The Pen Addict 219/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	219
Title:	My Box of Goodies
Release Date:	August 24th, 2016
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 219
Audio File:	Audio Episode 219
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 219
Length:	6060 min <br />1 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 219. Today's show is brought to you by Harry's. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by the wonderful Mr. Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: The wonderful sounding Mr. Brad Dowdy, I might add.

Myke Hurley: Yep, you still sound amazing. So velvety smooth.

Brad Dowdy: Hey, thanks for all the props on the audio quality. We got a lot of good feedback on that. It went really well last week with the new gear and everyone noticed, which was cool.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I'm glad that people seem to be liking it. I have to say that when I was editing the show, I was very happy. Because that was one of the main things that prompted me to go ahead and get this all sorted, is that when I was editing the show, I was becoming frustrated with it. Yeah. So, that's why we did it. So, I'm sorry if it frustrated anyone and I'm happy that we got it all set.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I don't think it did. I don't think it did, but it's just now that it's better, it's noticeably better. I was on a show called Gear Geeks Live last night with our friend Tony from Everyday Commentary and he called me NPR Brad.

Myke Hurley: NPR, that's good actually, that works. I like that.

Brad Dowdy: So, that's the new setup is NPR Brad.

Myke Hurley: Talking about other places that we are, we've been talking about this on a bunch of shows where RelayFM is celebrating its second year anniversary, which means that RelayFM members are getting their first ever bonus content. So, over the next couple of weeks and over the previous week or so, we've been publishing special members shows to a special members feed that RelayFM members will get. If you're a member of any show, at any price point, you'll be able to get all the bonus content. And we are going to be recording and releasing a bonus episode of The Pen Addict in early September. In the first few days of September is when that episode is going to go up. And it's kind of a little bit of a mashup in a way. We've been doing a bunch of mashups, which I quite like. And this one, or crossovers, depending on how you might think of them. And on this one, we're going to be crossing over The Pen Addict with my previously retired show, Inquisitive. And we're going to be talking about Brad's favorite album.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: So, that's going to be out in a couple of weeks' time.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I'm anxious. I'm anxious because, you know, I will say, it is not my number one favorite album of all time. Mm-hmm. But it's like a hugely important album to me in my musical taste and style and philosophy and all that stuff.

Myke Hurley: That is all we'll save for now. Right. Save it for the show. We'll let you know when it goes up. But you want to go and sign up and become a member now and you'll get it. So, go sign up relay.fm slash membership.

Myke Hurley: Talking about amazing things that people should spend their money on. You have been working, squirreling away behind the scenes with our good friends over at Retro51 and have created the Pen Addict branded and customized Retro51. How did this come about? How did this come to be?

Brad Dowdy: So, created is a good word because it's already gone. This is all in past tense now. But they actually reached out to me last year, probably like in the fall or so, wanted to say, hey, you know, we'd love to create a pen with you if that's something you're interested in. I'm like, actually, I am interested in that, just not right now. And, you know, I'd let them in on my plans. You know, at that time in the fall, I hadn't quit my previous job and it was still working towards doing this full time. And so, I said, once I get settled in and have left my job and I'm doing the Pen Addict and not full time, then let's talk about doing a collaboration. So, they actually reached back out to me like in February-ish or so. And we started talking about what a Pen Addict Retro51 would look like, what it would be, importantly to me, what it would cost, how many I would have to order. And so, we just worked over a couple months on all the details. Got it hammered out. I signed off on it. I paid for it. And then they produced it in about two or three months. And then I sold it out in a matter of days, which, you know, if I went public. Oh, so it's gone. Oh, it's long gone.

Myke Hurley: Hmm.

Brad Dowdy: It was gone last week. If I went public with it, when I launched it, it would have been gone in a day, I'm pretty sure. But I knew that might happen. So, I gave the members, the Pen Addict members, first crack at it for a few days.

Myke Hurley: What another great reason to be a Pen Addict member as well.

Brad Dowdy: Well, plus, they also got 25% off, which I'll tell you right now, I'm doing other pens. That's not going to happen for every pen. Not every vendor allows you to discount their things, discount their products. So, that was a big deal. To be able to do that. And so, the members had advance notice. So, my members newsletter goes out on Saturday. I listed it for them. I gave them about four days. I was actually going to give them five, but Retro 51 was chomping at the bit to post it themselves. So, I let them post it on their Facebook feed and Twitter feed on Wednesday. Then I posted about it on the blog on Thursday. As soon as those two things happened, they were gone. So, I bet the members got at least half of them, which is good. You know, they had several days. They had a discount. A big discount, I will say. It made it very, very inexpensive. And the feedback has been wonderful. It's, you know, I was nervous about getting 300 pens, right? That's a big number. That's a big outlay of money. And, OMG, can I sell all these things, right? So, this was, it wasn't a test, but it certainly told me, okay, the expectations. I can ramp that up a little bit. You know, like if I do another one, like this is not something I will do frequently. I don't, I am very conscious in everything I do about overloading anything, right? I don't do too many advertisers. I don't do too many posts. I don't do, you know, I'm not going to sell too many things at one time. So, there's not going to be another retro in three months, you know? I can't see doing more than one a year. You know, I think that's the right pace. But knowing what happened this time with, if I went public with it on day one, I would have been sold out in no more than two days. I can guarantee that. I will do at least 500 next time.

Myke Hurley: That's awesome. It's making me want to do one.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah. I got to say.

Brad Dowdy: So, like a relay one or a Myke was right one?

Myke Hurley: I was, I mean, there are absolutely no plans for this. I'll just say it. No plans. I haven't spoken to anyone. But like, it's, it's making, it's just making me want to do a relay one, which would be kind of cool. Like a blue one with the relay logo on the finial. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So I, in the members newsletter, I sent out some of the mock-ups. The blue one in there. You'll have to check out. It's really nice. It's very relay-ish.

Myke Hurley: Because what I like about the one that you've gone with is the body, the orange body is the body that we both started with with Retro 51. Yep. Which is a nice callback. Like, we both got the orange one to start. Yep. And then, as you say, you've got like the, but it's the ones that we got, the ones that they sold, silver, like furniture. And this has the kind of antique silver. Yep. But the best part of it, though, is the, is the little pen addict logo in the finial, which is kind of cool. Yeah. You know? I love it. And I have number two. You saved number two for me just to continue my trend of having number two of all of the, the, uh, the limited edition ones.

