The Pen Addict 341/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	341
Title:	Get Your Own Shimmer
Release Date:	January 9th, 2019
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 341
Audio File:	Audio Episode 341
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 341
Length:	7272 min <br />1.2 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Introduction - Pen Addict Podcast

Brad Dowdy: Welcome to The Pen Addict. Yes, there's a lot of stuff going on today.

Myke Hurley: Finally, I have the Jetstream XSR600 refill in hand. This is the large capacity Parker Jotter style refill, right? You remember us talking about this and how I was lusting over this?

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, so finally here. They announced it in Japan. What? It had to be last summer, if not before that. It's been a while since they announced it. It's been a while since it's been out in Japan. I know a bunch of Pen Addict listeners and readers ordered it from Japan, and they all raved about it. And finally, JetPens got them in stock, so I, of course, ordered them up immediately. First thing I noticed, Myke, they are very expensive. At $7.25 each per refill.

Brad Dowdy: Whoa.

Myke Hurley: That is a lot.

Brad Dowdy: Why do you think they're that level?

Myke Hurley: Because they're only available in Japan. There's import stuff. My guess. So I'm trying to, when I look at the realm of refill pricing, like you can get the Schmidt similar size refills. They're in that $3 to $4 range, I think. The Fisher Space Pen refills, which I buy a lot of, are like $5 to $5.50. Then you jump all the way to the Cron Dash Goliath. I think that's the name of their refill. It's like a $9 refill. So this is definitely on the high end. Normally, for a really nice, anything-you-want refill, $5 is at the very expensive end. So $7.25 is practically crazy talk for a pen refill, seeing that you could just buy a Jetstream with the standard refill for like $2.50 or whatever. And then buy refills for probably $2. But this is the larger capacity Parker style. I imagine, you know, we're paying import markup. I'd have to look at the Japanese price for these to get a better picture. And I did not do that because that's not the price I paid. I paid $7.25. But I'm in love with it, Myke. If you're a Jetstream fan, this is better than all of the other Jetstreams. You know, that's probably newness talking to me. But this is the richest black ballpoint style ink I've ever used. It's really smooth. It's really dark. There's no skipping. It's like writing with a gel pen that dries instantly almost. I love it. It's really, really smooth and dark. I mean, I've been waiting for this for a while just to try it out. So I started the... I bought two. You can get it in 0.5mm and 0.7mm. And they only come in black right now. So I inked up the... I opened up the 0.7mm to test first because that's the tip size of Jetstream that I always recommend. I always say buy the 0.7mm, not the 1.0mm because I tend to find that a little messy. And then 0.5mm is generally too fine for most people. But 0.7 is the sweet spot for the Jetstream. And I don't know. It's fantastic. I really, really like the refill. You know, I don't know that everyone's going to want to pay that price if you're a Jetstream fanatic and have a Parker style refill pen barrel that you want to put this in. Because right now there's no... I think in Japan there's a pen that you can put this in. But Jetpens didn't have a pen for this.

Myke Hurley: So I had to find something that would fit the Parker. Which isn't too hard, you know, to find all the Kickstarter pens I've bought. I just recently bought a pen by James Brand called the Benton. It's their first pen. You're familiar with the James Brand, right?

Brad Dowdy: Yes. Only because... Yeah. I don't really know much about them, but I've been seeing them around recently.

Myke Hurley: They're up your hipster alley, for sure. But, I mean, they started with knives, which, you know, you're not really going to get in the UK. So... But they are branching out in their hipster ways. So they made a pen recently. Which we'll talk about that later in the show when I talk about something else I'm doing. We'll dig into the pen a little bit. But I didn't... It took me, actually, a minute to figure out which G2 barrel I wanted to use. Sorry. International G2. That's a confusing term. But Parker Jotter refill barrel. And that's the one I went with. And it's great. So now I'm just waiting on more colors. You know, give me blue. You know, at a minimum, I need blue in this. Because ballpoint inks, I use blue. Gel inks and rollerball inks, I use black. Ballpoint, I prefer blue. So give me that. And then let's see what other colors they do. If they do. You know, they already make blue, black. And they already make different colors in the regular Jetstream ink. So we'll see if there's anything that's going to stop them from expanding this lineup. I hope not. But yeah, I got to say, I'm a fan. It's expensive. But I like it. I'm not going to go... I'm not going to have a stock pile of these, right? I have this 1.7 and 1.5. And that's pretty much it until they'll last me forever. And then if they do new colors, I'll pick up one of those. But I dig it. Approved. Stamp of approval. I'll review them eventually. But right now, stamp of approval.

Brad Dowdy: And I guess, you know, in case anybody's not following, like, the reason that this is good is because it allows you to use a refill that you enjoy in different, more varied pens. Because there are a lot of pens that are made, like Kickstarter pens as well, to fit the Parker style refill, right? So now you can put the Jetstream in there without needing any adapters or whatever.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So two things. One, it's probably the most common worldwide refill. And number two, the Jetstream barrels are not the best. So it kind of solves both of those problems.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, they're kind of, like, not good tactical look. Right. That's how I think of them.

Myke Hurley: Right. And, like, my favorite Jetstream barrel is, like, one of the cheapest retractable plastic ones, not even the nice ones. Because just generally, they're not great barrels. So I'll use the refills and other things. So this solves all kinds of problems. You know, first world pen problems, right?

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Isn't that what this show's all about, though, in general?

Myke Hurley: Speaking of which, Myke, have you checked out this next link? Do you need a Mackie E, TWSBI Eco? I know you do.

Bong Blocks Pens Discussion

Brad Dowdy: No. I saw this link, and I think they look very nice. It's another Bong Blocks thing. I don't... This one maybe isn't a collaboration. I don't know. Maybe TWSBI has said yes. I don't really. No, no.

Myke Hurley: I think it's outside artists, right? Right. So basically, we'll put the link in the show notes. But I've tweeted this out for, like, a couple of weeks now when they started tweeting it out. I was like, fine. They keep tweeting it out. I'm going to put it in the show notes. We're going to talk about this. Because it's essentially a base model eco, TWSBI Eco, either clear or black cap. And they've had Mackie E artists. I think one or... I can't tell if it's one or two different artists doing artwork on the barrels. Some of it's just the pin caps, and some of it's on the barrels. I mean, and it's beautiful. But the question is that I have... So, like, the price range... There's three models available. The price range is approximately $130 US for the low-end one. You know, it's a less amount of artwork to $170.

Brad Dowdy: The cheaper ones is just the cap. Just the cap. And the most expensive one also includes some Mackie on the barrel itself with the pen.

