The Pen Addict 174/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	174
Title:	Safety Glasses are Critical
Release Date:	September 28th, 2015
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	Chris Manning
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 174
Audio File:	Audio Episode 174
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 174
Length:	4545 min <br />0.75 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 174. The Pen Addict is a weekly show where we discuss pens, paper, and the analogue tools we love so dearly. And this week, it is brought to you by The Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined by the man with the plan, Mr. Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: What's up, Michael Hurley?

Myke Hurley: Nothing much, my man. How are you?

Brad Dowdy: Very good, very good, and I'm excited. We have a wonderful guest who I've been chomping at the bit to get on the podcast for quite a while now, Mr. Chris Manning from Silverhand Studios. How's it going, Chris?

Chris Manning: Great. Thanks for having me on, guys.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, we appreciate you coming on. And Chris and I, we talked online for a while, and we finally met in person at the DC Pen Show. And Chris is a maker of fountain pens, and we're going to introduce everyone who is not familiar with Chris's work. We're going to introduce him to what you do today. How's that sound?

Brad Dowdy: Sounds good to me. Yeah, so we're going to get through a little bit of follow-up here, and then we'll get into everything that Chris does, because I'm super interested to kind of dig into all the things you're doing. But first, Myke, we definitely opened up a good can of worms last week with all this adult coloring stuff. This is a monstrous thing, don't you think? I mean, with all the feedback that I got was just ridiculous, and I'm sure you got plenty too. And you're already well underway in your secret garden, right?

Myke Hurley: That's weird when you put it like that, but yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I figured it would be.

Coloring Book

Myke Hurley: I am. My book arrived. I posted a picture on Instagram of what I'd begun. I've actually done – so I'm going to put this picture in the show notes again, but I was doing more coloring today for about an hour or two whilst I was editing something. And so it's about twice as much as you'll see in the picture that's in the show notes.

Myke Hurley: And it's kind of perfect to do whilst editing podcasts. Yeah. It's perfect, because I can just sit here and just color in. I'm still waiting for Colt pens to tell me when they're going to get this 30-pack in. Their 10 colors is not enough. I need 30 colors. Yeah. At least 20, but I need more than what I've got. The Statler pens that I'm using are pretty good. They do the job quite well. I think a couple of them feel like they might be drying out already, which is kind of weird. I expect that I can just work through that, because I can't imagine that would be the case.

Brad Dowdy: How's the bleed through on the page? Any bleeding or anything? I haven't started coloring in mine yet.

Myke Hurley: Oh, man. The pages are like blocks of wood. You ain't getting nothing through those. That's what I thought. I haven't even bothered looking, but I know that it's not going to be an issue. I don't have my coloring book in front of me right now, though, because it's in another room, because Adina took it before the show. She started on another page, which isn't an issue, because I think it would take about six months for me to color one of these pages in. They are incredibly interesting.

Brad Dowdy: My kids are all over this. My daughter went and got her huge thing of colored pencils and my pencil sharpener and sharpened everything just so she could help out with coloring. So we're ready to get rolling on that.

Myke Hurley: I feel like I want like I want I like this book a lot. It's beautiful, but I feel like I want something that's not nature.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's why I was trying to wait till the ocean one, but I couldn't wait a month. So, yeah. So, Chris, do you take when you're doing your designs for your your pen barrels? They're very intricate and very detailed. Do you ever print them out in black and white and just sit at home and color them?

Chris Manning: Oh, you know that I start on pen and paper before I do anything else. So I've already been sketching those, you know, long before I ever get onto a computer. So I don't color them in. But yeah, I sketch a lot. I don't understand you guys and your your coloring.

Brad Dowdy: We don't we don't either. This just became a thing like last week. I have learned a couple of things, Myke, one about the pens. They're saying I got several comments to make sure we don't use like alcohol based markers, which the ones we're using are not. But any of them that are alcohol based will bleed bleed through a lot more. And number two, don't go to Barnes and Noble and ask where the adult coloring books are. That's not going to end well for anybody.

Myke Hurley: Are they are there books I don't want to see or would want to see depending on my persuasion?

Brad Dowdy: That's true. That's true. But yeah, I did. I did get that tip. I did. That was that was a very excellent tip.

Shenandoah Pens

Brad Dowdy: So that's not the only thing you got in last week. You got your Shenandoah, which is actually pretty quick for you. It's usually like.

Myke Hurley: No, they arrived this morning. OK. Not quick.

Brad Dowdy: OK. OK. I was thinking like, you know, I get mine, then it's usually sometimes like two weeks later that you show up.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it was pretty much that.

Brad Dowdy: So what are your thoughts?

Myke Hurley: So they are very simple, but they're more beautiful than I expected. And I think they're kind of beautiful in their simplicity. They really do remind me of Field Notes, you know, prime, I guess, if you'd call it that. Sure. But I like them a lot. I think the colors are really great. The color combos are really great. They're very autumn. I love the wooden belly band. Nice touch. I think I said I think that's a really nice touch on these. The covers are they are strong.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. They haven't done one like this in a while.