Brad Dowdy: You were like super, super worried about it too, because you didn't talk to me for a couple of days until after they launched, I guess. Right. And then you said something about any chance I can get number two.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Cause I think I was, I was away, I was doing something. So I didn't get to the membership newsletter for a bit, like for a couple of days. And then I was like, oh no, like I've got to make sure I get number two, but you'd already sent it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It was already, it was probably already at Steven's house by that time.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Cause that, uh, this was in my box of goodies, which we're going to get to in a moment. Uh, but yeah, I'm really, I'm really pleased that you did this. It's, it's nice. And I love the box and stuff that the logo on the box, you know, it's, it's cool to me as well, right? Because the, it's based on the artwork that we created for the show. Yeah. Um, which we then kind of spread out to the site as well, because it just works so well together. So it's really nice to see that on this, on, on my favorite pen in the world, you know?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. There's a lot of meaning behind this pen, you know? So, you know, it, and it's subtle and it, maybe it's just for, you know, us. Um, but, um, you know, there's a, there's a lot there. So it was very cool to do and I'm glad it, uh, went so well.

Box of Goodies

Myke Hurley: So I mentioned my box of goodies. So I get to Steven's house and there's a box of stuff waiting for me. Um, a lot of it came from Brad and it included my, my retro 51. Um, it also included the relay FM Fisher space pens that we have made, uh, of which we sent you one. Uh, I'll find a, well, I'll put a link in the show notes. I'll take a picture of mine. Yeah. Mine's on Instagram.

Brad Dowdy: So you can grab it out of my feet.

Myke Hurley: I'll grab yours then. Um, this is a thing that we're doing like every year. We like to try and now send a gift to our hosts. Uh, last year we had the wooden blocks that we had sent, which were laser edge with the logo. It's on mine too. And now we have Fisher space pens with the relay FM logo on. Once again, uh, we have the wonderful Mr. Myke Dudek who organized and arranged all of this for me. And I think he actually bought the Fisher space pens from Ron, which is. Oh, sweet. Which was really funny to me. Uh, but yeah. That makes sense. This, so that though, I picked some of those up, which I'm really happy about. Uh, I think they came out really well again.

Brad Dowdy: It came out really well. I mean like exceptionally well. I'm, I'm, this is one where I'm actually going to have a hard time using it because I like it so much. That's why I call a couple. Yeah. Exactly.

Myke Hurley: I want one to keep and then I'm going to use another one. Yeah. I want to get an extra one for me.

Brad Dowdy: Uh, thank you very much for doing that to you and Steven. We really appreciate that.

Myke Hurley: It's a pleasure. As a couple of people pointed out and this wasn't in the initial thinking, but it's the perfect mix of me and him, pens and space. Right. Right. But it wasn't why we thought of it initially, but it was, it's really funny. Oh, I don't know. Maybe that was because Dudek suggested it and we were trying to get his help and he suggested to do the space pens. So I don't know if he had thought that maybe he did. He's a smarter man than I anyway. Yeah. But as well as that, so in the box, there was a couple of different things. One was another space pen. Can you explain to me what's, what this is all about?

Listener Email

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So we have a listener named Brian who sent me an email and had lots of questions in it, you know, just different things going back and forth. He was going to the DC pen show and just had some questions. He'd never been to a pen show, you know, wanted to know which day to come, you know, that kind of stuff. And at the end of the mail, it says, by the way, I work at NASA HQ in DC. Would you and Myke like a Fisher space pen from the store there?

Brad Dowdy: And he's like, I don't know much about them. You know, I don't know if they're just, you know, for that location or if they're a normal product. And I'm like, yeah, we would, we would like. So Brian, thank you very much. He sent you and I one. We each got a different one. I sent you the one with the space shuttle clip, which I thought was really cool. And I thought that would especially tick off Steven.

Myke Hurley: He was very jealous of it.

Brad Dowdy: And then mine has, is the same shape design and color, but has the NASA logo like engraved on the cap. So it's a little different from yours. They're super cool. They're the full length clicky space pen. Yeah. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I didn't even know it was such a thing as a clicky one.

Brad Dowdy: Yep.

Myke Hurley: So thank you, Brian.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Thank you, Brian. That was really, really cool. It's a, it's a great looking pen. They actually, I was showing them off in DC and, and Anna was taking pictures of them to show to her husband because he's into that stuff too. And he was all mad and wanting her to steal them from me. And so, yeah, they were ahead.

Retro 51 Pens

Myke Hurley: Taking a picture right now.

Myke Hurley: So that'll be in the show notes and you'll get to see on the paper behind it, the little notes that I take during the show. Yeah. So you can see all that stuff. What are you using? Brad was terrible there. Uh, I was switched over. I was using a pen that we're going to talk about next. And then I switched over to the retro 51 because I had it in my hand. Gotcha. So that's going to be in the show notes, but there was also something else in the package that I didn't recognize at first. So I picked up the package, went through it all. I was like, oh, the retro 51's here. And my Joey Feldman retro 51, which she sent over for me. Cause that had a bit of a tough time getting here. It did. Uh, this in the space pens, this is awesome. And then the next day I'm going through the package again. And I was like, oh, there's a, there's a knock code case in here. Like, oh, maybe this is like a new prototype or something that Brad sent me. Like what's he sent me? And I open it up and there are three pens inside this knock code case. Can you tell the world what these pens are?

Brad Dowdy: Sort of. I can tell you the story behind them. I don't know how much I can tell you about them, but I'm at DC. I don't even remember which day this was. I'm guessing it was Friday. Yeah, it was Friday. And, um, friend of the universe, Thomas Hall comes over with these three pens in his hand and he goes, check these out. Look what I just found. Um, what do you think about them? And I was like, wow, they're super pretty. And then he's like, look closer. And, um, you know, there, there's, there's this nice, um, marbled acrylic, really pretty looking faceted pens look like a Omos style pen. And then to look closer and it's got to say retro 51 stamped into the barrel, you know, not stamped into the acrylic. So not like you can't, you can't really see that it's a retro 51 right off hand. And they're all three, like the same shape and design, just all three different colors. And I was like, wow, what are these? And he's like, I have no idea. I've never seen these before. And this guy wants, um, this guy over here selling them. And I asked him if I could bring them to you. And I was like, well, I guess I need to buy these for Myke. Right. And he's like, yeah, you need to buy them for Myke.

Myke Hurley: So I did.

