The Pen Addict 360/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	360
Title:	Cancelling is Not an Option
Release Date:	May 22nd, 2019
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 360
Audio File:	Audio Episode 360
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 360
Length:	6969 min <br />1.15 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: For RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict episode 360, and today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet and ExpressVPN. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: Hello Myke Hurley, how are you today?

Myke Hurley: Oh, I'm fine and dandy, my friend, fine and dandy.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, well, I am fine and dandy too, as always, on this normally Wednesday recorded podcast. Highlight of my week, and I don't say that lightly. I love this show, I love what we do for The Pen Addict podcast, I just love The Pen Addict a lot, which means I'm a very big fan of myself, Myke.

Topic Shift Begins

Myke Hurley: We all know that. I'm just super unhappy with the first two items in our document today. Like, one I don't want to do, and the other one I'm just really mad about.

Brad Dowdy: So, one I didn't want to do, but we should, and the other one I'm going to force you to do, which is the first one. Because it's a big deal in the stationery world, Myke. And I know, you're not a Game of Thrones hater, but you're not a watcher. You're not a watcher on the wall. Okay, so I'm not interested in it. You've lived through eight years of this.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I missed it, right? Like, I missed it. And then, by the time that I was even remotely interested in it, I knew too many spoilers, because the internet can't stop themselves from making Game of Thrones into memes. Then I knew, like, a bunch of things that happened in the show, which would make it less enjoyable for me to watch it. And then I've seen clips of it, and the violence, and stuff like that. It's just not for me. I don't begrudge people that watch it. Adina, like, my wife loves the show, like, absolutely loves it. But it's just not my cup of tea.

Brad Dowdy: Totally get it. Totally get it. And especially since you didn't catch it in the beginning, and you're just like, you know, you were, I think you mentioned it maybe like three or four years into the series was when I first kind of heard you talking about it. It's just like, I'm beyond that point to go back. I'm not interested in enough to go back and, you know, commit some time to this. So, I don't know if you know, Myke, but it ended this past Sunday. I'm very aware of that. Because you are a citizen of the internet. So, yes, you cannot get away from it whether you like it or not. Are we about to do some super light spoilers? I think I have it in my head to where I cannot spoil it. Okay. But I was going to give a tiny spoiler warning, but I'm going to do my best not to, and I think I can get around it. So, there is maybe one of the best characters in my book of the show, maybe certainly top two or three characters for me, is a knight named Brienne. And she is just this amazingly awesome character. And she's been in the show, I think, since season one, if not season two. She's been around a long time. She's got a huge role in the show. So, throughout the whole show, she's just been a great character. So, the end of the show, we're going into the last episode. She is, you know, essentially back in the keep of the castle. And she is writing notes in a book that essentially tracks the stories of all the famous king's guards, all the protectors of the king and the monarchy. And she's writing the story of one of them in a book. And as you could guess, this story has been written with a feather quill pen and a dip bottle of ink. And she's doing a really nice job. You know, it's a big, huge, beautiful book. It's like a thousand-page book. You know, it's like one of those things you close and it's like ten stories tall. So, she's doing her writing and she's writing about this person. And you can see how heavy the ink's going on the page. Like, the shots get in, like, really close and you can see the details of the letter. And it's like, you know, a sixteenth of an inch thickness of wet ink on the page. And then she goes and shuts the book. And I about had a cow right then and there. My Twitter feed blew up all that night, all the next day. It was like, it was the no heard around the stationary world. I don't know what failure did Brienne just have right there for a character that is so well done. We can just chalk it up as an effect of the writing this last season, which is a whole thing. And that's kind of like, you know, kind of how a good metaphor for how they ended the show is closing the book while the ink is still dry. But I just wanted to bring this up because so many people brought this up to me. There's articles written on the internet, Myke, which I shared just about this scene. That's how big of a deal it was. Regardless of anything that went on in the rest of that episode, this was the most important for us here at the Panatic, Myke. And we needed to cover it. I mean, this is what we do. This is the news we needed to cover. Mm-hmm. So I will let you off the hook on that one and begrudgingly talk about the next one.

Myke Hurley: I'm so mad.

Brad Dowdy: And we'll talk about your feelings because I'm not as mad as you. And I think that came out in this. I did not want to talk about this, but I felt if we didn't, we're going to have to answer the questions anyway. So we might as well cut to the chase. So our lovely Ask TPA from our friend Ralph last week about the writing on the hamburger paper was amazing. And, you know, I obviously enjoyed it. We said it's the question of the year. And after the show ended last week in the chat room, like literally within a minute, one of our friends said, I think you got trolled. And I don't know why it didn't cross my mind as weird as that email and question was to look into it before I chose to read it. But I enjoyed it so much. It was really well written, well done, and it was funny. But one look at the originating email probably would have given me the answers that I needed. But I didn't. I enjoyed the story. I felt like sharing it. And I'm okay that we did. The person who wrote it, we asked them for a shot of the inkwell, which they actually listened and provided. Myke, I don't know if you want to share that in the show notes. You may not. And I'm good with either decision. I'll leave that in your hands. Because as they always say, don't feed the trolls, right? That's the thing. But I didn't feel there was much malice in this, right? And I'm not upset about it. You know, it took me maybe five minutes to go, oh, like I think he got us good here based on what I could figure out in just my very minuscule amount of Google Foo. And then he sent me an email. I replied back to him in his real name saying, ha ha, you got us. You did a really good job. You're a good writer. And he basically replied, ha ha, thanks. You know, that was fun. So, yeah, confirmed. Troll job. A little bit sad about it, but not really. It was a fun story. I will continue this story. Hopefully this story will continue to be a memeable part of this show. And I think it's part of the lore now. And maybe we can get Brienne to write it in a wet nib and slam the book down on it. I don't want this to become a thing, everyone. It kind of can't, right? And we're going to get this later. We have an ass TPA that I would immediately had a red flag on, but in a fun kind of way, right? We're a fun show. We don't. We're not out there taking people off to where there's like a love-hate of the pen addict, right? There's not factions of the pen addict, right? Where a subset of listeners would, you know, go out of their way to necessarily attack the show. They would just not listen, right? Who's going to go through an hour of this nonsense? You either listen to us or you've never heard of us. So this person is actually a creative science fiction writer. So like everything that they did was really well done. And I don't think it's good. That's why they got us. This person's a writer. And I mean, they got us. And I'm willing to admit, hey, I got gotten. And I'm okay with it.

Myke Hurley: We got got. And like, I like tip my hat. You got us. But like, I just, that's not everyone writing their most elaborate phrases.

Brad Dowdy: Well, now you're warned, right? Yeah. I mean, and I will do a little bit better job digging a little bit deeper ahead of time. You know, once it happens once, then you're on high alert now. And I don't think it's something that's going to happen very often. But I can't wait to get to this question we have at the Ask TPA at the end of the show. It's going to be fun. All right. We got the two verboten topics out of the way, Myke. Let's talk about something fun now.

