The Pen Addict 562/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	562
Title:	Brad Breaks Stationery
Release Date:	May 3rd, 2023
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 562
Audio File:	Audio Episode 562
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 562
Length:	5757 min <br />0.95 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 562. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet and Enigma Stationery. My name is Myke Hurley. I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad. Hi, Myke. How are you? It's so annoying that I feel like I have to make public disclosures about my health every time I start a new thing in my job. I can't just have a cold. I can't just have it. I've got to be like, yes, I have a cold. Or like for people that have heard multiple shows this week, like, yes, I have, still have the cold. And also like people, they like, they, they follow my illness. Right? So like Kate in the chat now is like, you sound better than yesterday, Myke. Right? Like, yep. Oh, God. Oh, my God. That was complete. I'm going to keep that in the show. I would usually remove that, but that was too good for that moment.

Myke Hurley: I don't know if I'm better. I got almost gone on me. I got a bad cold. That's fantastic. It's super strange of like, I just have this like, I can't hide. You know what I mean? I want to just like, just like, just feel sick and just like get on with my life. But yeah, here I am.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So it's funny. Like, I was going to call it out for a second, but I was like, you know what? Myke's probably done this like five times already. So we'll just let Myke have a cold.

Myke Hurley: Just listen to me. Right. You know what I mean? Like everyone knows how I sound and like I'm coming on the show and I'm like, hello, everybody. It's me. And like, you know, I can't hide from it.

Brad Dowdy: So when our Zoom call started today, chat, we sometimes make funny voices just like, hello, mate. And Myke just sounded like a monster. And I was like, is he making a funny voice or is he sick? I was like, oh, no, he's actually sick. All right. Well, you're in luck today, Myke, because I have a lot to talk about. So you won't have to talk as much. All right. I'm in one of those situations where I'm in a very happy situation because I have just a litany of pens like right here next to my desk, to my writing pad, all within easy reach. Let's see. Let me count. Let me count the pens that I've actually used today that are sitting right here, not in a pen case, just laying on my desk. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. So there's seven products sitting right here. Not all products we're talking about today, but just in general, like I have new pens to test, old pens to talk about, constant pens that are with me all the time sitting here. I'm using all the things. I'm very happy with my current writing situation, starting with the Pilot 743 Verdigris. So we talked about this last week. I believe it was last week or two weeks ago. It was last week. So this was, you know, big, big cheers to Pilot for making a colorful barrel, which like in the grand scheme of things, this is literally like the least they could do, right? It's just a basic kind of green. It's a cool green color with gold trim, like in their, in their, um, model 743 pen. And like, I am just like shouting from the rooftops, yay, Pilot for like the most basic thing. But I, I do love it because we don't get it very often from them. And at least not in a broader, um, market, you know, release, right? They might do some store specials in Japan or some really, you know, customized small runs of, of things. But this is a broader release, North American release for the Pilot 743 Verdigris, which is beautiful. And I wanted to buy it to not, I mean, I don't have a 743, which isn't the reason why I wanted to buy it, but I wanted to buy it because this is something different from Pilot, which I talked about, um, you know, before, talked about last week, right? And this is what I've been banging the drum for. So I want to put my money where my mouth is and get the thing that they did. And I'm very happy with it. I did pick up an FA nib with this one. So the 743 has, so Pilot does, does the 912 lineup, which is one of their core lineups. It has 15 nib choices. The 743 has about seven or eight. It doesn't have the full compliment, but it did have the FA nib, which I don't own. And I kept wanting to buy. If I ever bought another Pilot, I was going to get it with an FA nib, but they never had anything interesting, right? I didn't want to buy another black and silver 912, even though that's one of my favorite pens of all time. I don't need two of those. Like it's the exact same thing, even if it's a different nib. So I got the FA nib here and it's kind of a bouncy, I wouldn't go as far as calling it a flex nib, but Pilot has the Falcon nib, which is one of their classic soft, fine nibs. It's kind of different shape than their traditional nibs. And the Falcon nib is very much less flexible than the FA nib. And I wouldn't classify either of them as flexible, but the FA nib has a lot more bounce. It's got some cutouts on the side of the nib, on the wings to give it a little bit more give. It's got a long, long single slit through the middle of the nib to give it some extra bounce. And it's just a really enjoyable writing nib. I'm not a flex user, right? I don't have the writing style to really get the full benefit of a flex nib. So this is kind of somewhere in between where it's bouncy and I get some line variation and it works even well with my printing style. Like my vertical strokes are thin. I mean, my vertical strokes are wide, my horizontal strokes are thinner. So it kind of gives you that interesting character that a nib with a little bit of give will give you. So I knew I was going to, I mean, there was 0% chance I was going to dislike this pen, right? It's kind of perfect. I like the size of it. So it's the same size as the 823, which is the vacuum filler, but much lighter for obvious reasons. It does not contain the vacuum mechanism. So it does ship with the CON70 converter, the larger converter. So it's just well balanced. It's, this is a good classic writing fountain pen. I mean, it's a little expensive, right? It was $340, something like that in that ballpark, give or take $10 or $20. So something like that. So it's not cheap, but, you know, gold nib, kind of limited-ish. You know, it's pretty widely available if you're interested in it. And cool. Like, I really like it. So I unboxed it on stream just yesterday. I got it in last week. I held it and unboxed it. The biggest decision I had was trying to figure out what to ink it with. And I knew for a fact that I was not going with any shade of green because I would be very unhappy trying to match this color, right? The Pilot 743 Vertigreeze, I don't even know how you describe what color it is. You can just say it's green, but that's just such a broad category of color. Like, can you even, like, try to lean a little bit into a more specific type of green this color is?