Brad Dowdy: And, um, we still didn't know at that time what they were like, what they were called when they were made. Um, but we kept looking online and it turns out they're called the retro 51 double eight fountain pen. Um, we might actually have to get with retro 51 to figure out the full lineage, what year they were made. I'm thinking there may be about 10 years old, but they could be older. I don't know for sure. There's really very little information about them. Um, I did send you the boxes for them, which actually didn't make, uh, didn't make your, your departure date from the U S. So we'll have to figure out what to do about that. Um, but they're the original boxes and, um, there were three colors of them and I just bought them all. I thought you would enjoy that. I didn't know. I couldn't remember if you had bought any of these old style fountain pens or not. I've never seen them. But yeah, they're, they're all fountain pens, which I don't know if we've actually mentioned.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. In all of my searches for when I was like collecting some of this stuff, uh, I had never seen this pen before. Hmm.

Brad Dowdy: Um, it looks like, you know, looking online, they're really hard to find information on online. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Like I can find some to sell.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, that looks like it's just actually, I wish they would make their, their fountain pens like this now because I don't like the sections on their new fountain pens. So I, barrels are great. The nibs are great. The sections aren't great. Yours have, the ones you have there are really good. I didn't clean them up or anything. So one of them is probably need some cleaning. One of them was completely like that, but they're essentially new.

Myke Hurley: Okay. Yeah. One of them was completely clean. Uh, the others, the others maybe need a little bit of work on them.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. One definitely looked used like just the nib looked like it had ink on it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, exactly. But overall, like they're in fantastic condition and I'm using one of them today. Um, and they're beautiful and they're fantastic additions to my collection. And I can't believe that you did this and I'm very, very thankful. Um, and so I really appreciate it. Absolutely. Do you want to know one of my favorite parts of them? So on the, you see it more on the mahogany and the blue one. Um, the clip has a little notch in the clip and then, uh, there's a piece of acrylic from the, from the barrel on the clips, which matches. Yep.

Brad Dowdy: That's very cool touch.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. It's really, it's a really nice touch. I've never seen something like that before, but it's a great way to integrate the acrylic and the metal together.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. That's very cool. I was just shocked at how, how like pretty and well designed they were.

Myke Hurley: Very different to the stuff that they make now.

Brad Dowdy: Very different. You wouldn't, you wouldn't walking by a table, you would not ever pick that out as a retro 51, would you?

Myke Hurley: No. How did Thomas even know? Was he just looking at them?

Brad Dowdy: No clue. Yeah. He was just looking at them.

Myke Hurley: Huh? Well, I want to thank you. You didn't have to do this.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, well, sure. It's my pleasure. Thank Thomas for finding them. Oh, well. You know, the look he gets in his face.

Myke Hurley: You got to see this. I've seen that look.

Brad Dowdy: That look usually results in somebody spending money. Yep. Well, this was a no brainer. This was like a super easy decision.

Myke Hurley: Very nice. Mm-hmm. So this, uh, no more surprises for me for now?

Brad Dowdy: I, I'm going to go with no, but you never know. You never know. That's the surprise. Right.

Myke Hurley: I suppose. Right.

Apple Pencil

Brad Dowdy: I am going to San Francisco. And I know when I went to LA, I got some stuff for you. I got that old school Apple mechanical pencil, which is one of the coolest things I've honestly, one of the coolest things I've ever delivered to you was that that's one I wanted to steal. That's a really cool pencil. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Have you ever taken a picture of that? No, I haven't. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: It's awesome. It's like an old Parker vector, but it looks fantastic.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. That one's currently in a, in a box for moving. Yeah. Yeah. That's not too easy to get to.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So you never know.

Myke Hurley: So yeah, you're talking about pen shows. Yeah. You're on your way to one.

Brad Dowdy: Another, another one, another one. Last one of the year for me. Um, most likely I don't see any reason that I'll be at any other ones, but you never know. So, but, uh, last show, San Francisco this weekend, I actually, I fly out, uh, first thing in the morning. So I'm leaving early tomorrow morning. So I'll be in late Thursday because I have some things going on, some meetings, um, Thursday afternoon before I get to the hotel Thursday night. So you may see me there if you're there early Thursday. Um, then Friday through Sunday, I'll be working, um, at Van Ness pens the whole weekend. So definitely come by and say hi. We have a meetup scheduled for seven o'clock on Friday night. At the hotel, you don't need anything to come. Just show up. You don't even have to be a show attendee. Just come on, come say hi, come hang out. We'll just, we'll have some snacks and maybe some drinks. And, uh, I'll have a bunch of door prizes to give away, but it's really nothing more than just a meetup, just to hang out and chit chat. And, uh, it's going to be fun. Um, Lisa Van Ness's first time at the show was last year and she's done nothing but rave about it ever since. So I'm looking for a good time at, uh, at this show.

Myke Hurley: So you've never been to the San Francisco pen show before?

Brad Dowdy: No.

Myke Hurley: Okay. Man, it's going to be great. San Francisco's a fun town.

Brad Dowdy: It is. It is. I don't know how much, you know, I go to these pen shows. I never get to see much of the town, but, uh, I'm still pretty excited to be there. I'm pretty excited about the weather too. I can use some cool weather.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I can imagine it's been a bit hot.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Actually, my wife, my wife's jealous. Like if she, if she could have worked it out, she would have come with me on this trip, but she mostly wants. Yeah. She mostly, she couldn't work it out, but mostly she wants to come because of the weather.

Brad Dowdy: We're ready for summer to end.

Myke Hurley: So talking about nice places, you've got a pen inspired by some nice, a nice place. This is a, uh, some follow-up, right? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Kind of, kind of DC, yeah. Kind of DC pen show follow-up. My friends, Hugh and Carol from Canalea pen company. We talked about how beautiful their pens were, how much of a hit they were at, um, at the DC pen show. So I think the night I got home, I went on their website and ordered one. Because they, they only had one of the one that I wanted and they said they'd sell it to me, but they needed to keep it the weekend. And they wanted to show people. And I was like, you know, I just, I can wait. I'll order it afterwards. So I did that and it showed up last night. Um, and I didn't have time to unbox it last night. I was so busy. So I thought this morning, um, while I was finishing my packing, um, that I do a little unboxing. I did it on Instagram. You can, if you look at those Instagram stories up on the top, you'll see me go through the unboxing. And I bought the Kohala sunset model, which is kind of like a gray, orange, and black model designed off the sunset over the ocean. Um, on the, I think it's off the big Island, um, in the Koala region. Um, it's just a really, I mean, it's a stunning pen. I don't know what to say about it. Like I've, I've fawned over them before when we talked about it, but I actually got one in. Um, it's as good as I expected. Um, it's actually bigger than I remember, which is a good thing. It's like, it's, you know, it's a big sturdy pen and, uh, feels great to write with. Um, I've swapped in one of my gold Edison nibs because, um, it deserves a nib like that. Um, put in some orange ink and, uh, I'm ready to go. So I'll bring that to me with, to, uh, San Francisco, uh, for sure. Show it off, but, uh, I'm going to use the heck out of it. I really, really like it.

