The Pen Addict 529/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	529
Title:	There’s No Such Thing as a Perfect Paper
Release Date:	September 7th, 2022
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 529
Audio File:	Audio Episode 529
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 529
Length:	5555 min <br />0.917 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 529. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet and Ooni Pizza Ovens. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by, of course, Brad Dowdy.

Brad: Of course. Hello, Myke Hurley. Who else is it going to be? I mean, on the day we record The Pen Podcast, this is the most important thing for your day today, right? Like, it's undeniable that you are here. I appreciate that you're here. You're not going to be here next week. We will let the listeners know that and I have a guest scheduled for next week's episode. There's a real good reason for that, though, Brad. Yeah, yeah. Like, I can't even give you much grief about not being here next week, Myke. What do you got going on?

Childhood Cancer Awareness

Myke: September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and we are once again joining together to support the life-saving mission of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, finding cures and saving children. Did you know that it is estimated that over 400,000 children worldwide develop cancer every year and nearly half of them are never diagnosed? In the US, more than four out of five children survive cancer, but in many developing countries, this statistic is reversed. Fewer than one out of five children diagnosed with cancer will live. The most significant predictor of whether a child will survive cancer is where that child lives. That is why in March 2018, St. Jude became the first and only WHO collaborating center for childhood cancer. The goal of the WHO Global Initiative for childhood cancer is to raise the survival rate of six common childhood cancers to 60% by 2030. That's not very far away. And because of this, to try and reach this goal, last December, St. Jude and the WHO launched the global platform for access to childhood cancer medicines. It aims to provide free chemotherapy medicines in the next few years to as many as 120,000 children around the world of cancer. So we talk about, you know, St. Jude, we talk about where it is in Memphis and the children that are treated there and the research that's done there. But St. Jude's reach is global. You know, there were a lot of stories at the start of the war in Ukraine where they were bringing and helping bring children from Ukraine to Memphis so they could continue their cancer treatment. Nice. They really are an incredible organization. It does incredible things. And we are asking you to join us and come together in the fight against childhood cancer this September. Together, we can make a big impact. And there are many ways you can make that impact. Go to stjude.org slash relay. You can donate today. You can find out more about fundraising. We have some, if you make your individual donations, we have gifts for those. If you sign up to become a fundraiser, we have some incentives, some RelayFM merchandise. You can only get that way. But the reason I'm not going to be here next week is I'm going to be in Memphis, Tennessee preparing for the fourth annual podcast-a-thon for St. Jude. It is going to be on September 16th from 12 to 8 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time at twitch.tv slash RelayFM. It's going to be an eight-hour variety show featuring many RelayFM hosts and special guests and fun activities. Me and Stephen will be back together in Memphis, Tennessee broadcasting live from the St. Jude campus. I am so frigging excited. I was getting emotional even talking about it. I have dreamed for years of being able to be back there doing this together. So please check out the podcast-a-thon on September 16th. And also go to stjude.org slash Relay to learn more about everything and donate. So let's cure childhood cancer together.

Brad: Amazing stuff, Myke. And as the pen addict has done in the past, I forget how it originally came up. I was like, hey, let's raise some extra money for St. Jude. It's actually become a thing with the pen addict blog and our listenership here that I...

Myke: And the pen community as well.

Brad: And the pen community as a whole. Like the pen community is hugely supportive of this campaign. And one of the things I do to bring extra awareness and, you know, raise even more funds and hopefully, you know, let y'all get in on a chance to win a few cool prizes is the pen addict St. Jude raffle. So every year I get together with different makers and retailers and just sometimes just members of the community and put together a big, big raffle for this year. We have fountain pens. We have sets of fountain pens. We have pen storage. We have all kinds of participation and all kinds of goods. And what tends to happen with this is as soon as I launch it, we start to get more and more cool things. So y'all should go check out the link we'll have in the show notes for the pen addict St. Jude raffle. And basically the short version of this is for every $10 you donate, you get a raffle ticket. And you're unlimited on the number of raffle tickets you can buy. And at the end of the campaign, which I will end this on September 26th, just to have time to collect. Tabulate. And we can talk about it on the Wednesday after that day on the podcast to get the final number.

Myke: If you were willing, if you were able to get that number together for me by September 30th, because we're going to be doing something on September 30th that we've not done before, which is a campaign closing celebration. We will unveil the final number that we have raised. And so I think it would be really nice to put it in context of how much the pen addict community needed.

Brad: I can absolutely get you that number. So just for listeners who may be new to this last year, directly related to the pen addict raffle, it was over $40,000, right? Which is really, really cool. And the companies involved in this, you know, they put a lot of time and effort. So I'll have all the links to their creations, their shops. Like already we have Tesori fountain pens made two custom pens for this, right? Which are beautiful. Y'all got to read the descriptions on these. They are stunning pens. Yeah. Yep. I picked up a couple of things in San Francisco, a Toyota craft fountain pen box, which everyone really, really enjoys seeing. Hype.

Myke: Big hype. Right? That is a big hype hype. Myke was excited.

Brad: Myke was excited when he saw all this stuff in here because he had looked at it. It's so beautiful. Yeah. It's really nice. It's sitting on my desk, like in the box. I was like, I should just open this up and use it.

Myke: It's really nice. It's now you get the added of like pre-loved by Brad Downey.

Brad: Like we just increased the price of the item, you know? I accidentally shipped some of my pens in it. Oh. No, no, that's not going to happen. But you can, you know, we are raffling off some pens as well. The Enigma Blanks Purple Stripe Jellyfish Collection, which is not only a pen. It's a pen. It's a nib. It's a nib design. It's a custom pen by Sean Newton. It's an Enigma Pen Blanks and a custom nib from Custom Nib Studio from Gina. It's like Venta Custom Ink and a custom notebook.

