The Pen Addict 16/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	16
Title:	Kickstart My Heart
Release Date:	May 31st, 2012
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 16
Audio File:	Audio Episode 16
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 16
Length:	4545 min <br />0.75 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: Hello and welcome to episode 16 of The Pen Addict podcast, your weekly show where we discuss pens, paper, and the analogue tools that we love so dearly and just can never get enough of. I am Myke Hurley of the 70 Decibels Network and I am joined as always by your host, the pen addict himself, the man not ashamed of his addiction, that is Mr. Brad Dowdy. Hello sir, how are you?

Brad Dowdy: I'm not ashamed at all. Not ashamed at all.

Myke Hurley: It's something that we don't need an intervention for.

Brad Dowdy: Not yet, anyway. You know when you finally cross over to where you're fine with your addiction when you're at work and you work in a very, you know, not stodgy, but a very, you know, standard cubicle farm and you can break out the fountain pen and someone can come by and ask you about it and you can actually have a conversation without like, you know, blowing them off or hiding it. You know, you own that addiction and I'm owning it, Myke.

Vanishing Point Pen

Myke Hurley: I've been showing off my vanishing point all week to colleagues. People have been pointing it out. Obviously, I say this episode is sponsored by Squarespace and we're going to talk about them a little bit in the show. So I think maybe probably this time we should talk about what we're using. I haven't got anything new this week. I am going to be placing an order quite soon for the Retro 51s I've been talking about. Found a great place that's got them in stock online. I'm not going to tell you where that is. I will tell you once I bought them. Oh, but they have the new models and stuff. They have the new models, yeah, because JetPens aren't going to be getting them for a while.

Brad Dowdy: Nice. Okay, cool. Very nice.

Myke Hurley: That's a problem, right? It's not about teasing. I just don't want anyone else to buy them.

Brad Dowdy: I know. I do the same thing. Don't worry.

Brad Dowdy: I have done that before. I was like, let me do this, get it squared away, and then I'll tell you everything you need to know.

Myke Hurley: I would say this is like the Retro 51 have a lot of American distributors. So go to their site, but this is just a place that ships internationally, and there aren't a lot of them. Yep, cool. Because even the UK distributor has not got them in for a while yet.

Brad Dowdy: Now, I'm not using many things new this week, but I did send you a link this morning that I saw pop in the new feed at JetPens. It's a pen we mentioned just in passing, I don't know, one of the early episodes in that Lamy Dialogue 3, that retractable fountain pen.

Myke Hurley: That looks like a twist, right?

Brad Dowdy: Yep, it is a twist. Now. So it's still a retractable nib, but it's a twist body barrel.

Myke Hurley: Now, you know what that's going to done? What? That's the pen that's replaced the vanishing point on the list for me.

Brad Dowdy: Wow. Now that you have the vanishing point, there has to be a next on the list, right?

Myke Hurley: There has to be the next dream pen, and that's it. Now, this one is like twice the price. It's like $300.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I think that's out of my range. I think that's out of my comfort zone.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, something really big would have to happen for me, too. But, you know, I did initially think that about the vanishing point.

Brad Dowdy: I agree. I agree.

Myke Hurley: So you never know what the future may hold.

Brad Dowdy: It took me about a year to talk myself into the vanishing point, so maybe in another year I'll have a... I do like the... I linked you the black one, but they have a silver barrel one that I thought that looked pretty sharp. I actually held one and messed around with a little bit when I was at the Atlanta pen show when I actually bought my vanishing point. The same guy had a few dialogues. Actually, I like the feel of the vanishing point better. It talked to me more. Plus, it was about half the price, like you say.

Myke Hurley: That probably spoke volumes. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. But otherwise, I haven't really used too many new things this week other than I mentioned some fountain pen inks that I had purchased, I don't know, within the last few weeks. I finally got to inking up a few days ago. The Rohr and Klingner Koningsblau, and that's totally butchered. I'm fully aware. And our friend Lucas has sent me the correct pronunciation, but that one's really, really hard to nail down. And the Diamine Wild Strawberry. I wanted a bright red, and I'm always looking for nice dark blues inks. Outside of black, I like a dark blue. Not necessarily a blue-black, but just kind of a deep, rich blue. And this Koningsblau, it might be one of the favorites. I've got to use it some more. I've just loaded up a prayer with it, played around with it for a little bit, and the color is really, really nice. So I'm going to work some more on that and get a review up on that. I'll do a review on both of them. I still haven't figured out how I'm going to do these ink reviews. It's not coming naturally to me. I haven't figured out what I want to do yet with that. I don't want to force it, but... Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I guess you've got to...