Myke Hurley: So piece of follow up. Uh, I haven't bought one yet. Um, and the only reason is because if the, the delivery time on the one that I want is like six to eight weeks and with any luck, I may have changed address. Yeah, that's true. And so I actually had an email exchange of you and I told him that I was like, I'm going to buy one that he wrote to us and thanked us for talking about him on the show, which was a pleasure. Cause why the hell would we not talk about these pens? Uh, I said, like, I just, the only reason I haven't bought one yet, as soon as I know, as soon as our address stuff is all locked down. Yeah. As I said, hopefully it will be a new one. Uh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pick one up because boy, boy, boy.

Brad Dowdy: That's why, that's why I ordered the second I got home because I knew the lead time would increase exponentially like in the matter of a day. I mean, I think they went from like two weeks to eight weeks in the span of a day. So I've got some pictures of it in the show notes. Um, you'll, you'll be seeing a lot more pictures of this pen. I'm sure.

Myke Hurley: So Edison nibs you recommend for this?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I mean, I've got so many of them. I've got two gold ones. I've got a gold one. I use in my orange G 10 that I've had ground down to a fine cursive italic. So that's a perfect fit for this pen. So I just swapped it right in. Nice. Easy peasy.

Myke Hurley: And we've got some bumper ask TPA today. We're still trying to clear out the ask TPA box. I think it gets bigger and bigger the more we do it.

Brad Dowdy: So we just, it does. We get more and more email as TPA than we've ever gotten in the past, which actually I enjoy because we get some really, um, some, uh, non-standard questions like this first one we're going to get to.

Myke Hurley: But before we do that, I want to take a moment and thank our friends over at Harry's for sponsoring this week's episode. I'm sure that you have been a fallen victim in the past to when a razor manufacturer goes through a change. Maybe they upgrade their razor, but then they pass the extra costs back onto you again and increase the prices, right? Which seems, you know, it seems relatively normal as a thing to do. Oh, this product's better. So we're going to charge a little bit more for it and you're getting more out of it. You're getting more features. So you're fine, but you're still paying more money, which isn't always the nicest thing in the world. So wouldn't it be nice if the razors that you use, the company that you're using, they upgraded their razor. They maybe, uh, gave it a trimming blade on the back or a lubricating strip, or maybe even a better flex hinge. So it would glide more comfortably on your face. Wouldn't it be great if you got all of those things from your razor company? Of course it would. But imagine if they didn't change the price of it. That's exactly what Harry's have done. They've given all of those fantastic new features along with a new razor handle, which has a great texture to it now. So it won't slip out of your hand. You can get all of this with Harry's for exactly the same price as you'll be used to paying. And if you're not already a Harry's customer, that price is going to be cheaper than what you're currently paying as well. I'm sure of it. Their blades are just $2 a blade. And this is why on average an everyday shaver saves $150 each year when they use Harry's blades. Harry's believe in the quality of their products so much that they will give you a full refund if you're not happy. That is a quality guarantee right there. They have an amazing starter set for just $15. You can get a weighted razor handle, moisturizing shave cream, and three precision engineered five blade cartridges. And you'll also get a lovely travel cover to put them in too. They have incredible design. Their products all smell great. They feel great. They're going to keep you looking fresh. Going to keep you looking trim. And because those blades are so cheap, you'll be able to swap them out more often and just take the benefit of that smoother shave more frequently. Now, remember that starter set I just told you about where you get the razor, shave cream, the blades, and the cover for just $15? Well, what if I told you you could get it for just $10? Well, all you need to do is go to harrys.com and you'll get $5 off if you use the coupon code PENADDICT. Check out all one word, P-E-N-A-D-D-I-C-T. Just use that with your first purchase. You'll get $5 off. That's H-A-R-R-Y-S.com. Coupon code PENADDICT for a special $5 off. Thank you so much to Harry's for their support of this show and RelayFM.

Brad Dowdy: All right, before we get into the Ask TPA, I'm going to put one of our, I'm going to embarrass one of our live listeners here.

Myke Hurley: Uh-oh.

Birthday Card

Brad Dowdy: It was my birthday this past weekend.

Myke Hurley: Oh, yeah. Happy birthday.

Brad Dowdy: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I was sent a card that did not arrive. It was returned to sender. And this card contained a poem that I'm going to read. This is from Hot Couple Loving, who is now live in the chat room and is now probably turning red in the face. But I'm going to read this poem because it's cool. And you're in it. That's why I want to read it. Happy birthday to a king of pens. The Pen Addict blog is where you began. With the help of Myke Hurley, you spread your addiction. We all happily share this pen loving condition. Now the Pen Addict podcast reigns supreme. Bow down, you Bic-using fiends. No pen cases suited your needs. So you started NotCo with Jeff, a king of seams. May your day be filled with pens, paper, and analog tools. Keep up the good work. This stuff is really cool. How good is that?

Myke Hurley: That is awesome.

Brad Dowdy: It is awesome. So thank you, Hot Couple Loving. Sorry if I embarrassed you, but I had to read it.

Brad Dowdy: It was so good. I loved it. It was perfect. So thank you. That's some skills right there. It was. That was some skills. All right. Hard left turn here. Literally. We're going to talk about lefties. And we're going to talk about specifically the Apple Pencil for lefties. And I saved this question. I've had this question in my inbox for like a couple of weeks. Knowing that I wanted to save it for you because you're the one that can answer it. And it's a question from Amy who's basically saying she's played around with the Apple Pencil using Procreate and wanted to try out digital calligraphy. However, she's a lefty and no matter what setting she used, she could not get the big transitions from thick lines to thin lines that she sees others getting. Out of curiosity, she switched the Apple Pencil to her right hand and voila, big thick to thin lines. Switch back to my left hand, nothing close to what I could get with my right hand. So, Michael, is there a way to adjust the Apple Pencil to favor a left-handed hold or did Apple overlook that step?

