spoil it all. And it's not very long. Take you a couple, three minutes to read. But it's spot on. And just, you know, replace every knife word for a pen word. And you'll all be nodding your heads. Yes, yes, you're exactly right. So very good. Very good job, Dwayne, on doing this post. And I appreciate you sending that to me. So that was very good. Worth a read. I had a project this weekend, Myke, and it did not start off well. So I've had, ever since the Karis Custom ink, this turned into a Karis Custom episode. How did that happen?

Myke Hurley: Magic.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, they're just good. They're good peeps. But ever since the ink came out, people want to know what other nibs you can swap in. You can hear me. If you hear my noise, that's me fiddling with my ink. Um, so, people have been wanting to know what other nibs they can swap out with the Schmidt nib that shipped with the ink. And, um, you know, the Schmidt nib's perfectly fine. But it was limited to either a fine or a medium nib from Karis Customs.

Brad Dowdy: And, but it's a pretty standard nib unit and nib that's used. It's standard number five nib, German number five nib. And people want to know what other nibs can I fit in there easily. So there's two parts to this nib that I want to talk about. One is the entire nib section. If you take your ink and just start twisting the nib, you get this whole nib unit that pulls out. It's this big black, it's a black plastic section with threading on the end. And that's what actually screws into the barrel. Now, there's no other manufacturer's nib unit that threads into the ink other than the Schmidt. So, it looks like, you know, the Kaweco nib unit or the Edison nib unit or the Franklin Kristoff nib unit. They all look the same. There's all something a little bit different to where they just don't thread in directly. But, with all of these nib units, you can pull the nib and feed straight out of those nib units. Okay? So it's actually in two parts. Well, three. The nib, the feed, and then that collar that goes around it. The cylindrical part. So what you have to do is I took the nib unit out and pulled the nib and the feed out from the collar. Except when I went to go do it, I couldn't get it out. It was like stuck. It took me a lot of frustration, about as much frustration I had with getting Skype started today, to get this nib out. I was like whining on Instagram. And, you know, my business partner, Jeff, he said, well, just, you know, heat up the nib unit. And Ed Jelly chimed in, just, yeah, heat up the nib unit. So, you know, I ran it under some hot, hot water. And I pulled and yanked and twisted. And I swear my thumb is just now recovering from all the effort that it took to get this nib and feed out of this collar. But it was worth it in the end. It's normally, any other pen that I've done this before, like Kaweco, it's not that difficult. And most other people that did this with their inks didn't have the difficulty that I have. It just takes a little work and finessing to get this out sometimes.

Brad Dowdy: So I finally got the dang thing out.

Brad Dowdy: And I had a whole, I took some pictures of the process as I was going through it on Instagram. I was all ready. I was all excited. I had my ink out. I had the nib unit out. And I had all these other nibs laying on the desk that I was going to try and swap in. And then it was probably a half an hour before I got to put in the first nib because I was so ticked off trying to get this nib out. So I finally got it out. And I pulled out the nibs on Kaweco nib units, Edison nib units, and Franklin Kristoff nib units, like I said before. All of the number five nibs, size number five nibs, which is the smaller size, like you would see in a Kaweco. And I slotted each of them into the collar.

Brad Dowdy: And they all worked. So this should be really, really easy for anyone to do. I mean, even if the ink is your first fountain pen. I had difficulties getting the nib removed. But it really shouldn't be that tough. Mine, for some reason, was stuck more than normal. Dan probably superglued mine just to give me a hard time in my pen. And so I want to talk about the final product, Myke, and give some other tips because we had another listener and reader of the blog go into much, much more detail than I went into. But let's talk about our friends at Squarespace real quick, and then we'll get into that last little bit.

Myke Hurley: Our final sponsor for this week's episode of The Pen Addict is our friends at Squarespace, the all-in-one platform that makes it fast and easy to create your own professional website, portfolio, and online store. For a free trial and 10% off, visit squarespace.com and enter the offer code INK at checkout. Squarespace. Start here. Go anywhere. When it comes to giving yourself a place online, there's nowhere better than Squarespace. They put all the power you need into your hands and take away the pain points like having to worry about hosting, scaling, or what to do if you get stuck with something. Squarespace's fantastic, clean, simple, and beautiful designs really allow you to craft a home for yourself online, and it's been totally redesigned and refined with Squarespace 7. Squarespace have applied to everything they've learned from powering millions of sites on the web to make an even better platform. They've made everything about Squarespace even more awesome than before. Squarespace 7 features even more stunning template designs, 15 new ones in total, that all feature responsive web design built right in. They've even partnered with some cool musicians, artists, architects, and chefs to develop brand new templates that cater to each profession. Squarespace now also features and embraces something called the cover page. This allows you to create really great looking single page websites with all of the power of a full Squarespace site. These are really cool for personal websites as a four page intro, or for standalone websites for an important announcement, and so much more. They've partnered with Getty Images to provide you with a great deal on awesome photography at just $10 an image, and have awesome Google Apps integration too, which helps you get email and collaboration tools on your custom domain. All of this awesome new stuff is still built on top of the core fantasticness of Squarespace. Like 24-7 support through live chat and email, they have teams located in New York, Dublin, and Ireland who are there to help you. Or like Squarespace's commerce platform, which allows anyone to add a store to their Squarespace site. That rock solid, fast hosting that I mentioned earlier, and so much more. And if you want to be able to stretch Squarespace that little bit further, the dev platform is now out of beta and is available to absolutely everyone. And they've added even more functionality to the platform, allowing you to take your Squarespace site further than you ever dreamt of before. If you sign up for a year with Squarespace, you'll also get yourself a free custom domain name, allowing you to choose exactly what you want your site to be called when Squarespace plans start at just $8 a month. Sign up for a free trial right now with no credit card required and start booting your website today by going to squarespace.com. When you decide to sign up for Squarespace, make sure that you use the offer code INK, I-N-K, to get 10% off your first purchase and show your support for The Pen Addict. Thank you so much to Squarespace for their support of this show and all of RelayFM. Squarespace, start here, go anywhere.