Myke Hurley: Yep. Yep. They're super cool. I mean, they're super cool. I just don't know that the eco is the platform for the beautifulness of this artwork, right? So, I have an aftermarket Mackie artwork on one of my pens that I paid. You know, I bought the pen. It was a Pilot Custom Heritage 912 that I've had forever. And then had the opportunity. I think I paid $125 or $150 to get this really stunning artwork all over my pen. I've got an old Instagram pic. I can find that for you for the show notes. It's stunning. I'm super happy. That was money well spent because it's on what I feel a more, I don't know, usable, correct pen for that type of extra expenditure, right? It's a big pen. It's a big gold nib pen. It's a pen I use a lot. But I feel like the $25, $30 eco getting the, you know, $100, $125 Mackie treatment is a little bit weird to me. But, you know, that's never stopped me in the past. It's like, I wouldn't say no to it, but I'm not, like, hunting them down. I think they're beautiful. I love the artwork. But I would want it on, you know, as much as I love the eco, I want it on a more special pen. And that's not a knock on the eco. It's just kind of what it is.

Brad Dowdy: I don't completely agree. Mm-hmm. Because my kind of thinking is, right, that, like, the value of the pen is dictated by the value of which it is sold, provided there is market demand, right? Yes. So the actual materials that are going in to the production are not the expensive part anyway. The expensive part is the art. And so to me, I can accept and appreciate the value being set where it is. Because, like, the custom Heritage 912 is still an acrylic pen, right? Yeah. Right? So, like, you know, some of the key materials are the same. I mean, and of course, you can argue over which has the better nib for you, et cetera, et cetera. But, I mean, I think everyone is in agreement that the eco is a great pen. Sure. You know, is the eco worth $25 or $30? Sure it is. Yeah. How much is the art worth to you? And if that is $100 and you are happy with that, I think it's fine. And I think the value, to me, rings true. I can get behind it.

Myke Hurley: I mean, I think that's totally fair. I think I'm thinking of it as I would rather pay $400 for a Sailor Pro Gear with Maki artwork than $170 for a Twizmo Eco.

Brad Dowdy: For sure. But it might be a case of we want to sell a pen for $140 with Maki in it. Where do we start? You know? Right. But at the same time, I think the eco is a great looking pen. And all of the flat edges, I'm sure, really lend itself to taking that Maki really nicely. Right? Yeah. Like, I imagine it's a relatively comfortable environment to do that kind of work on a pen. Right.

Myke Hurley: Right. I think it came out great. The price is good. Like, I'm just not interested in that setup. I love the artwork.

Brad Dowdy: It's like a head scratcher, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. I get it. I get it.

Myke Hurley: But you make a good point about the price point. You know? This is how much you're going to pay for custom-ish Maki artwork. So, to get it at that price point, like, that's, you know, give that exposure. I think that's a good thing. So, yeah. I think you're right about that.

Brad Dowdy: But you're, I found your Instagram post of your Maki, and that's incredible. Yeah. I forgot about that pen.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So, after the artist did that batch, he immediately raised the price to, like, $225. It was, like, what we paid for it was insanely cheap for the outcome of that. And we'll have that link in the show notes for you to check out. But it's still one of my personal favorite pens I own. It's beautiful.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. Should we take a break? Let's do it. All right. I got a lot to talk about. You sure do. I better give you a minute to collect your thoughts before we jump into this. All right. So, today's episode is brought to you in part by our friends over at RX Bar. RX Bars are whole food protein bars for simple, real ingredients. They believe in being totally transparent, which is why all of their core ingredients are listed right on the front of the packet. So, you may have seen these in a grocery store. You know, they say, like, dates and no BS and, you know, like, chocolate. And, like, they say it on the front, like, right on the very front. It's a really cool design. RX Bar's ingredients are real ingredients that you're going to recognize. They have egg whites for protein, dates to bind, nuts for texture, and other delicious ingredients like unsweetened chocolate, real fruit, real spices like sea salt or cinnamon as well. Whether you like sweet or savory, chocolate or fruit, there is an RX Bar flavor for you. They come in 14 different varieties like peanut butter, mint chocolate, apple cinnamon, chocolate hazelnut, mango, pineapple, coconut chocolate. They have so many. You will definitely find an RX Bar flavor that I think would satisfy your sweet tooth and your savory tooth, too, if that's such a thing. RX Bars are gluten-free, soy-free, and dairy-free with no bad stuff. There's no artificial colors, no artificial flavors or preservatives or fillers. They're fantastic for breakfast on the go, snack at the office to get you through your afternoon slump. There's a thing in the UK, Brad, called Elevenses, which is, like, the snack, right, between breakfast and lunch. Okay, that's a new one. Yeah, Elevenses. You can chuck them into your bag when you're traveling, you know, so you've got a snack for the plane. Maybe for after a workout, before a workout. No matter what it is, there is a use for RX Bars. They're so simple and small to keep around, and you've got a bunch of different varieties as well. Brad, I know that you have RX Bars. What do you think of them?

Myke Hurley: So we are a protein-slash-snack-bar-slash-granola-bar family. You know, it's me, my wife, my two kids. We're always running around. We're always needing something, snack, quick on the go. RX Bars have become part of our life now. They are always in the pantry for something quick on the go. So what surprised me the most, Myke, is if you said, hey, we're going to, these bars will have a sweet element to it, but it's not going to be sugar per se. It's going to be dates from the binding of the bar and the manufacturer of it. I'm like, really? I'm not much of a date person, you know, dates the fruit. But, my goodness, if they don't pull it off wonderfully, they're fantastic. I've heard that more than once. It's like, wow, they're sweetened by dates, essentially. You know, sometimes there's chocolate chip or peanut butter and things like that and different nuts and things like that. But it's really, really good. So they're part of the Dowdy household pantry right now and a big fan of the RX Bars here.

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Myke Hurley: All right, before we talk and dig into my year of experimentation, we need to have a little bit of conversation around this 11z's thing.

Brad Dowdy: All right.

Myke Hurley: So is this time? It's time-based, right? What if you have a three o'clock snack? Is that 3z's?

Brad Dowdy: Well, no, I don't think it has a name.

Myke Hurley: Or do you have your 11z's at three?

Brad Dowdy: I don't know. It's purely like something that you eat in between breakfast and lunch.

Myke Hurley: So it's specifically that snack time frame. Yeah. It's between breakfast and lunch. Because I usually don't have a between breakfast and lunch snack, but I'll have a between lunch and dinner snack. So we don't have 5z's in there or anything like that.

Whiskey Hour Discussion

Brad Dowdy: Not that I've ever come across.

Myke Hurley: That's just tea time, I guess, right?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, exactly. Okay.

Myke Hurley: Okay. So yeah, that was a new one to me. So I'm going to start working on that around the house.