Brad Dowdy: Aquamarine? Yeah, I guess so.

Discussion of aquamarine and verdigris colors.

Myke Hurley: But I don't even know if that's green. Like, obviously, aquamarine is, like, blue. I haven't seen it, though, right? Right, right, right. The pictures are pretty accurate. It's like, I don't know, like, it's like, is it emerald? Not really. Right. I mean, is it, you know, it's complicated. This is interesting. But that's actually what draws me to this pen in the images of, like, oh, I haven't really seen a green like that before. What I do know is it goes really well with the gold.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, it's perfect with the gold. And, like, to your point, if they did just what we would consider just a more traditional green, I would be less interested in it. Like, this is kind of a weird green, but in a classy, vintage-y kind of way. Like, I kind of like it. So, I knew there was a 0% chance I was putting a green ink in here because I would be disappointed.

Myke Hurley: Kate, coming in with the knowledge here, verdigris is the color that copper patinas to when it weathers. I can see that in this color for sure. That's what that color is. A bright bluish green encrustational patina formed on copper or brass by atmospheric oxidization. And now that you say that, it's like, oh, yeah, it's like the color of the Statue of Liberty. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's a good color. It's an interesting color, you know. So, I went with, like, a magenta-y pink, right, to match that color to complement to the pen. I was going to go purple or, like, a hot pink or dark pink magenta-y. And I went with Sailor Manio Akibi, which is, I also wanted, I didn't want just, like, a flatter Iroshizuku ink. Like, a sutsuki I had was a choice there. It's a very hot pink. But with this nib that puts down a lot of ink and has a little bit of flex, you want to see some character in the ink. So, Sailor Manio Akibi has that. It's got good shading. It's got good sheen. And it's just a very rich magenta-y color that goes well with the green. So, in short, I'm very happy with the 743. I'm going to keep using it. I'm sure I will review it at some point because I don't have a model 743 review.

Introduction of the Pilot 743 pen and its availability.

Brad Dowdy: I've never owned a 743 because I don't even know that they were always available in the U.S. market, just the model. But the model is mostly coming just, you know, black and gold trim. I think they have a couple of other random editions they've done in the past. Maybe a brown one? I can't remember. But I will do a review of this eventually. It's not going to be, like, at the top of the review list, but I'm going to use this a bunch because I really like it. And I'm very happy with it so far. They did a good job.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I'll be interested to see when you do the review, like, more of, like, a – more on, like, how it differs from the other models. Like, what makes the 743 an interesting model itself? Like, why does it even exist?

Brad Dowdy: Yes, that's the review of this pen. Yeah, cool. So I'm going to spend some time using it before I do that. So this isn't one I'm going to rush into at all. So I want to figure it out a little bit and where it falls in line with some of the rest of the pens. I did another unboxing on stream last week in preparation for a review that was going to run this week, and that was of the Lamy Neolab digital pen. You and I have talked about this in the past. We've talked about many –

Myke Hurley: I'm sorry. I have to stop you. Oh, hit me. Go. This is something that I knew needed to be on this show. So you know me. You know how I feel about the by, you know, like, X by X, you know, something by something. Okay, sure. They did it right here, right? Lamy X Neolab. Lamy by Neolab. That makes sense. Neolab made the thing, but it's Lamy branded. A couple of days ago, I was on a bus, and I went past, like, a bar or something or a store, and it said Hennessy, right? That's the alcohol, you know? I actually don't know what Hennessy is. It's like a cognac. Cognac, I think. It said Hennessy X Ginger. Now, what it was trying to tell you is that Hennessy and Ginger is a good combo. Okay. But what it is saying is that Hennessy is made by Ginger is what that is saying, right? Hennessy by Ginger. Now, just – there's another thing. Like, you could just rotate the X, and it's a plus, right? And that means and, you know? Like, it's right there. You don't need – doesn't everything have to be X? Also, how are people saying this? Are they saying – like, is someone in a marketing department saying, walking around, oh, we have our new campaign. It's called Hennessy X Ginger. Like, what does that mean? What are you saying? If you're saying and, then put and. Yes.

Brad Dowdy: That's the end of my rant.

Myke Hurley: No. I think that's a very – It annoys me. It annoys me.

Brad Dowdy: That's a very valid rant. At this point, it's a Hennessy plus Ginger equals awesome is what they're trying to, like, get you to. Yeah. But it's just completely broken in how they're trying to get there. Also, it just looked bad, right?

Myke Hurley: Because it was like they had the whole, like, the Hennessy logo, right? Mm-hmm. And then it just said, like, X Ginger in, like, a crappy font. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just kind of like, why?

Brad Dowdy: Why are you doing this? Yeah. I'd be thinking, like, is Ginger, like, a bar? Is that, like, some fancy bar? Like, that we need to, like – Okay. Yeah. I'm with you. All right.

Myke Hurley: So – That's what I have to say.

Mention of the LamyXNeolab product and its features.