Myke Hurley: I cannot reproduce the problem that Amy is having. And I spent time trying to do this today. You use Procreate, right? Very rarely. I mean, I have it installed, but I'm no artist. Okay, sure, sure, sure. I was playing around with Procreate. And if I'm following with the way that Amy is doing this, I selected one of the ink options and chose one of the marker pens that they have or the ink pens from the selection. You can choose different brushes. And I was drawing and was getting thin lines. And I was pressing harder and then getting thick lines. And I was doing it left-handed and right-handed. So, I wanted to just kind of say, like, I don't know how Amy was trying to do it. It may have been through rotation. But from what I can understand, at least with the way that I was getting it to work with Procreate, is it was the pressure sensitivity. It was what was producing thinner and thicker lines. And I was able to do it in any orientation, left or right-handed. Apple hasn't got anything for left-handed or right-handed people because it should work equally across both. Right. The only thing that there might be, I don't know if Procreate has some kind of setting to favor the hand that you use. I was digging around and couldn't find anything. There may have been some strange configuration on it in the store. Or there could have also been a problem with that Apple Pencil itself because I know that it has sensors in it to detect things. And it might not have been working properly. But I've tried it out and I can't reproduce this problem. So, from what I can tell, unless there's a way that Amy was expecting this to work that I didn't think of, it will produce thinner lines and thicker lines depending on how hard you press the Apple Pencil into the page. I have been able to do shading and stuff when I tilt it, but that's the only way that I could work out how to do it.

Brad Dowdy: So, just for clarity's sake, you're a standard overrider? Is that a correct statement?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, but I was trying that from all orientations as well in case that wasn't working. It's purely, from what I can see, is a pressure sensitivity thing. So, it doesn't matter what orientation you're coming from. It just depends how hard you're pressing. Again, there might be something I'm missing here, but that was when I was trying it out today, the way to get it to work.

Brad Dowdy: Cool. All right. So, the next question is actually something I have experience with. And as I say that, I'm actually typing on the Pen Anik. I think Jeff wrote an article about this. And it's the Kaweco Sports and how sometimes they have a little bit of a skipping issue with the nibs. Like, the Kaweco's had some issues over the years, especially like in the medium range. I don't have much of an issue with extra fines or even fines. But pins with medium nibs for a while there were skipping, hard starting. They have a condition known as baby's bottom. So, Jeff Abbott wrote a post on the Pen Addict about smoothing out the baby's bottom with using micromesh. And that's something I use all the time, not necessarily to smooth out the baby's bottom. But this email from Kenneth is basically saying, can you talk about the importance of micromeshing nibs? I'm fairly new to fountain pens and initially gravitated towards Kaweco Sports because of their design. And then he ran into those issues that a lot of people have that basically caused this article. So, one, we'll send him to that article. And that'll be in the show notes. But two, I keep micromesh handy for a lot of nibs. I actually just noticed when I switched this gold nib. I've used this gold nib for, I don't know, a full year in my Edison G10 and really didn't notice it until I put it in this Canalea pen. And it could be the ink. The ink's a little bit drier that I'm using. I noticed just a little bit of roughness when I go from left to right in a horizontal fashion. So, what I'll do is take my little micromesh pad. You put a little dab of water on it. You don't do it dry. And then you just kind of do some figure eights and infinity symbols. Kind of get all those directions all there and make it kind of look like a flower.

Brad Dowdy: And you do it very softly. And you do it in a very limited fashion. You don't do this a lot. And then you take it off the page, write on the paper, and you can tell immediately that something's changed in the pen. Usually for the better. If you're pressing too hard or going too fast or doing it too frequently, you could mess up your nib. But you want to do it lightly. Use water. Do it softly. And test constantly as you're doing it. And it's one of the favorite pieces of fountain pen gear that I own because I'll just use it to touch up nibs that I'm feeling something weird in. And it makes an immediate difference. I think everyone should have a little piece, you know, in their desk. And it's reusable. I'm on the same sheet that I've had for like two years now. And it's about a two by two or a three by three inch sheet. And it just doesn't really get worn out unless you're doing something you shouldn't be doing. And I really recommend doing it. But just be careful not to take it overboard because you can do some, I won't say damage, but you can go too far. You know, it's essentially a sandpaper. Buy the finest grit that you can. It's like a 12,000. I think the one I have is 12,000. I think that's about the finest you can get. And just go slow. Take it easy. Test constantly. And you should definitely try this on your nibs if you're seeing some issues. And we'll include the show, the link to that article in the show notes to smooth, how to smooth a baby's bottom out.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. With your help, I have done this.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's not, it's one of those things that just like cleaning fountain pens was in the beginning. It's like, oh, that's going to freak me out. And it's going to be a pain. And I'm going to hate it. And I'm going to do something wrong. And I'm going to break something. It was like that with micromesh, you know, when I first got it. And I was like, oh, I'm going to do this wrong. I'm going to mess something up. And now it's one of my favorite things to do because it takes very, very little to make a huge difference in the writing output of your nib.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. But it's one of those things that I think maybe use sparingly or as like a last resort type of thing. Like don't just keep doing it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It shouldn't be your, it's probably not your first line of defense, I would say. Yeah. Yeah. Make sure your pen's clean first. That actually causes lots of problems. More problems than people know. So I, that's always one of my first questions in emails. When's the last time you like disassembled this and cleaned it? I'm not talking about just like rinsing the nib out. I'm talking about like taking it apart, you know, taking the nib out of the feed and everything. So, yeah. But it's a worthwhile tool. And once you get used to it, you're going to, you're going to want it in your little fountain pen repair kit along with your syringes and, and booger suckers.

Brad Dowdy: I just ordered new booger suckers. Mine, mine split. So.

Myke Hurley: Can we, can we go back to calling them aspirators again? Can we go, can we go back to that? I think I prefer that.

Brad Dowdy: You don't have kids.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. And that's why, exactly. So that's why I would prefer to just go back to calling them aspirators again. All right. Aspirators.

Brad Dowdy: Thank you very much. All right. Pro tip. Buy the blue ones, not the white ones. They crack worse.

Myke Hurley: That's weird.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I don't know. Just different brands, different rubbers, softness. There is a, there's a tier, there's a tier ranking of aspirators on the market. Myke.

Myke Hurley: I felt you struggle with yourself there for a moment. I really appreciate your hard work.

Pen Nibs

Brad Dowdy: It's scary that I know these things. So. All right. So here's one that I think you will, you will enjoy this question. And I enjoyed this question. It's actually a very simple question, but I thought it was worthwhile to bring up. So it says, Jim asks, Jim says, I just finished listening to a lot of the ask TPA things on episode 218. And a question came to mind. I know that you like fine, extra fine nibs in general. However, do you like something broader for signing things? It says, I too prefer the fine nibs, but I have one Waterman hemisphere and a medium. That seems to be a good signature pen. So Jim, absolutely 100% yes. And I tend to keep like one big wet stub nib inked up on my desk with some kind of cool ink, usually like a bright blue turquoise, you know, Conpecky, Topaz, something like that. Because when you write somebody a letter or sign a signature with that and they get it, it really stands out. Like I've gotten comments on just a note. I'll drop into something I'm mailing and I'll use, I'll rarely use one of my extra fine nibs for that because you want to show off that ink and paper because a lot of times I'm sending things to people who have never seen this stuff before. And they kind of do, they kind of get that, oh, wow, what is this? Like I'll get emails back saying, what did you use to write this letter with? Because you kind of have that show pen, which you're like, you're a good signature pen. So yeah, I do do that. Do you have a use case for that, Myke? Do you do that at all? Or do you just, you always have like a wider nibs inked up to begin with?