Brad Dowdy: I don't know if I necessarily recommend adding more small meals into your day, but look, you've got one of them already.

Myke Hurley: You just go for it. No, I'm just going to tell them I'm going to test out 11z's today and see how it goes. Okay.

Myke Hurley: I love you, Myke.

Brad Dowdy: There's a bar. There's actually a chocolate bar called 11z's as well to lead into that.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, that makes sense. I'd be all about that. But so 11z's is not going to be an experiment that I write about, but I am starting to write about all these experiments I'm undertaking so far this year. We talked about that last week, Myke, just on what kind of plans we have for this year. We don't necessarily do resolutions, things like that.

Brad Dowdy: I have some follow-up on 11z's. Okay. Real-time follow-up. Let's go. This is what we're doing today. It was a term in the United States during the first decades of the 19th century, but it consisted of drinking whiskey.

Brad Dowdy: I'm about this now. All right, keep going. But it also says it is common for school children to have a short snack break in the morning before lunch. Of whiskey? It doesn't state. Those two sentences, one leads into the other one. I don't know. It doesn't really state.

Myke Hurley: Did you say 19th century or 1900s?

Brad Dowdy: 19th century.

Myke Hurley: So pretty old. Okay. Yeah. So yeah. So this is, all right. 11z's is whiskey hour. Got it. Yeah. I like it.

Brad Dowdy: I actually think the correct pronunciation is 11z's. And I think 11z's is the bar, like the chocolate bar. Gotcha. But there you go.

Myke Hurley: All right. I love it. I love it. All right. So I want to know, Myke, one of the first things I've written about this year is the mechanical pencil lead graphite testing that I'm going to be undertaking, you know, in the next several months. Trying to figure out what's a good lead for me and what's, you know, kind of a good lead I can recommend. Because I get asked this question all the time because I love mechanical pencils. You love mechanical pencils. But Myke, right now, I know you're a big Rotring fan. You have your Rotring 600. That's a pretty commonly used item. What lead do you have in it right now?

Brad Dowdy: I don't think you're asking me the size. I don't remember the size. But basically, the lead I have is whatever the lead that came with it. Because I had no, you know, I had no, I still don't really have much of a conception of the fact that there are different leads.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm. Right. But there's actually a lot. And I even wrote in the notes because I say the same thing. I have, I'm a huge mechanical pencil fan. And I don't have like a go-to lead when I get a new mechanical pencil and I'm going to put my favorite lead in it. I have whatever it came with. Right. I put in the show doc. It says I'm just going to make a lead and market it as, and we're going to call it whatever it came with. Because I think that's what everyone uses in their mechanical pencil until they're forced to try something else. Right. You know, you get a pencil. It comes with lead. You're going to use whatever it came with until you run out of it. And then you'll move on and start asking me, hey, what lead, I love this pencil. What lead should I put in it? And I don't have an answer for that right now. So I have 25 packs of lead. And let me go ahead and, let me go ahead and say this right now. I'm calling it lead because that's just the common term. We know it's graphite. It's easier to say lead. It's just kind of commonplace, even though it's not technically accurate. So lead and graphite are interchangeable. And I use them just on a whim. And that's just kind of what I roll with. So I have 25 packs, Myke. I ordered a bunch from JetPens. My friends at Pentel sent me a bunch of additional packs. And, you know, it's already more lead than I'll ever use in a lifetime. Right. Some of these packs have like 40 sticks in them. Some of them have 12. There's a huge range.

Myke Hurley: But being the pencil person that I am, the wooden pencil person that I am, I was always a mechanical pencil person growing up. But what I found in wooden case pencils is, hey, there's a huge range of graphite cores out there. Let me find the ones that work best for me. So I'm going down that same path here. It's going to take some time. And I'm not going to do them like I did the first review this Monday was for the Pilot Neox 2H. So 2H is a hard grade lead. It's not something that you would find in whatever it came with lead. Whatever it came with lead is usually like HP. Just your standard mid-grade, a little bit soft, a little bit dark, and just normal. 2H is firmer and lighter. That's what I like in my wooden pencils. So I wanted to try out a 2H in a mechanical pencil. And I really, really liked it. I enjoy it.

Myke Hurley: It did feel a little bit weird. And this is what I'm trying to figure out from all of these specialized leads is that they try to get an ultra smooth, firm feel when you're writing with them. And when you have a 2H lead and it's extra smooth, it feels kind of plasticky, right? You already have a hard lead and now you have no texture. You know how sometimes with your whatever it came with lead, you can feel sometimes the little bit of a feedback when you write a little bit of crystallization or a little bit of scratchiness. And it's nice, right? That's the purpose of a pencil. You kind of enjoy that.

Brad Dowdy: There's a point where it gets... I think that's what people dislike about ample pencil stuff, right? It's too smooth. It's just this smooth line. There's no texture. So yeah, I totally understand that.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So 2H is probably never a lead grade I'm ever going to recommend to anybody unless there's some kind of special case. But I'm trying to test all these out and set a baseline so I can decide what's different between all these. What is the best feeling? What are the differences? What are the pros and cons? So in the future, as I go through all of these I have on my desk right now, and even more, I may order when recommendations come in, which they already are. You know, just trying to get a big comparison chart of all these, get an idea of what's doing well. And, you know, for most people, you'll eventually have it on the top five list of things I feel very confident in recommending. So I've started on the next one, and I've just, I picked a more standard lead this time. I've got the Rotring Tiki high polymer HB 0.5 millimeter. It's highly likely, maybe not, that I was going to say this is the whatever it came with lead, but the high polymer leads are the ones that are stronger and smoother, right? And so far, this lead is super boring. Like, it's hard to put words on something as minute as a mechanical pencil lead, but I do want to be able to say something about it. Like, what is interesting about the 2H? Well, I found it to be dark enough for its hardness. You know, usually when you go down the H side of the scale, the lead gets lighter and lighter and lighter, and it's hard to read. Well, I felt the 2H was pretty good to read. You know, it came out dark enough. This Rotring Tiki lead, there's just kind of nothing to it. Like, it's soft-ish. It's dark-ish. It's expensive-ish. It's just kind of boring. So, when I do, like, this one, I may take a group of 5 HB leads and compare them all together. So, I'm still kind of working through what I want to do with this, but this is going to be just kind of a learning experience. I'm going to write it as I go and figure these things out. The other thing, with pens, it's easy to test 10 pens at once, right? Because you just have the pens there, you uncap them, and you go to town. Well, I don't know that I have 10.5-millimeter mechanical pencils that I need to mark and tag with what lead is loaded into them, you know, and keep track of all that stuff. So, it's a little bit harder to batch review these leads, but I'm going to try to do maybe two or three at a time because even with the 25 packs I have on my desk, I'm not going to spend 25 weeks' worth of reviews doing that. So, I'll start batching together as I get through and figure out more of what I want. And maybe I'll even skip things that are super boring, like this Rotring Tiki, because it may not be worth spending the words on as I test more out. So, that's just my idea that I've gotten underway, and it's not the only idea that I'm playing around with this year. Do you want me to keep going, or do you have more on pencil talk?