Myke Hurley: No. The paper is really good. It's smooth. It has a little bleed through with broad. But I was using a couple of fountain pens and we're fine and even medium to a point like that. They're totally fine fountain pens. So I have no issue there. I think they're a really nice. They're a really nice set. They're not going to be top of my lists, but they could be, you know, that'd be firmly sit in the middle because I think that they are really just a really solid set. They put some good thought into it, like with the way that the colors are. I like the leaves. I like the badges. I like the little card, the little hello card that popped out in the middle of the thing, which is quite funny. But yeah, I think this is a really nice autumn set.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's a very straightforward set in which I really enjoy.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So yeah, I'm happy with them. I think they're a good purchase. They're probably still available. So I recommend them. I recommend them.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Chris, when you're sketching out your plans for world domination in the fountain pen world, what kind of tools are you using paper-wise, pen-wise? What are you sketching in?

Chris Manning: Mostly a very, very fine-tipped fountain pen.

Chris Manning: Myke Masayama did a needlepoint pen for me a couple of years ago. And I'm using the Miss Your Notebooks lately. Okay, yeah. I've been happy with them. Yeah, I find the field notes are a little bit too small for me. Yeah. For sketching.

Brad Dowdy: For sure, for sure. Now, related to our next little follow-up here, what kind of workspace do you have? Do you spread out? Do you hole up on the couch when you're sketching? I think I've seen some pictures of the workshop. But I'm talking about how Myke and I talked about our ideal workspace. And our friend Sean Blanc had a link we'll have in the show notes for your ideal workspace. And he's talking about how he wants this massive, gigantic table. It's kind of along the lines of what I was looking at. And do you have, like, in your shop, are you just, like, full bore working around machinery? Or do you have, like, a little space set off to the side where the sketching happens? What's the setup like in there?

Chris Manning: I wish I had the space to have a sketching station. Anybody who sees my shop, it is a complete disaster. And my office is not much better. So, I don't, basically, I grab whatever flat surface I can when it comes to sketching.

Brad Dowdy: Nice, nice. All right, so this was an interesting article we got this week sent to me, Myke. I don't know if you had a chance to read it. And I don't know, Chris, if you read it. It's a little bit, you know, I don't, you know, fully get it. But I trust Dave Ray implicitly. And the article is called The Polarizing Truth, Why Your TWSBI Eco Won't Break. So, he basically put it under a, what is this, cross polarizer stress analysis, the TWSBI Eco barrel versus the TWSBI 580 barrel. And I'll let y'all check out the link if you haven't seen it already. But he basically can view the stress points in the two different barrels. And, you know, as you would kind of assume in a rounded barrel as opposed to a faceted barrel, there'd be less stress points. And that kind of bears out in Dave's analysis. It's just kind of cool. We don't normally, I can't imagine like three or four years ago seeing an article like this. Can you, Myke?

Myke Hurley: No, not at all.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I don't completely understand the science.

Myke Hurley: I mean, I don't know if I should, but I don't fully understand it. But this is one of those things like I understand and agree with what Dave has put forward. But my feeling with these types of things always remains, which is like, and as Dave kind of sums it up at the bottom, it's just two pens. Right. Out of however many. Sure. You never really know how it's going to end up being.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, it's, you know, people who have had their TWSBI's continually break, they won't care. And people who haven't, they won't care either. But I just thought the analysis in general was pretty good. You know, I'm a huge TWSBI fan. And you're back and forth, admittedly. And that's good too. I just thought to myself when I'm reading this, it's like when I was getting into pens, you know, we were like trying to find like this micro gel fountain pen from Japan. Micro gel tip pen from Japan. And now we're like doing cross polarization stress of fountain pen barrels. I'm just, I'm really amazed at this community these days and the things everyone comes up with. And I'm so impressed. And I love seeing articles like this. It just kind of takes what we talk about and then just blows it up, you know, a thousand fold. It's really fun to see.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, for sure.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So out of the 23 best pens for your home and office, Myke, how many do you have? Go.

Office Gear

Myke Hurley: I scrolled through this list earlier and it reminded me of, you remember a couple of weeks ago, like this article breaks down homes for office versus gear patrol, right? Gear patrol, yeah. Yep. And they're kind of looking at, you know, the supply closet, the everyday carry, the executive. And it just, I'm jumping ahead a little bit, but it reminded me, you know, a couple of weeks ago I was saying about the perfect executive pens, right? Like there are some pens that like just scream executive, like cross pens is what I was talking about. Right. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Brad Dowdy: I think it was when we were talking about the Star Wars stuff.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I mean, I don't know how many of these I actually own. Probably not a lot of them. And the ones that I do own, they're probably not high up on my list in most instances.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Actually, I don't normally bring up articles like this because they're generally pretty bad. This one's pretty good. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: There's a lot of good stuff on here. Like there is like, you know, Fisher Space Pen, Pilot Metropolitan, like, you know, you've got some good stuff on here. Yeah. But usually these things tend not to have a massive cross section of what we would say at a 23 pounds when I'm in the office.