Brad Dowdy: So I wrote this down, LamyXNeolab, but I always have to verify this stuff. Like, that's what the box said, so that's what I wrote down. So I'm glad it passed your test. It did not pass Brad's writing test, but not because – not due to the digital pen aspect of it. So let me cover that first. The digital pen, which I think a lot of people – I won't get too into it. I think most of y'all know that a lot of companies will make a digital pen, and it comes with a notebook that will partner with the pen, pair with the pen. And there's, like, a little camera on the front end of the pen. And you download an app, and your notes get digitized, right, as you write. So the technical aspects of this worked flawlessly. It was actually really impressive. It was, like, as impressive as we were back in the day with that Moleskine. It's like, oh, my gosh, this, like, literally works. So, like, I had my phone sitting right next to the notebook as I was writing, and it was, like, instant. Just as I was writing, it was filling out the notebook in the app. I was like, ah, that's pretty cool. And then it had real quick ways for me to, like, switch colors or switch line widths. I'd just tap on this little card that they provided. I'd tap it on orange, and then I could write orange. And then I'd tap the extra line width, and I could highlight a little bit – not highlight over a line, but make, like, a marker line. It was legitimately a good process. Like, it really, really worked exactly how I thought it should work, right? But then the stationery nerd kind of went off the deep end trying to make an even better writing pen. So, the way this pen is designed, it's a Lamy Safari, which is great, and it has a D1 refill in the tip of the pen. So, that's what you're actually writing within your notebook, which is also fine. Well, with that type of setup and with the D1 refills and the whole camera hardware within the pen, that opening, there was a little tip rattle when you write, you know, like the little tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, you know, when you're writing, right? So –

Myke Hurley: Yeah, we're going to talk about that a little later on today. Yeah, that comes up. That's a topic today. This has been tip rattle week.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, but this one's not bad because it was metal and plastic, but I was like, oh, can I mitigate this some, right? Can I put a little washi tape on the refill? So, I put it like towards the end. I took out the refill. Refill is very easy to slide in and out. Took it out the refill, put it towards the tip of the pen, slid it back in. I was like, ah, it's still kind of rattling a bit. Let me try to put this on towards the rear of the refill. So, I took it back out, untaped it, put the tape back to the rear end of the refill, and the digitization started being really, really wonky. Like, it was not picking up my writing. I was like, uh-oh, uh-oh, what did you do, Brad? I was like, okay, well, let me just take the refill out and get this tape off and just go back to the standard because it really works well. And then I pulled the refill out, and the tape didn't come with it. So, this is not a pen that's easily disassemblable. Is that a word? Disassemblable?

Brad Dowdy: And I didn't have the right hardware to, like, take apart this barrel. So, I essentially ruined, like, the camera digitization ability to read of this pen. So, I ruined, like, this whole $200 pen or $200 setup. And I had to, like, apologize to the person that loaned it to me for that, and I offered to pay for it. They were kind. This is someone, the person who loaned it to me actually deals with these for, like, a school. So, like, they have a lot of them. So, like, oh, no, I work with Neo. I'll send it to them. They'll repair it for me. Not a big deal. Don't sweat it. I'm glad the part that worked worked well. I'm like, yeah, yeah, it worked really well, and I would have liked to review it. But Brad Breaks Stationery, it was bad. I felt so bad doing that because I never do that, especially on products that are loaned to me. You know, like, I'm generally careful, but it didn't even cross my mind. Like, oh, I probably shouldn't be doing this. I'm like, I'm just going to do what I would normally do, right? Except I screwed up the whole thing, and I felt really bad. So, it works well right up until you try to do things you shouldn't do, and then it did not. It no longer worked. No longer worked.

Myke Hurley: I have a question. Is this a new product?

Brad Dowdy: It came out late last year, I want to say, like summer-ish last year. They use micro USB.

Myke Hurley: What year is this?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. They might have had a previous digital pen product, but this set, right, this Neolab thing was launched, I want to say last summer, but I don't have the exact dates.

Myke Hurley: Micro USB, come on.

Brad Dowdy: But I'm almost certain, I believe they've had something similar before that, so they might have just kind of carried over some of this technology to that. Oh, I have no doubt. I have no doubt. There you go. So, you learned a valuable lesson, I feel like. I did, and it's all caught on camera, and I saved it, and it's like, you know, I felt pretty bad. I felt pretty bad. It did not go well on the stream for me. I was like, uh-oh. Uh-oh. So, it lives on in infamy, and, you know, you got to keep that stuff out there. We keep it real here at The Pen Addict.

Myke Hurley: I'll put the link in the show notes to the VOD on YouTube if people want to go and watch you destroy a loaned pen.

Myke Hurley: It was great.

Myke Hurley: All right. This week's episode is brought to you by our returning sponsor, our friends over at Enigma Stationary. The Enigma Stationary is a family-owned and operated business that offers unique items made from in-house designs alongside top brands, and they now ship to outside the U.S. to over 25 countries, including Canada, the U.K., Germany, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and many more. We are happy to talk today about a brand new product launching today, the special edition number three of The Enigma, which is a pen handmade by the Heinz Pen Company. Is it Heinz? H-I-N-Z-E? I know we've spoken about this before. Did we decide on Heinz? It is. You are correct.

Brad Dowdy: Yes.