Brad Dowdy: I don't... This is something that I do struggle with, because I just don't really know if I am in tune enough to fully grasp the differences between these, and maybe I just haven't tried enough. But, like, I honestly don't know I've ever noticed a difference between anything that I've used. But maybe that just means that I've been within a very typical range. Right, right.

Myke Hurley: And see, mechanical pencils were some of my start into stationery when I was a kid, right? Because that was some of the finest writing you could get. Like, for me, it was all about writing small when I was a kid. Well, you know, what writes smaller than a .5 mechanical pencil that's easily available? I mean, so there were certainly no pens, you know, 30 years ago that were available to me that could write that fine. So I've always used mechanical pencils, but I've never explored what actually goes in them. And is there something better? Like, I go through all these pens, and, you know, I can test them all. I can, you know, demonstrably say and display that this one is better than this one, and here's why. So I get a lot of questions about, well, what pencil lead do you use? You use mechanical pencils all the time. I'm like, I don't know what to tell you. Like, I use whatever it came with, you know? And so now I'm going to try to figure out, you know, what that answer is. So I think it'll be fun. Because I enjoy mechanical pencils. Like, I wouldn't do this if I hated mechanical pencils. Like, I want to figure this out. So this will be good.

Shimmer Ink Transition

Brad Dowdy: All right. Do you want to move on to shimmer inks then? Because you're basically just changing up everything that goes in everything. I'm, yeah.

Myke Hurley: Like, it's fun to mix it up. Like, I have, you know, access to so much stuff. And I've always been hesitant about shimmer inks. And I think rightfully so. You know, it's putting more than ink in your pen. Right? And when you're talking about a fountain pen.

Brad Dowdy: You're shoving some detritus in there.

Myke Hurley: When you talk about a fountain pen, that's generally not a good idea.

Brad Dowdy: No.

Myke Hurley: So when this started to become a thing, you know, they were probably, I'm sure there were inks before Jeher Bond's, you know, annual shimmer ink that they started, you know, what, five years ago or so. I'm sure there were shimmer inks before, but they kind of put it at the forefront. Hey, let's make this one limited edition every year. And every time they come out, me and you go, wow, that's beautiful. I will never use it. Right? I mean, is that an accurate statement?

Brad Dowdy: Exactly.

Myke Hurley: And I'm trying to figure out why I was on that side of the fence. And it was just a little bit of uncomfortableness with putting that type of ink in my pen and putting it in any pen, really. You know, I wouldn't even put it in, you know, a lot of people will use shimmer inks in their inexpensive pens because they're worried, well, will they clog up the mechanics of my more expensive pens and will I be, you know, at more risk of damage? I think it's probably all overblown. I certainly don't know for a fact. I'm not a scientist. I don't sit here and play with all these compositions of inks and pens. I do what's fun and what looks interesting. But I've always been tempted by the J. Herban inks, right? Like Emerald of Chavor, I think to this day, is the pinnacle of what J. Herban's done with shimmer inks and those type of things. They made it an ink that looks so far out there from what else was available. And I still didn't really want to use it, even though I thought it was just the coolest thing ever.

Myke Hurley: Part of it was because it was gold particles and I don't really necessarily like a lot of gold. So then they did Amethyst Delorale, which was the purple with silver shimmer. And I was like, oh, this is going to be the one that's going to sway me. Like I'm going to be in on this. I have this weird thing, not just with the shimmer and sparkles, but with perceived ink saturation levels. Let me explain what I mean there. Again, this is so unscientific and possibly so wrong. But let me say what I see and what it makes me think. When I see a deep, rich ink, I just think it's so not heavy as in thickness of the liquid, but just in rich of the ink properties. Like it's a very strong ink. Like you look at the Organic Studio Sheening inks. They just seem very powerful. And do I want that much, you know, that much ink strength in my pens? Is it going to damage it? You know, that's why I look at something like Akramaw inks because I feel not that they're watery, but the consistency and output is not overly saturated. So it's almost that oversaturation that freaks me out more than the actual shimmer. But when you combine those two and something like Amethyst or Laurel, well, then I'm like, there's no way I'm putting this in my pen, right? But people do and people love about, love them and people continue to use them. And I never hear about problems with them. So I've been on that ledge. You know, I always get the J. Herban special ink of the year and I'll usually send it out to someone else to review because I'm too chicken.

Myke Hurley: The Diamine Shimmertastics kind of changed it for me for two reasons. One, well, actually probably more than two reasons. One, the colors look amazing. Number two, the colors look amazing because they're not overly saturated. And number three, they use a bunch of silver shimmer as opposed to gold.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: And I prefer the look of silver in the inks.

Myke Hurley: So I've been watching people review these, you know, like Kelly and Mountain of Ink and Anna and Myke Ink Dependents and whoever's, you know, and reviews a lot of inks. These have been interesting for me to look at and go, that looks like something I would like. And like, I trust Diamine wholeheartedly, right? With ink in my pens, right? I think they're one of the premier ink manufacturers. Speaking of Akramon.

Myke Hurley: The way these reviews looked actually sold me on trying this more. So I bought my first one. It was called Starlit Sea. I didn't, like I mentioned, I kind of chickened out on the color because it's a blue black, but it's got silver sparkles in it. So I thought, well, let me try with something that I know I like. And I'm not going to, I may be chickened out on the color instead of going with the orange or green. But I think I'll get there. But I wasn't going to chicken out with the pen. I wasn't just going to throw it in the TWSBI Eco and think of it as, hey, this is just a throwaway ink loadout that I'm going to use. I went ahead and put it in my Aurora Flex nib. You know, the Optimas that we got from Fountain Pen Hospital, which is a fantastic pen because you want to show off the characteristics, right? I mean, there's a reason you ink these pens up. It's not to use them in my favorite extra fine nib, right? It would look cool and work fine, I'm sure. But you really want to see what is under the hood with these inks. So a bigger, wetter nib is the way to go.

Myke Hurley: This ink is fantastic, Myke.

Ink Discussion

Brad Dowdy: Oh, yeah?