Myke: It's like the Avengers coming together and making a pen, this one, right?

Brad: That is definitely assembled. Enigma also assembled a full stationary favorites kit, which has inks and notebooks and washi tape and a plush cat. And then we have the Penquisition Pen Q. And the funny, we need to get you this Manny, Myke, the Manny single sample vial holder. It's a 3D-pinted head.

Myke: Very appreciated of the block. I hate this head thing. Yeah. I hate it. It makes me feel not good. It's here.

Pen Community Support

Brad: It's probably here for a reason because it is going to make you go, hmm, in the best way possible. And we'll have more throughout the coming weeks. I already have a couple other things I'm working on in the background. So this will be the main post. I'll post updates on the Pen Addict when I update the main post with the new good. So I'm not going to do an add-on post for each thing. We're going to keep this one main post. We'll talk about it on the show too.

Myke: Yeah. In a couple of weeks' time. Bragg, will you allow me to just read out the rules? Yes, please do. So they're nice and clear for everybody? Yes. Okay. So for every $10 you donate via the Relay.fm for St. Jude 2022 page. So I will say that this can be for any campaign. I'm not saying this, but I'm just letting you know. Any campaign. So we're doing the fundraising sub-campaigns this year. Any donation you make at all to any of those, as long as it goes towards the Relay.fm for St. Jude campaign, right, which they all do. Any of those are available. So any donation you make to St. Jude via the Relay.fm campaign or any sub-campaign is eligible for this raffle. You are not limited to how much you donate or how many entries you have. For example, $20 equals two entries. $100 donated equals 10 entries. As Brad says, we're trying to make as much money as possible for the kids, so go wild. And donations made through any Relay.fm for a community campaign are also eligible. We have over 100 people who have signed up to find us. Wow. That's cool. So poke around and take a look. Maybe if you've got some friends, especially if you're on our Discord, find someone and donate to them, right, and it helps everybody out.

Brad: And you could do multiple, like you could donate $10 here, $20 there, you know, $50 to a different campaign. Like if you want to spread it around for these different campaigns, just make sure I get all the receipts, which Myke's about to tell you about how to do that.

Myke: You can also donate to your own campaign if you have a sub-campaign set up. Nice. After you donate, forward a copy of your donation receipt or a screenshot, including the amount and date of donation to stjudeatpenaddict.com. That's S-T-J-U-D-E, stjudeatpenaddict.com. We have 2022 raffle in the subject line. Only donations timestamped on or after September 6th at noon Eastern will be eligible up until 11.59pm on September 26th. So basically, from when you're listening to September 26th, right, is the easiest way to think about this.

Brad: Almost three weeks. Yeah.

Myke: All entries will be added to a spreadsheet and a random.org will be used to select the winners. All winners will be contacted directly via email if selected. So it's very important that you email the donation receipt so we have your email address. Well, Brad has your email address.

Brad: The best way for me to do this is to manually track it in a spreadsheet. I've done this for years. I've kind of got a system down. It works pretty well. It's a lot of, you know, it's extra work, but hey, it's for the kids. It's for the kids. And we enjoy doing it. And then we just, we add it all up at the end and go to town. It's going to be exciting. And I appreciate everyone's support. And I know Myke and Steven and the whole Relay FM team appreciate it very much. And I'm sure St. Jude, I'm sure looking forward to the big stream coming up next week.

Myke: So if you want a refresher of the rules and all that kind of stuff, just go to show notes today. You'll find a link to Brad's post.

Brad: Yep. You don't have to remember all that. It's listed in the post and we'll be sharing it plenty over the next few weeks.

Myke: The most important thing is that you donate at stjude.org slash Relay.

Brad: Yep. Yep. That is the key. All right, Myke, I am heading to Orlando. You're not the only one on the road, except my travel is a little more convenient this weekend than your travel. I am leaving Friday morning, way early in the morning so I can get on the road to head to the Orlando Pen Show. Are you driving? I am driving. How long does that take? Less than six hours, hopefully. Okay. That's not too bad, right? No.

Myke: If you think of how long it would take with the flights of all the airport shenanigans, right? It's actually not too bad at all.

Brad: Absolutely. And it's a short trip, right? It's a two-day show. It's a Friday-Saturday show. So I'm not even going to go Thursday night. I'm going to go Friday morning, get up at like 5 a.m., get there around noon Friday, and then spend the rest of the day Friday, all day Saturday, then head out Sunday morning, head back. I'll be home early Sunday afternoon. But I'm looking forward to it. The promoters have been doing a good job. They have lots of good vendors coming. The hotel setup looks nice. It's attached to a mall, so there's lots of food options.

Myke: It's pretty beautiful from their website, to be honest.

Brad: Yeah. It's really nice. So I'm really looking forward.

Orlando Show Details

Myke: Did you say it was attached to a mall?

Brad: Yes.

Myke: My gosh. Is it the only pen show in a convenient location?

Brad: Then it's a big deal, right? Unbelievable. Even though I'm driving and we'll have a car to have everything within walking distance and literally attached to the same hotel, it's basically like the Waffle House attached to the Atlanta Hotel, except times 100. That is so helpful.

Myke: So helpful.