Myke Hurley: The material is a new version of The Enigma, a retired pen blank recipe. This special update includes a more vibrant sparkling turquoise swirled of a shimmering translucent black to give each pen unique depth. Every pen was custom made in Jim Heinz's shop using his Q24 design style, which is a concave barrel, section, and cap. Every cap finial features the Heinz pen logo medallion. And if you're asking me, the real special part about this whole pen is the nib. Each nib is engraved, but has been electroplated in an exclusive turquoise color formatted to match the pen. We both have these. Dan over at Enigma Stationery sent it in advance. I got a Heinz pen before, right? I think it was one of the Estabrooks. It was like a pink one. Oh, yeah. Right. With the nibs. Yeah. Yeah. There was just the nibs, right? But this time it's the whole thing, right? The whole pen. And like this, for me, the color matching of the nib to the body, I cannot believe how accurate the color matching is. It almost feels impossible to achieve the same color in an acrylic resin. And then in the electroplating, I'm blown away by it.

Brad Dowdy: So I did something I don't normally do when we get preview products. Like we get a lot of preview products. Like, you know, if we're doing an ad, a lot of times people like to send products in advance. And Dan has done that for Enigma. And we do that with other companies as well. So I actually reached out to them on Mastodon, like just to say how good this was and how much they are just like crushing all of their product releases recently. Yep. Like they are onto something. From this and the Mark 1 that we spoke about. Yep. Yep. Dan has got it going on right now. Yep. And I love the Brilliant Bunny from Navalore, their bright red pen. And the collaborations they're coming up with are just crushing it. So on this pen specifically, like I love the color. I love the material. I didn't realize it was like a classic material for them. And I wanted to point out one special thing about the shape of this pen. So it has something that you don't see a ton. But it's something I actually enjoy in a pen is the barrel has a slight concave in it, right? So there's different ways to do pen barrels and there's a million different shapes. And maybe that's a whole podcast on barrel shapes, generally speaking. But what a slight concave does, I don't want a big one, right? I don't want a huge like different like, you know, fast measurements, right? Yeah. I don't want to write with a vase. I don't need a bulbous pen. But what happens here is the narrowest section of the barrel, and again, it's minor, hits where it rests on your hand. Yes. So it's crazy comfortable. And I just love that feeling. And actually, I think, you know, I kind of prefer that over a pen that will go the other direction, right? Some have more bulk in the middle, like a straight pen, a straight, you know, barrel pen or a taper barrel pen is fine. Or I like this concave as a different shape for me in the way it fits my hand. So you have a concave in the middle of the barrel. You have a slight concave grip section. And then you have a slight concave in the cap, which it all just works together. Works well with the nib. The biggest challenge was finding an ink to match this. I was trying to go green and aquamarine and all those colors as well. I went with Birmingham Penco Eroded Bronze, which kind of gives me some of that, some of the black swirl, some of the gray, some of the green, some of the blue. Like, it's a really good match. So they crushed it on this one. I don't know what to say. It's like they're crushing everything that they make right now. And it's really fun to witness someone who's just firing on all cylinders like this. So really, really great job.

Selection of Sailor Ink Studio 140 and related pen preferences.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I went with Sailor Ink Studio 140. I thought this felt like a blue one for me. When I received the pen, I was like, oh, I don't know. Like, I've never had a pen that has this concave. So if you need this to describe, it's like if you imagine purely straight barrel, pinch it in the middle, right? So the ends are the thickest. And then it kind of like towards the middle gets thinner and then out again. And it's like I've never used a pen like that. And I don't think I would necessarily have like been gravitated towards that style. But it is so comfortable to hold. Like, it fits so perfectly in the hand. And because you have the concave design, like, you know, so it's like thicker on both ends, the pen retains weight. Where like if you had it just be like conical, right? That it just gets thinner towards the end. So you still achieve the thinner part in the middle where it meets kind of the, where it meets your hand. What is the area called between your thumb and your finger? I call it the cusp. I call it the cusp. I don't know if that's the accurate term. The cusp of the hand. And if it just got, you know, they made it so it went thinner there, it'd be fine. But you would lose weight in the pen. And, you know, I like there to be weight in pens. I don't like it to feel like when I pick up a pen, it's just going to fly over my shoulder. Right? Like, this doesn't feel that way even though it's made of resin. And I think it's because it's retaining some material at the end and it gives a really nice balance. So for me, like, this is a very comfortable pen. And obviously, the design is great, but the real winner is the nib and just how close that nib is in color to the material. So super awesome. Go check it out for yourself right now. It's $240, which is a steal. I mean, I genuinely cannot believe this pen is this price. Me and Brad were talking about this before we started today. It's an incredibly fair price for a quality product like this. There are just 50 pieces. So you've got to act fast if you want to go check it out. Go to enigmastationery.com slash penaddict. That is enigmastationery.com slash penaddict. And use the code penaddict at checkout to receive a free gift and discounted shipping on an order of $40 or more. That is enigmastationery.com slash penaddict to secure your Enigma Special Edition number 3. And use the code penaddict at checkout to receive free shipping on all orders over $40 plus a free gift. Thanks to Enigma Stationary for the support of this show and all of RelayFM.