Brad Dowdy: Right, right. So I'm thinking I should probably do like a, like a, not a counter article because I thought this article was pretty good, but something related, you know, come up with my, you know, 23 or whatever number, something like this. Um, you know, I mean, I have the top five list. It probably needs updating, um, but it's, it's pretty static these days. Um, but I, I was actually impressed with this article with the things that they came up with and, uh, you know, gear patrol, uh, you know, I've known some guys at gear patrol over the years and they actually do, um, give a crap about pens and paper and things like that. So it's nice to see an article that's not filled with, you know, BICs and paper mates and, you know, things like that, that you just go grab at Staples. There was actually some thought and consideration to this. And it was, it was pretty cool to see. I've actually used most of the pens on here. Um, there's a handful I haven't, uh, and probably never will, but I thought it was pretty good. So Chris, when you're, when you're not using a fountain pen, is there ever a time where you're not, I mean, are you, are you ever grabbing some other gel ink pen? Do you ever take a Fisher space pen on the road or, or are you straight all fountain pens all the time?

Chris Manning: What kind of blasphemy is this?

Brad Dowdy: From the guy that I know from the guy that sells fountain pens. I know. I only write with fountain pens. Yeah. You're a professional. We're not maybe a pencil.

Chris Manning: Maybe. Okay. No, no, no. I don't write with sticks.

Brad Dowdy: Wow. Oh, we're going to have that. We're going to have that. Um, we're going to have that podcast battle soon. Hopefully. With our pitchforks. All right. So a couple of last things, and then we're going to get into the nuts and bolts of Silverhand Studios with Chris. Um, but I wanted to point out our good friend Ian at, um, pen, paper, pencil.net is doing this really cool auction. Um, he bought, he backed us, Myke, um, last year or this year, earlier this year for the, uh, Myke travels to the Atlanta pen show. We made the special not co case with the union jack tag and everything, the high tower. And the high tower doesn't fit Ian's normal carry. Um, he carries, you know, other things, uh, differently. So he emailed me a couple of weeks ago. He said, Hey, I'm thinking about doing this. What do you think? And, you know, I only want to do it with your support. And what he wanted to do was, uh, put this case up on eBay for anyone who was unable to get it and then donate the proceeds, um, to charity. In this case, uh, the UK is multiple sclerosis society. And I was like, absolutely, man. I think that's a great thing. And I told him I would promote it here on the, on the podcast. So, you know, the, uh, we'll have the link in the show notes to get to it. Um, you know, the auctions already going on eBay. I think it's got about five days left. We're already up to 46 pounds, which is a great, um, it's great to see, you know, this money's going to go straight to charity. And I appreciate Ian, um, involving me in this and, uh, offering up this case, uh, to do that. So y'all please check it out. And if you're interested, um, the, all the money goes to a great cause. And, and, uh, I appreciate Ian for doing that.

Myke Hurley: Definitely. Please go ahead and bid.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. I've bid and I've been outbid. So now I'm going to have to, uh, I don't, I don't have one in these cases. So, uh, yeah, I, I would, I would pay up to, uh, get a case and have the money go to charity. I'm all about it. So we'll, uh, I'll, I'll, I'll probably jump back in there here pretty soon. And one last thing, um, knock related. Jeff, um, did a post on the not co blog titled, well, that went by quickly. And it's been two years since we lost it, launched our not co Kickstarter. Can you believe that?

Myke Hurley: When I saw this post, like I read it, I must've missed that. Cause I thought, I thought, Oh, it's been a year.

Brad Dowdy: Nope. Yeah. So to Jeff's point, it went by fast, didn't it?

Myke Hurley: Wow.

Podcast Workflow

Brad Dowdy: So I just wanted to point that out. Jeff did a, I didn't even know Jeff was doing it. I woke up and I, and saw a link to this article in my, in my feed reader. And I was like, Oh man, that's so nice. Jeff did a, Jeff's a very thoughtful gentleman that, that way. Uh, I, I know Chris can vouch vouch for that as well. Uh, you know, we were fortunate to be able to spend a lot of time with, uh, with Chris and DC. Uh, especially in the bar area. Um, sorry, our favorite hangout. So, uh, we have that, we popped that link in the show notes. Um, everyone check it out and you know, it's basically, you know, we're just so grateful for everything that's happened so far and thankful for everyone that's, that's supported us. And, uh, it's a big deal and, uh, there's more to come. So, uh, thank you.

Myke Hurley: You two work so differently to me and Steven.

Brad Dowdy: I, if we do, we have a, yeah, we have a good relationship that way. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Like not that there is like mistrust or anything between me and Steven, but like if something's going to go on the blog, I'll see it before he puts it up or vice versa, you know? And it's not one way isn't right. And one way isn't wrong. It's just funny. Like how differently you guys work.