Brad: Yeah. So it is attached to just tons of eating options and tons of hanging out options and tons of, hey, I need to take a break and walk around options, right? So I like that setup. It's cool to have that access for people who travel. Now, a lot of people will come locally and it's not necessarily a big deal, but I'm sure the vendors and the overnight participants will certainly enjoy having that access. So I am going to learn about it, right? I just want to see what a first time show is like, see what the facility is like, the hotel, see how the shows run and just see all my friends that didn't. Some people didn't make it to San Francisco, you know, on the other side of the country. So I'll be back over here on the East Coast and I will definitely bring a full recap to everyone in two weeks, not next week, because we are pre-recording a show, as we mentioned up top. So we'll do, you and I will do a full Orlando pen show recap down the line in probably two weeks time. So, yeah, I look forward to it. You know, I'm mostly just going to be hanging out, taking it all in. You know, I spent a lot of the budget at San Francisco, so there's a limited budget left. But who knows, maybe I'll pick up more items for the St. Jude raffle over at penaddict.com. So that's the plan. That's the working plan. But it's going to be chill. It's going to be fun. I get to drive to it so I don't have to stress about travel too much. And I just look forward to a pretty chill pen show weekend. And that's coming up. So if you're in Orlando, definitely come say hi. I will be there most of the show outside of Friday morning. I'll be there pretty much the entire time the show's open. So definitely come say hi.

Myke: If you've been listening to Brad talk about pen shows these last couple of weeks and you're like, man, I want to go to a pen show. Well, let me tell you about a pen show that you can go to from your very phone. It's pen show. We should call it pen show lay, right? Pen show lay. Pen show lay. Because pen show lay, everything you're looking for. You know, they got it all. And that's what you're not going to get at a pen show. But they got all of it. All your favorite brands. Everything you're looking for. Ink. We're looking for refills. We're looking for pen holders. Carrying cases. Roller balls. Fountain pens. Mechanical pencils. Ballpoints. Everything. Fast, reliable customer service. Discounts every single month. Every two weeks you'll find things being added to the store. Discounts on the store. It's fantastic. They sell internationally as well. Of course, right? It's difficult. If you're, you know, if you're all the way across the ocean, how could you go to the pen show? You don't need to. Just go to pen chalet. They have great shipping rates internationally. Free shipping on orders of over $75 in the US. All you have to do right now is go to penchalet.com. P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. And click the podcast link at the top of the website. And enter the password pen addict. And you might say to me, Myke, I can always get a good deal at a pen show. Well, let me tell you. You can get 10% off anything at any time at pen chalet. That's a good deal. Just when you go there. So go to penchalet.com. Click the podcast link at the top of the website. Enter the password pen addict. And you will get 10% on anything at any time at pen chalet. And a selection of wonderful deals. Just because you listen to this very show. Like what, Brad?

Brad: These Mayora prices are really, really crazy good. So the Mayora Alpha Eyedropper and the Mayora Alpha Flex. That's a name, Myke. That's like the Mayora Giga Chad. Yes. The Alpha Flex. It's the Alpha Flex Eyedropper Fountain Pen. But name notwithstanding, this is a great pen. And I really like Mayoras. There's a really good deal sneaking in here. So my point that I'm about to make, Myke, is you have to get stealth mode on what Ron's up to at penchalet.com. He drops in the hot stuff at the top like these Mayoras, right? But then all you have to do is scroll down. And this one is literally hot. It's actually too hot, Myke. Too hot. It's too hot. Too hot habanero.

Myke: Too hot to handle too hot habanero, you know?

Brad: And Sailor North America allowed their retailers to clear out the old price inventory at 40% off. So there are some awesome deals on Sailor Pins right now, including this too hot habanero.

Myke: Which has got an additional discount.

Brad: Yeah, it's got a 40% off and your show discount for a price that is just way out of line to what Sailor's current prices are. So if you're...

Myke: This is a better than the old pricing price, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Brad: This is Sailor North America is we need to stop being asked why there's all these different prices close out deal. And it's, hey, it benefits consumers, right? It benefits us that are looking for these types of pens. So this is a great price on... This is the full size Pro Gear. It's not the slim. It's the standard. So yeah, it's a really good price. And you should definitely check that out. Always, always scroll down these pensheller links because there's like a diplomat arrow in there, which is a great deal. Like, and Ron likes to stealthily stick some of these down low in the awesome sales section here. So definitely go check these out.

Myke: Thanks to Pen Shelley for the support of this show and RelayFM.

Brad: All right, Myke. I want to talk about paper today, specifically how I test paper and what I think about when I'm choosing a paper and what makes a good paper for me and what might make a good paper for you and things to think about when you're testing paper. So you have some experience in this as well. You know, I've tested countless, you know, types of paper over the years, you know, for reviews, right? I'll say Lamy makes a new notebook. I'm going to get that notebook in and we're going to test out the paper. Well, how do I go about testing it? What do I think about when I'm testing? And I've also made products like you have, Myke. You know, with Nock, I had to pick, go to a printer and pick papers, get these stacks of papers to make my own notebooks and note cards. You know how stressful that is to decide on the final version of paper. And I say this knowing that you very well know how stressful choosing a paper is when you're making a product. So this week I was testing a big batch of paper for a friend who is making a notebook. The friend is not named Myke. It is not Myke in this case, although I have tested things for you in the past, but I do this not like all the time, but reasonably frequently people will say, Brad, can I send you like these five sheets of paper and just kind of get your opinion on them? And I was like, yeah, absolutely. I'm glad to do that for people. And if you email me and ask me to do it, I will do it for you. This one, Myke, the friend that we'll name, remained nameless, sent me 25 sheets of paper to test. Two, five. So. Different ones. Different sheets of paper. 25 different papers. 25 different papers.

Paper Testing Discussion

Myke: Do they even make those? You know what I mean? That's not too many.