Brad Dowdy: All right, Myke. So we're going to bring some of the topics we talked about or some of the specific parts of the specific topics above that we talked about in barrel weight, feel in the hand, balance, tip rattle. All kind of come to play in my conversation around the Maker's Cabinet Laszlo. So I did a review of this brass ballpoint pen from Maker's Cabinet on Monday. And I wanted to bring it up because it's a good conversation to have about pen design and like how we all like different things. And, you know, how what might be good for one person may not be great for another person. And like all of those things are like cool. Like it's good to know like what features a pen brings to the table. And that way you can decide. And one of the things I try to help with in my review is help you decide like does this type of pen fit my needs for a writing instrument. So you're familiar with Maker's Cabinet, Myke, right? They make some of like the fancy extremes, not the right word, but they upgrade a lot of traditional objects in their own style. A lot of brass, a lot of machine parts, a lot of custom build. I did a review of their lead holder called the Ferrell a few months back where it was just like almost like an over-engineered pencil holder. And this one, the Laszlo, it's a brass ballpoint. And it's actually kind of simple, right? It's a for for Maker's Cabinet. I would call it a simple design. Their upgraded piece of this was the twist mechanism to retract and engage the refill. So they use this magnet, this custom magnet design that they built and designed. And I didn't find it to be great. Like it's fine. Like it certainly wasn't transformative. It didn't change what I thought about. Oh, this is how all knocks should be in the future. Right. Or all twist mechanisms, I should say. It was fine. It was a little bit funky. It didn't work the same every time I tried to engage it. It always worked at some point, but it didn't work consistently the same every time. Like sometimes I would twist it, you know, do it, give it a half turn. The refill would pop right out and I'd go to town. Other times I would twist it and it would snap back in. I twisted the same, same. And I'd have to like keep going all the way around to get the refill to engage. So it was a little bit inconsistent in that aspect. That's fine. I can deal with that. You know, it is what it is. I appreciate someone trying something new, right? Like that's why like I did not have a great time with this pen, but I didn't go out to eviscerate this pen because I want people to keep designing and keep making things.

Brad Dowdy: The tip rattle was one of the worst that I've experienced. And that makes me question a lot of the ideas behind this pen. Like if you put this much effort into creating a cool retractable mechanism, the writing experience still needs to be good for me to even consider using it, right? And it's rare that I have to put an audio file in a pen review, but I did on this one. Yeah. Because it was so egregious. Huh?

Myke Hurley: It was helpful.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it was outrageous how loud this pen was. And all I could think about is like they had to know, right? Like when you're making this, you're going click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click as you write and like you're okay with that. I was like, I don't understand. I don't understand like the thought behind this being okay. So I was a little bit taken aback by that. But like that's, as I put in the review, that's something that's easily mitigated. Like you can fix this like really easily, right? You know, I can fix it after market, you know, again, tape, again, like the Lamy, except I wouldn't break this pen. Like I broke the Lamy. They actually, I think the clip is probably like the worst decision that they made on the pen. And again, like I'm not trying to like beat down this pen. I'm just trying to discuss like design choices when making products, right? Like it's a good pen. Like I, it's a perfectly fine pen. And I think a lot of people will like this pen if you like brass pens and heavy pens. But when you make a pen that's 66 grams, like for a pen that's very heavy, you know, retro 51s, for example, run, run about 28 grams. So it's, you know, an all brass barrel pen you expect to be heavy. Well, this clip is very flimsy, right? So it doesn't match the weight of the pen. And I actually got some feedback from Maker's Cabinet. They reached out to me. I posted on Instagram that the clip was something a lot of people have pointed out that it's just not a match for a weighty pen like this brass barrel pen. And they said that they're actually working on a Laszlo version too. And they're going to adjust the clip and they're actually going to make a way you can retrofit a clip onto this pen, which all brings me back to say. Honestly, you're staking your reputation on your design chops.

Brad Dowdy: And I think there's just several small things that should have been fixed before this pen launched. If you're making heirloom products and charging an appropriate price for that, I don't want to buy the alpha or beta version of an heirloom product, right? Those things don't add up in my mind, right? Do you understand what I'm meaning when I'm saying this? If you're selling me the best product you can make, I don't want version two next year. No, and also... I want version two because, hey, we're making a good product and we're going to keep working on it. As we get feedback, we're going to make another one. Like, that's what we do at Spoke. Like, we have a Spoke 1 and a Spoke 2, but we've never said that this is the only pen you'll ever need because we want to keep iterating, right? And I feel like they're making products that they should stand alone and they don't.

Myke Hurley: There's also an Osborne effect issue here, right? Where it's like, buy our pen now, but also we're making a better one. So why would I buy the pen now? Right. Do you familiar with the Osborne effect? It's a computer company called Osborne. They made a computer and they were like, and, you know, it was on sale. And they were like, next year, they did like a presentation. We have this incredible computer coming. It's so much better than what you're currently getting. The company went under because everyone stopped buying their products. Right, right. Because why would you buy one now when in six months time, you know there's a better one coming? It's why, you know, big tech companies now are so secret about their stuff, or companies in general, right? You don't want people knowing your roadmap because they're going to stop buying your products. You need people to keep buying your products, right?

Brad Dowdy: Right. It's the reason you exist as a company. Yeah. And all pen manufacturers, and I'm including myself as a maker myself with Spoke, like we're always going to iterate and try to make our designs better. We think we come up with a good design. We're very happy with it. We get people's, but we don't sell it as a singular item. This is the best, right?

Myke Hurley: But neither can you, like, you know, if you're three months old, you would know you have a new version of the Spoke pen coming out, and it's going to improve it in a bunch of ways. Six months before, you can't be like, hey, we've got this new one coming. Yeah, right. Because you need to continue selling your product, right? Right. So, like, I just find that so weird. And plus, I feel like for me, the biggest issue I can see on this pen is the way the clip looks, and the fact that the clip appears to just be an aftermarket idea, at least.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's not aftermarket, but it's a basic stamping, right?

Myke Hurley: Right, but, like, what I mean is it is not a permanent part of the pen. Right.

Brad Dowdy: It's not built into the pen. It's torque screwed through the barrel, through the hole in the pen, which I didn't get a close-up shot through the hole in the clip.

