The Pen Addict 192/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	192
Title:	Chicken Scratch and Batman Doodles
Release Date:	February 10th, 2016
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	Dan Bishop
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 192
Audio File:	Audio Episode 192
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 192
Length:	5656 min <br />0.933 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 192. Today's show is brought to you by our friends over at Harry's. I'm back! My name is Myke Hurley, and I'm joined by Mr. Brad Dowdy. Brad, I am back on the microphone. I've been away from recording, mostly for like a week, and I couldn't let this episode go by without me being part of it.

Dan Bishop: I think it's more like back from the dead, right? I mean, you weren't like regular sick. You were like, I can't move, laid up in a bed for days, sick, like seriously ill.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I had a throat infection, which is one of the worst things that I can get, right? I could barely talk, but it completely just destroyed me. It was one of those things where I was like, I want to send a text message to someone, and I couldn't pick up my phone.

Dan Bishop: It was tough. Well, speaking of throat infections, what's up, Dan Bishop?

Brad Dowdy: Oh, you know, just, you know, infecting the throats of America.

Myke Hurley: Well known for his infectious nature.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I'm glad we got DJ Mikey H back online, so... I'm back on the other fables. ...in a soothing English accent.

LA Pen Show

Dan Bishop: Yes, yes. So everyone that doesn't know this voice, it's Dan Bishop from Karis Customs, and we are going to talk about the LA Pen Show later on in this episode, because Dan and I will both be out there this weekend. So I'm pretty jacked about that. You guys ready to roll, Dan?

Dan Bishop: Yes. Yes. Yeah, pretty much so, right? Yeah. What choice do you have at this?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, we're loading everything up, because we're actually flying this time, so it's all going in suitcases and going under a plane.

Dan Bishop: Yeah, yeah. Well, I am glad that Myke's back, so you don't have to put up with me for a whole episode like Aziza did last week.

Myke Hurley: I know I was worried. Everybody that has backed the project so far. There's still time. You know, if you still want to get yourself a pack of those lovely notebooks, or you want to watch the video of us recording episode 200, it will be episode 200 of the Pen Addict Live with me, Brad and Anna, and some other great Pen Show goodness. Going back, our RelayCon Atlanta Kickstarter, and thank you so much to the 345 people that have so far done that. I love every single one of you.

Dan Bishop: Yeah, and if you can, by chance, make it there. I know a bunch of people have planned to make it. A lot of people came last year. It keeps growing. Like, every week, there's, like, something kind of new, and it's basically going to be a big social event, which is what it turned out to be last year. And it's so much fun, and, you know, if by chance you can make it there, it will be more than worth your while, I think, just in awesomeness.

Myke Hurley: And if you're interested, book a hotel room, because they're going to sell out.

Dan Bishop: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. We had issues last year, last minute stuff. It was booked out, and I know we're bringing more people this year. So just get on that if you're interested. Do it soon.

Myke Hurley: So last week's episode was fantastic. I was actually really happy to listen to it just as a listener. It was quite nice. You and Aziza were amazing. I'm so happy that the episode happened. It was just, wall-to-wall was excellent, and we've had such great response, rightly so, from everybody. So I, again, want to just extend my thanks to Aziza for stepping in for me and for making an episode better than I could have done.

Dan Bishop: Yeah, she was awesome. You know, I noticed that I said um a lot more than I ever do because I was reading the ads and I had lots of ums in there.

Myke Hurley: You did a good job, man. I've got to say, you really helped me out there, and I appreciate that. The ads were fantastic as well.

Dan Bishop: Yeah, no problem. No problem. I don't mind doing it. I don't listen back 100% of our episodes, but I made sure to listen back to that one. I was like, oh, wow, I am on the um train on this episode. So it's normally something I don't think about, but it got me on that one. But Aziza was awesome. I got more feedback on this episode than I think any other episode we've ever recorded. So I appreciate her coming on, and we will definitely have her back because everyone's already chomping at the bit to get her back on. She was great. So one of the things, aside from the emails I got and tweets I got about how great the episode is, everyone wants to know what is the ink that we discussed last week. Because Aziza pronounces things correctly. And we were talking about Ackerman Inks, and I can't even attempt to pronounce Ackerman number 28 like she did, which is the Huffquartier.

Myke Hurley: Huffquartier Grun?

Dan Bishop: Grun. Yeah, but there was like no G in it when she said it. It's like Owen. Like, it was very, like, legit. And she did it so fast. Everyone after the show. What was that green? What was that green? Even just this morning, right before we started recording, I got another tweet. What was that ink? So it's Ackerman number 28. That's what you can look up. It's a killer ink. We'll have the link in the show notes to the picture that she did. It's my number one green ink because it's bright. It's not – I don't like dark green inks. I like bright, and this one's kind of yellow. Kind of got some undertones. It shades. It's kind of a crazy ink. It's good looking. Yeah, it's great. She uses it in, like, the super, super wide nibs. I have it in probably one of the finest nibs that I own, which is the Franklin and Christophe needlepoint. And it's just as vibrant in that fine of a nib as, you know, a very, very wide nib. So it's a great – just a great all-around. Where can you buy that from? Well, if you're going to be at the LA Pen Show, you come see me at the Van Ness table, and they will have Ackerman number 28. And if you want it, just like Ackerman number 4, which is shocking blue, they'll sell out of that, like, as soon as they put it up. So if you want Ackerman inks, check Van Ness, and they'll get you hooked up. But you just have to – you have to be on it. If you know you want it, you got to get it. So there's a few colors that sell out fast. Number 4 being the primary one that goes.

Myke Hurley: Do you want to grab a bottle for me? I'll give you a bottle. This looks amazing.

Dan Bishop: Well, they'll have it, and we'll get it for Atlanta. They'll just bring it there when they come. There you go.

Myke Hurley: I can put that on my list. Yeah.