Brad Dowdy: Well, I'll be perfectly honest. If I was up during the day, I would be more involved in that.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. Now the difference is that you two, like at least there is a time where me and Steven are overlapping, but like, it's basically not at all. Right.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right. So, yeah, that's a lot of it. All right. Well, let's talk about, uh, one of our good friends of the podcast and then, uh, we'll get into some, some Silverhand Studios work.

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Brad Dowdy: I have not. Um, and I've been looking at it here and it's interesting cause I've been, a lot of people that aren't into fountain pens still want like a really nice writing instrument to, you know, to show off, you know, have a nice, you know, we talk about the office pen or the business pen. And, you know, I've talked about the, uh, the Mont Blanc, you know, problem where you spend all that money on, you know, just maybe not the best writing experience pen, but this looks like a really cool, um, rollerball. And I'm wondering how these refills are. I've never used a Pelican rollerball. So someone let us know how these refills are because the design of this pen is actually pretty cool. And, um, it's something I might be interested in at least trying out and, uh, like reviewing just so we can kind of all get a better picture of what this type of pen is like and we know what the style is, but, um, I'm certainly interested in, uh, and I've never seen this barrel design before the squares, uh, on it. It's very, very cool. So yeah, I'm going to, uh, read up on this one and, uh, my interest is peaked. That's for sure.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. It's a fantastic deal. It's a really interesting design. I agree, Brad. I really liked the look of this. I've never seen a Pelican that looks like this before. And, uh, you will be able to get a 50% off, which is fantastic. Once you get the great pen addict listener only discount, uh, by going to pencholet.com and using the pen addict code when you hit that top button. And then when you get to checkout, you want to use the pen addict coupon code there as well. And you will make sure you get all of the savings and you'll be getting yourself one of those beautiful Pelicans for 50% off. Thank you so much as always to the pencholet for sponsoring this very show.

Silver Hand Studio

Brad Dowdy: All right. So Chris, let's get into some silver hand studio stuff. I want to know, how did this happen? Like, how did, how did this get started? This isn't like something you just like, you know, you wake up one day and say, I'm going to start making jeweled fountain pen. So give us, give us the backstory of how, how silver hand studio started and, um, what all you're doing.

Chris Manning: Yeah. Silver hand studios was a ways away from when I first started getting into making things, uh, started making jewelry, I guess around 2000. Friend of mine was teaching me how to, how to make jewelry in my spare time. I was an IT geek and I was bored of just working on virtual computers on the other side of the planet. So started making some things like this in my, in my spare time. And, uh, you know, early on, I, I focused on learning a lot of, um, a lot of weird, um, old techniques for jewelry making. And, uh, eventually I realized I could start making the pens that I couldn't afford to buy. And, uh, and so that's how the silver hand studio started. And, uh, 2007, I, I started it as a business.

Brad Dowdy: So were you into pens at all before or? Oh yeah. Did you just kind of, yeah. So you, you were into pens and you took this jewelry making and you kind of applied it to, you know, something that you wanted to use for yourself, right?

Chris Manning: Absolutely. Yeah. I've been making, I've been using a fountain pen since I was a kid. Uh, I, I had bad hand cramps writing in high school with, uh, with sticks. So I ended up, um, getting my mom's fountain pen and, uh, that, you know, that sort of solidified me using them. I, I've never gone back since then. And, uh, yeah, this, this allowed me to start making, uh, start making the ones that I wanted.

Brad Dowdy: So I'm fascinated with like the very beginning, like, so you were, you were making jewelry kind of, you know, learning your way through that, right? You were working with someone and then what, I can't imagine what like the trial and error to get like your first product out there. What, what, what was that process like? It just seems like, it seems daunting to me to be perfectly honest with you looking at your work now. It's so impressive. And I've been able to honestly, the first couple of years.

Chris Manning: Yeah. The first couple of years were miserable and some of those early pens were absolutely hideous. I wouldn't, I wouldn't fob those off on anyone now. Um, they were, they were pretty bad. Um, so yeah, it took, uh, I'd say it probably took about two, two and a half years before I had something that I was happy enough with that I'd, I'd actually sell it to somebody.

Brad Dowdy: Wow. That, that's, that's amazing to me that just putting in that time and effort to, to get through that.

Myke Hurley: Why were you doing it at that point? Like, were you doing it as a hobby or were you doing it to learn to be a business?

Chris Manning: No, it was entirely, it was entirely hobby at that point. And, uh, fortunately I was laid off from my IT job in the middle of 2009. And so I sat down and said, well, somebody's paying me to sit around and do nothing for a while. Let's, uh, let's see if I can do something with a business. And, uh, I haven't looked back since.

Myke Hurley: Wow. That's awesome.

Chris Manning: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: That's really awesome. So let's, let's talk about the process of making one of your pens. Okay. So you make, you make the barrels, you know, I make absolutely everything on the pen, except

Chris Manning: for the nibs, the feeds and the cartridge converter, everything else I make. Gotcha.