Myke Hurley: That's so weird to me that they did it this way. Because also, like, why does it have the light? Like, you know the thing that looks like you slip – you see this a lot, like the ones where you slip a clip onto a pen, right? And genuinely, Brad, to me, it feels like – I don't know, right? But I feel like they made this pen and then realized they needed a clip. Maybe. Because this is such a strange thing to do, to do it the way that they've done it. Like, why does it – if it screws into the pen, right, which you should say it does, why does it have those wings that go around the side? They're to hold the clip in place, but the screw holds the clip in place. So why do I do that? I don't like that style anyway. Like, I've never liked that look.

Myke Hurley: But, yeah, maybe they'll fix it. It'll be interesting to see what they do. It's a different material. Why is it a different material? The whole pen is in brass.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, like I said in my review, like, this clip belongs to the aluminum pen was the point that I made just in weight and style. And, I mean, I'm fine with clipless pens, but, like, I get that a lot of people, you know, like clips on their pens, and I totally get that. So, like, this one would have been, I think, better served just without the clip. I like clips. And without any type of hole or anything.

Myke Hurley: But I like them to be good and feel like they're part of the design.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, they can't be an add-on. So, anyway, my whole premise of, like, doing this review was not to just, like, totally bang on this product because this actually made me respect the Feral even more, which was a very fidgety lead holder. That made me respect that product even more because I actually think this was, this was, I don't think Maker's Cabinet did their best work here. And I think that's fair for me to say in a review because I want them to do better. Like, I don't want them to not sell this pen, right? I'm not going out there. Like, I know it wasn't a very positive review. But the idea of the review is, like, I like your work. I don't think you did your best job on this product. And I think it's easily fixable. But then at the same time, you have companies like this that, you know, throw around some marketing terms that kind of makes them, makes you think that they're unimpeachable designs and they're just not, right? And that's more of where I have some of the hang-ups with this. So, anyway. This is why marketing is tricky, right? Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I don't know. I'll be interested to watch this one. And they were very positive with the feedback, you know, on the review and just the conversation, you know, that we had. And, you know, there's going to be a version two of this pen. And we'll see. I will actually actively track that because I'm curious what's going to change. Is it just going to be the clip? Is it going to be some of the other points that I called out? I don't know. Because the best part about this was it's the most fairly priced product that they sell. I mean, it's a $90 brass barrel pen. And, like, that's perfectly fine. Like, some of the other products are pretty expensive for what they are. This one's not. This one's almost cheap for what it is. So, we'll see what the next version ends up being. So, related to design, we have not talked about my friends over at CW&T. In a long time, makers of the pen type A, the pen type B, and the pen type C. Myke, very basic pen names. But they've kind of made their own thing out of it. And I just happened to see their Instagram. They've been leaning into the pen type C, which of all the pens they make are weird. This is the weirdest.

Myke Hurley: It is funny to me, man. Why of all of them? I don't know.

Brad Dowdy: So, this is a traditional, gosh, what would you call it? This is their take on a traditional gift shop pen. That's what I called it back in the day. Like, I like this pen. I use this pen. I literally went, once I saw their latest Instagram, I went and grabbed mine out and started using it. I like this pen. But back in the day, you could get these flip wire pens, like, at the gift shop at the end of the ride, at the theme park or whatever, you know. It was just like a swag pen idea where you had this clip. Like, I had these back in the 80s and 90s, right? But they did it in very CW&T type of way. And I just wanted to point it out because I think it's so ridiculous, but it's so cool. And they're just adding colors. They must be doing really well with this pen because they're adding a lot. Adding a lot of finishes and styles to it. So, I thought it was worth pointing out because it cracked me up.

Myke Hurley: Oh, these Cerakote ones look fantastic. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I wonder, like, this is from a design perspective. It's got to be reasonably straightforward to make. So, you're allowed to, like, you know, play around with that a little bit. Like, mine has a clip on it, right? Like, I really like the clip aspect of it. But, like, I wouldn't want to use it all the time because the flip aspect of it is kind of annoying. Like, it's fine. They sell it in a seven pack.

Myke Hurley: It's incredible.

Myke Hurley: Like, here's a bunch of designs we've done.

Brad Dowdy: But it's cool. I hadn't talked about them in a while. And I saw that. And that just made me smile because this pen is just silly and ridiculous. But it's in, you know, the very CW&T design style, which I really appreciate. So, next one, Myke, you added this to the list. I couldn't remember if we talked about this last week. Speaking of design, what you got here, you run this one.

Introduction of the Tactile Turn 8-bit edition inspired by video games.

Myke Hurley: The new tactile turn edition for spring 2023 is called 8-bit. And it is taking inspiration from video games. I would say it is a slightly mixed inspiration, which I'll get to in a minute. But, like, overall, visually, it appears to be taking color design and inspiration from the NES. And they have imagery on their website. It's the same. So, I picked one up because this is an obvious one for me. It's like a gray body with a darker gray finial and tip. Nose cone. Nose cone, yeah. Bright orange clip. And the button to retract the pen, like the knock, I guess, is bright red. It says reset next to it, just like an NES. I picked up the short model. Okay. And I have mixed feelings. This is the perfect size. I prefer the G2 refill.