Myke Hurley: I don't know what to tell you. I really enjoy this ink. It's got so much character in the color of the ink, which is what I like about blue black inks like Shinkai, for example. I like it so much because there's shades of color in there. Well, just before you even get to the shimmer, this ink has shades of color in there. And then you throw in the silver sparkles, it gives it that little extra kick. The flow has been beautiful. The spread of the sparkles throughout the ink has been consistent. You know, that's another thing that I always worried about sparkle inks is, you know, well, is it just going to glob out when, you know, when it wants it, you know, like the ends of lines or ends of characters, things like that. This is consistent throughout. I really, really like what this ink does and it makes me want to try more. So I kind of dig it. I'm pretty happy with this ink so far, Myke.

Brad Dowdy: I have a question for you. Sure. Let's see if you can try and solve this for me. This is not about ink. Okay. So I'm on the Mountain of Ink website right now. And I'm looking at the...

Myke Hurley: Do you think you know what I'm going to ask? We need to get... No, I have no clue. I just know we need to get Kelly on for an interview.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I would 100% agree with that.

Brad Dowdy: And I'm looking at the, like the little cards, the scans of the, I think the coloring cards. Mm-hmm. And especially the ones towards the bottom, the names of the ink are written out in this font, right? This like style, this like, not font, but like it's written out in a specific handwriting style. Mm-hmm. Where did that come from?

Brad Dowdy: Practice. So I don't know the specifics. You know what I'm saying, right? Like when you look at that, you're like, oh, I've seen that everywhere, right? Like it's all over Etsy, it's all over bullet journal stuff. Like it's just so interesting to me that like there is a style of handwriting, which is almost used like a font that somehow people teach themselves and I can't get my head around it. Like how you can teach yourself to do that. But also I'm just intrigued if anybody knows, where did this come from?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I don't know the name of it, but it's a separated, connected script, right? It's not a single consistent line, right? You write one or multiple letters, but then you stop and you re-hook in the next letters, but I don't know the actual name of it. You know, it's just like a calligraphic style. Like Anna uses that, you know, at Well Appointed Desk. This is what I mean.

Brad Dowdy: I feel like I see it everywhere to a point where it seems baffling to me that people were just doing it with their hands and like it's all different people, right? Because it's like it looks so similar. Yeah. I'm just intrigued as to where it's come from. Like if anybody knows where it originated, I would love to know.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. That's a good shout out to put out there. And yeah, there's definitely some type of, not that all of this is the same, but there is a singular idea source to where this comes together because it's not a traditional style and it's not a pure script style because it's stopped and reconnected a bunch of times, but it makes it look amazing. Like it's my favorite style.

Brad Dowdy: It's closer, I think, to lettering than it is to calligraphy.

Myke Hurley: Yes. It's definitely more of a lettering style. I agree with that. Yep. Very cool. So we'll find out. I bet we'll have an answer. I hope so. So we will go ahead and add that into the follow-up section. So yeah, Myke, sparkle inks. I mean, do you look at those samples? Those aren't even like the current year samples. Do you look at those and go, I could see me using one or two of those.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, there's like 12 of them I would use. They're stunning.

Myke Hurley: They're really great. So I'm not going to go off the deep end because I don't have, you know, 12 pens in use at one time that I need a bunch of shimmer inks in. But I can see me getting two or three or four more bottles of this throughout the year and playing around with some different colors. Like the bright greens look pretty cool and there's some orange with silver. So I'm there. So are you over the fear? A hundred percent. Yeah. Like until, well, I'll need to try a couple other brands, right? I want to try the Robert Oster stuff. You know, I need to try. They have some shimmer inks that I haven't tried. You know, I want to try some of these like the Diamine and Robert Oster whose base inks I know are my style of inks that I think I would like the shimmer. So I'm completely like I pretty much ink them up in anything right now, I think.

Brad Dowdy: Maybe you could just get your own shimmer and just add it to any of the Robert Oster inks

Myke Hurley: that you like. No, I'll mix inks like I'm not above mixing similar brand inks with each other to make some weird color. I'm not adding any physical materials into my liquids. Do we know what it is? No, it's unicorn dust.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's like, what actually is it? Again, another question, if anybody knows the answer to that, what are ink makers putting in their inks to do this? Like what is this material? It's probably some kind of makeup. Yeah, probably. All pen stuff is made out of makeup eventually. That's what I learned. Yeah. Yep. All right. Today's episode is also brought to you by our friends over at FreshBooks. If you send invoices, if you track expenses and you're not currently using FreshBooks, you need to save yourself time, you need to save yourself hassle. Do me a favor and go sign up for FreshBooks right now. They simplify tasks like invoicing, expense tracking, and getting paid online. FreshBooks has drastically reduced the time that it takes for their over 10 million customers to deal with their paperwork. FreshBooks will automate late payment email reminders for you. So once you've sent out an invoice, not only can you track it so you can see when it's been opened, you can see when it's been printed. You can also have FreshBooks automatically send out emails for you when the invoice passes its pay date. So you'll spend less time chasing payments and more time working on whatever it is that you want to work on. They have a projects feature, which will allow you to share files and messages with your clients, contractors, or employees, all within FreshBooks. So all of your conversations can live in one place. And then when the invoices are going out, they can all be there too. And it's like a real easy way of bringing all of your stuff together and keeping everything within one central location. If you're listening to this and you're not yet using FreshBooks, now is the time to try it because they are offering an unrestricted 30-day free trial for listeners of this show. There's no credit card required. All you have to do is go to freshbooks.com slash penaddict. And when they say, hey, how did you hear about FreshBooks? You say, the penaddict. Our thanks to FreshBooks for their support of this show and Relay FM. That is freshbooks.com slash penaddict for that 30-day free trial.

Myke Hurley: And there's no better time to start it than January of a new year. Oh, yeah, man. Perfect. You get it all in there for your entire year. Keep track of all of your expenses and incomes. Yeah, that's perfect. All right, Myke. I'm not done talking about things I'm writing about on the blog.

Toolset Format

Brad Dowdy: I was waiting for us to talk about this one.

Myke Hurley: I'm experimenting with. So I put up a blog post yesterday afternoon called Tuesday's Toolset. And it's an idea I've been exploring in the Penaddict Members newsletter. And actually, this post that I put out is kind of the style I write out in the Members newsletter, where a lot of it's just me having thoughts and spewing those thoughts on the page. Sometimes it evolves as I'm writing, which it did in this case, in this post. And, you know, just see what comes out of it. And this was prompted by a years-long call for me to put more personal usage stuff on penaddict.com. And, I mean, I totally agree with that. You know, what am I using today? You know, what have I used in the last week or last month? Or what am I using right now? You know, all those types of things. You know, more inside look, active stationary loadouts, recent use cases that you found, things like that. Mm-hmm. So, this was how that idea started.