Brad Dowdy: We'll see.

Ink Consistency

Myke Hurley: You've got to pick a pen, right? Which is going to give a consistency across all the ink reviews that you do. Right. Because that's to make for fair testing, right? So you've got to... You can't just use different pens because that's going to give you a different experience. So you've got to pick something that you just use for that.

Brad Dowdy: That's exactly right. And I haven't made that decision yet, so...

Myke Hurley: I've just gone on JetPens' site quickly. Kaweco Classic Sport Mechanical Pencil.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm. Cool. It looks very attractive. Nice little thing.

Brad Dowdy: They make the AL, the aluminum barrel, in a ballpoint and a mechanical pencil. And those have kind of been speaking to me over the months. Nice. Because I'm such a fan of the AL Sport Fountain Pen. And they have an AL Sport ballpoint and mechanical pencil. As well as a classic sport like you're seeing.

Myke Hurley: Obviously, that'll be in the show notes. The only thing about that is I just... I know that I would never enjoy a mechanical pencil other than a Kurutoga.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Because it's the mechanism, isn't it?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I mean, it makes a big difference when you're writing the Kurutoga. But, you know, I do like the nice design of the Rotring 600. That's the one I've been using. I like the heavy metal brass body pencils with the knurled grip areas. I like those drafting style pencils a lot. Just the design of that, I really enjoy. So I use the... I'm not using the Kurutoga. I use the 600.

Myke Hurley: So, yeah. I totally derailed that discussion. So, yeah. For the ink reviews, I guess you need to make sure you've got some sort of control environment.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. And I haven't decided on that yet.

Myke Hurley: It's difficult. Because, well, you've got to make sure that it's shot right.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. And I'm a horrible photographer. I... I... That is one thing I do not enjoy is the photography piece of it. Because I just... I don't grasp it. And I have no interest in spending a lot of time in it. It's kind of a time... You know, I have enough time sync getting... Just getting the pens reviewed and everything. I don't need a second time sync in building out a photography studio. And so I haven't... You know, to my detriment, I haven't taken the time to learn everything I can about my camera. And shooting right. So, yeah. I agree with you wholeheartedly. And that's... Ever since day one, that's always been on my list. And it's still on my list. I've just never... It's never been my thing. You know, I...

Fountain Pens

Myke Hurley: Maybe partly, though, Brad, because you weren't... You weren't too high on fountain pens previously. Mm-hmm. So maybe the fact that you're now more of a fountain pen nerd, that it will actually help you in doing the ink. Like, you might have more of a... Like, even though it's not too much, it might still be more of a... Of, like, a want to do it than you did previously.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I think that's a fair point. And we'll probably see that being the case. Because what's happening right now is it's driving me crazy that I have these inks sitting there that I'm not using. And it's just because I haven't figured out how I want to do that yet. So I at least made the step of filling them up so I can start, you know, playing around with the inks and the colors. You know, that... I can end up with a whole shelf full of inks. And I don't... What I don't want to end up with is a shelf full of, you know, just one-shot test inks. So I got to figure something out.

Myke Hurley: I mean, I've got enough noodlers here to potentially laugh me a lifetime. I know.

Brad Dowdy: That's not going to stop you from buying more, is it?

Myke Hurley: No, and that's one bottle. I mean, I do like filling in some pens, but the whole filling of the ink thing is difficult for me. I actually think I do prefer the cartridge method, to be honest.

Brad Dowdy: That's the other thing. I'm... With the vanishing point, the cartridge has been working out. I just need to get some drained so I can swap out some of these inks, and that's what I'm going to do a bunch of. But, you know, I use that for my work pen, so I don't know if I'm going to, you know, how often I'm going to be wanting to clean that out to do a test.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I'll tell you what, I've already gone through one in the Meeky cartridge there.

Brad Dowdy: Nice.

Myke Hurley: Like, I've gone through one, like, in a week and a bit.

Brad Dowdy: Cool. Yeah, I think it's just... I haven't gone through one yet, and it's been, you know, a week and a half, two weeks. But, you know, I'm not a hardcore writer at work. Yeah, see, I am, and I guess that's telling, right? But I'm using it exclusively. I'm having trouble using other pens now. I actually got an email about that today. How's the vanishing point going? Are you kicking these gel pens to the side? I'm not kicking them to the curb. But I reach for the vanishing point nine times out of ten these days.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, my problem, like I think I mentioned it last week, it's vanishing point at work and Retro 51 at home. And I'm not using anything else. Because it's like, I don't want to. Right. I have these two pens that I really, really enjoy using. Yep. And I'm sure it will change, but as time goes on. But for the time being, I've got a whole pen cup, like, overflowing with unused, probably dried up fountain pens now, you know?