Brad Dowdy: Gotcha. Gotcha. So full barrel, full, full outside. So, you know, looking at just like the silver overlay pins, for example, um, walk me through the process, like from the design hat, cause your designs are very intricate. I like, I love that pattern style of work. Is there, is there a name for that? Is that something that you're, you know, constantly looking to, you know, create something new along those lines? Is this kind of a set thing? How, how does, how does your design process work as far as, um, creating one of these pens?

Jewelry Inspiration

Chris Manning: So one of the traditions in jewelry making for the past several thousand years has been taking inspirations from architecture and working them into jewelry. So I, I've continued that there's some great architecture out there and the stuff that we recognize and we love is withstood the test of time. And in, in the case of the overlays, that's all based on Gothic architecture. So if you take a look at all of that, it's, it's actually based on, uh, wooden frames from, um, or wooden, um, uh, panels from a house in Dresden, uh, that was built in the early 15th century and that's all relief work that was originally in that house. And so I've just taken that information and, you know, I've all those designs and I've distilled them down into something that works on a pen that, and that's the most challenging part of that designing is, is taking, taking those elements and, and working them into, uh, into something as small as a pen.

Brad Dowdy: So how does the overlay process work? Right. I mean, I understand manufacturing pen barrel, right. But then how does the, how are you making essentially the, the silver, the metals part of it? I, I don't, I don't grasp this at all. It's all black magic, Brad. It's all black magic.

Myke Hurley: And you can never learn.

Brad Dowdy: I've, I've, I've been around you in person and I don't doubt that. Yeah.

Chris Manning: Well, it's, yeah, it's, some of it is, some of it is close to black magic and sorcery. So that, that's using a technique that again is thousands of years old. It's a lost wax casting technique. So I start out with a wax barrel. And in my case, I'm using a computer controlled mill to machine that into a wax original. And every single pen, I have to make a new wax original. I, you lose, as the name suggests, lost wax casting. You lose the original wax. So every single one of those pens is unique and, and was made originally from, you know, that, that wax barrel. And then I do all the casting myself. And from there, I then, you know, do the cleanup, the polish and mount it on top of the acrylic barrel that I turned.

Brad Dowdy: I'm, I'm shaking my head here, Myke. I, it's mind boggling what, what, what goes into this. How long does one pen take? I mean, I know you don't make them in ones. I'm sure you make, I think you make them like in batches of 10 is kind of how you're, you're

Chris Manning: set up. Well, I, so I, I make a limited edition of 10 of anything, 10 silver and one in gold, but I will only really ever make four or five pens at any one time. And, you know, something like those overlays, those are, those are pretty fast for me in terms of, you know, compared to some of my other pens. So that might take me two or three weeks to make one of those pens. Some of the more complicated ones might take me five or six weeks from start to finish.

Brad Dowdy: Wow. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, that's, that's really impressive. So are you doing this? Is, are you doing this full time? I mean, is this, is this Chris Manning?

Chris Manning: This is a full time job for me.

Brad Dowdy: Oh yeah. This is a full time job for me. That's awesome. So how has your, your work been received? Like in the fountain pen community, I know we met in, in DC and you know, you've, have you done other pen shows or you, how are you getting the word out about silver hand and what's the feedback been like in the community?

Chris Manning: Feedback has been great. It's tough when you see these things online or when you see them in print, because it's, it's tough to get a sense of them, right? You know, from having picked them up, they're heavy pens, they're solid silver. And that's something that you just can't get with, you know, when you're looking at it on a, on a page. Right. So I've done the, the LA pen show a few times and the DC pen show a few times. And I guess the Toronto pen show, that's my local one. Gotcha. And, and so people, you know, again, when they see them in person, it's, you get a great reaction because the first thing that everybody says is, wow, this is a heavy pen. Um, but unlike a lot of the, the other big heavy pens that are out there, I made sure that it was something that you could write with. So a lot of people, I suspect when they buy these, they're going to, you know, they're going to collect them. They're going to stick them in a safe or whatever, but they are fully intended to be something that you can write with every day.

Brad Dowdy: So, yeah, I got the chance to use the Gothic overlay and to, to hold it. It was not nearly as heavy as I thought it would be. It's a very comfortable writing pen. I mean, it very much so like that one's reasonable.

Chris Manning: Yeah. I actually made one of the goals behind making that overlay was to make a pen that was a bit lighter than my other ones. If you look at something like the Jaipur or the, the, um, Taj Mahal pen, those are solid silver. So they, you know, they weigh three ounces and, you know, which is a heavy pen that, um, that overlay is a third of that weight. And so it's a little bit more reasonable for most people.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I got to hold the, the Jaipur for sure. And you pick that up and you're just like, wow, this is serious right here. This is what you, you know, you carry when you're walking down the alley at night, you know, just in case you need it. Well, you know, if somebody tries to steal it from you, it doubles up as a weapon. But it, it's stunningly beautiful. How does the pattern work on like the, the Jaipur and the Taj Mahal? Cause those are a little bit different layouts than the, the Gothic overlay. What is that? What are those patterns coming from and how are they getting onto the pen?