Brad: It's a lot of paper. So I was testing these papers and it was a little bit intimidating at first. I was like, well, how do I decide and keep track of what's good versus, you know, what's bad and, you know, what's average? And can you tell a difference between one average paper and another average paper? And can you tell the difference between the two good papers or whatever the numbers are? So I got to thinking about it. Well, it's like, well, let me talk about this on the podcast. So when other people might be testing a notebook of their own, you know, or they're at a stationary store with testers or a pen show with testers and they can check or they get a new notebook and what are they thinking about when they're deciding what pens to use in them, right? Because not every paper is good for every pen or pencil, right? Like, you know that I know that these are the things. So what makes a good paper? What do I look for in a paper? What tools do I use to test? And importantly, Myke, what are my personal biases? Right? Because I write a certain way, you know, it's blocky. It's printed. It's not, and it's small. You know, it's not cursive and loopy and script and flowing, right? So I have to think about that. So to lead it off, I have to say there is no such thing as a perfect paper. Not for me, not for you, not for anybody.

Brad: You have to get close though. And you can get really, really close to perfect. And if you ever say that you found the perfect paper, I promise you in the coming months, there will be another perfect paper for you. But you can get close, right? Like I shoot for like, there's no like real math to like determine this. But if I can get most of the way there, like it's all answers 90% of the questions I have, right, about what this paper is going to be used for, how it performs. Like I should be pretty happy. And, you know, once you get up there to answering most of the questions and, you know, all of those things. So you can get almost all the way there and you might have to make some sacrifices somewhere, right? Like if you have a great for fountain pen paper, it might be terrible for pencil, right? Like a lot of people will say that about Tomoe River, right? So is that a perfect paper if it doesn't work great for pencils? I don't know. Maybe it is for you, but maybe someone likes to use pencils. So then it's not a perfect paper. Yeah. It's complex and complicated.

Myke: I mean, I would say from my perspective, like there is no, there is no perfect paper. Like. Yep. For, I'm sure we're going to get to this, but just like for me, it was always like, and has always been, I won't find the perfect paper. I need to find what's good enough. Mm-hmm. Right. Right. Right. To get me what I'm looking for, for the most people as well as myself. Like to be good enough for me and good enough for everybody else. Because I think we spoke about this before when I was talking about the Theme System Journal. If I would have found the perfect fountain pen paper, say, Hobonici, I think that that is not the best paper for the general audience. Couldn't agree more. Right. And so I was trying to find something. I think that, that sat somewhere in the middle of all of that. And I'm pretty happy with what I picked. Right. And there will always be other, there are good, other good options. But I think that's where it starts to get complicated.

Brad: Right. So there's kind of two general, you know, questions you're trying to answer. What is a, is this paper good for a lot of different, you know, writing instruments and inks? And what is this paper being used for? Because then that will determine, you know, what, where your sacrifices can be. Right. Am I making a pen for fountain pen inks? Well, I can sacrifice other things. Right. I can sacrifice pencil performance or ballpoint pen performance. Right. To get those things. So you got to keep all that in mind when you're testing.

Brad: So yeah, like just in the general sense, I do look for a paper that handles most inks well. Right. If I'm just generically testing paper, like in this case, 25 sheets, I want to know, are we going to handle kind of all the basics I can throw at it very well? And we're going to go through what, what I pick and choose to test these, these things out as we go. You know, I don't want any bleeding or feathering from any type of pen or something as minimal as possible. Like I try not to, I don't test for extremes. Again, you know, I want to get 90% of the way there. Right. I'm not throwing Sharpies on these papers for a reason. Like we'll, we'll get to that in a minute, but I will test everything, you know, that I normally write with fountain pen inks, roller ball, gel, ballpoint, pencils, fine liners, markers, all of that stuff I grabbed to test and kind of get a, it kind of paints a broader picture. If I use all of these pens on all of these papers equally. So outside of just like the bleeding and feathering, like that will eliminate a page immediately. Like if I throw a fountain pen ink on there and a roller ball ink on there, two of the most extreme inks to test. And they just feather immediately. We just move on. Like I don't even bother. Right. Because if it's not going to handle something like a roller ball ink, and we'll talk about why the roller balls are important to use for testing. Then we just need to scrap that and move on. The second set of characteristics after, Hey, does it handle a lot of ink? Well, then I start thinking about, Hey, is the paper smooth or textured? Um, is the paper like a stark white base color or is it have a cream or ivory color? Is it smooth coated, like slick, or does it have some roughness to it? Then we start thinking about those things. So that's like the tier two options that we start thinking about if we handle the inks well. So I grab probably 10 different pens for this test. So I grabbed three fountain pens to test with, and they're specifically there. I chose them for a specific reason. So I grabbed a pen with a stub nib so I could put, you know, some wide lines on the page and have a horizontal line, basically the way the stub nib is designed. Then I grabbed a Naganata togi nib, which is kind of in that architect shape. So it's like a vertical nib. So I'm testing the paper in two different directions with a nib, right? So I have that horizontal line that I can test on the paper. Then I have that vertical line to see, you know, is there any grabbing, pulling, anything weird going on? And then outside of those two nibs, I'll grab a very fine nib, like a Japanese fine nib or smaller to test out the fine writing on there. So three varieties of nibs to test in all different writing directions on the page.