Brad Dowdy: I know, I worry about that too. So I'm using my Kaweco Lilyput to make notes as we talk today. But I'm a big Kaweco fan.

Squarespace

Myke Hurley: So we do have a real topic this week. But before that, we'll talk a little bit about Squarespace. And then we're going to talk about Kickstarter projects today. Which is something we've been wanting to discuss since episode one. 16 weeks ago, 16, 17 weeks ago, which is a long time. So this episode is brought to you by Squarespace, who provides you with everything you need to create an amazing, beautiful, and totally awesome website. We're going to talk a little bit this week to you, I think, Brad. Because finally, the pen addict has successfully moved over to Squarespace. And it's there to stay. Yes. You know, as we spoke about last week. Something we don't talk about too much, actually, is Squarespace's support. They have 24-7 fanatical support who are ready to help you with your issues. And you can raise support tickets and, of course, one of you by email. It's really cool. I've had good interactions with them. They fixed an entire part of the service for Brad.

Brad Dowdy: So, you know. Yeah, they pushed out a bug fix for me to fix one of the problems I was having. So that's pretty dedicated support. Not just, well, yeah, we're working on it. We're going to – that's just kind of how it is right now. They're like, oh, we see the problem. We can duplicate the problem. Give us some time to work on patching it. Then I got an email saying, hey, we just pushed the fix out. We tested out your import. We're seeing everything working right. So why don't you test it now and tell us how it's going. So that was a good experience. It took some time. But anything, you know, platform-wide, you know, they're pushing out a fix not for one person. It's going to affect other people. So I'm sure they have testing and other standards in place to be able to push a patch out. So that was much appreciated, their dedication to get that done for me. And it was very cool.

Myke Hurley: And what's your experience been so far of using Squarespace?

Brad Dowdy: It's been really good. I've just gone with a real basic template just to get started. I want to get everything over there, settled in, and, you know, kind of figure out how I want to design the site. And, you know, I'm not very far along in that now. But a couple things I've noticed so far.

Brad Dowdy: One, with the templates and the widgets that they call them right now, I guess they're changing the name of that in a future version. It's really simple to just manipulate the site how I want. If I want to make a change, it's, I mean, I actually can go live on, you know, looking at my, like if you went to penaddict.com right now, for me being like the, being the administrator, I'll just see that same page as you see. But then I'll have a little, some little extra buttons where I can move around things, add things, edit things right there live on that page. I can see how they're, how the design would implement right there. And then I can push that if I want. But the second thing I've seen or that I've noticed is how responsive and snappy not only my site is, but all the back-end tools are. You know, penaddict.com, it's probably because I've got it less junked up as I did on my old site, but it loads faster. It looks great on iOS devices and all the back-end tools from the commenting management, the, man, the reporting, the reporting stuff is really nice. I don't even have Google Analytics installed. I mean, the Squarespace, the Squarespace analytics is very thorough and it's really, really good. I didn't even bother with analytics, which I've done on any other site that I've put out there before. And just all the back-end pages, I mean, it's fast. Everything about Squarespace is fast and responsive and snappy. I've been real pleased with that. And the final thing, and I alluded to it a second ago, is the iOS applications are killer. I made a typo in the giveaway post earlier this week. And I wasn't, you know, I was reading the emails and I caught a couple of them saying, you know, I was going to give it, you know, I was going to announce the winner on March 31st instead of May 31st. Well, for some reason, I've done that all May long. I've been writing down March and doing weird things like that. That's not the first time that's happened to me.

Myke Hurley: That's what that time change will do to you, man.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, definitely. Luckily, March is almost over. But, you know, after the second person said something, I was like, oh, I need to go in there and change that. Well, I just grabbed my iPad, clicked on my Squarespace icon, went and edited the post, deleted March, typed in May, and hit send a website. And I was done. I mean, I didn't have to get my computer out or anything to edit the post. So that was one of the things I was most anxious about using. And it's come in really, really handy. So I'm very, very happy so far. And the thing is, I mean, I'm only in the beginning of my site. You know, that's, this isn't what, I don't think this is what the site's, I like the site, how it's designed right now. But it's real plain. I'm going to add some things. So I have the flexibility to do that. And it's really good. I've been real happy so far.