Myke Hurley: So, I wanted to kick that off this year. I kind of had an opening in the Penaddict blog schedule Tuesday afternoon. I actually found it pretty tough to get all of this done with adding this into my normal schedule. But I got it done. And I love this concept. And I want to do it right by the readers. So, I threw out my ideas, said, you know, what I'm trying to do here is show you what my carry this week is going to be as far as stationary goods goes. So, like Sunday, I picked out a small grouping. I want to keep this small. I don't need the entire desk or an entire backpack worth of stuff, especially if I'm going to post this every week. You know, what can I hold in my hand that's kind of like my carry kit? So, I picked out a pencil. You know, I'm using the Rotring 600 because I'm using it for testing right now. I picked out the Sailor Imperial Black because I've missed using that pen. And that's another thing that I'm trying to do is go through some of the pens I haven't used. And I enjoy that pen so much. And I also like the Sailor Nano Blue, the Seiboku pigmented blue-black ink cartridges with that pen. So, I wanted to put that in there. And then I'm using that Jetstream refill. And I put that in my James Brand pen, which we can talk about specifically later if you want a mini review of the James Brand Benton pen, which I bought. And I threw them all in my Nock Tallulah case. And I'm using a Nock notebook. So, that's kind of my kit for the week. Now, that's not the only stuff I'll use this week. I have, you know, my shimmer pen in here with me today, too, because I write other things. You know, this is not an exclusive. I'm only using this this week. I've got other products I'm reviewing on my desk that I use. You know, I've got pens and, you know, paper and pencils, you know, in different spots in the house that I use. Like, I'm not restricting myself to this, but it's my primary use and my primary carry. So, that was the idea behind this blog. And then I started writing that. And I've always been concerned about the weekly aspect of it. Like, that's a lot of me. And you don't ever want this post to be forced. I don't want to be forced into picking something that I'm not going to really use. So, I threw that out there. And as I'm typing, I was like, well, why don't I just ask other people to submit to Tuesday Toolset? Like, what are other people using? It's like, so, I took the feedback as more of me. But as I would, literally, as I was writing that post, I was like, well, maybe it's more of we. Like, what are we all using these days that is interesting to us? What is a small kit you could put together this week that you find compelling that you're going to take to the office or take to the park or, you know, do something, take on vacation? You know, like Sarah's done some posts for the blog in the past where she's gone to writers' conferences and she's talked about her loadout. Those are always so popular. So, I've always thought there was a place for something like this. And maybe it's not a me thing every week, even though I will certainly do it a bunch. But maybe I put a call out and it's a we thing. You know, we do. Then I'd have a little more restrictions, you know, limited to three or five items, something like that.

Brad Dowdy: So, my recommendation to you would be that you do one guest a month because it's a great idea to have guests. But people, the reason that you've been asked for this is because people want to know what you are using. Right? Yeah. So, don't decide that.

Myke Hurley: That wasn't even a consideration for guests until I started typing this. Like, that was literally like a train of thought. Thank you. It would be fun.

Brad Dowdy: Like, maybe the last one every month is a guest would be a nice change of pace, I think.

Myke Hurley: So, what are your thoughts on the format? Did you get a chance to read some of my concerns I have with it? Tell me what you're thinking about what I laid out yesterday.

Brad Dowdy: I like it very much. I think that you've done a great job. Right? Like, this is exactly what I wanted it to be. Super short, like, digestible. These are the things that I'm using. And a quick, like, this is why. So, some of your concerns, I think that it is worthwhile, unless it ends up being that you go two months without changing anything. You know what I mean? Like, that's, you know, if you're going, like, a long time without changing anything, then it's not so useful. Like, this is only useful if you are changing stuff up. But you should have, like, an idea about whether you think that you would be changing stuff up enough anyway. And, like, maybe, you know, a way to combat that would be, like, you're always testing stuff. Right. But then there's the stuff that sticks around with you. So, maybe you actually write this post on a Thursday, but post it on a Tuesday, because on a Thursday, you were testing out a couple of new products. You know what I mean? Right. Like, so that you're kind of keeping it in your mind to shake it up, as in, like, this isn't even, like, oh, these aren't necessarily the best things that I'm using right now. Because I don't even know if that's necessarily what people want. Absolutely. Because it's, like, for you to be able to talk about stuff that you wouldn't even be reviewing, because you don't really review as much anymore. Right? So, because you hand stuff out to other people, but people still want to know what you think. So, even if it was just, like, oh, I tried out this new Kickstarter pen that I was sent, but I don't like it, and here's why. Like, I think that that is as useful to something like this as the stuff that you like, because you don't typically write reviews if you think something's, like, kind of not that great. Like, you write reviews if something's amazing or if something is, like, really bad and people need to know. Right? So, like, just that kind of, like, barometer is also useful, of, like, understanding the things that you kind of are a bit meh over. So, I think there could be value in that, too.

Brad Dowdy: I know that you were talking about worrying about over-promoting Nock. I don't think you should care about it. I don't think it matters. Yeah. Because, you know, you could, if you're using the Tallulah all the time, then just after, like, a week, just reference the name and then just move on. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I do like the idea, and I think it would be really useful for you to be labeling the image.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I thought about that as I was typing it up. Like, it didn't hit me before because I'm not used to doing that, but, like, those style of posts tend to lend themselves to that layout.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I have a criticism of the main... Oh, you fixed it. Sorry. I was saying the main image at the top. I was, like, confused. Like, I couldn't see what the James Brown pen looked like because it was in a little pouch, but I didn't notice the image at the bottom. Yeah. It was there, too. Yeah. But, yeah, I think labeling it as being, like, this is this, this is this would be helpful, especially if you're, like, using two fountain pens. Right. You know what I mean?

Myke Hurley: Like, yeah, especially for non-fountain pen users. I mean, like, we're doing mechanical pencil leads because readers, you know, want to know about that. They're probably not fountain pen users. Like, we cover it all on the pen addicts. So, yeah, it's good to label things regardless because you don't want to expect that everyone knows all this stuff.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I think overall this is really good. Okay.