Myke Hurley: I always have wider nibs anyway because I just like to use broads and stubs and music nibs. I feel of them as being more fun, you know, in that way. So I always have that sort of stuff around. Whilst you were talking, I picked up my Sky at Night and was scribbling around with that thing because I love to just, this is my play pen in a weird way. Like it's the pen that I pick up just to play with and just draw silly boxes and lines and squiggles with because it's, of all the pens I have, it's the one that's the most fun to use because it's just weird. You know, like the music nib is just such a weird nib. But yeah, so I always keep broader nibs around. I think it's fun.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. So yeah, agree. And I think a lot of people who listen to the show and a lot of people are into these kind of things do have like a specific, like a favorite letter writing signature pen. And it's usually always going to be something wide and something showy.

Myke Hurley: And I have to say that over time, I have to say that my favorite pen, my favorite nib type is a 1.1 stub. I just think that they're nice, just the nicest to use.

Brad Dowdy: Agree. Yeah, that's the kind of the perfect middle ground there. I agree completely. All right. So speaking of a pen, you can get a 1.1 stub in. Scott has a pen question that you guys are uniquely suited to answer. I like that. We're special little flowers, Michael. It says, I'm thinking about buying a TWSBI Eco. I like the look and you guys seem to really enjoy the pen. However, my main concern is that I am a fidgety person, much like the pen addict himself. I find myself absentmindedly fiddling with my pens or messing with some small item around me while I'm in a meeting or just thinking at my desk. This includes me often twisting on and off the cap on my Kaweco Sport for minutes on end. With the TWSBI Eco, I'm concerned that I will uncap the pen to find that I've accidentally emptied a full load of ink, making a huge mess. Would it be easy to accidentally twist the piston mechanism on this pen or am I overthinking the situation? Thanks from an absent-minded professor. So you're totally overthinking the situation. And the TWSBI Eco specifically is a pen that can handle your fidgeting. The piston does not get loose. The build of the pen does not allow for a lot of ink to get loose in the nib through the feed into the cap. It's a real sturdy pen and it's just not going to do that with any kind of regular use or even like a fidgety use. Now, if you're a...

Myke Hurley: Yeah, the only issue you're going to have is if you genuinely believe that you would unscrew... Like you would want to be screwing and unscrewing the piston end. Like if you do that, you're in bad trouble, right? But I can't think that even a fidgeter I can't imagine would do that. But if that's your concern that you think that you'll be screwing and unscrewing the piston, then you're in for a bad time. Because you'll blow the thing up, right?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. But even then, like even if you just make that first little unthread... Yeah, you have to really go for it. Yeah, you would have to go for it. Like even that first little unthread is not going to push the ink out the nib and make a mess for you. So even if you've bumped that a few times or just can't help yourself and you're twisting it a few times. If you're really going to town on it, well, yeah, you're going to have a problem with any pen. But, you know, in all my years of using fountain pens in an office environment, only once did I ever like make a mess in a meeting. And that was with a vacuumatic. And for some reason, I like flicked it and just like unknowingly and shot ink across the table. Oh, my God. And it wasn't too bad. And like only the person sitting next to me noticed it. So I just kind of left it there till later. Then I cleaned it up. But it wasn't like a flood of ink. It was like five drops like shooting across the table.

Myke Hurley: Well, the worst I ever did was explode a pen. What's the mechanism called? And it has the little arm that you lift up.

Brad Dowdy: Lever filler.

Myke Hurley: There you go. When I exploded a lever filler, a vacuumatic pen show. Yeah. All over the guy's table. Was that my pen? Yeah. Yeah. Way to go. He was telling me how to fill it. And I thought he was running through the instructions with me. Like as if like follow along. So I followed along. He didn't want me to follow along.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I'm with you. I can see that. But yeah, the TWSBI Eco is actually a super durable pen. It's not going to take a little bit of fidgeting to do anything to. You're going to have to be like a pen twirler or something to start slinging ink around with that thing.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I agree.

Brad Dowdy: All right.

Brad Dowdy: This is one of the more simple questions we get on a regular basis. But I'm finding this one extraordinarily hard to answer. And we're going to talk about this. And it's very simple. This is from Tim. He says, Brad Myke, help me decide please. I'm debating what new pen to add to everyday carry with my new pop-off field notes cover. So it's a standard like leather field notes cover that you see. Holds the notebook. If you could only have one pen for EDC, would you go for a Baron Fig Squire, Kaweco Classic, or Kaweco Lilliput?

Brad Dowdy: You go first. Because I still don't know that I have an answer.

Myke Hurley: So I'm going to discount the Squire because it doesn't have a clip. I feel like an EDC pen with a case and a notebook should have a clip on it so you can actually put the thing together in one package. Right? Right. Which would also make me shy away from the Kawecos because they don't come with clips. You have to put clips on them. And those clips aren't very sturdy. So I'm struggling with this a little bit. What I would maybe say is none of those. And if you like the Squire, you should go with a Retro 51 because it has a clip on it and the same refill.

Brad Dowdy: So I wanted you to go first because I actually thought you'd have an answer. And it turns out you have the same answer as me. It's actually none. It's actually none of the above. Neither of those three pens. That's not the question he asked, though. That's why I'm struggling with it. The correct answer is none. But he gave us three options. Like, those are the three pens that he wants. So I feel like we should pick one.

Myke Hurley: Well, okay. So if we're going to have to pick one of these three, and I will say, and we want to make this very clear, Tim, that none of these pens are what we would consider to be the best option for the task at hand. So that is the clarification here.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So the field notes are awesome. The cover is awesome. Every single one of these pens is awesome. Putting them all together, I don't come up with the answers that Tim's coming up with.

Myke Hurley: So, I mean, I think what we have here is Tim has a dream situation, right? Like, these are the three pens he really wants to own. And he's hoping he can combine them. So I'm going to say definitely not to the Squire, because it should have a clip on it, which it doesn't. So at that point, you have to go with the Kawekos or one of the Kawekos and add a clip. So I would probably, just out of my own feeling, probably go Kaweko Classic. Classic. Because they're plastic, they can take a bit more of a beating. They're lighter.