Myke Hurley: Cool. That's a ringing endorsement. I don't think I can say much more than that. Other than, if you want to go and start a two-week free trial, which we can offer you, so you can play around to this and get your own feel for how Squarespace works, then go to squarespace.com forward slash 70 decibels. Don't need any credit card to sign up. And if you do sign up, make sure you use the offer code 70decibels5 at 70-DEC-I-B-E-L-S-5 at checkout. You'll get 10% off your first order. And this will also let Squarespace know that we sent you. So there we go. Just before we do knock into our topic, I've just had a quick look on, for some reason, just in the JetPens, FountainPens category. And the vanishing point is the 10th in their most popular list. Now, I can't help but think that's something to do with us.

Brad Dowdy: I say without a doubt. I mean, I can't say for a fact, but I actually watch those rankings sometimes. And, yeah, I totally, you know, I think they got the pin addict push. Unfortunately, they've been sold out for a while. But those are some pilot, just to give you a little insight without giving away too much, some pilot products are hard to restock like the high-tech C's. You know, JetPens sell out all those a lot. And they're hard to replenish in a timely fashion. They always get them. Sometimes it might be a few weeks. I think on the vanishing points, the turnaround time is a little bit quicker. So hopefully they'll get some more in soon.

Myke Hurley: They've got broad and mediums. Just no find. Okay, good. No finds. I mean, it's just funny. It's sitting there like around a bunch of, let's see, you've got like $26 pens, $23 pens. It's just below the AL Sport at $76. But it's just funny to see it sitting in that list.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. And that's a good thing for people not to, you know, totally pimp out on JetPens, which we obviously both love and I used to work for. But when I'm looking for something new, if I need some inspiration, if you click on the main categories, like Myke's talking about, just clicking on the fountain pen tab, they're sorted by popularity. Yeah, which is awesome. And it's a rolling window. I forget the range. It's not like an all-time popularity. It's a rolling window. I forget the range. It's probably a few months, something like that. So it's a short-term kind of a snapshot of what the most popular pens are right now. So that kind of gives you a starting point if you're shopping for any type of pen, pencil, bag. Every page has the popularity sort, and that's what that is. And that's what Myke's talking about there.

Myke Hurley: Let's just come across quite a nice-looking pen, the Pelican M205 Piston-Filled Fountain. Yeah, those are $109.

Brad Dowdy: Those are sharp-looking.

Brad Dowdy: They look very good, though. We need to stop looking because you'll be on there all day.

Myke Hurley: I do. So let's talk about what we're actually here to talk about today.

Kickstarter Pens

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I wanted to talk about Kickstarter pens in relation to the Pilot High Tech C. Mostly that seems to be the impetus for all of these designs that we've seen out on Kickstarter. I think starting almost a year ago, I think it was June or July, the pen type A landed on Kickstarter. And right after it launched, I got an email from one of the guys designing. It's a guy and a girl design team called CW&T. It's Sae Wei and Taylor from CW&T. And I got an email saying, hey, we started this project on Kickstarter. We're using the High Tech C. And of course, my interest is totally peaked at that time. And this is before this past year where there's been lots of other projects with the High Tech C.

Myke Hurley: It's not even just Kickstarter pens. It's just the High Tech C. That seems to be the majority, a massive majority of Kickstarter pen projects are built around the High Tech C.

Brad Dowdy: Far and away. Far and away. Yeah. And I started talking back and forth with him. And I really liked his design. I think I was backer number 16 on this project. I'd have to look. I will. It was something like that. Actually, I wrote a post about it when I ordered it.

Brad Dowdy: I think I put down my number, not knowing at the time what was going to happen. And Sae Wei, at the time, had no idea. We're talking back and forth about, hey, what can we do on refills? Do you think we can get like 300 refills for us when we make these pens? We're going to need all these High Tech C refills, yada, yada, yada. And I started talking about it.

Brad Dowdy: I can't explain what happened with the pen type A. But it absolutely blew the doors off of anyone's expectations. I mean, their goal was $2,500. And they ended up, the project closed at $281,989.

Myke Hurley: And I think it was the success of this that obviously made the whole thing blow up. Because it made such a ridiculous amount of money.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I forget. Kickstarter has ratings of like the most oversubscribed projects of all time. And at a point, this was like in the top 10. I know there's been lots of changes since this project launched.

Myke Hurley: There's been a bunch of million dollar projects.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So there's been a bunch. That ranking has changed. But at the time, when it funded, it was in the top. It might have maybe been in the top five. I'm not surprised. It's the highest percentage oversubscribed or over the funding goal.

Myke Hurley: I can't find your number anyway. Okay.