Green Ink

Dan Bishop: So it's a good everyday green ink. Just like, you know, if I have a blue, black, an orange, kind of a turquoise, and a green, if I have those colors, I'm looking pretty good. Maybe a purple. I mix those in there too. So those are kind of my primary colors, and this is my green.

Myke Hurley: I'm just starting an Atlanta shopping list note. Yeah, exactly. I just added that ink to it.

Dan Bishop: Dan, someone asked me in the Slack room, I think, we were getting some Q&A for you later on in the show, and this has kind of made me think about it. I was thinking about this the other day and thinking about this now. For all the pens you make, and you make fountain pens, do you actually use fountain pens?

Dan Bishop: Yes and no. Uh-huh. It's not your, it's nowhere near your primary writing pen. If you're writing, you're writing with one of your other pens, right?

Brad Dowdy: I don't do a lot of writing. I do a lot of doodling and some note-taking.

Brad Dowdy: So right now, I have a Doan, one of the smaller Doan notebooks, and an EDK for all my work stuff, because they pair well. Mm-hmm. And in my superstition case, I've got a couple of render case and some rotating mechanical pencils. But if I'm going to write something that I know someone else is going to see, then yeah, I'll use a fountain pen.

Dan Bishop: But otherwise, I just do a bunch of chicken scratching Batman doodles. What about ink? Do you have any particular ink that if you use a fountain pen, is there a particular ink, or you're just like, whatever?

Brad Dowdy: You're going to get mad at me, but just regular Noodler's Black. Nothing wrong with that. That's a great ink. I wouldn't get mad at you. I like the way it works, and it's cheap, and it's consistent. I like, most of the time, my use of fountain pens consists of checking quality, or I'm engineering something, and I want to just double-check something. So having the same ink all the time in all my pens lets me compare things quickly, because I don't have one that's more saturated or less lubricated or whatever. It's something. It's like the equivalent of a number two pencil for me, basically.

Dan Bishop: Yeah, yeah. Well, I was actually inking up some pens this morning. I was dying to get Pilot Black in one of them. I was like, I just need a good solid black, and that's my favorite. Just kind of go-to black. Before we get further, everyone's correcting me in the chat room. Thank you, Tanya and Lisa. Ackerman's Shocking Blue is number five. Number five. So that's the number one seller of the Ackermans, and it always goes fast. Well, cool. Yeah, I am all about some Noodler's Black. It's a good ink. And black inks are tough, because you kind of find one you stick with, and you just – that's it. There's really not a lot of variants in a lot of different black inks, unless you're getting into like a Sailor Nano Black, which requires a little bit more maintenance. And it's awesome.

Brad Dowdy: I'm not as lazy as it comes. Like, I just did some reading, and I saw that Noodler's Black was the best thing, so I ordered some from Goulet, and that's – I just keep using it. You know, why mess with something that works?

Dan Bishop: You can't go wrong with that, and if you're lazy, don't use the Sailor Nano. No. So if you do use it, you'll go, wow, this is great. But if you leave it in your pen for like two weeks, you're going to come back, and you're going to be ticked.

Brad Dowdy: So – Oh, that's another bad thing I do. Because I make the pens that we sell, I probably – I don't even know how many I have inked. And it's – I mean, they don't get damaged, you know. And, you know, I just rinse the nibs out and stuff. But it's – I'll open up a pen that's been sitting in my desk. And part of that's just because I like to see how long – you know, I'll be like, oh, I probably haven't used this pen for a month. And I'll open it, and if it still writes well, then I pat myself on the back and go about my day. Not that I have anything to do with the nib technology, but it just, you know, makes me feel like I've accomplished something.

Dan Bishop: Yeah, you sound like Myke a couple weeks ago. I think it was the last episode before you were sick. Myke, you were discovering some oopsies that you've had inked up for quite a while. Yeah. Well, I went and bought –

Brad Dowdy: Nothing that bad.

Dan Bishop: Nothing that bad. I went and bought the ultrasonic cleaner after that episode. I was like, I got to get ahead of this. Yeah, Dan was giving me grief about my picture. Yeah, you got to use water.

Brad Dowdy: You need water at the ultrasonic cleaner, Brad.

Dan Bishop: I know. I know.

Dan Bishop: So there's more to – it's not the world beater that it's made out to be, but I need to try it some more. So we'll see. We'll see for sure. This next topic I want to talk about is pretty amazing and speak. It's kind of related to being ticked off, and that's our friend Tony Scullum-Breens at Everyday Commentary did a review of the Twisby Classic. Did you, gentlemen, happen to read this by chance?

Myke Hurley: I looked over it. I did not read it.

Dan Bishop: I didn't need to read it. So Tony pulls no punches, which is why I love him, and he's been on the show. And I think we'll get him on the show to talk about this because he emailed me before he posted it. And he didn't send me the article, but he said, I'm getting ready to post this tomorrow, and it's going to be bad. And I'm like, okay, I can't wait to read it because his takedowns are usually pretty epic. And he pretty much destroyed this pen every which way to Sunday. And I made sure to tweet it out to our followers to read it and to my followers on Twitter because he actually has some kind of – he has some set up mistakes. And he does some things wrong in this, and he knows it. And there's been a lot of back and forth with – on Twitter of saying, you know, you're not supposed to do that, and you're not supposed to do this, and not supposed to do that. But it was just fun to kind of get someone who's not like – he's into the obsession that we are, but more in, you know, knives and lights and things like that, not in pens. So, he got a little bit sideways on the Twisby classic, and I don't blame him, although some of the anger was misplaced a little bit. But we'll need to get him back on there. But if you want a good laugh, it's a good read. Needless to say, he hates the pen, and it's garbage. But he –

TWSBI

Myke Hurley: He maybe didn't start with the best Twisby for him, though, really, because that's not really the best one for many people.