Brad: I also think about the inks that are in those pens. So one of the pens had an iron gall ink. One of the pens had a bright ink. And one of those pens had a basic ink. So with the iron gall ink, you want to see how the color changes on the page. That will tell you a little bit about the coating on the paper, right? If the page, if the ink dries darker, it's probably a less coated page because more ink is getting into the fibers of the paper. And if it's a coated page, the ink will dry lighter because not as much ink is getting into the page. There's a lot to think about with paper, Myke. Like, this is why we're having a topic on it. I'm probably going to cause more questions than give answers today. But that's how we roll sometimes. One of the fountain pens has a bright ink color. I had a very, very bright blue because related to the previous conversation on the iron gall ink, I want to see if the page holds the color brightness, right? So I'll have an expectation of what this bright color should look like. Is it darker or lighter than that expectation? Right? How does it hold like a bright color? Does the color saturation look correct when you're writing on there? And then I'll just use a basic fine, like a blue black ink in the fine nib just to see, hey, what does my standard writing look like that? Because that's what I'm used to writing with the most. And that way I kind of have a baseline of comparison. So I think about all those things and all of those different options. Like, I'm not just picking like a standard fountain pen with a standard ink and a standard nib. I want to try different things. So I'm well versed in what my expectations are for these papers. You know, what is the angle of the nib at the page? And does it work, right? Is it smooth or rough? And, you know, how does all that play? I choose fountain pens to test with first, even if the intention for the product is not necessarily fountain pen friendly. So I've done that for you and I will do that always because fountain pen inks are water-based. And that in itself will expose a lot of flaws in a sheet of paper, right?

Myke: I mean, I always do it because that's what I'm going to use, you know? So like, if it's not going to work for me at all, I'm not going to go down that route, you know? Right. Yeah.

Brad: Right. So even if the intent is, hey, this isn't necessarily going to be for fountain pen users, I will always test that first because that gives me a good idea of what the paper can handle, right? Because they're just going to straight up bleed if the paper's bad. And if they do, the next thing I go into is a rollerball ink because those are also water-based ink. And rollerballs traditionally perform poorly on just cheap paper, right? They bleed and feather and pull up their ink. And it just, you know, tends to just draw out the ink of these pens and leave big dots at the end of your lines and things like that. Those are the most, those are the best inks to use to test because they will show the most flaws in the page, right? A gel ink does not. A gel ink or a ballpoint ink, they're going to be universally good on most papers. Every now and then you'll be able to tell some differences. Like if I'm using a micro tip gel ink pen, it may not keep a fine line. Like it might skip a little bit if the paper's poor, but then like an 0.7 millimeter gel ink pen would be just fine. Right. So I do test a little bit of that, like the tip sizes on the gel, but generally they're going to be good. Ballpoints are going to be good. Pencils, you can tell a lot from a lot of paper particulars using a pencil. So I use two different HB leads. I'll use a mechanical pencil one, which is generally, I don't know, more of a composite lead. Um, just like a, they're generally like smoother and have a more clay type feel because they're a little bit more fragile. So they're built a little bit differently than a traditional wooden core pencils, which generally you can feel a little bit more texture in the page. Seeing how those perform on the page also tells you a lot about the page. You can tell a lot about the smoothness and roughness, the way the pencils look on the page, the way they feel on the page and the way they sound on the page. You can hear pencils differently on the page. So that's one of those things. So, um, back to the rollerball, I use the Schmidt P8127 mostly because it's a really wet, dark, saturated black ink. And it's, it's the refill that we've, we've talked about a lot. That's in like the retro 50 ones and Mark ones and all of this stuff.

Myke: So very popular now.

Brad: Yeah. It's kind of like a universal, um, rollerball and it's, I know what to expect from it. So I know when it hits the page of it's acting poorly. Right. So that's another thing is I use pens that it, or refills in this case that I have a lot of experience with. Right. So I know what my expectations are going into this and how does that perform? Um, you know, as I'm going through my testing process, that's probably outside of fountain pens. The Schmidt P8127 is a great separator in paper quality. It will tell you pretty quickly. Is this, is this going to be good or bad? Um, because of, of how thick and wet and rich that color is. And, uh, you can tell pretty quickly. So I, um, I then go into gel ballpoint pens. Um, like I said, those are pretty straightforward, right? You kind of always gets decent performance from gel and ball points. So then I mix in a fine liner after that. So those are your art markers, your drawing pens, your felt tip pens. Those are actually a pretty good indicator of, of the paper quality as well, because the way those tips, right. In this case, I was using a Copic multiliner, uh, 0.35. So sometimes with fine liners, you can get a really dry line. So, you know, that the paper might be a little bit rough or it might be coated a little bit differently. So I think when I get a fine liner on a page and it writes dry instead of like a thick, consistent line or a line that I would expect, uh, I start to think about other things. It's like, oh, well, that's a little bit different. So I'll go back and test like my fountain pens more or things like that. Um, because that is something you will see from time to time. Sometimes fine liners just don't work on these pages. Then I'll get into the pencils and highlighters and markers. And, um, but the pencils already spoke about the markers. You're basically just telling like the ghosting, the show through the bleed, right? I don't really use Sharpies because that's an extreme case, right? Unless you're telling me I need the thickest sketchbook paper that a Sharpie can't bleed through. Uh, when you test this, I'll never use a Sharpie to test because it's just not going to work. You know, um, you can get various levels of ghosting and bleed and you can do like a Sharpie test on all of them, but it's really not that valuable of information. I'd rather test like a highlighter, something that'll be used more commonly. And as long as the highlighter handles the paper, well, it'll, uh, it'll do pretty well.

Myke: So, cause again, it's like one of the things, if you're aiming to try and make a paper that works best for a Sharpie, it's going to have properties that are terrible for basically everything else.