Chris Manning: So that was, uh, those designs came from a trip I made to India a few years ago. And, uh, the Jaipur was based on a marble pattern in the, the wall. It was in a, in this, uh, in the red temple in, uh, in Jaipur. And so I, I saw this great black and white, uh, marble pattern and grabbed, you know, grabbed a bunch of photos of it. And, um, and so that, that's how I, I came about that. The, the Taj Mahal one, as the name suggests, that's actually a, a textural element from the Taj Mahal. There's actually photos up on the, uh, on the site of the original, the original marble work that I got these from. And in the case of those pens, uh, those are again, machined out of a solid piece of wax and the designs are, are milled into the wax. And the black material that's in there is another metal that I inlay into the silver. It's actually a, another silver alloy called a Nielo. And it has a little bit of a copper, a little bit of silver, a little bit of lead and sulfur in it. And the sulfur makes it black all the way through. So that, that's not just a surface texture that's on there. That that's black the entire way through that.

Brad Dowdy: Now.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So now my mind's officially blown. I didn't understand how those pens were made. That's fascinating. I don't even know how you do this. I'm like, my jaws drop now. So what, what type of materials, I mean, all these are basically silver, right? But what other materials do you use? What kind of challenges do you have with these types of materials or their materials? You can't, that you've experimented with, you can't make a pen out of, um, you know, is there things that work, work best for certain situations? Talk about some of the materials you use on, on these pens.

Chris Manning: Yeah. So the base material that I'm using is always silver. And in this case, I'm using a particular silver alloy called Argentium. It's got a little bit of germanium in it, which makes it harder and it doesn't, uh, doesn't tarnish as quickly. And one of the reasons that I went to that was because it is harder. It's, it's more durable for this kind of thing. But the trick is, as you say, is finding other materials that work well with it. So things like the Nielo I use because it's got great contrast and it looks spectacular. It's also something that people don't use a lot anymore. It's been used for 6,000 years, but you don't get a lot of people, uh, working with it anymore. Uh, the acrylics, I've been starting to experiment a little bit. Uh, we'll talk about in a minute with some, some acrylics and some, um, antique gas or, um, celluloid things like that. Um, on top of that, I've also done work in, uh, enamel, which is a real nightmare to work in. Anytime you see real hard enamel, it's extremely challenging to make and to, to work with. Um, so that, you know, that's, there are always challenges with any of those, any of those new, uh, materials, but some things work well, some things don't. It just depends on, you know, on, on what, uh, on how it feels afterwards and whether it's, uh, uh, whether it's durable enough to, to hold up to being a pen.

Brad Dowdy: So now this is a random question, but I've, I've been thinking, but do you monitor the ore prices in silver, gold, everything prices on the, on the market for when you're making purchases of, of this, because this is not cheap to get into.

Chris Manning: I mean, that's, is that a daily thing for you when, you know what, when you're buying, you know, I'm buying silver by the kilo. I don't, you know, and, and it's, it gets expensive. So when, when I see the price of silver, like today, it dropped down 58 cents of an ounce or whatever. That's when I start paying attention. It's, it's pretty cheap right now. Uh, as, as silver goes back in 2008, it was up at 48, $49 an ounce. Now it's down to 15. So it's, it's pretty reasonable, but. Yeah. It's, it's a real problem. And one of the reasons why I don't do more work in gold is just because it's astronomically expensive. Nobody wants to pay for that. Wow.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So let's talk about this new pen that, that you alluded to. Myke, what do you, what do you, what do you think about this? I sent you the link right before the show and we were both kind of ooh and an ah. So, so Chris has released, uh, some preview images of something he's working on, uh, just for this show. So I put that in the chat room. We'll have it in the show notes. So Myke, what are your first thoughts on this thing?

Myke Hurley: It's stunning. And I don't, I can't work out what it's made of.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, so walk us, walk us through this, Chris, because I said the same thing. I'm, it was kind of jaw dropping. I mean, the, the work you do with the silver pens is it blows my mind because I just can't fathom all the work and time and effort that goes into something like that. It's so impressive. And then you drop this pen on us. What's this, does this pen have a name yet?