Brad Dowdy: I'll find it. No big deal. But anyway, it was really early. I think it was in the teens. And I'm emailing him. I was like, do you think $300 is going to do? Do you think $300 refills are going to cut it? And then within a week, they're like at 1,000. I was like, we might have a problem here before too long if this keeps going nuts. And yeah, it ended up being over 4,000 pins. And it's actually, if you're listening to the show, and you're obviously a pin fan if you're listening to the show. But even if you're not a pin fan or know someone that's not a pin fan that's into manufacturing and design, you need to go read the updates on the pin type A project. Because not only this became a successful Kickstarter project, but it became a manufacturing nightmare for CW&T. And to their credit, they have been open and honest every step of the way, what their successes are, what their failures are. And they've had some big failures with manufacturing and what their challenges have been. If you're even remotely interested in this kind of stuff on the – well, we'll link it in the show notes to the Kickstarter page. But there's an updates tab. Start at update number one, and you'll see. And then really once the project closes and they move into the manufacturing phase, there's some epic posts on there. That will take you like an hour to read each post. The –

Myke Hurley: Videos and stuff.

Brad Dowdy: The stuff that they went through to get these manufactured is crazy. And they still haven't shipped every pin yet. Wow. I would sense – and they did it by order, by backing order. So I got one out of the first batch. I've had mine for months now. And there's people that still don't have their pin.

Myke Hurley: The last update was on May 21st.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. They've been good about keeping everyone up to date on everything. So it's – I know it's been a huge challenge for them.

Myke Hurley: More than anything, they would have just had trouble getting the amount of refills required. Yeah. I mean that's certainly part of it. Because it's too many to buy from an individual store and probably not enough to buy straight from Pilot.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I mean it probably is enough to buy straight from Pilot. Okay. But I mean it's – It's still a lot for them to make though. Yeah. And the thing is they're not – at the time, they weren't available in the U.S. They weren't doing the GTEC-C in Pilot USA very – I don't even think that had been launched over here in the U.S. So – and I don't even know that they were doing refills. You know, they were doing – putting GTEC-Cs on the store at – on the shelf at Staples. You know, but I don't know that you could go to Pilot USA and say, hey, I need 2,000 GTEC-C refills.

Brad Dowdy: So they were having to import those as well. So they had some challenges. Most of it in the manufacturing. And they were – and since it's a design team, so they were really concerned about the quality of the pin and the pin case that it comes in. I've done this for you before, right? Listen.

Myke Hurley: Oh.

Brad Dowdy: That's – the fault tolerance of the pin barrel and the sleeve that it goes in is ridiculously tight. And, you know, that's one of the things that they – one of the challenges that they worked on. And, you know, just to their credit, they're perfectionists and they would ship stuff back if it wasn't good enough. And, you know, we had to – as backers, we had to wait longer for the final product. And some people are still waiting. But, you know, to their credit, if it wasn't good enough, they sent it back and said, do it over again. So you're getting a pin that's going to last you a lifetime, hopefully.

Brad Dowdy: So – but like you alluded to, that's really the pin that kicked it all off. I mean it was so above and beyond anyone's wildest expectations. I know talking to Saewe and Taylor, I mean there's – I knew that knocked their socks off. And, you know, they've had a lot of challenges and they'll be the first to tell you. But it's definitely what got the ball rolling.

Brad Dowdy: So, I mean right after that, there were a couple more that came out, you know, pretty quickly. The names on all these are – a lot of them are real similar. I guess it's hard to come up with a super original name for a pin. The PHX-1 was one of the first ones to come up after the pin type A. And I ordered one of those as well. And I've talked to the guys that designed it. They're real nice. I think they're based in – they're actually a couple of American guys based in China. And they made – they kind of took what the pin type A did and expanded on it to really make it a designer's tool. Like the pin type A folks, they made the pin with the idea of designers in mind that they would use it in their shops. You know, it's got the ruler. It's got the straight edge. It's got the beautiful case and everything. And the PHX-1 took that a little further in making, I don't know, a full-on designer's kit type of pin. You know, it fits the Hitec C and the Uniball Sino DX refill will fit in. And it comes on – the back end of the pin has like an exact – a spot for an X-Acto knife blade. And the case it comes in has a design ruler, you know, with all kinds of different measurements of things. I don't know what they mean. And, I mean, it's even got a font size, you know, on this ruler. It's really – it's really well done. The whole package is great. I haven't used the pin that much because it's more – like I said, it's more of a design tool than a writing pen. Because the barrel is really long to fit. You can have the pin and the X-Acto knife in place at the same time. So it's a really kind of a cumbersome if you're going to sit there and write a novel with it, right? But if you're in a design shop where you're putting it up and down, up and down, you know, making marks and rulings and cutting and things, I can see it working out really well. So one of the differences in the PHX1 – and I'm talking about these and don't think that you can't get these pins anymore. Everyone who's making these Kickstarter pins, they're making them so they can continue selling them after Kickstarter. So if you like some of these, go to their Kickstarter page. We'll link them all in the show notes. And you can still purchase these pins directly from the designers. So I don't want you to think that, you know, I'm talking about all these pins you can't get anymore.