Dan Bishop: Right. I would agree. And he has a vanishing point, which he enjoys, and he's bought an Edison Perlet, which he loves. And so, he knows – you know, he has some good pens to reference off of, and he's just really, really upset at this pen in a very Tony kind of way. So, I just wanted to throw that out there if y'all hadn't seen it. It's worth a read. You're going to disagree with him a lot. I disagree with him a lot on a lot of his points because he's just flat out wrong on some pieces. But just then the way he writes and the way he rips apart some of the things that deserve to be ripped apart, I like Tony's style. And it's well worth a read.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, I've been the victim of a few of those. So, yeah, I understand. I think he brings a different voice, which is good because there's a lot of people who – especially since we started out making rollerballs and things like that before we did fountain pens. There's a lot of people who aren't in the fountain pen community that have been pulling into it that don't – they don't want to mess with all the fussiness that a lot of us will tolerate. They just want to do certain things. And so, having somebody who just basically goes wide open throttle until it breaks is good for the community because people can kind of go, oh, okay, yeah, I don't have to hold it with my pinky out and I can do a couple things.

Dan Bishop: Right. And Tony's a hardcore user of the products, right? He is not like a desk jockey. He is getting out there. He's a lawyer, but he's out in the field a lot, out in prisons a lot. He's taking dozens of pages of handwritten notes a day. So, he's cranking on all the stuff that he uses. So, it's good to get that perspective from someone who's really like torture tested these products that he reviews. That's why I enjoy reading his stuff so much.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. It's painful to see him just skewer some of your work, but at the same time – It happens to all of us. Yeah. I come from an art background, so critiques are an important part of it.

Dan Bishop: Yeah. Yeah. Just like people are reviewing our cases. It's good to get difficult feedback. You don't want to hear it, but sometimes it opens your eyes. And Matt from Penhabit reviewed our cases this week. And he did a really good job, and he was effusive, but he has some knits to pick, and they're completely valid and things like that. So, you appreciate people that take the time to do that, even if it's not perfectly your way, right?

Brad Dowdy: Right. Nothing's perfect. And if you think something that you make is perfect, then you're wrong. Right. Period. So, everything's got room for improvement.

Dan Bishop: Right. Everything. Well, what is perfect is Myke's handwriting. And Myke, you launched out a handwritten tweet to me the other day. That was cool. Cool.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I took your advice. So, your kind of challenge to me on the show was to try and do it every day. And I haven't done it every day, because I've forgotten. I'm trying to make this a thing. It makes sense to me to do it. Yeah. So, I'm going to try and do a little bit more of it. And what I have got there, so I think maybe next week, I want to talk a little bit more about the topic of what to do. In regards to using my pens and using my stuff more, because I've had so much feedback on it, and we haven't really had the chance to address it. But, you know, basically what I did last week is I broke out one of my DDC dead prints. Because that's the books. I've really been wanting to use those. And I've been just taking some little notes here and there. I've been writing some thoughts down kind of randomly. I've been just taking some work notes and notes of phone calls and stuff. So, I'm not using it for anything amazing, but I'm using it a little bit more often than I did before. And I also have a new pen to go with it, which I want to talk about next week as well. So, I bought an Eco.

Dan Bishop: Oh, cool. Yeah, I'll be interested to see what you think about that. And if you go, I'll Tony on us on that one.

Myke Hurley: I also got, again, I'll talk about these next week. I haven't had a chance to open them. But here, that is three Disney Crew Togos.

Dan Bishop: Nice. So, they came as well. Yeah, I've actually been using those since I've reviewed them last week. And my kids use them every day. That's their current favorite pencil.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, they're really cool. And I want to play them a little bit more and talk about them next week. But yeah, so, I'm doing a little bit more. I've cleaned out some stuff. I'm trying to be a little bit more conscious of the way that I'm using these things. And I still have a lot more to go through of the feedback that we've been sent. So, I want to talk about that. I think it might last over a few weeks, in all honesty. Right. Because there's so much stuff. And I think this might be a little bit of an ongoing thing for me. And I hope that it might, you know, in turn help some of our listeners as well think about this stuff. Because I know that I've had a lot of people kind of contact me in solidarity with my current concerns. So, thanks to everyone that sent stuff in. And we're going to get into this in a little bit more detail in the coming episodes.

Karis Customs

Dan Bishop: Cool. Well, let's talk about one of our good friends before we really get into it with Dan. And talk about some more Karis Customs stuff and the LA Pen Show that's coming up.

Myke Hurley: You bet. This week's episode is brought to you by our friends at Harry's. I had a call with Harry's yesterday, Brad. They wanted to just check in with me because they love supporting the show. Nice. And they're really happy with the response. So, I want to thank everyone that goes and buys Harry's products. And encourage you to continue doing so because they love supporting the show. They're like, why is the Pen Addict? Why does it perform so well? I'm like, because these guys love to spend money. That's what it is. But more than that, we love a good deal, right? Shaving is expensive. And what Harry's does is they give you great quality products, which we love. We all love good quality products listening to this show at a fair price. This is what Harry's is all about. They make their own blades. They're German engineered. They have these five blade cartridges that they create that will give you a close, comfortable shave without cuts or razor burn. They guarantee the quality of their products because they believe in them so much. You'll get a full refund if you're not happy. Over a million people will switch to Harry's and you should be one of them if you haven't already. Because they offer those high quality razors for a high quality shave at about half the price of other big brand blades. For example, an everyday shaver that uses Harry's will save about $150 each year. They'll ship them to your front door for free. They have a great starter set for just $15. You'll get a razor, moisturizing shave cream, and three razor blades. Their razors look fantastic. All of their products smell great and it all feels great. This is a top quality product that I know listeners of this show will enjoy. If you haven't already, it's time to stop overpaying for a great shave. Go to harrys.com and you will get $5 off if you use the code PENADDICT to check out with your first purchase. That's harrys.com. Enter the coupon code PENADDICT to check out for a special $5 off so you can get yourself that starter set for just $10. Thank you so much to Harry's for their support of this show and RelayFM.