Myke Hurley: Something unexpected, I think.

Pen Discussion Starts

Brad Dowdy: Totally unexpected. And I want to know first, have you ever used a Lamy Safari ballpoint pen?

Myke Hurley: Under no circumstance I have. Like, for any reason other than why would I have thought to do that, you know?

Brad Dowdy: Well, because it's kind of wild and some would say ugly. And I couldn't disagree with that. And why would you ever choose this pen when you have other choices? And I wasn't planning on choosing this pen either. So I did a review on Monday of the Lamy Safari ballpoint pen. And I did it because I didn't expect that I would like it. When the Lamy Safari pastel series came out in the U.S. like a few weeks ago, I knew that I'd be getting the fountain pen to review for the blog. And I always said I wanted the mint green one. I forget the exact name of it. Mint glaze. Mint glaze. So I ordered the mint glaze from JetPens. And then I still like the other colors. And this whole series comes in the fountain pen, ballpoint, rollerball. And there's three colors. So I said, well, why not order one of each style in a different color for each one? And then I'll send them out to everyone that writes for the pen to review. Yeah. It's like, hey, yeah, Brad, you're a super smart guy. That's a great idea. So clever. So I got them in. And I opened up the package, assuming that I'm keeping the fountain pen and I'll parse it off the ballpoint and rollerball to someone else to review. And I started doing this. I was like, huh, that feels pretty good. This is a weird pen, but it looks kind of cool. It's like, yeah. I wonder who should I choose to send this to review? And then I started writing with it. I was like, huh, that writes really smooth for a ballpoint. I don't understand how this is happening. Why does it write so smooth?

Brad Dowdy: And I just started looking at it more and using it more. And out of the three pens that I picked up, this is the only one that I wanted to use. And it's probably because I've got a bunch of other Safaris right. I know the answer to that. I don't know the answer to the ballpoint or the rollerball. So this one interested me more than the other two models. And I started using it and writing it. And I was like, this is a legitimately good pen. Like, you may not like the style or the aesthetic. And honestly, that's what kept me from it from so long. It is a, even for Lamy, it's a weird looking pen. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: It has like a strange look of like, oh, so you took a Safari and just added some parts to it.

Brad Dowdy: Which that's not a pen that needs added parts, right? It's already, it's enough already.

Myke Hurley: It's got a lot going on as it is.

Brad Dowdy: But it still has that same feel and vibe to it, right? That's what Lamy does well. When they have like a product, like an historical product, like the Safari lineup. It's that way because they've made it really well and they continue to make it well. And people who make those purchases, you know, get those pens in their hands and they say, oh, this is a really good pen. I felt like I got, I made a good purchase. I feel like my value and my money was warranted on this purchase. That's what Lamy does really well, especially at the lower price points. So I don't know. I just kind of fell for it. And I think it was probably a lot of it was the color of the barrel. I think it's a really neat color, the blue macaron. And the ends of the pen are a little bit alternate colors because they're different materials. Like, you know, the barrel is plastic, but the not. I like that they purposefully changed the shade.

Myke Hurley: Because you could try and color match it, but you never get it right. So changing it to like the ends, like the rubber parts to be a darker shade of blue, I think is much more attractive.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, they tried to take it not like the next adjacent color. They went like, you know, five color shades away to make it stand out a little more. And they pulled it off. Like, I think it looks fantastic.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it's like taking a floor and turning it into a thing, right? Right. It actually makes it better looking.

Brad Dowdy: Right, right. So the refill is called the M16. It's pretty much a Lamy proprietary refill, but Monteverde makes a copy of it as they do for a lot of pens. So you can get other refills in lots of different colors and a few different tip sizes. So this is a pen I should not like. And over all my years of writing the pen addict and all my years of loving pens before writing the pure pen addict, I was never interested in number one buying or number two using a Lamy Safari ballpoint. Right. And I just have to say I've been missing out. Like, I don't need five of these. Right. Like, I'm good with this one. I might buy one other one. You know, if I see another cool color down the line or like they do this in the Vista barrel, that's clear. I think from time to time, I think I've seen that in the past. You know, if they do another color and then I'll have, you know, a different set of refills to play in. You know, like I'll maybe have two of these, but I'm using this pen today. I've been using it a bunch. It carries really well. Right. It's strong. It's durable. Yeah. You can beat it around, carry it in a pocket, throw it in a bag. You're not going to be sad. You know, if something happens to it, it was like a $16 pen. So it's, you know, it's by no means a cheap pen, but that's a fair price. Like for what this is, it's really good. So I don't know. This one caught me off guard. Like I, it was one of those pens that I was like, okay, it's a pen that exists. And, you know, I may never use one ever. And then I got it in my hand and I was like, wow, this kind of clicks with me. And I like it. So I don't know that like, there's not much story to it, but other than, you know, I figured another thing, you know, part of doing this is figuring out things that I never thought I would like that turn out to be really fun and good and quality pens. And this is one of those in that long list.

Myke Hurley: So my typical problem with this type of thing is like, I agree with you. I agree with that sentiment. Like the Kaweco Student, which was a pen I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. It's like a similar vein for me. Like there's not really any reason I thought I would like that pen, but I do. I really like it. But what I would say though on this point is like, so for a pen like this one, like this Lamy, my problem is, is I know I would never have a need for it. Like I could like it, but with the pens that I use, I don't know when it would ever get used. That would be my problem.

Rollerball Usage Discussion

Brad Dowdy: And that's the biggest issue I find with roller balls, because how are you going to tell me that I'm going to use this pen more than any Jetstream or any Pilot Acroball, you know, because it is inferior.

Myke Hurley: That you're moving up to a fountain pen, right? Like that, you know. Right. Like why would you use this pen when it's not necessarily your favorite roller ball and when you'd use roller balls less than fountain, you know what I mean? It's just like, I don't know where I would have a place for it in my life.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Where I do, in that I do use roller balls, gel pens, and ball points way more than fountain pens, I would say. Just in totality, those three types of pens more than fountain pens. So I have room for when the refill is close, like if a Jetstream, just say arbitrarily, is a 10 out of 10, and this refills like an 8 or 9 out of 10, well, it's close enough in writing quality that I can enjoy the look, style, and feel, and durability of the barrel of this Safari, which makes it a pen I want to use at that point. Right. That makes sense. I get that. It's good stuff. Very, very much enjoyed the Lamy Safari Ballpoint. And I bet you can tell me, Myke, where I can buy a Lamy Safari Ballpoint in the future if I'm interested.