Myke Hurley: They all put links. Where there's a direct link to a place to buy the pen, I'll put that in as well. But like the PHX1, you have to find it on their website. They don't have a direct link. It's very peculiar. So I've put the Kickstarter page in there and you can find the link to there. Gotcha.

PHX1 Design

Brad Dowdy: And the thing, the difference – the pen type A just took the Hi-Tech C refill, any tip size. PHX1, what it did was it made a barrel that accepted – if you have your regular plastic barrel, Hi-Tech C, and you screw off the metal tip section that the refill sits in, that piece screws into the PHX1 barrel. And the same with the Sino DX. What I didn't like about that pen was, one, the size of it was really large for just general writing. And, two, the Sino DX, when you take the metal tip from your DX pen that you're going to put into the PHX1 barrel, it didn't thread fully. You know, you'd thread, you know, like three, four twists and there'd be a gap. It'd be tight and it would stop, but there'd be a gap. Whereas if I took the Hi-Tech C metal tip and screwed it on, it would tighten all the way flush. And for someone as anal retentive as me, that drove me crazy.

Myke Hurley: It makes you wonder why I didn't just go with the Hi-Tech C. Like, the Sino is nowhere near as big a Colt pen.

Brad Dowdy: Right, right. But it's honestly in the, if we're talking like in the Colt type pen, it's probably the second most popular.

Myke Hurley: Right.

Brad Dowdy: As far as that type of, you know, if people that are buying the Hi-Tech C, that's another pen that's reasonably close. It's not the same. But, yeah, I would actually like someone to make a dedicated barrel for the DX. I haven't seen that yet, but that's a hint to anyone out there who's wanting to launch a Kickstarter project. The thing is, it's probably not going to sell as many. No, it's not. Everyone loves the Hi-Tech C.

Myke Hurley: It's even become like a Kickstarter Colt pen now as well.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, yeah. Completely. Completely. I mean, they're launching very frequently. But the thing is, I haven't, everyone that's come up so far has been different enough to where I thought that they did a good job with this pen. And, you know, the Render K is one, I've talked to the guys at Keras Customs who make the Render K a bunch. And, you know, just talking about the design and things like that. And I had a prototype of that pen before it was even launched. I really like that one because it's got a threaded cap and a clip. You know, they all have upside and downside. The downside of the Render K is the cap doesn't post. Which, when you're making these stainless and aluminum barrels, that's not the easiest thing to do. It can be done. And I know Render K was looking into it, you know, for other options. But I like the Render K is one of the best feeling in the hand just as far as a standard pen goes. You know, just from a writing perspective, it's the right weight and the right balance and the right feel. And I like that it has a clip because I like to clip things on to my shirt or my pants pocket or something like that. But the Render K is real nice. And that one actually did very well from a Kickstarter perspective. They were way overfunded. And I think they're still pushing out some, still manufacturing some of the pens.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And the...

Myke Hurley: Update 25. The $40 group shipped. And that was seven days ago. Yeah. Yeah. So they're coming out quicker now.

Premier Pen P1

Brad Dowdy: So I hope to have another one of those here. And once they finish the shipping run, I think I'm on the back end of that one.

Brad Dowdy: Another one, maybe the second most successful besides the pen type A was one called P1 by Premier Pen.

Myke Hurley: Yep.

Brad Dowdy: This one I got a sample of early and it really knocked my socks off. It is a minimalist design and I love it.

Myke Hurley: It was almost quite recent, wasn't it? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: It was only a few months ago. Back in the late winter, maybe February-ish. But, you know, what's his name? Steve, I think. Yeah, Steve Black. He did a really good job with the design. It's real simple and real basic. But he added in different colored barrels, different finishes to the barrel. So, you know, everyone's trying to, you know, put their own spin on what a high-tech seed barrel should be, which is good. So they each have their own ideas. I have the black one. He sent me as a prototype to test out. I loved it. And I went in and ordered the – there was a Kickstarter green barrel that I went in and pledged for. So I haven't gotten that one yet. I think he's just kind of starting the manufacturing process.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, you can't buy those ones at the moment from what I can see.