Brad Dowdy: So Squarespace causes one of those problems like Hover does, where sometimes like I just buy domain names with Squarespace. Sometimes I just go create new templates for like new websites that I have some random idea to see if you have, they'll give you a 14-day trial on any new website you want to build. You can just build it under your own account, right? So I just go in and test things out and, you know, none of it ever goes live. But, you know, I get the bug sometimes and just go in and start playing around. Now, what if I made a website about this? And then they just all die, but they make it easy to go in there and test out all these other things. So I have fun playing around with it. And so maybe one of these days one of the other ones will stick. So who knows? We'll see.

Myke Hurley: The Squarespace Addict with Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So you have stuck with the Schmidt nib on yours, Myke?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I really like it.

Brad Dowdy: On your inks? Yeah. Yeah, no, I really like it too. I just wanted to see what other options were, and I had so many questions about it. And I ended up going with one of the Franklin Kristoff nibs that I had from the Model 40s that I bought some extra nibs on. So I ended up going with the Masuyama Needlepoint Extra Fine. And I finally, Myke, used the Fuyu Soyugun, the orange ink. That's your favorite ink?

Myke Hurley: Fuyugaki.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, Fuyugaki. Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I always get those names mixed up. So it's the orange. It's a very bright orange. It goes with my orange-barreled ink. And in the extra, extra fine nib, it is really, really fantastic. So you don't just have to take my word for swapping out the stuff on the ink and listen to me talk about it. You can actually go to our friend Jeremiah, who blogs at Ionsomnia and is on Twitter at Ionsomnia. He did basically the sketchnotes version of what I just talked about. And he posted it yesterday. I was like, this is perfect because I've been fighting this all day and I want to talk about it on the podcast tomorrow. So I'll be sure to mention this and put this in the show notes. So if you are a visual person, Jeremiah has you covered. He illustrates the entire process of swapping out the nibs. I like the final step. The last step is excellent. So you'll have to check this out. But he has a good tip. The frustration that I was having getting the nib removed. He actually left the nib in the pen, left the nib unit in the pen and pulled it out from there. So he had more leverage in his right hand holding the full pen barrel and then wrapped like a rubber band around the nib for a little extra grip. And he, that's a much better way to do it than I did it. So it should be a lot easier for anyone trying to do that using his tip. And I will use that the next time when I need to swap this out, if I want to change it to anything else.

Brad Dowdy: And then he goes even further. And having borrowed some of his pens and nibs before, he is a big fidgeter. He will not hesitate to like cut a man and if he needs to. And he talks about, you know, trimming down nibs with Dremels and making sure, you know, if they're too long, you know, you can mark them and cut them down and things like that. I didn't have to go through those steps with any of the nibs. They all fit size wise going through there. But yeah, Ionsomnia will cut a man if he needs to. So, and you got to go, you have to go check out his post just so you can get to step 11, which is enjoy and has a wonderful image of what I'm going to call Duke Nukem on a bender in his, in his post. So yeah, he swapped out. He put in a TWSBI nib in his. I don't know if he had to trim it up a little bit to get it in there. But it looks beautiful. The sketchnotes version of this is perfect. And thank you, Ionsomnia, for doing that. So we'll have that for everyone, everyone to see. So it's been quite a week, Myke. We had lots to talk about. And I think, I think I've got it covered. But as always, if I didn't get it covered or got it wrong, especially when I'm talking about 3,776 feet, you know, everyone should let me know. And how can they get in touch with us, Myke, to let me know how wrong I am about so many things?

Myke Hurley: Twitter's a great place. If you want to find us on Twitter, I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. And Brad is at dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. You can get the show notes for today's episode at relay.fm slash penaddict slash 128. That's where you're also going to find a link to go to our contact page. And you can send us a little email if you would like to. Brad blogs over at penaddict.com. And that's where you're going to want to go if you'd like to find the competition, is the word I'm looking for, to win the one-of-one edition of Fiend Notes.

Brad Dowdy: You guys, whoever wins this is going to be extremely lucky. This is legitimately awesome.

Myke Hurley: And don't forget, if you'd like to fill out our survey to help us with understanding a little bit more about you so we can continue to match the show with the great advertisers like we've had this week, go to podsurvey.com slash pen-addict. Take the survey and you could win. You could be in the chance of winning a $100 Amazon gift card. I want to talk about great sponsors. Thank you so much again to our sponsors this week. Karis Customs, Pen Chalet, and Squarespace. We could not do this show without you guys. Thank you so much for helping us out. We'll be back next week with another episode of the Pen Addict Podcast. Have I forgotten anything, Brad?

Brad Dowdy: Nope, we're straight. Well then say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.