Brad Dowdy: That's the challenge I have with tactile turn. Yeah. Is figuring out which size I like. So, I think the short is my favorite size. Yes. The short is the Parker style refill. Yeah. Right. And so, I have, like, the Jetstream refill that I like. You know, you can get Fisher Space Pen. You can get a few other random things. But you have to go into the standard to get kind of, like, your classic gel refills, like your G2 pilot juices, things that fit that. The standard's a really big pen, right?

Myke Hurley: Standard is too big.

Brad Dowdy: Standard's too big. And then they have the mini, which fits the G2 mini refills, which just come in 0.7 millimeters, right? So, you're even more limited. I know that's going to be too small for me. I know that's going to be too small for me. So, here's what I did, Myke. I have talked to them. They reached out to me to send me one to review. I have asked for a slim barrel in the standard size. So, this is a new kind of option. And I'm going to see if that is the answer to your dilemma and my dilemma as well.

Myke Hurley: I don't think it's a weight thing for me, though. It's length. It's too long. It's a big, long pen. That's my issue. It is. So, that's it. But I really like the design and this pen is awesome. The one thing that I said, like, the clip, I don't understand the design of the clip.

Brad Dowdy: So, like... What is that from? I thought that was, like, the cartridge ridges. They weren't orange.

Myke Hurley: I don't think it's from anything. And that's the part. This is the part where I think they've fallen down. So, the design on the website says, borrowing from one of the most iconic gaming accessories of all time, we deep engraved a ray gun design on the clips before hitting them with orange Cerakote. I can't tell exactly what they are emulating. Maybe it's the NES...

Brad Dowdy: It's not the Duck Hunt gun, right?

Myke Hurley: I think it might be the Duck Hunt gun, but the gun wasn't orange.

Brad Dowdy: No, but it had those lines on it. Oh, you know what? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Myke Hurley: This is one of those things where I think it was a market difference. Yeah, okay. I see what they're doing. I know the Duck Hunt gun is gray, but I can find here the Duck Hunt gun is orange. It's an orange Duck Hunt gun. This is just one of those things. Like, I don't know if you know, but, like, in Europe and in the US and Japan, the coloring is different for a lot of early Nintendo products. Gotcha. And so I was more familiar with the gray Duck Hunt gun than the orange Duck Hunt gun. Yeah. Ours were orange. So, yeah. Then retract what I said. It's awesome. They did a really good job. Yeah. It's great. And, like, the packaging is awesome. They've got a picture of it on the site. It looks like the castle from Super Mario. And they include a little coin in each pack. Yeah. A little one-up coin. They did really good on this one. Oh, they put a game. They made a game. That's hilarious. I just found it. Like, halfway down the page, they built a little game you can play. I'm playing it now where I'm a pen and I'm shooting stuff. Nice. Why not? Why not? Why not?

Brad Dowdy: Why not? So, yeah. I will have one here in a couple weeks. So, I will test it out.

Myke Hurley: I'm destroying pencils. I like this. They got my hands on what I'm doing. Kill the pencils. Pencils. Boo.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I really... They nailed this. And I know they make knives too, right? They have the tactile knife. I'm just putting it out there. Please make a knife in this style too. Yep. I will dig that so bad. I've been wanting to get one of the tactile knives for a while and I just haven't gotten one yet. Right. Please make one that looks like this.

Brad Dowdy: That's the ticket. I think that would be perfect. That's kind of like all the right colors, the right styles, the right ridges, everything. I think everything would be good on that. Yeah. You could really dial that up. That'd be great.

Myke Hurley: I dig it. For me, what sold it like 100% is the reset with the red button. I saw that first and I was like, I'm buying NetPen.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I thought the reset is what actually threw me off for a minute. But the more I thought about it, the more I really enjoy it there. I was like, do I really want that text there on there? But that is actually how you reset the pen. That is what you do to reset the pen. Yes. Very smart. I'm 100% in on it. 100% in on it.

Myke Hurley: All right. Should we take a break? Let's do it. Let's thank our friends over at Pen Chalet for the support of this week's episode. Pen Chalet have all your favorite brands and the products that you are looking for. Whether you need a new fountain pen, a new rollerball, maybe you want to see what Pilot's got on offer these days. Maybe Sailor, Kaweco, and many more. You can go to Pen Chalet. Not only do they have all these products, they are, of course, an authorized dealer. And they have all of the accessories you're going to need, too. Whether you want a new carrying case, maybe you're going to a pen show coming up and you want something to take your collection on the road. Maybe you're looking for some inks, some fountain pen converters, refills, and so, so, so much more. Pen Chalet have got it. Every couple of weeks, you'll find new and exclusive deals over at Pen Chalet. But, of course, in a moment, we're going to tell you about some extra exclusive ones only available for Pen Addict listeners. You can get free shipping on orders of over $75 within the United States for Pen Chalet. But they also sell internationally as well with really great shipping rates. Pen Chalet has low prices on high-quality pens, and they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. So go to PenChalet.com. That's P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. And click the podcast link at the top of the website. Use the password Pen Addict, and you will be able to get the code that you need to save 10% on anything at Pen Chalet and to feast your eyes upon this week's special deals.