Brad Dowdy: The clip actually sticks on the plastic better than the aluminum ones I have.

Myke Hurley: There you go. See, I've never put an aluminum clip on a lily putt. For my own taste towards the classic rather than the lily putt.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So my answer is also the classic with a clip. I'm shocked that we actually came to the same conclusion on this. I like that we came to both same conclusions.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So yeah, I mean, and the reason is, I'm sure I'll get another email from Tim, is there's no knock on any of these products. It's just that's not a perfect setup to me for building this notebook and cover.

Myke Hurley: So I will say, I will say, that this cover, or at least there are some of the covers that he's selecting from, have a pen sleeve in the front of them. So if you're going to put it in the pen sleeve and you don't care about having a clip on it, although I think you should have a clip on it, go with the Squire because to me that's the best out of the lot. And also as well, if you're going with the pen sleeve, the classic, the Kaweco classic probably wouldn't fit. But I still think that the best option is something small with a clip. I don't think the Retro 51 is really small enough. So what would you maybe advise as like a fourth option?

Brad Dowdy: That's a good question.

Field Notes Refills

Brad Dowdy: Um, I don't know. I just, the, my issue is, is with the field notes itself, right? I don't prefer writing in field notes with the P8127 refill or a fountain pen, right? So I'm, for my personal use, if I'm doing this, I'm actually choosing something super simple like a Secura Pigma Micron. Interesting. Or a Kuretaki Mangaka or a Pilot Hitec C or Uni Sino DX. Um, those are my field notes pens, right? So that's why I had a challenge with this question. And then that's why I also chose the classic as my answer because the EF nibs in the Kawecos actually work pretty well in field notes. So, see how we can turn like the most simple question into like a crazy answer and still without clarity?

Myke Hurley: There are no simple questions.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's, it's, uh, it's really wonderful. This, this thing that we do, this mess that we're in.

Myke Hurley: So, hopefully we can give some better answers to the next one.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Sorry about that, Tim. I'm not sure if we were helpful at all on that, but, uh, I have a feeling I might get another, another email on that. So, all right. Let's hit a few of these, these Twitter ass TPAs. RB Schneider, my good buddy, wants to know, what do you do if you load up a fountain pen with an ink you end up not liking? Tough it out or clean out and ink it with something else? What do you do, Myke?

Myke Hurley: Um, hmm. I think I'm, I think I'm gonna have to go with clean it out.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I dump it immediately.

Myke Hurley: That's what I tend to do. I will just dump it out and clean it out. Like, don't punish yourself.

Brad Dowdy: Nope. You have too many inks in your closet. You have too many pens to fill. Dump it immediately. Move on. Um, it's not worth, you will never use that pen if there's an ink in it that you don't enjoy. Um, ink of the witch is the prime example for me. Bung box, Sailor Bung box ink of the witch. I try and try and try to like this ink and I keep trying it in different nibs. And I keep dumping and dumping it like by the next day. It's just, I just need to like get rid of it because I just don't, I just don't use it. It doesn't, doesn't speak to me. So I just dump them and clean them out. So yeah.

Ink Questions

Brad Dowdy: Um, this next one, Myke, this might take some time. We got a question. This is a follow-up. This is Ask TPA follow-up. So we got a question. It was last episode, I think, where, uh, Dr. Hans talked about wanting to seal off his gel ink pens for later use. Right? Do you remember this? So friend of the, friend of the pen addict, uh, Noble Ignatius did an entire post to answer this question. Did you get a chance to take a look at this?

Myke Hurley: I did not.

Brad Dowdy: It's amazing. His first answer is actually something I didn't think of and is actually a really good example. There's a product called plumber's tape. Um, it's a very thin, thin, uh, tape that will go on and off of your pen, like very cleanly. It'll allow you to retract the pen because it's so thin. Um, and you just use this little, little bit and it, it just kind of snaps on there, comes off. It's made to go like in between threads of piping, right? So, you know, it's thin, but it's also durable. It's not going to let anything through. I thought this was a great, great idea.

Myke Hurley: It doesn't even look like tape.

Brad Dowdy: No, it's, uh, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, like cellophane thickness, but stronger. Um, and then this, the second, uh, option was something called Plasti Dip and I'm not exactly sure what it is, but he's got pictures and videos and all kinds of stuff. So Dr. Hans, you need to go check this, um, and, and see if, if you like this, but we'll put this in the show notes for everyone to check out. It's a very thorough post and he did all kinds of testing and he, um, he does all kinds of cool stuff on his blog and on his Instagram and he's a, he's a big Chronodex user. I always follow his stuff on Instagram cause he has cool Chronodex pictures. But, um, one other thing that, um, wasn't mentioned in this post that someone else emailed me and I'm, I apologize. I can't remember who, if you have any of the wax seal wax, um, they're saying that that actually works pretty well. Melt it down, dip your pen in the wax and then, uh, then let it go back on. So, yeah. So I thought that was really, really cool.

Brad Dowdy: All right. I should have done this one after the, after the first one there about the ink going out, but, uh, Chi Roho wants to know, how do I decide what ink to put in a new pen? Decisions like this are hard. Um, do you agree with that, Myke? Is it, is it a hard decision or you only have one ink and it goes in everything?

Myke Hurley: Well, I always have my, I always favor, right? So it's not a problem for me. I mean, cause I've said before, I don't really buy a lot of inks because the space that they take up mostly, like it's, it's way harder to try out an ink than a pen in my opinion, because the pens are so much smaller and the inks are so much larger and then it's difficult to get rid of them in an easy way, right? Like selling them on or something is hard to do. So I try not to go for too much ink anyway. Um, so I always have what I go for first. I mean, I'll, I'll always go for Fuyugaki before anything else. Like I filled up this retro 51 with Hiroshizuku Fuyugaki today. That's just where I go to cause the ink makes me happy still. That bright orange ink continues to make me happy.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, you know, I think the real question is, do you match your inks to your pens? Um, and I generally do like the, um, the, uh, canalea that I just got with the orange features, got, uh, the sailor can make who say, which is the old apricot that's getting ready to be the new apricot. Um, so, you know, a nice bright orange. I tend to do a little bit of the matching thing just because that feels right. And then a lot of my black pens will get like blue black ink. I don't know. That's just kind of how, how I do it. Um, but it's just, um, you, you definitely want both to work in, in conjunction. So I do have to think about it sometimes, you know, what ink am I going to, am I going to go in here, go in this pen that's going, that I'm going to enjoy the most. So, all right. My pen needs ink. Bob wants to know. So how do you spell the push button tail of a retractable pen? Is it actually knock K N O C K or knock N O C K like the awesome pen case company?