Brad Dowdy: Right. I think he's going to finish up – he's got a – what has he got to do? Over 1,500 of these for Kickstarter. And then I'm pretty sure they're going to be able to purchase. But this is a really neat design. If anyone kind of wants an idea, and I know it's kind of a shot in the dark. But if you have the Kaweco Liliquid fountain pen, just that little – it's not that small, but that same rounded, sleek, you know, no-frills barrel design with a threaded cap.

Brad Dowdy: It's a lot like that, and it feels really good to write with. This has been – this is probably the one I've written with the most out of all the Kickstarter pens. This is the one that I've gotten the most use out of. And I've talked about it probably every episode. What I look for in a pen, one of the key things I have to have is portability. As awesome as the pen type A is, that pen is going to live on my desk. You know, it's not made to be portable. I mean, you could carry it in your backpack and carry it around. But, you know, if you're taking it to class or if you're not using it in a design shop, you know, if you're like me, you know, you're using it at the house and then taking it to the office to work. It's not really made for that because you've got to keep the barrel separate from the sleeve. It's not a pen that's going to slide in your pocket very easily. It's very heavy, the casing. The Render K with the clip and the Premier pen, the P1, really help out on the portability aspect of it. It's probably been one of my favorites. It's definitely been the most used by me, the P1, that is. Now, why I wanted to talk about the Kickstarter stuff today was there were two new pens that I had been talking with both the designers on that are still, I guess, live on Kickstarter. They haven't closed out. They've both met their funding goal, but they're still accepting backers on the project. And that's the TI2 pen and the EIMIM pen. And like I said, names are tough to come by for these pens. I don't know that any of these has a great name, but who knows? They're all fine. You know what you're getting. They're pens that work, so I guess the name doesn't matter. But I've got samples on the way of both of these, so I can't speak to having used either of these yet. But I like what both of these have done. One, the TI2 has taken either the stainless steel or the aluminum that these other Kickstarter projects have used and switched that up and made a titanium barrel.

Myke Hurley: One-upped them, I think is probably the wrong way to look at it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. One-upped them in barrel design.

Brad Dowdy: And it's real good looking. And it looks like on this one the cap's going to post. There's no clip on the pen. But it's got O-rings in the grip section and near the butt of the pen. So the cap should – there should be some kind of like a friction hold to the cap covering the tip and also on the butt of the pen when you write with it. So I'm anxious to see how that works out. But when I get that sample in, I will definitely review it just to see. It looks like a – it's kind of a basic design, but it's got the right stuff.

Myke Hurley: I really like the look of this one.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's got – like the P1 pen, it's a real basic design, but it had enough of the right things. And I'm interested to see how the cap posting works on this pen. And it's got the different colored O-ring options. If you're a fan of the blue Hitec C as opposed to the black, you can use the blue O-rings just to kind of show the – you know what color ink is in the barrel. Then the EIMIM is interesting. I also have a sample of this. And I've been talking to Will a bunch, the creator of this. It's – it's different in the fact that it's – I think the barrel is going to be a lot like the P1. It's just a very sleek, no-frills barrel. And he's doing a lot of – he's doing a different blasts and coatings on the barrel. And I'm not smart enough to be able to talk about that real well. But he's doing like a glass bead blasted, which is what he alludes to. It's kind of like the finish on your iOS products, the steel, the aluminum finish on those products. Then he's doing a black powder coating that looks a little bit more glossy. So I'm anxious to try that. And the neat thing about this is I'm not a desk pen fan, right, that whole portability thing with me. But what he does is the cap of the pen has a magnet in it. So when it's closed off, it's just a pen that you can put in your pocket or in your pen case. And it's real sleek and no clip or anything protruding on it. But if you're at home, you can have the stand on your desk and you just flip over and pop the magnet in the stand. And it holds it at the desk, which I thought was pretty neat. Because I would never use a pen that was solely a – I had like a desk-based pen. I just don't have room for that or any interest in that. But this pen goes both ways. You can just grab it out of the holder and throw it in your pocket and the cap is still on the pen. And then it's just held in by a magnet in the base. So I thought that was pretty neat.