Myke Hurley: Our friends over at Pen Chalet, because Pen Chalet, they have everything you're looking for. They have all of your favorite brands at fantastic prices. Whether you are looking to pick up a Lamy, or you want a Sailor, Kaweco, a Pilot, Namiki, no matter what it is you're looking for, they're an authorized dealer of all of them. They're super fast and reliable customer service. They run special discounts twice a month, including closeout specials every single two weeks. So they're always adding new styles of pens, and they're always doing wonderful deals on them. Pen Chalet ship internationally with great shipping rates, but they do free shipping on orders of over $50 in the United States. Pen Chalet has low prices on high-quality pens, and they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Now, you can go get yourself some special deals, but you can also get yourself a discount. So if you do want to go and buy that Lamy ballpoint, if you want to go and grab one of those for yourself, you can get 10% off at any time at Pen Chalet. Go to PenChalet.com. P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. There's a link at the top of the website that says podcast. You just tap that. You type in the password PenAddict, which is a special password for this show. PenAddict, or one word. And you will get your hands on the 10% code that you need to save anything at Pen Chalet, as well as some of the special offers that we have this week. And Brad, what do we have cued up?

Brad Dowdy: That would be awesome if I could tell you as soon as I type in this amazing code. So let's see. All together. Everybody now. We have... Okay. We have all kinds of stuff from Monteverde. All kinds of stuff from Lamy. And a pretty cool Kaweco. So let me scroll back up here to the top. So Monteverde Rodeo Drive, which I've never seen this pen before. It looks kind of cool. Very cool price for the Monteverde. The Lamy Studio Fountain Pen, which I'm a fan of. And we'll be having a good look at those coming up soon on the PenAddict blog. I like their special edition colors, which I'm surprised are on sale. Which that's kind of Ron's thing. That's his middle name. His name is Ron. I'm surprised it's on sale. At PenChalet.com. And then the Kaweco AL Sport. The all black one. Which I do not own. And I won't own. I probably... I don't need this pen. But dang, that's a good price. So yeah. As always, Ron comes through with some pretty amazing prices.

Myke Hurley: So you can go check this out for yourself right now. By going to PenChalet.com. Clicking the podcast link at the top of the website. And entering the password PenAddict. Tell thanks to PenChalet for the continued support of this show and RelayFM.

Brad Dowdy: If you're a Lamy Studio fan and like the special edition colors that they do, I think they just do those once a year, maybe twice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is very well priced for recent additions. We'll leave it there. All right. So one of the things that I've been saying, I'd say in this year, this calendar year, and been parroting some others and passing this information through the community is that Kaweco uses YoVoNibs now. So that's been kind of a phrase I've been on. You know, you hear that information. The information gets passed along. You hear that from vendors, retailers, people who buy things. And then I got a tweet earlier this week from one of my friends. And she said, hey, I'm seeing that I got this information from like Kaweco customer support when I was asking about the nib manufacturer. And I...

Nib Manufacturing Context

Myke Hurley: Can we just for a second just take a step back and just contextualize for people that might not be aware why this would even be an issue?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. This is why you're a professional podcaster, Myke. Thank you. So Kaweco has historically been known for using Bach nibs. So there's two main kind of stock of the two premier generic nib manufacturers for companies that make pens who do not make their own nibs are Bach and YoVo. And, you know, they're both good quality nibs. A lot of people prefer certain nibs. One nib brand over the other. I personally always, you know, profess my love for YoVo. So, you know, and they've all had, you know, different reasons that different people love or dislike these various brands.

Myke Hurley: And it is worth saying that Kaweco, their nibs, no matter who's made them so far, right, have always been priced.

Brad Dowdy: Not really. So that's the thing. So there was a span there in the past five years where the baby's bottom issue, which is where there's a little bit extra tipping. It's not polished enough in there, like their fine, medium, and broad nibs had problem skipping. So Kaweco nib QC was not good. And people would have to fight to find their good ones. Like I've always preached with Kaweco in the past is when you find a good nib, use that nib on any of your other Kaweco pens. Just pass it around. Right? So that's always been my philosophy because they were very inconsistent. So in the past year-ish, I'm guessing, they've had to increase their manufacturing capacity. So Kaweco is doing well as a business. They're growing. And even just their Bach nibs manufacturing was not, well, they were not able to keep up.

Brad Dowdy: So I guess the word got around somehow. I don't know if it was like the Kaweco distributors were passing on this information because I know a lot of retailers told this to me that they were using Yovo nibs now. And while that's technically true, what the end game is here, and that I'll explain and elaborate on, is that Bach and Yovo are both making a Kaweco nib.

Brad Dowdy: So what I found out after Michelle asked me this question, I said, well, let me email him. So I talked to Michael Gubwe for a little bit through email. A little bit of translation issues, but I went back and forth with him a little bit trying to –

Myke Hurley: Such a beautiful name.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, it is. And just for the record, Michael is the son of the Kaweco president, the current Kaweco president. So, yeah, he would know. So I emailed him, and he was super nice and got right back to me and said, here's the deal. And after – this actually – it took a few emails for me to get clarification or clarity on what he was telling me.

Brad Dowdy: Kaweco provides the tooling to Bach and Yovo to use to manufacture Kaweco's nibs.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: The end result is then manufactured by both of those companies, shipped back to Kaweco, and then applied to their pens.

Myke Hurley: But is it known – like, is there a – do they make specific nibs, specific pens, or are they just, like, making them? Do you know that?

Brad Dowdy: For Kaweco? Yeah. Like, are you saying, do they only make the sport, or do they make all of Kaweco's nibs?

Myke Hurley: What you're saying is they use two companies to make their nibs, right? Yes. Are these companies making the nibs for specific pens, or are they just making the nibs, and then Kaweco just do whatever with them?

Brad Dowdy: Yes. They're the second part. They're just making the nibs because the nibs are then returned to Kaweco, and they are all pooled.

Nib Origins Discussion

Brad Dowdy: Okay? So, you will never know the company of origin for your nibs. Yeah. Because the theory, and obviously, Kaweco believes this, is if we provide you the tooling and the dyes – and this includes the feed, too. This is not just the nib. This is Kaweco's tooling for nibs and feeds, outsourced to two companies who build around that tooling and ship a product back to me. That was my understanding of how this works, and that's how he explained it to me. So, they're essentially getting a Kaweco nib made by outsourcers. Mm-hmm. And at that point, the companies doesn't matter. Obviously, we want to know that they're getting made by a good company, either Bach or Yovo. But the style and shape of the nib are all Kaweco, and there's no way to parse the difference because not even Kaweco would know because they're all Kaweco parts. It's all the same part number, right? But two companies are making part number eight, and then they are shipped back to the company, and part number eight is in a bin, and then part number eight is grabbed and made for that product. So, that's the way it works. So, I can't say Kaweco uses Yovo nibs now, or I can't say Kaweco uses Bach nibs and always has because the reasoning behind it was they couldn't keep up. They couldn't get enough nibs. So, now they asked two companies to make their nibs. I think it's one of them for Kaweco.

Myke Hurley: I think that's fantastic. Yeah. That's for them.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, it's not without questions, right? You know, from a consumer perspective. In the end, it only matters to, like, obsessives like us. Big picture, it doesn't matter if the quality holds. And right now, I feel like the quality is holding.