Dan Bishop: Awesome. Thank you, Harry's, very much. Dan could use some when he's trimming up whatever he's growing on his face. I don't even know what it looks like right now, but I guess I'll see this weekend. Dan, do we have some Wolverine going or what do we got going right now?

Brad Dowdy: I think we might try some Wolverine because the other employee that's coming with me is Paul that some of you have seen on the Slack Room and stuff. He's our customer service guy and he's got quite the beard and I didn't want to be like the beardy twins at the show. So I got to go back to the chops because it just feels better. It's like just natural, you know? It's just the way it's supposed to be.

Dan Bishop: I hear you. Well, before we get into that, and I have a couple of Karis questions for you. Myke wants to yell at us first, apparently. I didn't realize this, but what do you got, Myke?

Myke Hurley: I mean, we spoke about this before the show and you guys said that I was crazy. I don't know how I missed this, but I've been seeing this like Knock Co case with a little Karis Customs tag popping up in places. And I don't know how I've missed this. You guys worked together on something at some point that got underbarated on?

Brad Dowdy: That would be called the Superstition Edition is what you missed because all of Knock Co's products are named after local landmarks. And we have the famous Superstition Mountains here in Arizona. And so we did a Superstition Edition case and pen, notebook, bead, lanyard combo? Question mark?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I don't know how you missed it. It was all over social media.

Myke Hurley: I must have been asleep.

Brad Dowdy: So can people still buy this? It was limited edition, so we've sold out.

Dan Bishop: That's long gone. And Dan wanted to do a special Sinclair kind of around the launch. And their label that they did for the Sinclair, so killer. Yeah. You know, with the flag. I'm so happy with that. I'm so happy with that tag. Yeah. It makes me happy. The first time I saw that, I was like, wow, this is unbelievable. And then to top it off, the EDK y'all did was legit. I mean, it's so cool. It's a really great one.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It was, I've always wanted to, we talked about doing a collaboration for a long time with you guys, kind of on, you know, on the back end of things. And when you guys had, because we were launching the EDK around the same time. And so we wanted to do something special. And since you guys were open to it, you know, we kind of went all out and did this. And to be fair, I think part of the popularity was because of your cases, because people would contact us and say, can I buy just a case? I don't want your pen.

Dan Bishop: Oh, yeah. Sorry about that. Yeah. No, it's fine. That's what makes a good collaboration, right? I mean, we do something cool. You do something cool. And we party together. I like it. It's my kind of thing. It's my kind of project to work on. And I know Jeff was stoked to work on it, too. So that was really cool. I just got asked yesterday or two days ago about the Render K that you guys make for us and that we're currently out of and we're not going to make anymore. And you're actually making some tweaks to the Render K, right? Can you tell us what's going on with that product lineup? Because I'm interested because that's how I and a lot of people got into Keras Customs first. I guess that was, was that the first machine pen?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that was, that was the first one. That was the one that I kind of dreamt up at home on a weekend and, you know, scribbled out on paper and then turned into our first Kickstarter project. So, yeah.

Myke Hurley: It's pretty crazy, like looking back at this now, how much it's changed the business, right? You just had this little idea for a pen and now it's this whole big thing.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah, we were talking about that. I mean, if you do look, I mean, the pen type A was the first, you know, machined pen, but we were kind of the first company to base a business around machine pens in the U.S. And it's just nuts to see, you know, we're up to, I always forget, I have to list them out. So we did the Render K, the Bolt, the Retract, the Ink, the Fountain K, and the EVK. That's six, six models of pens now. That's bananas. I can't even think of that. No, the line that we're going to be kind of referring to it as the K series now. Okay.

Brad Dowdy: More or less, the way that the Fountain K works now is that there's a grip section that screws into the body. And from the outside, it looks identical to the Render K. So we're adapting the rollerball and ballpoint line to work with the same architecture as the Fountain K. Okay. So now the cap and the body will be a universal product and then everything else will be accommodated to use that. That's great. As opposed to having several different versions of the pen.

Dan Bishop: Yeah. That only makes complete sense, right? Right. I mean, not just from your manufacturing perspective, but from a customer's perspective, if, you know, they need to swap parts. But you know, everyone that listens to us and buys your stuff is always fidgeting with their stuff and mixing and matching anyway. So that'll be good for everybody.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I actually had a customer come in yesterday. He's a local guy from Tucson. His name was Joseph. If I remember his name right. I'm bad at his name. But it was funny because you talked about at the beginning, you know, people recognize my voice. He came in the door and I said, hey, how's it going? And he goes, you're Dan, right? I recognize your voice. It's kind of creepy. But no, he came in and he bought some different products because he wanted to switch up the caps and all the different stuff. And we're working towards making everything better, more, you know, modular in the line and consistent so that you don't have to worry about, oh, does this work with this or this work with this? It's just all going to work all the time.

Myke Hurley: So the hope is that people could buy multiple pens of different lines even and you can still mix and match and customize and make them your own.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Like the Fountain K and the regular Render K pens. We won't have to have two different versions of it any longer. It's going to just be the grip section now is works with roller balls or or ballpoint or the P8126 or whatever. It just works with all the stuff.

Dan Bishop: Kind of like how you built the ink when you built the ink. It was all built to to allow for that. Right. Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: This is this is better. In fact, we improved the machining finishes on a lot of the pens. And so it looks fantastic. But when it comes to like the grip section on the Render K, we wanted to keep it keep it to where it wasn't super smooth and slick on the grip section. So we actually have like a I don't know what you would call it. We could come up with a fancy name for it, but it's basically a ultra fine machined texture on the on the surface of the grip section that'll give it some grip. But you won't. It doesn't look like anything's on there.

Dan Bishop: Gotcha.

Brad Dowdy: So it's super cool.

Dan Bishop: So the retract is the only pin that doesn't have a fountain pen counterpart. When are you making a retractable fountain pen?