Myke Hurley: Do you have a software program? Like, we could take this part offline, but, like, I just really want something, like, super simple overlays. Like, I got to figure something out for, you know, just doing that because I'm not, like, a Photoshop graphics editor guy. Right? I want something simple. So, y'all can hit me with that, you know, if you have any ideas of software, preferably Mac or even iOS, you know, that I can just do simple tag callouts. You know, one arrow.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Yeah, I can't think of something off the top of my head, but there would definitely be a good iOS app for this.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, there's got to be something. This is a really simple request, right? I'm just not in that realm to know what would do that. Like, that's not my forte at all. So, but I'm sure even I can handle putting circles and lines with numbers on an image.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I'm trying to think, like, because I think there's an app on iOS that's called Annotable. Annotable. It's an annotation and markup application. I know what you're talking about. This might do it. That's what jumps to my mind initially. You might also find some fun in this app anyway because it does stuff like callouts and zooms. So, like, you could draw a circle around something and zoom in on it. And, like, so there could be some fun stuff you could do with it anyway. But it's an iOS app, so it's iPhone and iPad.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So, I do like your comment about, you know, this is where a lot of the stuff I'm testing out goes, right? That may never see the light of day in a review. It may just be worth a comment or two for something very specific. You know, it's basically what's on Brad's desk this week kind of post in a more structured fashion, right? You know, what is Brad messing around with this week? Or why does he have these things in use? Because it's constantly changing. Like, I would never run out of, you know, things for this. It's just doing it right. You know, I just want to make sure I kind of set it up right. I don't want it to be a fluff article. I want it to be useful in some manner, right? I don't want to do it just to do it. I want to do it because people enjoy it or get something out of it. So, yeah, that's what I'm thinking with it. I don't know if you have anything more to say with that. If you do, great. If not, let me do a quick breakdown of the James Brand Benton before we wrap up the Ask TPA. So, for those of you familiar or not familiar with James Brand, they came out with what I call the hipster knife several years ago. You know, they broke into the knife market. I remember our friend Tony from Everyday Commentary, you know, had some real issues with their original design, layout, price point, quality. You know, everything like the hardcore knife guy would be concerned about their first product, you know, entering the market as, you know, they position the brand. But then, as I've read Tony over the years and him following the brand as close as he does, he's actually kind of – he feels that they've, like, turned this corner and they're making a real quality product. And, yes, it's definitely the hipster knife brand.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I straight up love the look of these knives.

Myke Hurley: Oh, they're awesome. They're killer looking. Like, I'm not going to own one because I'm not going to – if I'm going to spend that much, I'm going to buy something different, honestly. But I have bought one of their small, like, little teeny pocket knives. Those are cool. But, yeah, it's – they've done really, really well as a brand. And they launched a pen in November, I think, last year called the Benton, which is just a basic aluminum barrel retractable click pen. You know, it's got a little bit of dot knurling on the grip sections. Very straight, simple barrel conical tip. You know, fits your Parker refills. Obviously, I have my Jetstream in it. And I like the low-profile clip. I ordered the expensive one because it was Stormtrooper color. It was white and black. And I thought it was better than both of those. And it came with field notes. So, the regular pen –

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I think that's not available anymore. I think the one that you bought, I think it's sold out now.

Knife Discussion Begins

Myke Hurley: It is actually still available. Oh, yeah. When I was writing this up, I checked. Yeah. What's not available are the standard ones. The $60 ones are sold out. The $85 one, which I have, that comes with notebooks, is available. At least yesterday it was when I was writing this up.

Brad Dowdy: It's not anymore. Okay.

Myke Hurley: So, your post goes to a 404 now.

Myke Hurley: That's interesting. Because, yeah, it was – Huh. Interesting. Maybe you bought the last one. Well, I bought mine in November. I know. So, it absolutely said available yesterday. That's interesting. So, I'll go update the post. Anyway, this falls firmly in the good, not great category. Okay. Like, as I mentioned, like, I wouldn't – like, 85 is too much for this pen, I think. You know, even though I've got benefits with this one, you know, if you will. Limited colors, extra notebooks, yada, yada. 60 seems about right. Like, 60 seems, like, good. I like the extra little cord on the knock. I like that style. That's not going to be for everybody. I think it's cool. You know, it's a good pen, not a great pen. I don't even know that it would be worth me reviewing because it's pretty standard for what you'd get out of let's make our first machined pen, you know, idea. Right? This is what you get. And then maybe you expand on this. So, I think it's a good first effort. I like it. I don't love it for the price, but solid, but not spectacular. So, there you go.

Brad Dowdy: What is the – what is James', like, knife? What is that knife? Like, what is the white knife?

Myke Hurley: The one – let me find it for you. Is it the Folsom? It's the $225-ish one.

Brad Dowdy: $225 one?

Myke Hurley: Uh-huh. Blimey. Let me find it for you. I just can't remember the name.

Myke Hurley: The Chapter.

Brad Dowdy: The Chapter. Okay.

Myke Hurley: And what makes this knife so good? You're asking the wrong person. Okay. All right. I know Tony has done a bunch on these because of what they represented at first and then what they've become. All right.

Brad Dowdy: Because they make one called the Folsom, which is more, like, looks cool to me. More kind of what I want out of a knife.

Myke Hurley: Right. So, that's a newer model. Right. So, that would be the one I would consider. And that's like £100. Yeah. So, the Chapter is the one that started the company.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Okay. Yeah. That one's not so much for me, I think.

Myke Hurley: And how much is – let me roll down.

Brad Dowdy: Well, it's £99 for me, the Folsom. And it seems like I can buy it, which I don't fully understand how that's possible. Uh-huh. But I don't understand the way that knife laws work in the UK, frankly. Yeah. Like, I know we have some rules, but I don't know what they are. Right. So, I will try and buy this because this really does look up my street, this design, and what I'm looking for, which is basically a knife to open boxes and stuff. Right. Because I still have the one that Jeff gave me here. The – what is it? Cricket? Yep. Now, I like this one a lot, but this one was also pretty nice.

Myke Hurley: Yes. So, the Chapter is 275, at least the one I clicked on. It's the all black one.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That's not – that one just doesn't really look like one I'm looking for. Right. Just visually, I'm not really a big fan of it. It's too, like, fancy. Sure. It's the hipster knife. I mean, that is – But even then, though, like, because I say all of their knives look hipstery, but that one looks too clean cut in a way that I'm not – I don't know about. Because, like, they have the one with the handles made of wood, and that has a different look, and it's less kind of, like, fancy.

Myke Hurley: Right. Right. So, I think they've made a lot of changes in the – from their initial launch till now, and they've kind of gotten – they've grown really, really nicely. And I think are doing a pretty good job. I just don't have a lot of experience with their knives. Well, I have one on the way. All right. Very good. So, let's hit this last sponsor, honestly, Myke, because I'm interested. I want to know what is going on here.

Sponsor Transition

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Myke Hurley: All right. I'm in. So I mean, I will get it after the show. I use a product right now. It might even be the same one you mentioned that got bought out. I have a feeling it is. And use the current model of that. I did it for travel purposes, right? When my, and not like long-term travel, but like when my laptop leaves the house. Yes. Yeah. I want to ensure I'm safe hitting a wireless network. So yeah, this is one of the things that's mandatory for me. So I will be checking out ExpressVPN. It's really good. Within the week and probably cut it over to this service. So I'll check it out. Looks great.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Us TPA time. First question comes from Supernat. Hey, Brad, when did an Umi Dori Traveler's Notebook colors get released for the year?