Myke Hurley: I don't think it matters at all. Yeah. It's like because I understand that we care, but it's like, do you think about what factory in China made your iPhone? Right. Do you care? Yeah, no. Like, really? Like, ultimately, do you care if it came from Foxconn or Pegatron? Like, it doesn't matter. Like, this is how manufacturing is done, right? Like, especially at the case of, like, they are providing the tooling. If they're providing the tooling, then it shouldn't make a difference as long as the quality control is there. You can't, I don't think that it's fair to be, like, the nibs that Bock make that are Bock nibs or the nibs that Joa make that are Joa nibs are bad, so therefore a company must produce only bad products. That doesn't make any sense. Like, what it might mean is the design of the Bock nib or the design of the Joa nib cannot support what they're trying to produce if the tooling is correct enough that Kaweco have given them. And as long as Kaweco are quality controlling against that, then it shouldn't matter who makes it.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So, in the end, Kaweco uses Kaweco nibs. Yeah. Right? This is a Kaweco nib. And I've always said they're either brand X or brand Y, when in reality now, it's neither.

Myke Hurley: So, again, like, I will go back and we'll talk about processors. So, like, I know all this stuff from, it's easier for me to talk about these things with technology, right? The processors that go into iPhones are Apple's processors. Apple designed them.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: They have, they completely architectured themselves, but they don't make them. They get, like, Taiwan Semiconductor to fabricate the chips for them. But they're not Taiwan Semiconductor's chips. They didn't design them. Right. But it's just because Apple don't yet own their own factory. Like, this is just how large-scale manufacturing is done. It's like, for example, your cases. Mm-hmm. You and Jeff don't make them anymore. Right. You have another company make them. And I bet that company makes things of vastly different quality. Right. But you make different decisions because you're like, no, it's going to be made this way with these specifications. And then we check against it. Right. Like, I just think that the idea of, like, oh, I don't like Bok nibs, so therefore the Kaweco Bok nibs are inherently bad. It just doesn't hold up if you know enough about manufacture.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, I think that's a little bit of a stretch. I'll disagree with you some there because you can get a Bok nib. Take Kaweco out of the picture. If I have a Bok stamped nib and a Yovo stamped nib that I know came from these manufacturers directly, and my Yovo nibs are consistently good and my Bok nibs are a coin flip on QC on a good day, that's ingrained in my head now. Right? So I feel justified in questioning that.

Myke Hurley: Right. But I think what I'm saying is just don't worry about it that much.

Brad Dowdy: I am saying that for Kaweco.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. That's what I mean. Yeah. Like, I think I may have misinterpreted what I was saying. Like, if you know that Yovo nibs are bad and you're using Yovo made nibs that other companies use, like, then don't use them. Right? Yeah. Because, like, you know, like, say, for example, you know, all of our favorite companies that make pens themselves, right, like, all of the wonderful people that have their own small businesses or whatever, they're choosing one of these companies and then using their nibs because they're not at the scale where they can make the nibs themselves. Right? But then you can question that then, I think, because then you're using a, like, brand X, you know, Joe or nib, right? This is what they make for other people. Right. And it's their design, their tooling. You can 100% question that. But I think if we know that Kaweco are providing all of the information, the tools, and the specifications for how they're to be made, then you've got to just judge on what Kaweco create rather than what the effectively just the machines are making. The machines live in Yovo's factory, not in Kaweco's or whatever. Right.

Brad Dowdy: And I agree with this. And actually, the end result, I believe, is positive for Kaweco because now I just judge them, is this nib good or bad that Kaweco provided? And I have to say, in the past year, we've had a lot less Kaweco terrible nib stories, right? There used to be people would swear off that brand because they could not get a good nib to save their life. And they've changed the narrative by branching out and making this decision and having maybe a better QC and a better accurate process with the tooling, like what you were talking about, to where they can actually get two companies to make the exact same nib for them and have the exact same nib be good. Yep.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. So, you know, I think it's a good thing for them because, you know, while we're talking about the nibs now in the big picture, we don't talk about Kaweco nibs anymore when that used to be the story all the time. So I think they've done a good job with this. So that's what I got from them. So I will no longer say Kaweco is now using Yovo nibs. Kaweco uses Kaweco nibs. So there you go. Speaking of processes of manufacturing, Michael. Yeah.

Topic Shift - Weekend Projects

Myke Hurley: You had a busy weekend, huh?

Brad Dowdy: I had a busy weekend. A good weekend. We have the spoke pin project is rolling. We have parts. We have all of the parts. And not all of the parts are good. So let's talk about this. It's okay. I'm sorry. I was so sad to read that Kickstarter update. I won't say neither of us blinked. I mean, we're obviously not happy with it, but it happens. Anodization is a tricky subject. So we'll get into that. But let's start from the beginning a little bit. Brian got all the parts in from, you know, China was a lot of our parts. And then he picked up some of the parts in South Carolina on the way down. So we have parts from everywhere. Each pin has 10 parts. So we had well over 10,000 parts for all the pins that we need to make laying around. So we had to sort and organize and unpack and, you know, get all these pins ready to actually be manufactured, assembled, not manufactured, assembled, put together, QC'd, package shipped, all that stuff. And with all the colors that we have for this project and the metal anodization we're doing on aluminum barrels, there was bound to be some color issues crop up. And we've always said, I've always said on this podcast before this project, and we even said in the beginning of this project, orange is really hard to anodize. And the orange caps and barrels did not match well enough to be sold as a unit, right? You can tell a difference. And then the blue fell in the same category. So before, I mean, like last week, we had already reordered those parts with an emphasis on getting them right this time as far as color matching goes and or you're not getting paid kind of thing, right? So, you know, that's just we didn't want this to happen, but there was an expectation that we might have to work a little bit to get those two colors right. And you know what? It's playing out a little bit that way. But the big picture is that the manufacturing and the quality is like super good out of all those parts. When we were going through them and inspecting them, we had like a little like eight ounce cup that had like five parts in it that we'd rejected out of like all these thousands and thousands of parts. You know, we might see more as we go through building these pens because it's a staged process. That's the thing that me and Brian had to get together with and understand the scope of each stage and each phase of building these pens because that's how we set up this project to be right. You know, this is not a metal tube that we're slapping a refill in. This is eventually going to be a very customizable style of pen. So we had to do it in the way we did it now to, you know, hopefully build this into something later down the line. So that's kind of it. Like we got a good start. We were ahead of the game. Then we got kind of, we both, we both kind of felt kind of bummed like come Sunday night. It was like, man, you know, I hate that we're not going to be able to give backer number one their pen first, right? Like that's always the goal. It's like we wanted to say, we're going to go right down on order. We're going to have all the pens and we're going to start shipping him. We're going to build them, you know, build batches of pens and then ship them out on orders. But we have, I don't know the exact numbers. Let's just guesstimate 75%, you know, good parts and 25% not so good parts that have to be redone. So some orders are going to ship this week, which is good. That's like super positive. Some orders are going to be held a little bit longer because we're doing these barrels over again. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Just to make, I think, right? Cause I go orange crush.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. If you got a orange or blue barrels, we still might can ship them in June, which is what we're shooting for. So we're still not technically behind yet, but I mean, we're going to be close. We're probably going to end up being into July on those, which is still pretty darn good. We're the, the more we took a step back, the more we realized that we're in really good shape. We're really happy with the outcome of the pen. Like when we build the pens, we're like, yeah, buddy, this pen's great. So there's nothing wrong with the parts.