Lamy

Brad Dowdy: Everyone keeps asking. Probably the we probably won't be ever. I mean, maybe if this turns into like a giant empire, like one of these companies like Lamy or somebody where we have a huge facility, but the engineering and stuff that goes into that.

Myke Hurley: And there's a reason that retractable fountain pens are so special and expensive because there aren't a lot of them. There's like four or five, right, that we know of that people can buy. Right. You got to take out some of the stupid ones like the one we spoke about a couple of weeks ago that moved by watch movement.

Dan Bishop: Oh, yeah.

Myke Hurley: You know, like there is a very small handful and they're all very expensive because I can't even imagine the work that needs to go into making something like that happen.

Brad Dowdy: Well, it's funny because the engineering side of stuff isn't too terribly crazy. Most people, you know, I'm not an engineer and but I. I play one on TV kind of thing. The main issue is nibs that the technology used to make nibs is very specialized. And a lot of the companies that have been doing it either do it in-house or farm it out to people who've been doing it for 100 years. So, I mean, you could do, you know, small batch one-off stuff, you know, using a jeweler or, you know, doing something really slow. But in production, it just doesn't make sense because, you know, we don't want to make thousand dollar pens. Right. Like, no, you know, that's not the market that we're in. So, making a special nib unit that uses a retractable mechanism and has all that stuff would be problematic to say the least. I mean, we could do it. It's just would it be worth the investment and the time to put into it. Yeah. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Maybe someday, right? But just not. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, I'm not saying no. Like, if somebody came up to us and said, hey, we want you to make this and this is how it's going to work. And, you know, have one of those sacks with a dollar sign drawn on it and they drop it on my desk. I can make it happen. But, no, it's mostly just because of the logistics involved. And now, I have looked at some of the, you know, have you seen the safety pens? Like the safety fountain pens? The ones that are not truly retractable. Right. But the nib unit does kind of recess in. I think it would be fun to do a modern take on that. But as far as like a vanishing point clicky type? Yeah. Not anything that would happen in the next five to ten years, I would bet.

Case Series

Dan Bishop: Gotcha. Yeah. I would say that's about right. So, when is this new case series? When are we looking at seeing those for the first time?

Brad Dowdy: We're working on manufacturing them right now. We're getting rid of some of our older stock. Just the, I would call it, I guess, the version 1.0. Now that we're just selling some of those out and getting those out of our inventory just so we're not having a bunch of parts. Because they look pretty much identical, like the caps and stuff do. But some of the internal dimensions and things are different. So, we don't want to have a bunch of stuff overlapping in the warehouse. Right. So, as soon as that stuff kind of gets out the way, I just said get out the way.

Brad Dowdy: As soon as some of that is out the door, we're going to be ready. I mean, we're still manufacturing. We still have to make a bunch of bodies. We're kind of recovering from the holiday season a little bit, which was great for us. But at the same time, you know, it's like a bakery. Your whole goal is to sell out at the end of the day. So, you know, every day when you sell out a product, you have to make more. And that's kind of the stage we're in right now.

Dan Bishop: So, as far as barrel materials go, are you looking at anything new across the entire lineup? You know, just more out of curiosity. I mean, I think, I don't know that you necessarily need it. I love the aluminum. Aluminum is still my favorite anodized aluminum. But are y'all playing around with anything?

Brad Dowdy: Um, I'm, we're playing around with it. There's some other materials that we're looking at. And the main issue with other materials is they don't machine the same as metal does. So, you have to do different setups and things like that to make them work well. So, after we meet our production numbers for our existing products, then we can kind of explore other options. So, it's probably going to be, I mean, I think we're going to try to experiment with some stuff. I mean, we've talked about it before. And we did, several years ago, use phenolic. Or, we call it phenolic because that's the name of the plastic. Micarta is what most people know it as.

Dan Bishop: Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: Um, but, uh, that material is kind of finicky. That's kind of why Twisby discontinued their pens, because it's, it's notoriously brittle.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So, we're looking at, I mean, there's other plastics like Delrin and things that are machinable. We just have to see what makes the most sense. Or if, if we need to design a new pen around those materials, rather than try to adapt it to an existing product. That might be a better solution.

Dan Bishop: I gotcha. That makes sense. That makes sense. You know, everyone likes to, um, you know, it's good that you're, you're so accessible to the community. Um, you're, you're never short of, uh, suggestions for what you should make, are you?

Brad Dowdy: Oh, everybody's, everybody's always asking about, you know, this or that, which is, which is totally fine. It's awesome. We love our customers.

Dan Bishop: It's awesome.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And, I mean, it's good to get feedback, but it's funny when you get feedback from the same three people over and over and over again. Um, everybody wants titanium too, which is, is so fascinating to me. Um, it's, it's a, it's an interesting material. Titanium is used on all kinds of stuff, you know, high performance bicycles to the space shuttle and stuff. And it's really only optimized, um, in its use because it's, it's weight to strength ratio is so good. You know, you can make it really thin walled and it's really strong. But if you make something like a pen, that's got thick walls and all this stuff, you're just making it out of titanium to say that it's titanium. It doesn't have any advantage. So it would be cool, but, um, it's just not, I don't know. Yeah. It's not something that we're interested in at this time. And, you know, I can't, you know, don't want to say never, um, because, you know, like you said, you'd never use fountain pens and the people come back and poke fun at you. But it's the production of, it's a little bit more difficult. Like I said, it's anytime you change materials, um, whether softer or harder, things change a little bit and you potentially have to, you know, get new tooling and, and, uh, do your setups a little differently. So right now we're focusing on making sure we have things in, in stock for our customers and, and have a good consistent product, which, you know, we've been working towards and making small improvements on everything like little by little. And most people, um, don't notice it, but it's things that we strive to, to do on a regular basis and have been very happy to, um, have little, uh, stepping stones of accomplishment along the way.