Brad: Exactly. Exactly. Again, that falls in that 90% category, right? Like if I'm doing this and like, say, let's say in general, or making a notebook, like I probably don't care if someone has a bad Sharpie experience. It's like, yeah, it's not really made for that. Right. And it's like, there's, we can't cover everything. And then you'd be happy with most of the stuff you use. So, um, the list of pins really doesn't matter. Like I put a list of pins that I use in here. So like I had a, uh, Naginata Togi grind with Roar and Kingner Scabiosa. That's the Iron Gull Inc. I had a Journaler nib grind. That's like the Stubbish nib grind with Robert Oster Blue Lagoon. And then, uh, a Nakaya fine nib with Platinum Blue Black. Right. So that's like three very different fountain pen setups to test paper with. And then we have the Schmidt P8127, the Uniball Signo DX 0.5 millimeter. Um, the Bit Crystal Blue Ballpoint, Copic Multiliner, Pentel 0.5 millimeter HB Mechanical Pencil Lead, Tombow Mono 100, and a Zebra Mild Liner in Smoke Blue. So that's like a range of products that will give you, that will answer again, most of the questions that, you know, you need to try to solve when you're trying to pick out a paper for a project, like building a notebook or whatever you're doing. So I just write like normal, like I'll write like literally like the product name. Hey, big crystal blue ballpoint. And then if I see something weird, I'll just kind of keep going. Right. Does it perform better than I expected? I'll keep going because I want to see if that's true. Right. Did, you know, this fountain pen, did this iron gall ink, like hold the color really, really well and not bleed at all and also dry quickly. Okay. Let me test that more because that was interesting. Right. Or did it soak into the paper immediately? It's like, okay, I don't really need to test that anymore. It just like this page just like absorb the ink completely and I can just move on and test something else. You know, usually like the really bad performance, you can tell quick, the really good performance, you want to explore a little bit more and make sure like you're not seeing things or, you know, there's some weird expectation that you had that, that wasn't met. So you kind of get, um, you know, a little bit broader view of it. So I'll also kind of like color in some blocks right outside of lettering. I'll just, you know, make like color blocks just to see what the ghosting's like, what the bleed is like, what the dry time is like. You know, things like that. How does it feel on the page? Is the color accurate to my expectations? Um, and then, yeah, then I kind of group all the papers as I go through them. I can tell pretty quickly, which if a paper performs better than another one, you kind of have your, your first pass, right? So like if I have 25 pages, I might have 10 that were good and then 15 that were, you know, average or poor. Well, I'll send those 15 off to the side. I'll look at these 10 again. And were there any that stand out from that? And there might be two or three that separate themselves from like the best of the bunch. And then, okay, these are average. And then a whole group of pages that I wouldn't even consider. Right. So that's kind of how I break it all down. And it's really complicated for an easy thing. Hey, test out my paper. Tell you what you think. Well, I obsess over this stuff a little bit. Right. So, and it's hard to, you know, finally make the final call. Right. And you know, this from experience, when you make the final call, this is what we're going to production with. You want to have gotten it right. So, like, I try to, like, put all of this effort in there to try to get it right and help other people providing information with this. So, like, out of 25 pages, I think I had four that were, like, the tier one pages. Um, so, like, it's not easy to find, like, a really great paper that works universally well with all types of products. Right. That was 25 different pages. And, like, I would be, like, the most happy with, like, four of them. And I'm trying to think back. I didn't put the list in front of me. It might have only been three. Like, that's how, that's how tough it is to find, like, a really, really great paper. So, when you, you know, shop with companies whose paper you love, you know, like, we love Morimon and Midori and all these papers. That is really hard to find that really, really good paper that they use on a daily basis. So, I definitely appreciate what they go through to bring us all, like, wonderful products like that. So, this is a fun experiment for me. I enjoy doing it. It is nerd level high to kind of decipher what's the difference between paper number one and paper 25. But I thought I would talk about this a little bit just to show people or tell people that there's no perfect paper. How you use the paper is going to differ how I use the paper. And it's going to take some time to find the perfect paper for you. And as soon as you think you found it, it's probably going to change in, like, three to six months. And then the printer is going to go out of business. And then, you know, we'll all run around trying to hoard as much paper as we can. So, paper's hard, Myke. Don't talk about things like that, please.

Brad: Don't say that out loud. We don't like to think about that. Is that too close to home? Is that too close to home, Myke?

Myke: I definitely don't lie awake at night thinking about that sometimes.

Brad: So, yeah. So, you're looking for, like, universal performance, right? Like, there's not going to be that perfect paper. Sometimes you're going to have to settle for things. But figure out what you want the most. You know, do you want a paper that shows fountain pen shading the best? Well, you're going to have to put in some work. Do you want a paper that feels great with pencil? That's not too smooth, but, you know, has a good texture for pencils. You know, you got to work at that, right? And it's very personal to yourself. My, like, primary paper is, like, I love bank paper, right? It checks all the boxes for all the types of pens I use. I also don't recommend it a lot because some people just don't like how it feels. Or, you know, maybe not don't like the cream color of it. But, you know, there's a litany of reasons why some people like certain papers and some don't. But, yeah. So, figuring all that stuff out, it's a fun challenge. That's why we're in this stationary game, Myke.

Myke: What fun challenge it most certainly is. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Uni Pizza Ovens. Uni is the world's number one pizza oven company. They make surprisingly small ovens powered by your choice of either wood, charcoal, or gas to let you make restaurant-quality pizza in your own backyard. Uni Pizza Ovens are super easy to use and super portable. They're going to fit into any outside space. Uni Pizza Ovens can reach temperatures of up to 900 degrees Fahrenheit, 500 degrees Celsius, letting you cook restaurant-quality pizza in as little as 60 seconds. It's that high temperature that separates these pizzas from those that you make in a home oven. One of Uni's most popular models is the Uni Coda 16, a gas-powered oven that can cook 16-inch pizzas with an innovative L-shaped burner at the back so you have even heat distribution throughout. Uni Pizza Ovens start at just $299 of free shipping to the US, UK, and EU. One of the other models that people really love is the multi-fueled Uni Karu, which you can choose to power with wood, charcoal, or gas. They also make a really great app to help you perfect your dough recipe and give you loads of pizza-making tips. Brad, you're a big Uni household, right?