Myke Hurley: So this was real-time tweet follow-up from Supernat. I found it. It's February. So I didn't even have a chance to look it up because I thought it was late spring is when I thought I usually saw them. Like May, July, June-ish. You know, late spring, early summer. But she looked it up. She came back. She says, it looks like it's February. If anyone has any other information besides that, I'd like to know. But they usually do one or two leather cover colors per year. And they're usually really, really nice. So they do such a great job with that product and keeping it new and fresh and keeping you buying more covers for your Traveler's Notebooks.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Our next question comes from Tim D. Fowler. Tim wants to know, do you have recommendations for a travel or EDC sharpener for the Caran d'Ache Swiss wood pencils? It's maddeningly slightly too big for the Coombe brake stop. And it's driving Tim bonkers.

Myke Hurley: Tim's going to kill me because I didn't test it before I came in here. But I have the Coombe Longpoint sharpener. And I want to try it in there because that'd be my recommendation if it fits. But I do have a couple of other sharpeners. And that's one of my favorite pencils. Although I never take it out. So I haven't tried the portable sharpener. So I will follow up with Tim this week and see what we can find out. Because I would like to know that myself. Now that he said that, I didn't consider that.

Brad Dowdy: MVArms asks, this year I'd like to get a Sailor Rialo, probably at the Atlanta Pen Show, giving them time to save up. And hopefully we will see them there. I've had my eye on it for a couple of years. I love the Pro Gear shape with the ink window. Is there any model or style that you would recommend?

Myke Hurley: Your choice is limited. This is the problem with the Rialo. This is the discussion we've had. It's a flat out awesome pen.

Brad Dowdy: I'm using mine today, actually. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: There's no style choice or no options. Like there's basic colors, black and burgundy, I think, are the stock lineups. I'm going to end up with a Rialo this year. Like I talked just last week about how I don't have any pens on my shopping list. I'm going to have to get a Rialo at some point just because I need to. So, I mean, you just don't have a lot of options. You'll have plenty of nib options. You know, I think they have pretty much the full Sailor Standard gold nib lineup for the Rialo. But if you're shopping like at a U.S. Pen Show, your choices are going to be limited to probably black and burgundy. I think there might be a white one. I haven't looked it up. But yeah, I mean, I think it's a great pen. You should absolutely buy it. But if you're looking for something that resembles something in the standard Pro Gear lineup and have your choice of some of these great colors that they've released over the past few years, you're going to be a little bit disappointed. So, depends on what you're looking for.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I have the black with the gold furniture and I don't really have a lot of pens like this, but I'm happy with it. Yep. Right. Like it works for me. It's a wonderful pen. All right. The next question comes from at Nicholas. Nicholas wants to know, this is something that's been bothering them for a quillion years. What's the difference between a broad nib and a bold nib when the nib is marked B? Which is it?

Myke Hurley: It's broad and we just call it bold out of habit sometimes because bold is the measurement in standard pens for gel pens, ballpoint pens. Those are bold tips. In a fountain pen, they're broad, but we just interchange the two sometimes accidentally. So, I generally, I don't think any fountain pen nibs, someone correct me if I'm wrong, are called bold. I think fountain pen nibs are almost universally broad.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I think bold is maybe in like other types of pens.

Myke Hurley: Like. That's what I'm saying. Like gel ink pens. Yeah. One point. Like you get 1.0 bold. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So, broad is the fountain pen term and we sometimes just mix that up, you know, when you're talking and not thinking. You see B and you know it's wide and your head just kind of goes to bold sometimes. So, we certainly slipped on those words. But universally, fountain pens are going to be broad and then gel pens are going to be bold.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So, next up, I think actually finally today, this question comes from Joel. This is a long one. So, buckle up. I recently bought a sample of Robo Oster Cafe Crammer and started using it in a TWSBI Eco with a medium nib in a Tomoe River notebook. The first day I wrote with it, it produced a lovely deep brown with some excellent shading. However, the ink color seems to be shifting over time to something lighter. To the point where now, almost a week later, the ink comes out almost a yellow brown in a shade that sadly reminds me of bird poop. Have you ever heard of inks changing their properties over time? If so, what is the underlying cause? Is it a question of flow, exposure to light, air, phase of the moon, maybe tides?

Myke Hurley: Tides. Tide pods. Tides. Number one, if you reference bird poop in your ass TPA, it's almost a guarantee that it's going to get red because I'm a 12-year-old. Yes. Number two, this could be a couple of things. It may be when you inked it, you started writing and the feed is oversaturated until it begins to flow properly. So you could have actually started with the incorrect color because of the amount of ink being put on the page and then it transitioned into the correct color. Two, it could be that your nib might need adjusting. Like it could be very tightly, the tines could be very tight so it's writing dry. I don't think in a short time frame of weeks or months you're going to get any physical ink changes unless, you know, it's environmental, you know, high heat, sunlight, things like that. Which this sounds more like a short time frame thing. So, yeah, I mean, over a long time frame, I could see an issue. But I mean, very long time frame. You know, I'd say six months or greater. If you're in a short time frame, I think it's either probably it was oversaturated for the beginning of your writing and, you know, maybe the first day or two even until it adjusts. Or two, you could just have a really dry nib and the output isn't what you anticipate because not enough ink is getting on the page. So, you know, outside of that longer time frame, yeah, you know, light and temperature and those types of things can affect it. But I think this is more of a short time frame question. And it's probably just those couple things I mentioned.

Brad Dowdy: If you would like to send in a question for Brad to answer and maybe for me to answer, it's more likely that Brad will answer on the show.

Myke Hurley: Just put bird poop in it.

Brad Dowdy: Don't do that. Just send in a tweet with the hashtag AskTPA. You can also hit Brad up email at hello at penaddict.com. Yeah, you. Or in Slack. You can find Brad's work online. He is at penaddict.com, knock.co. He's on Twitch at twitch.tv slash penaddict. He's penaddict on Instagram. Dowdyism on Twitter. D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. I am imike, I-M-Y-K-E on Instagram. You should follow me there. You can find information about this episode in your podcast app of choice. There should be a bunch of lovely links and notes and stuff in there. But if it isn't, go to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 341 to get that info in front of your eyeballs. FreshBooks, ExpressVPN, and RxBar kindly sponsored this episode. And we'd like to thank them once again. If you would like to join us again next time, we'll be back next week. I didn't know what I was going to say at the end of that sentence when I started it. You came through. Success. I guess so. I guess so. If you'd like to hear the next episode, tune in to the next one. But we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.