LA Pin Show

Dan Bishop: Well, let's, uh, let's take this and transition it over to, to the LA pin show. Are you bringing anything special that I'm going to, um, need to, to see on the day you arrive in LA?

Brad Dowdy: Um, we, we're going to bring something a little interesting. Um, it's nothing out of like new materials, but we're going to bring some stuff that's a little bit different. Um, and, um, I won't say what it's just, we'll have, you know, a handful of things, um, to show off. We're going to do some, as always a handful of stonewashed items. And we have a bunch of our clipless, um, pens there too. And people will get to look at the colors in person because as a lot of you have seen before, some of the colors don't photograph as well, or it's just not, it's not the same. Cause anytime you see anything on the internet that your monitor could be different than somebody else's monitors, the color's not there. It's just, when people see product and see it in hand, it's, it's much more impressive than seeing it on Instagram or something like that. So, um, I encourage anybody, even if you don't want to buy something, you're not going to hurt my feelings. If you want to come and check out the pens and just like hold them or, you know, whatever, just, just come talk to us. You know, we're not going to, you know, freak out if you don't buy anything. It's just, we're there to show people what we, what we do and, and what we have to offer. So, um, come on down and don't feel bad if, uh, if you're not going to spend money with us, but if you do, that's fantastic too. Yeah.

Dan Bishop: Yeah. We talk about, I've said it a million times. The chat room is going nuts on it right now that your gray anodized aluminum is one of the best colors of any pin of any company like ever. It's killer. It does not photograph well at all until I got that pin, until I got that pin in my hands. I didn't realize how legitimately cool that pin is. Um, it's, it's awesome. And, uh, that's, that's one you want to see in person because, uh, you will walk away with one. And I'm, I'm sure it's a great, it's a great color.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, and it's some of the other colors that we have right now. Cause the anodize process is so interesting. Um, most anodizers really quick, uh, the most anodizers, they do like silver black and then some hard, hard anodize, which is like a special hard coating. They don't really do colors. Um, but they, our, our anodizer does colors, but it's, it's not to color match. It's just more like, Hey, we have a blue, we have this and kind of, you get what you get. But that being said, they're really good at several colors. The gray turns out awesome. The black turns out awesome. Silver, awesome. But they do a wicked, awesome purple, like unbelievable. Um, and they, um, sometimes they, they, they give us a gold that just rivals brass. It just looks awesome. So, um, come down and check it out. Um, now that we're offering, uh, black grip sections with our pens too, that I keep forgetting that we did that. It just, it like, it looks so cool to see some of these pens with the black section on them. Um, and you can, you can just experiment. We can take stuff out and, you know, put it together and show you how it looks. And it's just, it's just kind of fun. It's, it's kind of tinker toy, you know, asking the way that you can put stuff together. And we just want people to have fun with it. Like we want people to see that they have options and that they can, they can kind of customize their, their product to their own liking. And, um, I don't know, it's pretty fun to see people for the first time, you know, hold something in their hands and like realize that, you know, this looks nothing like it did on the internet. They kind of go wide eyed and their spouse or significant other that they brought to the show just kind of shakes their head and says, yeah, whatever you can get it.

Dan Bishop: Yeah. Go ahead. So that's after they've get, they've got, they get punched in the arm. Like, Oh, look at this. Look at this. I'm like, Oh yeah, whatever. You're crazy. Yeah. They're checking their phone and yeah. Nice deer. So let's, let's, let's get, let's get you to the show. What does your show schedule look like? What does LA look like for Karis customs? Um, you know, as far as what you did last year, what are you going to do this year? When are you showing up all that good stuff? Give us the rundown.

Brad Dowdy: So last year we went every day. Um, the, the first few days are very vintage, um, collector, heavy fishing vest, um, environments. Uh, so we didn't get, we got some traction. People just coming over, you know, kind of looking around, but to be fair, we really didn't have a whole lot of options. We had just a few inks and, um, people weren't necessarily interested, um, in them. So we, though, if you like more modern stuff, you're going to want to come later. So we, we are going to show up Friday afternoon to the hotel and, um, see if we can get some stuff out on a, on a, on a table just to kind of get our spot situated. And then we're going to hang out, you know, with everybody Friday and then sell on a Saturday and Sunday.

Dan Bishop: Cool. Cool. So Friday is just kind of a more casual day for you guys. There'll be, uh, I'm assuming just tables full of people with stuff out on Friday and I'm showing up Friday afternoon, um, as well. And I guess we're going to get selling right away as well, but it's, it's kind of random from what I hear, right? I mean, you just kind of set up where, where you, where you can grab a spot. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That's some of the politics of pen shows. Well, basically what happens is you, uh, there's trading days, um, on the first few days that it's supposed to be kind of first come first serve, but people kind of establish squatters rights and they'll, sometimes they'll try to, they'll camp out at the table that there's, you know, that they're assigned on, um, on Sunday so that they can kind of, you know, leave some of their big bulky stuff out shelves or something like that. So it's, it's not officially supported and I'll probably get in trouble for talking about it by the pen blog mafia, but, um, uh, it's, it's basically, it's supposed to be first come first serve, but it's kind of, uh, polite for, for you to not stake a claim where somebody else who's established and has been there for several years is coming in. So it's kind of hard for new companies like us to come in and get spaces like that because there are people who have been coming to the show for 10 or 15 years and they kind of have their spot established. So we have to kind of, you know, shimmy in, in between the, in the, in the cracks to find ourselves, but we're going to be at the same table that we were last year. It's kind of an odd spot, single table that I think nobody wants because of its location, but, um, we're right by one of the ballroom doorways in a corner. So, um, we're kind of isolated, but it's, we figured it's the same spot we had last year and it's, um, for now it's something that works for us and I know it should be pretty good. I'm looking forward to see how different it was from, from last year because we've seemed to have grown significantly since that point. So.