Myke Hurley: It's the color and you just don't want to ship it when it's wrong. It's like, it's actually what we were talking about with the Lamy thing, right? It's like they, they decided to just make it not try and look too similar because if you try and make it look similar, you can get it wrong. And that's what's happened for you guys. It's like, these are different. These are parts that are being anodized separately. So right. Right. It's going to be difficult to match it up. It is not impossible and it will be, it will get done, but it is a more tricky process.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And it's okay for us because the products we're not shipping now are also not waste. They're, they go into parts for other pens we can make down the line. You know, when we're mixing and matching colors so much, you know, the unit as a whole.

Myke Hurley: Cause there's nothing wrong with the specific coloring. No. Just the coloring doesn't match the cap or whatever. Right.

Brad Dowdy: Just the Lamy Safari. Yeah. Like the Lamy Safari ballpoint's a good example. Like that's an extreme, like our colors aren't that far off, but you can tell there's two different, like there's an ABS blue, then there's like a rubber blue in these pens and they don't match. But that doesn't preclude us from using orange barrels with black caps in the future, whatever that color is. You know, we already decided probably lime caps would look pretty cool on these orange barrels. Right. That's part of our business model. Right. We're not selling a singular pen style that has to be consistent all the time. We're selling a huge wide range of pen styles. Therefore, we don't have to eat the pens. We have to eat the inventory carrying costs for the next four or five months to be able to do something with them once we get this project over with. Right. But they're not going into the scrap heap. They're good products. So, you know, that gets us, that made us feel a little bit better. It's like, you know, these are not bad products. We just can't use them today. You know? So, yeah, it sucks that we have to hold these products, you know, and maybe delay, you know, the people getting the project, the pen, when other people are getting, you know, the red pen shipping out or whatever, and they don't have their orange pen. You know, you always hate that. But, you know, as long as we, both Brian and I, like, I don't think we'd, we wouldn't be working together if we both didn't believe in that, in being transparent about how things work. And sometimes it's not what you want to hear, but that's, that's the option. This is what we, this is what we have. We're not going to make it up as we go along. And people understand that. So, you know, we hate it. It's one of those things. But big picture, it's not very much delayed because we had already decided on our own to just reorder this stuff, you know, a week or so ago.

Myke Hurley: So, we're getting there. I have a question for you, actually, because I've always wondered this. So, in this instance, right, you've gone back to the manufacturer of the anodizer or whatever, and you said, these are not acceptable. We need you to make more of them. Do you pay for them?

Brad Dowdy: So, we will pay a portion. So, okay, first round, we'll pay for it. Okay. Well, yeah, because you ordered those. We paid for the products. We ordered them. Now, we're able to go back saying, these are not right. We need it to be better, even though it's still going to cost us. We're not going to give you all the money until we see the final result.

Production Issues

Brad Dowdy: So, they're going to have to get it right this time before they get paid, essentially.

Myke Hurley: So, you're paying over again?

Brad Dowdy: Yes. By the time they give us good parts, we'll have paid for twice as many orange barrels and twice as many blue barrels. I think that's what you're asking me.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So, like, the orange, so you've already bought all the orange, and you've asked them to make it again, and you're going to pay them the full price again for all the rest of the orange barrels? At some point, yes. So, that's so interesting to me, because it just feels like, where's the money coming from?

Brad Dowdy: Trust me. We have those conversations. I mean, it just eats into the profits. I mean, that's the Kickstarter part of this, right? We get all the money up front, and we do our best to make sure we're covered for crap hitting the fan. You know?

Myke Hurley: Huh. And this is the difference between just doing it and doing it and being good about it. Right? Like, you know what you're doing. Right. That's the difference. Right? You've been... This is not your first rodeo.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Huh. So, you know... Well, I mean, you don't necessarily plan for mistakes, right? You plan for waste and, you know, errors, you know, minimal, you know, type of scrap type stuff. You don't plan necessarily, like in a line item for full redos, but you also accept the risk going into it that that might be a possibility and you might be out of pocket more to get the things right on the front end. But you have to get things right on the front end or else you're not a very good person. Right?

Myke Hurley: Well, I mean, you don't. I mean, the thing is, you could ship these pens with how they are. Like, you really could do that.

Brad Dowdy: It's ill-advised, but you could... And then I don't sleep at night and my reputation's ruined, right? Right, but it doesn't...

Myke Hurley: You're only shipping those pens if you don't care about those things.

Brad Dowdy: Exactly. Exactly. So, we do care. Both Brian and I care very much. And, like, this isn't that big of a negative. It's just... It's more of a that stinks kind of thing instead of an oh, we're screwed thing, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it's not game over because you've had to make some more barrels, right?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And I'll tell you what, if we did a project, if I was ever involved in a project where I got the parts in and they were not to my liking and it was game over, I just need to stop. Like, I need to never show my face again, right? Because this is not how I believe in operating.

Myke Hurley: Hmm. Okay.

Customer Focus

Brad Dowdy: Right? You go into this project, any project that I go into, I go in to make the customer happy. That's the goal. Everything else is secondary.

Myke Hurley: Are they happier with a less than good product or no product? Like, if you'd say that, like, if it was not right and you'd have to, like, just cancel it, well, isn't it worse to have nothing? Cancelling.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, yeah. But, like, I, I mean, cancelling is not an option, right?

Myke Hurley: Hmm. Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: That's the way I look at it. I don't go into something where cancelling is ever an option.

Myke Hurley: Sure. Well, I'm sorry that you're having some struggles, but luckily it isn't too bad.

Brad Dowdy: We're actually, we had, you know, we had about an hour where we were kind of bummed, you know, like, you know, kicking the dirt. And, you know, it's like, oh, man, this stinks. But the more we thought about it and the more happy we were with what we did have and what those results were and how the pins came out, you know, when we assembled them, we're like, man, this is a good pin. So we'll make the rest of this work. So we're super happy.