Brad: Love the Uni. It is one of the products that makes me smile the most when I use it repeatedly, right? I never get tired of using the Uni because you tell yourself, eh, this shouldn't work. There's no way this works. And it actually works brilliantly. And all you can do is smile. It's like, what is happening here? And why is this so amazing? So yeah, we super love the Uni here.

Myke: Big fans. Listeners of this show can get 10% off their purchase of an Uni Pizza Oven, which can be up to $50 off an Uni Coda 16. Just go to uni.com and use the code ADDICT2022 at checkout. When you're there, you'll also find a great range of accessories as well. The Uni Pizza Oven is the perfect tool for creating excellent pizza at home. This is why they are always in high demand. So if you want one, go right now to uni.com and use the code ADDICT2022 for 10% off. Uni Pizza Ovens are the best way to bring restaurant-quality pizza to your own backyard. Thanks to Uni Pizza Ovens for their support of this show and RelayFM. Should we finish up today with some RCTPA questions, Brad?

Brad: Yes, and I jumped this question up to the top, so sorry if there's some other questions. This is a very relatable question based on what we've been talking about today and last week.

Myke: All right. Joanna asks, when you talk about your nib grinds, could you include a general guide for how one should prepare if they want to nib grind at a pen show, whether it's booking ahead, going super early to sign up, or whatever it might be? Yes.

Brad: So we talked last week in my San Francisco pen show recap that I got several nib grinds done. Off the top of my head, I must have got five pens worked on, at least, something like that. So, and Joanna brought up a good point. It's like, well, how? Like, how did you do all of that? And there is some prep work that goes in ahead of time. So, number one, I had to decide what I wanted, right? So, number one was packing correctly. When I traveled to the show, I planned ahead. I knew which pens I needed to bring to get worked on. So, once I realized that, I then started looking at, number two, who has online bookings? So, that is a great idea, especially if you're only there for a limited amount of time. Like, if you can only come on a Saturday and spend four hours on a Saturday, you better book ahead, if you can. Like, not everyone does, you know, online bookings pre-show, but you want to start looking, like, several weeks out. If you know, for example, you're only going to be there Saturday afternoon, and those time slots will fill up quickly. So, you will want to do that ahead of time, if at all possible. That really helps you schedule your day. It helps the nib grinders, you know, make sure they're staying on schedule and not getting overbooked, because they will. Because they do, at least most that I know of, do leave room for walk-ups, right? So, if you're, like, someone like myself, I did a little bit of everything. So, I booked ahead, and I walked up and scheduled. So, the benefit of going to, say, the San Francisco show, where I'm there for three days, is I could schedule something on Friday for a Saturday afternoon or a Sunday morning nib grind time, right? So, I can go to, you know, whichever nib grinder who didn't have online sign-ups or were booked. I can walk up to them on the first day, knowing what pins I've already planned on getting worked on, and thinking about what I want to get done, knowing where I'm going to be Sunday morning. Can I book a 10.30 a.m. Sunday morning time at 2 o'clock on Friday afternoon, right? So, you can do that if you have the luxury of being at a show for multiple days.

Brad: And then, finally, you know, the nib grinds, just the general guide, how you should prepare. You always want to clean your pen out, right? So, some nib grinders will take the pens if they're inked up. I think they would prefer not to. I have seen CY with nib, with ink splattered across his face.

Myke: It's just good practice to clean the pen before you give it to someone to work on, you know? Because... Be a good human, you know?

Brad: Yep. They'll clean the pen. And sometimes, you know, like, if you don't, like, that just takes more time away, right, from, like, your window. Because, like, say, like, if I book a time, I'll usually get 30 minutes, and that's good for, like, two nib grinds, right? But that stuff gets tight, right? These schedules get booked and filled up.

Myke: You are potentially wasting time where you can do a bit of extra tuning, right? Where they can sit with you and be like, how does that feel? Like, I've had that, like, how does that feel? Ah, it's mostly good. Well, let me do this. How does it feel now? You know, like, that kind of backwards and forwards.

Brad: Yeah, that's a great point, is this is a two-way street in this nib grind. You don't hand your pen over and then get it back and leave, right? You work on it with whoever your nib grinder is, right? You say, you know, like, for example, when I sat with JC at the nib tailor, I was going to do an architect. He first gave me a little piece of sandpaper and the nib to write very lightly on, like, little circles, so he could kind of look at my angle, right? That's built into my time to sit and get my nib worked on. Well, he's taking the extra steps to say, hey, if I'm going to do an architect, it's a particular angle, so let me get Brad to take this nib, hold it normally, write over a little piece of paper. Then, like, JC will see marks on the nib, and he'll have a better idea of how to angle this architect grind, right? This is, like, it's a collaborative effort when you're working with a nib grinder, right? It's not, like, a one-way thing where you're just, like, you know, like, stop and shop and picking something up off the counter and going to the checkout, right? Like, it's a conversation, and you're working together to get this done, and that's what all, like, every nib grinder, like, that's the experience they want because they want you to have, you know, a good writing experience when you're done. So, you can, there's a lot of back and forth, and you don't hesitate to say, hey, this doesn't feel right, and, you know, tell them what you're thinking and what you're feeling, and they can look at it, and y'all can all get it all dialed in. So, yeah, that's in your time. So, back to having the pen clean. Definitely have it clean because they will dip test it and ink it there for you as it goes into, they want you to properly test it as well, so you will have plenty of ink options to fully test out your pen when you're done there. So, yeah, that's kind of the general, general thoughts. We haven't even gotten into choosing a grind. We've done some, you know, I've done some talks on the podcast before, and we'll talk about it more on how to choose a grind, but that's a completely different topic. I think this is more about preparation, scheduling, setup, expectations before even picking out your grind. And sometimes, you know, a nib grinder will help you pick out that grind as well. A lot of them have, you know, a list of the grinds that they'll do. You can look at that and discuss with it. A lot of them will have sample pens so you can test. You might think you want an architect. You get there and test it out and decide that, hey, based on the angle that you hold the pen, that something else might be a better choice for you, maybe a cursive italic grind. So, they're all able to help you out. They love working with you to figure out what's going to be best for you in the end. And, yeah, it's a great collaborative effort, and I highly recommend it, but you want to book early.