Dan Bishop: That's awesome. And it's going to be interesting for me because I haven't exactly DC wasn't exactly this way. I mean, it was kind of open, I guess on Thursday, but then by Friday, everyone was pretty much in their fixed spot, even though there were some moving and shaking on Sunday like that. But this is, seems even more variable. All I, all I can tell y'all that I'm working for Venice. We're going to be in the hallway on Sunday where we're going to be at until then. I have no clue. And I guess we'll find out when we get there, but, um, you'll, you'll, you'll probably,

Brad Dowdy: the hallway is usually the last spot to kind of fill because some of the vendors only show up for the, for the later days. So if you're there earlier, you can, you can usually stake your, kind of stake your claim at your table. It's, it's one of those things where it's, I don't know. I don't know whether it's, it's a good thing or a bad thing, but the first year that we went, um, we just came in on Thursday and we sat down at a table because there was nobody around. And then we were politely asked to move, um, which we were kind of like, what the, you know? Right. But we, it's, I don't know. I guess it makes sense that people who bring in a lot of product aren't going to want to, you know, take everything down and then move it again. So yeah, it's, it's kind of one of those community things that you, you take one for the team and, and, um, let everything flow the way that it usually does.

Dan Bishop: Yeah. I kind of hope we get our final destination on Friday, just so we're not taking down ink, um, every, every night and putting it back up every morning. That would not be the funnest, uh, use of time, but, uh, I'm there for Lisa. I will be, uh, I'll be her, uh, her pack mule for, uh, getting all that stuff back up to the rooms every night and putting it out every morning. It's going to be fun. I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to meeting all kinds of people. That's the best part about this. And I know Friday night, um, we're just going to hang out like at the bar. Then Saturday night, we have kind of a planned event. It's at seven 30, but it's still going to be like in the bar lobby area. So we're just going to have to finagle whatever space we can get. And, uh, it's, it should be, it should be interesting.

Myke Hurley: It doesn't sound as nice as Atlanta.

Brad Dowdy: Well, it's just different. The hotel is really nice and has like a big atrium with a bar and a restaurant downstairs. And I think there's actually outdoor space with fire pits and stuff.

Dan Bishop: If I remember right. So, um, yeah, cause we're just going to kind of wing it. Cause I know Kenro is, is involved with, um, with us on Saturday night and they're bringing like their, um, Moscow mule mugs and they're going to give some of that stuff away. And we're hoping we can get the bar to make some of this stuff out of their, their mixes or at least use their stuff. So it should be cool. I'm just interested to see how this space is going to work out, but I think it's going to be awesome regardless. I mean, we're, we're, uh, resourceful. We always make it work.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it should be, it should be pretty good. And, you know, it's, it's nice to have a lot of stuff in, you know, all there in the hotel. Cause once people get there, you know, you don't want to have to take a bunch of cabs or worry about, you know, doing all this stuff to get whatever. So yeah.

Dan Bishop: Especially my first time there, I kind of want to keep it, you know, just in the hotel. I probably won't leave the hotel the whole until I get back on my plane on Monday morning. It's just going to be busy in a good way.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That that's kind of my plan too, is I like to kind of treat it like a destination resort. I just kind of show up and do everything there and then leave when it's all finished.

Dan Bishop: Yeah. But Myke, like Atlanta, like I like that setup where starting Friday, you have an assigned table and you kind of know where everyone's at and you come back the next day and they're all still in the same place. It's kind of weird.

Myke Hurley: That's the thing that seems crazy to me is like that you have to move like that. That just seems, it just seems weird.

Dan Bishop: DC's a little bit like that, but I'm interested to see how this, if this is any different or it's really kind of overblown.

Brad Dowdy: It's kind of a, it's more of a tradition thing. Like, you know, right in LA, the Andersons have at the same table. You know, for a while. So they just come in and, and they, everybody just kind of knows that that's, that's their table. Exactly. And it's not strictly enforced. And I bet if you, if you raise the stink, people would probably get irritated, you know, but like, for example, last year, Myke, Myke Masayama, he had to set up the first couple of days at a different spot than where he ended up on Sunday.

Dan Bishop: Ah, that's interesting.

Brad Dowdy: And he seemed to, you know, he's super polite and was just happy to be there. But I was like, that's kind of messed up. Like, you know, I'm like, just let him set up where he's at. But it's, it's the trading days and all that stuff. There's a lot of people who will just show up and they won't come on Sunday at all. So it's their chance to interact with the community without having to deal with the crowds. So you can't have one without the other.

Dan Bishop: Is that the biggest difference between Friday and Saturday and Sunday? Sunday just flat out packed the whole day?

Brad Dowdy: Um, I come from a different background. I'm used to trade shows being in these kind of shows just being a madhouse. So I was expecting that kind of stuff, you know, that kind of crowd. And it, to me, it wasn't overwhelming. But at the same time, we weren't somebody like, we had one table. We didn't have four tables full of product. And we were scrambling to talk to, you know, 20 different people. It was just, if you're not talking to one of the two of us, you're standing in line and waiting. Which really didn't happen because we weren't that, you know, popular of a table. Yeah. That might change this year. We might be overwhelmed and wish that we had brought more people and got more tables. But the only way to know that is to show up.

Dan Bishop: Yeah, I hope you are. And that's what I did for D.C. last year. It was nice of the Van Esses to bring me out there so we can see, okay, will this work for Nock in the next year? And how would it be? And that's kind of what I see for L.A., you know, is it going to be worth us, you know, trekking across the country for Nock, you know, in following years? So, it's, I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be an awesome experience. And, you know, everyone who's out there, go see Dan, come see me, you know, say hi, talk, chit-chat, you know, everyone. We're out there to have a good time, you know.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, for sure. And it's one of those things where if you've never gone before, don't feel weird. Because it can be a bit intimidating because it's such a different experience than anything that you're probably used to. Go ahead and ask questions. There are going to be some cranky people. Just let them be cranky, you know. It's, you know, what's going to happen? There's just guys with trays and trays full of old pens. And, you know, if someone's making you feel weird, just walk away, you know.