Myke Hurley: Can't wait to get mine. Yep. Today's episode is also brought to you by ExpressVPN. Sometimes cybercrime seems like something from the movies. Like, it's hard to imagine someone wanting to get your information. But stealing data using public Wi-Fi is an easy way for bad guys to make money. And it happens to normal people like me, people like you. If you leave your internet connection unencrypted, your passwords and credit card numbers could be vulnerable. But there's something that you can do to protect yourself from this. You can start using ExpressVPN. Not tomorrow or sometime next week. Get it today. ExpressVPN works by securing and anonymizing your internet browsing, encrypting your data, hiding your public IP address with easy-to-use apps that run seamlessly in the background of your device. You turn on ExpressVPN protection with just a click, and you're free to safely surf on public Wi-Fi without being snooped on or having your personal data stolen. ExpressVPN is rated the number one VPN service by TechRadar and comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. One of the things that I love about ExpressVPN when I use it is when I turn it on, I don't feel like my connection is being super slowed down. Like, I can continue working as normal with no problems. And that's not what I've found in using some other products in the past like this. So it's one of the reasons that I do really, really genuinely love ExpressVPN. For less than $7 a month, you can get the same protection with ExpressVPN that I have. If you ever use public Wi-Fi and want to keep the bad guys away from your data, you need ExpressVPN. Just go to expressvpn.com slash penaddict, where you can learn more and protect your online activity today. Find out how you can get three months for free at expressvpn.com slash penaddict. That is expr-e-s-s-v-p-n dot com slash penaddict for three months free with a one-year package. Our thanks to ExpressVPN for their support of this show and RelayFM. And we move into hashtag ask TPA. And we hope that these are all real questions. And we will start from F Nordstrom. What are your thoughts about the Sailor Sapporo? I haven't heard much about it. I mean, this is a troll, right? So this is what I thought, Brad. Right? No, I haven't. Okay, okay, okay. So I thought this, right?

Brad Dowdy: I don't think it is, but yes. Totally. Now we're looking at this differently.

Myke Hurley: Because I saw this and I was like, uh-uh. And so I Googled it. I just Googled Sailor Sapporo. Because I know we talk about the Sapporo Mini, right? And the Sailor Sapporo is another name for the Progear Slim. Right. So what I thought could have actually been the question here is, we actually don't really talk about the Slim so much. In my mind, I think both of us, or at least I know I do, I kind of lump the Progear and the Progear Slim together.

Slim Pen Discussion

Brad Dowdy: I don't. I do. I definitely do. Because I recommend people don't buy the Slim unless they have certain criteria.

Myke Hurley: I like the Slims a lot. I have a bunch of them. I do too.

Brad Dowdy: I have a bunch of them.

Myke Hurley: I prefer the standard size Progear, but I like the Slim. But yeah, the Slim is also called the Sapporo. And I think it's still a really great option. I think that if you are buying a Progear for the first time, if you have the ability to hold both the Slim, the Sapporo, and the regular Progear, it would be great so you can make your decision. You know, in the same way with the 1911s. You want standard or large, right? Like, the differences aren't massive, but they are noticeable. And if you have the ability to be able to see them and hold them in person, you should try to be able to do that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I laughed really hard when Fred tweeted this question. I was a bit confused. Because my thought immediately went to, he's following up on our troll question, like, hey, have you ever heard of this little boutique brand called Sailor? You know, LOL, right? But I don't think he is because the way they marketed us at the Sapporo is very strange, right?

Myke Hurley: Especially because we do talk about the Sapporo Mini, but we never talk about the regular Sapporo. Right, because we just call it the Slim. Because it's weird to call it its own thing when it's not. It's just a small of a... Like, the 1911 standard and large are not two different products. But the Progear and Progear Slim are two different products. It's weird. It's weird. Yeah, I see. You know what I mean? But they don't have a name for the standard and large 1911.

Brad Dowdy: They do. Do they? Yeah, one of them is called regular. Or large. Either one. That's why it's confusing.

Myke Hurley: No, no, no. But what I mean is, yeah, but regular and large is fine. It's not called Sapporo, right? Like, where it's like, well, that sounds like a different pen at this point.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Nor is it consistent between the product line up. The Progear has its own naming conventions. And the 1911s have their own naming conventions. Even though Sailor's trying to accomplish the same things by having the smaller, thinner, 14K nib entry leveler one be one style and one name, one product name. And then the little bit bigger 21K nib model being the standard, except when it's large. So, yeah. This is Sailor's naming conventions confusing things. And so, the short version, if I don't know that we've even given Fred a clear answer, this is the Progear Slim. Anytime we talk about Progear, the Progear lineup, the Progear Slim is equivalent to the Sapporo. Like, one and the same in this case, for all intents and purposes. So, and we very much enjoy this pen. It's a great pen.

Multi-Pen Question

Myke Hurley: 24Hours 100Miles says, I'm considering a Charbo X, but I have zero need for a pencil. Is there a similar cool multi-pen? This is the Zebra Charbo X, by the way. Yes. Is there a similar cool multi-pen that doesn't take up one spot of a pencil and can use good gel refills?

Brad Dowdy: This is such a pain in the butt with the Charbo. For as great a pen as it is, you are stuck with a mechanical pencil refill. And while I love mechanical pencil refills, I don't want them in my multi-pens. I want all pen slots for my pens. So, equivalent to the level of the Charbo X, you can get the Lamy 2000. It's multi-color. It's ballpoint, but it takes D1 refills, so you can swap them out to the gel refills, even the Charbo X gel refills. That's the most comparable. Outside of that, you're going to have to go down to the build-your-own stuff, which is, you know, the plastic barrel lower price point things like the Pilot Hi-Tech C Keleto and the Uni Style Fit, which are both excellent in your own right. It's just kind of a different category from the Charbo X. The Charbo X is a very high-end multi-pen, you know, starting about $45, $50. That's where the Lamy 2000 multi-pen, which is exceptional, comes in. Those are equivalent. Outside of that, I mean, I think there's like some Sailor and Platinum stuff you can get from Japan that I don't even know if they have fixed pencil sleeves on the inside or not. But I'd just say in general, it's either going with the Charbo, looking at the Lamy 2000, or dropping all the way down to the Pilot Hi-Tech Celeto and the Uni Style Fit, which are very, very good pens. And you can choose to not have a pencil option in those. But that's a good question because that's always been a frustration point with the Charbo X for me.

Myke Hurley: Evermax asks, I hear people talking about pen show auctions, but I've never been to a pen show that has one. What are they like? Is it just rare and expensive multi-hundred dollar pens going to the highest bidder? Or is there anything there for people with more modest budget?

Brad Dowdy: This is a great question. And I told him this when he replied. And it's a timely question.