No Name

Chris Manning: It doesn't have a name yet. That's something I have to, I have to figure out still. And it doesn't have a cap. As you can see, I'm, uh, I'm working on a new technique for making the cap. It'll be in silver and, uh, I'm working on a, a technique called deep drawing, which will allow me to make it from silver or from flat sheet and draw it down into the, into the tube shape that I need. The, uh, the barrels are, they came out of a weird situation where I had bought a, um, I'd bought a couple of blanks from the old Conway Stewart stock. A friend of mine wanted a pen made in, in, um, the lapis. And so I bought up a bunch of it and just said, oh, you know, let's, let's try it out, see how it looks. And, and I was happy with the look of it. And so I decided to start playing around with it a little bit. And, um, this design is actually based off of an antique sailor pen. And, you know, I wanted to try something a little bit different and, and make something a bit lighter that, that was more comfortable for the average person to write with. So the, the ones that you see up on there, the lapis, the blue one is, is a Conway Stewart stock. Uh, the one on the, the right is a celluloid acetate that was made in the thirties. Uh, so I'm going to try and find some more of that stuff and, and play around with this. This is going to give me a chance to sort of experiment with, you know, the odd thing that I find that's, that's not, you know, that's not just metal.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. Well, these are a knockout. I mean, I, I really, really love the style, the shape, um, the materials, uh, of this. And I can't wait to see what the, the finished product is. And I'm reading the, the description here. You're, so you mentioned a minute ago, you're going to be in Toronto. You, you'll think you'll be done, uh, have these ready for the Toronto pen show.

Chris Manning: Absolutely. Yeah. These, these are pretty close to being done. One of the, one of the problems with doing all of this stuff yourself is the ups and downs of, of, you know, developing these new techniques. So I was in the shop late last night and trying to get these, uh, these barrels done and managed to, uh, you know, to destroy some of the tooling that I needed to make the, the dies for the cap. Jeez Louise. You know, so that's the, that's the trouble with, with doing this stuff yourself.

Myke Hurley: How do you destroy tooling? Like that sounds like an explosion. Yeah, it was.

Chris Manning: Yeah. Safety glasses are critical in my shop. Something blew up. Exactly. Like most people go to work and, you know, they're gonna, you know, they're gonna knock their feet. They're gonna, you know, maybe bump into a wall or something like that. There's equipment in my shop that will tear your arm off. So you have to pay attention and, and yeah. But, uh, yeah. So last night was not a, not one of my better nights in terms of getting things done.

Brad Dowdy: Well, glad you survived to make it to the recording today. Oh yeah.

Chris Manning: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: We didn't need this from the emergency room. So the chat room wants to know what, uh, where are you sourcing your nibs?

Chris Manning: I'm getting all my nibs through, uh, through Franklin Kristoff. I'm a huge fan of the Yovo nibs. And, uh, I'm also a huge fan of the work that Myke Masayama does. All of my own personal pens have all been customized by Myke. And, um, and so, you know, it's just great for me to be able to get that stuff straight through, uh, through the folks over at Franklin Kristoff.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. They're awesome. I love those nibs. I could tell by the, uh, image in the picture, but I just wanted to validate with you, um, before I mentioned that, but it looks, I mean, those nibs are great. I mean, I talk about them all the time. Um, I always have something, uh, with one of their nibs, either one of their pens or something else. I've moved the nib over into because, um, they, they work in all kinds of things in there. Do a great job on the stock nibs and the Masayama nibs.

Chris Manning: They're the only steel nibs that I've been, I've been happy enough with that I would actually write with one. Uh, I, I put gold nibs in all of my own, in all the pens that I sell, but, uh, even the steel nibs are spectacular. So yeah, if you're ever looking for a good nib, guys, go out and, and, uh, pick those up. Yeah, I agree. I agree wholeheartedly.

Myke Hurley: Chris, this looks like a, a different, well, it is a completely different, um, manufacturing process. Uh, is it easier than, than the silver stuff? Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot faster. Is that why you're doing this? Like, are you trying to like diversify a little bit and maybe move into some different kind of areas and price ranges?

Chris Manning: Well, let's be realistic. Most of the pens that are on my site are outside of the range of the average pen collector, right? They're, most people are not spending $3,000 on a pen. And, um, they are time consuming. So it's, it's also one of those things that I, I couldn't actually make, you know, 200 or 300 of those a year. Right. I just don't have the time. Mm-hmm. So this, this gives me something to experiment with a little bit. They're faster for me to make. They're a little bit more cost effective for people to buy. And, um, you know, so that, that's a, that's definitely a factor. The, the cost is always, you know, whenever I, people pick up my pens though, they love them, but they just, you know, they couldn't justify buying them. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: And, uh, this is something I was interested in because, you know, you mentioned you do this full time. Where do your customers come from?

Chris Manning: All over the place. Fortunately, the, uh, the internet's allowed me to get in touch with, with people that are, you know, that are all over the world. Um, publications like pen world, you know, anybody who's serious about collecting, uh, limited edition pens are, they're reading pen world. So, you know, I've had my, my stuff in there. Um, again, being in front of people at, at pen shows, the LA show and the DC show, if, if anybody has a chance to, to actually go to those shows, they're an incredible opportunity to get to see this stuff in person. And especially from the custom pen makers, the, one of the challenges with all this stuff as a, as a custom maker is, is just getting in front of people. Of course, you can go down to a well-stocked pen store and see, you know, your Pelican, and, and your Mont Blancs and everything. But, you know, these custom pens, they're, they're tough to find. So the, uh, the pen shows are a great, great place for me to, uh, to meet people.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And that, that was, uh, that's always the biggest highlight for me. You know, when we go to something like that, never been to DC before, um, you know, I, I agree wholeheartedly with that and you get to hold and like, you know, just being able to check out one of your pens is just, it's, you know, worth the trip just so you can know, you know, what it's like, you know, in case there's an opportunity later, you know, it's, it, it's a long game, right. You know, especially, you know, at, at your price point, you know, you, you get interested and you just kind of, you, you build it up and you're able to, to use it. And, you know, you know, later, you know, if that's something you're going to be interested in purchasing.