Dan Bishop: Yeah, that's Myke made a lot of people feel weird in Atlanta and they just walked away.

Myke Hurley: Where are you from, boy?

Accent Humor

Dan Bishop: Actually, you did get a couple of those. I was like, oh, Lord.

Myke Hurley: I'll never forget that question in that way. Where are you from, boy? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Hey, man, where are you at? You got some kind of funny accent there, guy?

Myke Hurley: Well, I was standing in front of a maid here in Georgia scene.

Myke Hurley: That might have been the problem.

Dan Bishop: Yeah. Yeah, that didn't really work out for you.

Dan Bishop: Well, cool. Any final pro tips we need to know that I need to know before I go to L.A.?

Brad Dowdy: Let's see. I think we talked about some of this before. So if anybody's listening that hasn't gone to a pen show before, bring cash and a card. So the reason I'm saying that is if you're interested in certain, especially vintage items, some of these smaller guys, they like cash and they don't have the ability to take a card. So bring cash and then if you have an overflow, if you want to spend more than you have in cash, then bring your card. Because we had people come to us and they asked if you took card and they were thinking that we didn't. And we said yes. And then they whipped out their card and bought some pens. So, um, and, um, you know, you can kind of, you can sometimes haggle with people. You know, it's a little bit swap meet-ish. If somebody's selling a product that's new, probably not so much a haggle room. But if someone's got a shoebox full of pens, you might ask them, you know, you could get, you know, so many for this much or whatever. But, um, yeah, just don't, don't be afraid. Um, always ask questions. Um, uh, the one thing that I would say is before you pick anything up, um, ask. Especially if it's in something. Like if people have stuff on display, you know, always ask if you can see it. Um, because you never know if the pen you're picking up is, is a $10 or, you know, $500 pen. And, uh, personally, like, that was the big thing for me is I just didn't want to accidentally, like, pick up or, or mess up something that I couldn't afford if I broke it.

Dan Bishop: Yeah, or, or squirt ink across the table like Myke did. Oh, wow.

Myke Hurley: I bought that pen, so.

Dan Bishop: I know.

Brad Dowdy: I'm glad you did. That was my pen. Pretending to be an, to, to being an orthopod, he's just like, he squirts it and then runs away. Okay.

Dan Bishop: Well, cool. I, I'm ready. I think, I think, uh, everyone else is ready. Uh, Myke, are you ready for me to be there?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I'm looking, uh, what are you going to do to, to do coverage and stuff? Are you going to do anything? Are you going to be tweeting, periscoping, Instagramming?

Dan Bishop: I fully intend on it. Um, I'm going to try to do it as often and frequently as possible. I just don't know what the setup's going to be. And, you know, you know, my primary, uh, thing is to be working for Van S. Yeah. So I have a job to do. So I'm focused on that first. And then, you know, I'll definitely in the, in the evenings, I'll be tweeting and periscoping and taking pictures and doing all kinds of fun stuff.

Myke Hurley: And then next week we'll get a kind of a full breakdown of what the show was like. Right. We'll talk about it on the, on the show next week.

Dan Bishop: Yeah. We'll get, get the full recap and, uh, you know, hopefully I'll, I'll take a bunch of selfies. I'll be on a selfie train, um, you know, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for everyone that comes say hi. Um, expect to be selfied, uh, there and we'll, we'll get them all posted up. It's just fun. You know, I like to have fun. So I'll, I'll, I'll get a, I'll get an image with the beard boys.

Brad Dowdy: I just pictured Brad, like here I am at this table and it's just a picture of him. Like here I am at this table and it's just a picture of him. I'm looking at some great pens right now.

Dan Bishop: Just a picture of his face. I'm going to do that. I'm going to need, I'm just going to take flat Dan around and take some pictures of him.

Brad Dowdy: Um, you don't, you won't need flat Dan because round Dan is going to actually do that.

Dan Bishop: Yeah. Yeah. Well, we can, we can round it up together.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And it's funny. I invited people to take selfies with me in Atlanta and I think, no, I don't think anybody took advantage of it. So I did sign somebody's packaging, but that was, that was it. Um, but yeah, um, I, and I would say for Brad, like I would expect you're going to, cause people haven't the West coasters. A lot of people haven't had a chance to meet you. So you're probably going to have a few people hanging around just, you know, wanting to pick your brain or say hi. So yeah, I'd be prepared for that. Can't wait. Have some eight by 10 glossies ready to go.

Dan Bishop: It is LA. Get my head shots, get my, get my glamor shots going. Right.

Brad Dowdy: You need a, you need a fancy vest and like your, your chin on your hand looking away thoughtfully with a laser background.

Myke Hurley: No, he should be sitting there with like a pen in his mouth, like looking up, like thinking, you know, like one of those kinds of things. That's the, you need to get on that.

Show Preparation

Dan Bishop: Yeah. There has to be some bedazzling or some rhinestones. All right. We've gone completely off the rails. So Dan, I will see you in like two days. Yeah. Very jealous. Very jealous.

Myke Hurley: If you want to find the show notes for this week's episode, head on over to relay.fm slash pen addict slash 192. And thanks again to Harry's for sponsoring this week's episode. Once again, thank you all for your contributions to our Kickstarter campaign. We really, really appreciate that. If you want to find me online, I'm over at Twitter. I'm at iMike, I-M-Y-K-E. Brad is at Dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. I am iMike on Instagram. Brad is penaddict on Instagram. And you can find Brad's work over at penaddict.com. Mr. Bishop, where would you like to send people to go and find out more about you and what you're up to?

Brad Dowdy: They can find my work online or on Instagram at Karis Customs. And you can find my personal stuff at designconcussion online.

Myke Hurley: Awesome stuff. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of the Penaddict Podcast. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, guys.

Dan Bishop: Goodbye, guys. Goodbye, guys.