Myke Hurley: I feel like this is a question that I have, but I've never asked you.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. It's timely because the first and most frequent pen auction that I go to is at the Raleigh Pen Show, which is going to happen next week. And the first time I went and sat through an entire auction was there. And I was just fascinated at the spectacle of it. So to answer Evan's direct questions, there's something for everybody at every price point. You know, for the most part, you know, it's going to be mostly vintage. I would say you're probably looking at 75% vintage listings in a 100 to 200 unit or 200 lot auction. You're probably looking at 75% vintage. And a portion of that vintage lot will be in need of repair. Right. So there's all kinds of different bidder types. There's bidders who only buy the low end expensive, inexpensive products that I need to fix. Right. Because I can get them for a good deal and get them in bulk. A lot of lots will be like, you know, eight Parker Vacuumatics, you know, all in various states of disrepair. You know, so there's those types of lots. It's very rarely the super rare pen, right? It's not like your high end auto auction type of thing. You're not, this isn't an event. Most pen show auctions might have one or two like rare, you know, color of an Estabrook, right? That may go for several hundreds of dollars, you know, something like that. But you're not getting like whatever ultra rare item you can think of that's going to go for thousands of dollars, you know, type of auction. You know, there's going to be a few rare things sprinkled in. And it's going to be mostly mainline vintage stuff. You know, lots of pens and lots of lots that go in the $100 to $300 range, a few that go for less. And then there'll be some modern stuff sprinkled in. Like Raleigh tends to have a decent amount of Pelicans. I remember last year there was probably 10 or 15, you know, really nice Pelicans 600s and Pelican 800s, you know, and that type of lot. So, you know, it's, there are things for people with smaller budgets. There is going to be, the issue, I think, for someone going to a first time auction is you're going to run up against vendors that will steamroll you. Because a lot of the vendors use the auction to restock their table, right? So they're coming in with a bankroll and just, they're just going to be an auction bully. Now, I'm not saying that as a personal judgment on the person, right? But you understand what I mean being an auction bully, right? If you have the hammer, if the hammer is the dollars, if the hammer is the dollars and they have the dollars, you're going to lose every time. That's kind of a negative for someone like me who just may want to pick off one pin that looks really cool, right? But I'm never going to necessarily come away with it because I'm going to get rolled by someone who's filling up their tape, who's planned to spend X amount of their budget to resell this pin, right? So I don't want that to be a turnoff, right? It's really good to go in and see the spectacle of it. I loved it. I enjoyed it. I've bought a couple of things at auction here and there, and it's fun to do, and it got some really good deals. But the best thing, the best advice I can give you at any auction is just to not get caught up in the bidding. And that's way easier said than done, but you can get yourself in trouble.

Myke Hurley: The adrenaline.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. Like, so that's going to get you. It's fun. Like, it was more enjoyable than I thought it would be going into it. Put it that way. I, like, I look, I make sure I have the time to go to it if I can because it's good.

Myke Hurley: All right. Jake Asabona asks, do you know of a service where I can send notebooks out to have them scanned and digitized?

Brad Dowdy: I don't know for a fact. I've never done this. I've never done this, so I can't speak from experience. But my initial thought was you could probably just do a Google search online, find someone, maybe even locally, that can do it for you. You know, depending on what the outcome you're trying to get is. Do you just want it scanned and digitized or do you want it to be able to, you know, have OCR and searchable data when you're done? You know, what are your options there? So I remember several years ago, and we covered it on the podcast, there was, it was called, the notebook was called Draft at the time or Draft Notebooks. I can't remember exactly. And eventually, oh, there's stories with this one. There are stories. We may not get into them, but there's stories. Eventually, they changed the name into Mod Notebooks. And then the people that created drafts changed the name to Mod Notebooks, eventually sold Mod Notebooks. So I don't know who owned Mod Notebooks now, but I do know who started it back in the day. So they actually sell the notebook and the service, right? When you buy a notebook from them, you're part of their essentially subscription service to return the notebook, have it scanned, digitized, and sent back to you. Not everyone wants to be pigeonholed into that specific notebook. So if you have your own notebook and want to send it off somewhere, the first thing I would do was I would look into, like, what can FedEx Kinko's do for me, which is like your chain print store around the country, right? They offer so many services. Can they take your notebook and scan it digitally? And, you know, is there OCR abilities in the output to where your data is searchable? I don't know. That's the first thing that came to mind is can Kinko's do this for me?

Brad Dowdy: And then as I was reading through online, a bunch of people were talking about a company called $1 Scan. I certainly can't vouch for them whatsoever, but they seem to have been around for a while, and they offer these services. Like, it came up in a bunch of forum topics, and I kind of browsed through their offerings. There were so many of them I kind of didn't get it, like, right off the fly. But they offer OCR, which if that's what your endgame is. That might be something to look into. So I don't have any personal experience with any of these services. My inclination would be to go to a local shop that I can walk into with my notebook and leave with my notebook when it's done. And outside of that, I'd be interested to hear if anyone had done anything like this before. So if you have any information or experience with any companies that do this, I'd love to hear it. Definitely reach out.

Myke Hurley: All right. Our next question this week comes from Phil Ewing. What do you do when your beloved Blackwing pencils go down to the stubs, like when you sharpen them all the way to the bottom? Do you have an accessory that you like, or do you just toss them away?

Brad Dowdy: If I get all the way down to the stub, I toss them away. I rarely get all the way down to the stub because I've usually destroyed them by hacking them at that point. So my general pencil usage goes kind of like this. So I'll get the new pencil, sharpen it up, and I'll use it. When I get about to the halfway point in the pencil, that's my time to either hack it and modify it into my Metal Shop CT bullet pencil, which just uses like a stub end of a pencil. And it's got little parts you kind of got to shave. And you got to do a little bit of a manipulation to get them in there. So you want a pencil that you can destroy, but you don't need a full length brand new pencil. And the same goes for the newer Faber-Castell Perfect pencil. So, you know, you don't want, it doesn't work well with the full length pencils. So when you get around to a half length pencil, it's good for those. And then when it gets down to unusable, unusable at that point, I just pitch them. People who use more pencils than I do, save those stubs and put them in a jar. And it looks really cool. Like I know I've seen some of my, you know, my pencil friends, like, you know, less from Comfortable Shoes. And I think Harry Marks and, you know, people who use a lot of, a lot, a lot of pencils, way more than I do, will go through them. They both happen to be writers, which maybe that's the thing. So they'll use these pencils to write books and, or just journal like incessantly. And we'll end up with a stack of stubs. And that's just, then it's just kind of a cool visual accessory. Say, hey, you know, I, there's a bunch of, a bunch of pencils I killed here. And I feel pretty good about it.

Myke Hurley: All right. Next up comes from Jeffrey K. Coleman. What fountain pen ink or inks would you recommend for highlighting documents? I hear Noodlers has several, but I've been told in the past to avoid them because it can damage fountain pens.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I don't want to get in the Noodlers bad discussion because I think that's a little bit unfair. Like I'm, I'll be the first to say, I too do not use Noodlers, but they have some good ink. So don't totally like dismiss Noodlers because they might have an ink that works really well for me, for you. Do your research on Noodlers and make sure you're getting what you want because you might end up like Neil Gaiman, who put Bay State Blue into his Pilot 823 and unbeknownst to him, it has never been the same. So do your research. So which one do you have, Myke? Do you have, you have Sailor highlighter ink?

Myke Hurley: I have Sailor and Pelican.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, you have the Pelican too. So what do you think about these inks? I know you don't use them a lot.

Myke Hurley: I have absolutely no real like opinion on them. Is it one of those things I thought it would be cool to own them because I'll think of all the things I could highlight, but I never use it because frankly, fountain pen highlighting ink is difficult if you're using fountain pens.