Chris Manning: Absolutely. You know, some of the people that are, that are out buying them, you know, I had people that walk around the show for four days and eventually come back and, and there are other people who, you know, they try my pens and I hear from them six, nine, 12 months later and they're going to say, Oh, I saw that pen at a show and I loved it. And I buy it.

New Products

Brad Dowdy: Exactly. So you've got this new product coming out. What, what else is in the future plans for Silverhand Studios?

Chris Manning: Uh, it should be a custom, a new, uh, limited edition pen, sorry, coming out, uh, hopefully by the end of the year. So I've got that, uh, got that on the docket and, um, got a few new design ideas for next year. We'll see, uh, we'll see what comes out. I'd love to get into doing some watches, but we'll see. That's, uh, that's probably not a 20, 2016 thing. That'll probably be, uh, you know, a little bit in the future. Gotcha. Gotcha.

Brad Dowdy: Well, Chris, this has been eyeopening for sure. Um, I love the products. I love hearing about the process. Um, I don't want you to hurt yourself making these pens though. So I'll be checking up on you to make sure you've made it through the day. Um, you know, very frequently I'll check in and you make sure nothing's blown up in your face. Um, Myke, do you have any, anything to add?

Myke Hurley: No. I mean, what's, what do you think's the best thing for somebody to do, Chris? Like, do you, would you suggest if somebody likes what they see to, to contact you before necessarily buying? Like, what would you do? Or would you say, you know, it's best to maybe see your stuff in person if possible? What do you think?

Chris Manning: Well, having a conversation is always important. I, you know, that's, that's the first thing that, that I do with everybody. I, I don't have people just adding stuff to the cart and, and buying it. Uh, you know, it's not like, uh, not like pen chalet, right? Yeah. Um, so, you know, I, I have a conversation with everybody before they, they buy the pens. It is a lot of money and it is something that you're investing in. That's going to be around for hundreds of years. So, you know, you need to make sure that it's, it's the right thing for you. It's certainly helpful to be able to see it in person. Um, so. Do you, do you do straight up custom work? Like one off? I don't anymore. No, I used to do some custom work, but I, I don't anymore. I have too many, too many of my own design ideas and, um, you know, I can keep my plate full with, with the work that I'm doing. That's awesome. Yeah. I love hearing that.

Myke Hurley: Well, I'm really pleased that you're able to, to make a living from this cause it's kind of, it's kind of crazy. Like, you know, like, you know, it's almost just to you like 10 years ago, you're going to make your living selling, uh, handmade pens that cost over a thousand dollars a piece. You probably think you're crazy, right?

Chris Manning: Absolutely. Well, you people, people do think I'm crazy. It's, uh, it's a different, it's a different world and it's a different thing that I'm doing, but it, it, it works. And that's, uh, yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Well, I've, I've hung out with Chris in person. I can verify he is definitely not crazy. He is a legitimately good guy and I enjoyed my time, uh, with him in DC and I've certainly enjoyed the time that we had on this show and we appreciate you making the time out for us. Of course. And we'll, we'll have to do it again, uh, in the future, you know, maybe when these new pens release or, you know, when something else is, uh, coming new down the pipeline, we'll get you back on and talk about it because, uh, absolutely loved having you love having you.

Chris Manning: And I think, uh, the listeners are going to honestly, you guys have, have barely scratched the surface of, uh, of what it is that I'm doing and some of the neat things that are going on in the shop.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I think, I think that's a good starting point because like all the stuff you're saying was just blowing my mind. And if that's like the, uh, the one-on-one level stuff, you know, we're, we're in trouble. We got some homework to do, Myke.

Myke Hurley: Let's go make some pens, bro.

Brad Dowdy: All right. We'll work on that. All right. Well, thank you, Chris. And, uh, get us out of here, Myke, and we'll, uh, we'll get this up for everyone to listen.

Myke Hurley: If you want to find Chris's work, head on over to silverhandstudios.com. There'll be links in the show notes too, including a link to the, the little pen addict listener preview, uh, over at relay.fm slash pen addict slash one seven four. If you want to find, uh, links to, uh, everything that Brad does head on over to pen addict.com. He is pen addict on the Instagram and he is dowdyism on Twitter. D O W D Y I S M. And I am, I Myke, I M Y K E on Twitter and Instagram too. So thank you so much for listening. Thank you to Pen Shelley for sponsoring and we'll be back next time. Until then say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.