Vacation Pen Selection

Myke: All right. Another question comes from Seth. On a recent vacation, I decided to take two and only two pens with me. That forced my journaling into a rhythm of alternating back and forth between those two colors, and I loved seeing them next to each other. In my case, it was Pilot Iroshizuku, Fuyo Siogun, and Fire on Fire. Excellent. What color is Fuyo Siogun? I believe it's like a cloudy gray. Okay. I mean, that with Fire on Fire. Damn, it's like volcano colors, right?

Brad: Right. That's a good piece of comparing. Oh, keep reading. He, like, lays it out there. Oh. Yeah.

Myke: I love Fuyo Siogun, both for the translated name, Riggers of Winter, and for the cool blue tone. It's truly a beautiful winter gray. But we're not in winter. We're in summer. So, my question to you on my kids, what would be a good summer gray? Something warmer, maybe with some brown mixed in? I'd love to hear your suggestions. The pen I'm using is a TWSBI Precision and Gunmetal.

Brad: I like this question so much, I went and hunted down several options because I was like, that's a really interesting color and a really interesting thought process. Summer gray? Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Like, how does this happen? So, of course, I went to the wonderful Mountain of Ink, Kelly, who has just a massive ink resource. You can go and click on color tabs. So, you can click on gray ink or you can click on brown ink. And I pick one ink from each category, just looking through all of Kelly's ink swabs and try to think about what would be my summer gray ink. Because that's just not words you normally say out loud, right? So, the first one I found on was in the gray category. It's the Three Oysters Doldum, which I have heard about before. I've heard people talking about this ink. It's gray with a couple of little hints of gold. And it's got this little summer morning fog, sunlight peeking through kind of vibe going through it. This is a very summer gray. But if we were in the mood, Myke, we could have the same conversation and say, oh, yeah, this is a stark winter gray with the peak sunlight going through, breaking through the clouds. But it's gray with character, right? That's the way I see this Ink, Three Oysters Doldum. The second one I picked was Kobe No. 40 Sumiyoshi Brown. It's definitely more brown than gray, but it has some interesting depth to it. It's got some dark grays in it with this brown kind of popping through. It's a little bit weird, right? I like weird color inks. This is one where on the page it looks different from the swab. Like you get two like starkly different contrasting colors. So this is definitely more of a brownish gray. And the other one, the first one is more of a grayish brown. I'm going to throw in a third ink, which Seth did not ask for, a shimmer ink. But one of my favorite inks happens to be a shimmer ink, and it's brown. And it is the J. Herban Shogun ink that they released last year.

Brad: That is one of the coolest inks going. I can't believe how much I love Shogun. So we'll have to put a link in the show notes for Seth. I didn't put that in for you to see, Myke, but I've reviewed it on the Pen Addict. I love, love, love Shogun. It is a shimmer ink, though. So, you know, depending on what your thoughts are on shimmer inks. I am pro-shimmer ink, Myke. As we have become over the years, I am a pro-shimmer ink ink user.

Myke: Oh, it's actually not even Geobon. It's part of Jacques Herban.

Brad: Yeah, sorry. This is the big time, big time ink. This is Jacques. Full name. What, 1670 Jacques Herban.

Myke: Jacques Herban.

Brad: Yeah, that's their ultra-premium lineup. There's no Jay Herbans around here. That's full-on Jacques.

Myke: Jacques Herban.

Brad: Jacques Herban.

Myke: Jacques Herban.

Brad: Yep.

Myke: So Shogun, yeah.

Brad: If you are looking for an interesting shimmer ink, go look at Shogun. It's one of my favorites. It's really, really cool.

Brad: Also, Fire and Fire, greater than Fuyusoyugun. And Fuyugaki was actually what I was going to say. Your favorite Fuyugaki. It is. Far and Fire champion.

Favorite Inks Mentioned

Myke: It is. I agree. It's my favorite orange. Oh, nice. Nice, nice, nice. Not bias. No bias. If you'd like to find the links to today's episode, including all the information you're going to want to know about the Pen Addict Raffle for St. Jude, go to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 529. And this should be in your podcast app of choice. Don't forget, also, stjude.org slash relay. That's where you want to go. And don't forget the podcast-a-thon on September 16th at twitch.tv slash relay.fm. If you want to find Brad online, go to penaddict.com, at dowdyism on Twitter, penaddict on Instagram, twitch.tv slash penaddict. Brad streams multiple times a week. You were just streaming with friend of the show, Jay Miller.

Brad: Friend of the show, Jay Miller. Let's put a link in the chat. Oh, my gosh. We had such a good time. We broke down Jay's plotter, how he uses it. And then I played pen sommelier, which the chat really enjoyed. So we tried to get Jay into a new fountain pen. So we were testing all the things. So it's a good stream. We'll put a link.

Myke: What's it going to take to get you in a new fountain pen today? All the nibs in this bad boy.

Myke: I'm at guy in YKE. We'll be back next week. Thanks. Well, the show will be. I won't be. Brad will be with a fantastic guest. Thanks to Unipizza Ovens and Pen Chalet for the support of this show. But most of all, thank you for listening to our next time. Say goodbye, Brad.

Brad: Goodbye, Brad.