Myke Hurley: I thought it was of a K. Are you going to tell me I'm wrong?

Brad Dowdy: It's actually neither. Oh, it's a knock is a slang term. So the slang in Japan is with a K it's, it's really with a K. Um, just like a knock on a door, um, is, is how you spell it. That's, that's where the word came from. Um, that's how I used to see it in, um, in Japanese writing. They would define, they would call it the knock and spell it out as K N O C K. We just, um, took, took the K off for, for our, uh, for our name, um, because it seemed to work. Um, but yes, it's, it's with a K, but I don't know that it's an official terminology like in a pilot or Zebra's, you know, catalogs. I don't know what they, I actually don't know what they officially call it because it's hard. You know, some call it a click push button. Um, some will just say retractable. Some will say knock, you know, so the best word knock is the best word. I love that. It makes so much sense. Um, if you think about it. Um, and that's why the Japanese are great.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So Mikey react wants to know, do you think the hype of field notes has died down on eBay, et cetera. Now, similar to the Thai beanie babies, which people have always, uh, mentioned the beanie babies along with the field notes when they were going, uh, going crazy, um, on the market. And I think it's died down some. Yeah. Um, it certainly died down for me. Like I don't, I have what I need. Um, if I see something new, like the Nixon that really speaks to me, I'll go out and get it. Um, otherwise I'm not in a rush to do anything anymore. Um, I'm certainly not hunting down and spending money on these things like outrageous money, like on eBay. Um, and it actually makes me think, you know, I should probably get rid of some of these duplicates that I have one day just because I don't need them. Um, what do you think about that, Myke?

Myke Hurley: So I have a theory about this. I've been, I was thinking about this myself a couple of weeks ago. I think that they've all been sold. I think that there's less now because the majority of existing stock that is worth collecting is now owned by collectors, not sellers. Like it's gone. Cause there isn't really a lot of this stuff anyway. Um, and most of the people that know it's worth anything and don't care about it have, have sold their collections and the people that, you know, and now anything that we find now I think is, is current collectors who need to sell for one reason or another. Yeah. Which is why now also the prices are higher going like on the starting because people know what they're worth.

Brad Dowdy: Mm. Mm. So yeah, I don't think there's like the, the overwhelming hype of the older issues right now, but I think you're correct. And in the way you're saying it's died down because everything's kind of gone. If you, if you will, I think that's kind of what you're saying. Um, and people have what they want and you know, there's, they'll always be like a small market for it. But, um, certainly not like it was, um, when it was hot and heavy there for a minute, when people were discovering that they had these things laying on their desk and they were worth more than what they paid for them. So, yep. All right. I don't even know why I put this question in here, Myke, but we're going to wrap it up on this just probably so we can fight. Uh, so PL Wody on Twitter wants to know what is the best orange ink? Um, habanero. I think that's Noodler's habanero is, is Lee's favorite.

Brad Dowdy: What do you say, Myke? Do I even have to ask you?

Myke Hurley: You know what, what I'm saying.

Brad Dowdy: But it's not the right answer.

Myke Hurley: Right. Okay. I last week for the first time got to see Apache sunset. Mm-hmm. That is a great ink.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. So that's a killer ink.

Myke Hurley: And I would say that's more yellow though.

Brad Dowdy: Well, the swab that Lee has, you click that link, right? Yeah. That's not what Apache sunset looks like.

Myke Hurley: No, that's how it looks like when it's shading. Right. Like it's orange with yellow in it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Apache sunset on this swab, which we'll put in the show notes because we're staring at a picture, actually looks like the habanero.

Brad Dowdy: I think. Like when you use Apache sunset in a pen, it comes out looking like the habanero, which is what Lee is saying.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Is his current favorite. But it does shade to a yellowy color like that. It does. Doesn't it? But it's also got some brown.

Myke Hurley: I want to get some Apache sunset at some point soon to try more because I was really, really impressed by it. Mm-hmm. And I'll also say like, so I just don't think the lighting's very good on Lee's photo because Fuyugaki doesn't look like that. Right. Like that's more pinky. But anyway, I think Fuyugaki is the best orange ink. Not just on color. Like there are also other factors for me like drying time and stuff, right? Which is the whole reason that I use it so much anyway. Um, but I think it's the best, but I do want to try Apache sunset more.

Brad Dowdy: I give you a hard time about Fuyugaki mostly because it's fun. It's a legitimately good ink. It's just not, it's being the orange ink guy that I am. It's probably not even in my top 10 orange inks, but that's almost not fair because they're all so good. And I use so many of them. it's a really good ink if you want to try something that's a really really good kind of straight up orange just like right in the middle very bright it actually kind of reminds me of Fuyugaki but it's I think it's actually even a little bit oranger is the Ackerman orange gosh what number is that 15 I'll have to look it up you know because I'm saying this without even even thinking 16 16 I was close it's the oh I'm gonna get pronunciation again Myke in my inbox do we need to pull up the soundboard it's the orange bovin which is certainly not pronounced bovin it's pronounced boval or something so anyway um it's a really solid orange you should give that one a try at least try a sample of that it's a great color I tend to get into the brighter yellowy oranges which are sailor apricot sailor kinmokuse as Phil put in the show notes the sailor bung box tangerine sailor bung box mandarin you know all of these things I prefer better than these straight up oranges I prefer yellowy oranges because it gives them a brightness um I did just get the kaweko has a new orange coming out Myke and it's more on the apache sunset with the brown side of things and it's not as bright enough to see if you like it um I'm undecided as of yet I like it better than I thought seeing it in pictures in person I like it a bit uh a little bit more so we'll see cool so have we come to the end this week we have come to the end we've come to the end my friend we had a lot to uh catch up on you know it's always weird when we go two weeks without recording even though we were only a week between shows we always have a lot to catch up on so I am horrifically jet lagged you're super jet lagged we were thinking about recording our members show after this but I think Myke will die um and I'm not fully prepared anyway I want to do a little bit more research um for it so we'll do that next week and we'll also talk about the San Francisco pen show and uh what all went on there and I'm sure a litany of other topics that we get in through the ass tpa channels

Myke Hurley: if you want to find our show notes for this week head on over to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 219 if you'd like to find brad online he is at dowdyism d-o-w-d-y-i-s-m on twitter and he writes over at penaddict.com I am at imike i-m-y-k-e if you want to find brad on instagram he's penaddict on instagram as well thanks again to harrys for sponsoring this week's show thank you for listening as always and we'll be back next time until then say goodbye brad goodbye brad

Brad Dowdy: you