Brad Dowdy: And that's a lot of the – there's more. There's more. I don't want to bore you all to death. The Hitec C has been such a boon to the creativity of the design of these pen projects on Kickstarter. And I'm sure there's more coming. I certainly get emails about them. So hopefully they'll keep innovating and keep coming up with new things. And a lot of them have talked about, well, should I do it for the Pilot G2 or the Sino 207, something that's more mainstream? And they all end up going back to the Hitec C. It just seems to have that – I guess the customer that's going to buy the Hitec C is the customer that's going to be on Kickstarter to begin with, right? The person buying the Paper Mate or even the G2, how many projects have they backed on Kickstarter, right? You may not – you may be getting outside of your buyer zone there, if you will. But one other one, I want to – I call it the non-high-tech C category on Kickstarter. There's been several options for – I don't want to say custom, but more one-off like wood barrel pens and more – I want to say fine writing instruments. That's actually what they call it on their site, but a luxury pen, if you will, a non-Pilot high-tech C, something that you'd see more of an executive feel, more of a gift feel, more of a heirloom feel. Balts, fine writing instruments. They did a Kickstarter project, but these – they use all kinds of different interesting woods to build these pen barrels, and they hand turn them, and they make them all themselves. And they actually sent me a sample of it, and this isn't a pen that I considered buying for me just because I didn't think I would use it very much. And I don't mind spending the money for a pen, but I want to use it if I'm going to do it. And when they sent it to me, I was impressed. It's one of those things I didn't think – I would never buy for myself, but once I used it, I was like, wow, this is a really good pen. So the guys at Balts did a really good job, and they have a nice website up where you can check out all the different woods and things that they use. And I've talked to them several times and real nice guys out of North Carolina.

Brad Dowdy: They make a very, very high-quality product. I was very pleased with what I saw out of the sample that I received from Balts. So Kickstarter is the place to be these days for custom pens. Get your little pen shop set up. Get your lathes and all your materials and go to town. I mean these guys are doing a really good job and putting a lot of time and effort into designing these pens. And I'm happy to support them. I'm happy to share their stories on Pen Addict. And I'm glad to be able to talk to a lot of them and help them out with questions about design questions or just help promote these guys trying to make it on their own with their products. And I'm happy to do it.

Myke Hurley: It's cool. It's very cool.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And I mean it's – like I said, it's only been a year since Pen Type A has been out there. And there's probably been – I don't know how many I've covered here. Probably six. So there's probably been – I bet there's been probably ten projects, if not more, out there just for pens on Kickstarter. And they're coming fast and furious. So hopefully these guys are going to keep one-upping each other and keep coming up with new things to do because I think it's exciting. And I think the vast majority of them are fairly priced for individuals. These are not corporations. These are guys going down to – a lot of these guys are walking down to their own shop and milling this stuff. I mean these are guys making it with their own hands. And I think they'll keep – hopefully keep pushing the designs and pushing the types of pens that they make. And we'll keep seeing more cool stuff on Kickstarter. I don't see it slowing down. That's for sure.

Myke Hurley: There you go. It's cool.

Brad Dowdy: So have you heard me ramble enough?

Myke Hurley: Never enough.

Kickstarter Pens

Brad Dowdy: But I do get several questions about Kickstarter types of pens. You know, that's a real hard one for me to answer. Like which one should I get? Because these are real – most of these are very specific use type pens, right? You know, it's easy to recommend, you know, some generic gel pens or, you know, I'm a student and I need to write these notes and I need to write them fast. But when you're trying to decide, okay, I like the high-tech C. I want to upgrade the barrel. How do I choose? And, you know, you just – you got to read through all the descriptions and watch all the videos. The videos are really good and really telling and, you know, figure out what features are important to you. You know, do you need the cap to post? You know, that's a big deal to some people. I like caps to post. Do you need a clip on the pen? You know, those type of things. Narrow it down and see if you find one you like.

Brad Dowdy: That's what it boils down to.

Myke Hurley: That's cool. Thank you very much for sharing them.

Brad Dowdy: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Myke Hurley: So, Brad, where can people find you online if they want to keep up with your Kickstarter love?

Brad Dowdy: You can see me on my new Squarespace site, penaddict.com. And you can catch me on Twitter at dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. You can email me. My email address is vpenaddict at gmail.com. But even easier now that I'm on Squarespace, I've set up a contact button and people are already using it, which is awesome. So, you go to penaddict.com slash contact. See, kind of like the 70decibels.com slash contact. Yeah. It goes straight to me. And I really like that aspect of Squarespace. We didn't mention that. So, I have a nice little contact button on my page. How about you, Myke? Where can people get in touch with you?

Myke Hurley: You can find me on Twitter. I'm imike, I-M-Y-K-E on Twitter. Awesome.

Brad Dowdy: And don't forget, if you're an iTunes user, please rate and review us. We would love you even more if you do.

Myke Hurley: Indeed.

Brad Dowdy: And we love you a lot already.

Myke Hurley: If it's even possible for us to love you more than we already do, then that will be a way for us to do it. Thank you very much for listening to this episode of the Pen Addict Podcast. Until next time, thank you, Brad. And we'll talk next week.

Brad Dowdy: Thank you, Myke. I will talk to you then. Cheers. Bye. Bye.