Brad Dowdy: Well, and honestly, you bought them for the pens, right? The pens come in these yellow demonstrators. Like the pens are wild, right? So yeah, I haven't used these inks either, but Sailor and Pelican both make, Sailor makes yellow and Pelican makes yellow and green highlighter ink. I don't know how easy they are to come by individually. I actually, I don't have the Pelican pen.

Myke Hurley: I just bought the ink. The Sailor, I have a 1911 in a like fluorescent yellowy green, right? That highlight color. That was why I bought it because I wanted a fluorescent highlighter colored demonstrator 1911 because it looks amazing. But like when you use fountain pens all the time, you can't really use this because if you, if you put fountain pen ink onto fountain pen ink, you will smudge the fountain pen ink. Like there's, right, it doesn't work.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And Jeffrey's looking for documents. So I'm assuming, you know, these are copied documents. So it's probably going to work better, better for that situation. But I did find something that I didn't know existed when I was looking through this because I knew Sailor and Pelican made highlighter specific inks for fountain pens. Platinum makes highlighter ink cartridges. So if you have a platinum pen or even if you don't have a platinum pen, you can buy a preppy for like four bucks and pop in pilot Platinum's proprietary ink cartridges that come in like purple and pink and orange and green. All your traditional highlighter colors, which I thought was really cool. And I've never tried one of these, so I'm going to have to get some of these from Pen Chalet and use them in one of my platinum pens. They will only fit because they come in cartridges. That fitting is proprietary to platinum, so you can't use these in other pens unless you want to go through the hassle of draining ink cartridges, which not many people do. So that's a pretty neat option, I think, if you own a platinum pen or want to just buy like a platinum preppy. Because the reason why they sell these is because the platinum preppy has a highlighter tip, like a traditional highlighter tip pen that you use these cartridges for. So, which I didn't put two and two together, that those highlighter pens had cartridges. I thought they were just filled highlighters.

Listener Question

Myke Hurley: Well, that's a clever find. That's good. Yep. And Jake Bernstein asks, inspired by one of the RSTPAs in the most recent episode, so the last episode, what is a good set of I want to experience fountain pens? Stuff that's not too expensive, not too cheap and subtle, like stuff that I'm really going to understand.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so these are your basics that we talk about all the time. Like I didn't, I wasn't interested in going outside of that scope for this because then you're getting a little bit outside what the question's asking. So, I kind of, you know, put in our normal answers like the Pilot Metropolitan. But I would tell Jake that this is the pen for someone who's never, not only never used a fountain pen, but has never considered a fountain pen, doesn't hardly know anything about fountain pens, and might enjoy the experience after using the Pilot Metropolitan. Like that's that kind of pen, right? It's that entry level, entry level model that is what a fountain pen should be if you were just writing the description of a fountain pen. The TWSBI Eco is my personal favorite choice in this category. But it's completely different level than the Pilot Metropolitan. This is for someone who's curious, right, about fountain pens, who enjoys writing things and has used a nice gel pen before that they hoarded for themselves, right? That they have a little bit of an interest in how things work and why is it good or something cool and unique that other people don't have. That's where you fall in with the Eco, right? But you then need to buy ink. You do need to buy ink. Mandatory. And that's not the only one on this list that you have to buy ink for. We'll get to that in a minute.

Myke Hurley: I mean, and that makes it a little bit trickier of a proposition. Agreed. Because cartridges are way easier to deal with. Right. You then have to buy a bottle of ink and you have to be comfortable in filling it, which is a bar to cross for a lot of people.

Brad Dowdy: Right. But if the question is, I want to experience fountain pens, I think that falls into the category. 100%. That's part of the experience. Yep. Of filling a pen from an ink bottle is what people think a lot as fountain pen usage. So that's why I felt fine putting that in there. The Kaweco Sport, I think, is a really cool option. It's really different from anything else on this list because it's a small, tiny pocket fountain pen that most people wouldn't consider. For, you know, like a first fountain pen, I would never, I probably wouldn't recommend it for a first fountain pen. But for something, if you're trying to solve a little bit of a different problem, like portability and pocketability and on-the-go type of writing as opposed to desk writing, maybe that's an option. You know, that's kind of a thought. And the last one I put in there, I put in a classic option, and that's the Pelican M205. It's far and away the most expensive. You could buy all three of the other pens for less than the 205, but you can still find one for less than $100. It's classically styled, very high quality, wonderful piston filler. You know, it's kind of like the, it's, you know, when the story of the fountain pen is told in like a book or a novel, like this is the picture you kind of get in your head. Just at a minimum, like the Pelican M205. It's just your very classic fountain pen. It's a lot more money. You know, like I said, it's closer to $100 than under $30, like the other three pens. So, it's just something to consider depending on the route you want to take. If you want like that classic feel. There's lots of other options that are cheaper that give you a classic look and feel, but nothing as good as the Pelican M205, which would make me put it on the list as opposed to some of the other ones. So, I think that's what I got, Myke. It was a really good question. I enjoy it.

Episode Conclusion

Myke Hurley: All right. So, that wraps it up for this week's episode, I think. If you want to send in questions for a future show, just send out a tweet with the hashtag AskTPA, and it may be considered for a future episode. Thank you to ExpressVPN and PenchLA for their support of this show. We're going to be doing a Horror Stories episode in a couple of weeks, but we're recording it next week because we need to record it in advance because we're going to be traveling. So, if you have any Horror Stories that you want to share, you want to win a spot in the Horror Story Hall of Fame, then you should do that. You should be sending those in.

Brad Dowdy: I got a new one last week, and like in the preview, it said don't look at the pictures before reading everything. Okay. So, I did neither. I did neither. I just filed it. It's in the stack now. I did not want to even read. If you're going to start with that, I don't even want to know until it's time to open it up.

Myke Hurley: Do we have a record of who's in the Hall of Fame?

Brad Dowdy: It's Emil from Poland, and I believe it's David from Dallas. I think it's David. It's just those two so far. I feel like we need to make sure we put that down. I'll double check because for the one that may be most famous, at least for us, behind the scenes, was not a Hall of Fame winner. The one with the famous pen case on top of the car that went flying. I think for some reason we did not vote that in, and I think that was your fault. But, oh.

Myke Hurley: I think it was that nothing was damaged.

Brad Dowdy: No, it was gone. They're gone. We'll follow this up offline. But, yeah, we'll go back and double check. But I think we only have two. I think it's Emil and David.

Myke Hurley: But I'm looking forward to that. I love reading the horror stories. Yeah, it should be good. You can find Brad online at penaddict.com, knock.co, twitch.tv slash penaddict, penaddict on Instagram, dowdyism on Twitter. You've already got a lot of places.

Brad Dowdy: I'm a busy man.

Myke Hurley: And I'm I-M-Y-K-E. This show's part of Relay FM. You can find this show and many more at relay.fm slash shows. We've got a lot of great stuff there for you. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.