Brad Dowdy: They always have sneaky pelicans in here. And it drives me crazy because I want them, despite not really using pelican pens. I love pelican pens, right? Like, it's one of my great dilemmas is I love literally everything about the pelicans, except, like, the nibs are just a little bit too wide for my usage. Even, like, the extra fine steel. Like, that's about the only nib I can use. But they have the Clear Translucent 205, which is just one of the classic demonstrators. I love this stinking pen. It's fantastic. That's on the deals page. They also have the Gold Nib 600 Tortoise Shell Red. And, like, I love this pen. I love this pen. It's so good. With just the different striated colors throughout the barrel. This was a classic one. It's at a price that's just ridiculous. And the one random thing, which I didn't even know this existed. So, Visconti did some really cool materials part of the Carousel Edition. So, there's a blue one and there's a red one. And, um, they have the red material. Like, the fountain pens are sold out. But they have the rollerball material. I didn't even know this came in a rollerball with this red material. And it's kind of fascinating, this whole thing. So, uh, Visconti's Palace of Versailles Party-inspired Opera Demo Carousel. It's really wild. You should go look at this pen. Uh, it's, it's really, really cool. I love the material. So, lots of other pens. Lots of inks. Uh, lots of storage. If you just go down this list, you're going to find something you love over at penshalet.com.

Myke Hurley: That's penshalet, P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T dot com. Our thanks to Penshalet for their support of this show and RelayFM.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Shout out of the week. I can't believe. I know. I can't believe I have not. This, like, might have should have been the first shout out. And watch out that I've done it before. But, uh, I don't think I have.

Myke Hurley: We've definitely shown them out before. Like, long time ago.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, but not, not in the new version. Not in the new era. Mountain of Ink. My goodness. Kelly is the goat ink reviewer of all the ink reviewers of the stationery PinterNet. Um, the amount of work they put into their site into doing all these reviews. The consistency of which they present everything throughout their reviews. Um, the ability to, like, sort and figure out, like, what colors work well together. You can click, like, if you're looking for a green ink, you can click on the green tag. And you get all these visual samples of all these greens. It's fantastic. It's loaded with every ink. If I, if I'm ever looking, if someone ever tells me an ink color, I just go to Kelly's site and search it there to get good ink color representation. For what, uh, I might be interested in. It was, I don't know, a month or two ago, they passed 2,100 ink reviews. Myke. 2,100 individual ink reviews. That's a lot. That's crazy. So, congrats to Kelly. Congrats for being an awesome resource. Congrats for being an awesome friend. Uh, just for being an awesome person. And yeah, keep it going. I love Mountain of Ink. It's one of the great sites, uh, in our little realm. So, thank you, Kelly, for doing this. It's, I know it's a lot of work.

Myke Hurley: Most definitely. All right, Myke.

Preview of the upcoming Chicago Pen Show and plans for a recap.

Brad Dowdy: I am, uh, I'm heading to the Chicago Pen Show at the end of this week. Jelly. Jelly.

Myke Hurley: I want to go. I love Chicago.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's good. So, I'll be going in Friday afternoon. I'll get to the Pen Show, then leaving Sunday morning. My usual, my new routine's working well. So, I haven't been there in five or six years, I'm thinking. I have to go back and look and figure out exactly. Obviously, pre-pandemic. But I think it was even a couple years. Like, you know, more like 2018-ish. 2017, 2018. Something like that. So, I'm anxious to get back and see what the show's all about. See all my friends in the area. Yeah. Um, you know, check out all the fun stuff going on at the show. So, um, I see Edison has already come up with their show special like they did in Baltimore. That they, they got their hooks in me at Baltimore. And this one's just going to be a problem for me again. Like, I don't need another Edison pen after just buying one. But they're doing a Brockton shape, which is one of their smaller pens, which you know I like. Last one I bought was the Beaumont. They're doing this in a Jonathan Brooks material called Dragon Knight. You can imagine how cool this looks. It's very different dark shades, um, of blues. And lighter and darker blues. It has a translucent mint ink window designed specifically to show only the clear section of the converter. So, it looks like it's a built-in part of the pen. Like, this is, there's only going to be 15 at the show. Just like the last, um, you know, the Palomino Waltz at Sunset that I bought at Baltimore. So, I have no idea if I'm going to get this pen. I'm going to try not to. My goal is to not buy this pen, Myke. Will Brad pass or fail? Um, place your bets now. So, it's great looking. Um, I'm also going to spend some time with Plotter. Um, hanging out there, checking out all their stuff. Hopefully, I'm going to get my initials painted on my Plotter by their staff there. Which is something I wanted since San Francisco. Um, so, one of the, like, the creative director, Plotter, had some, some really nice, like, initials painted on their cover. And I've been talking to them about that. It's like, oh, how do, how do they do that? What materials do you use? You know, like, what specific paints? And in Chicago, they're actually going to have someone there physically doing that. Um, as, you know, like, an add-on. Like, you can pay to get that added to your new cover or your existing cover. So, I'm going to bring my Nero, Plotter Nero that I bought in San Francisco. See if I can get, uh, queued up for that. That's my plan for that. And I was also thinking with my Plotter. I don't really have it, like, you know, I saw the, um, the Edison pen, right? Like, I'm not really necessarily shopping for any pens. But I was thinking about my Plotter. And I just happened to run across someone's, I can't remember if it was an Instagram post or on Mastodon, um, about the Lamy CP1. And I've always loved the Lamy CP1. And I don't own one. And I'm wondering if that would be, like, a perfect permanent Plotter pen. Um, I did not mean that to be completely illiterative like that. But it's a, like, the, my Nero, my Plotter Nero has a pretty thin, uh, pen loop on there. And the CP1's a thinner pen. And if I could have a permanent kind of pen for that spot. Like, I'm always trying to, I keep a spoke pen in there a lot. I keep a spoke roadie in there a lot. You know, they're thinner traditional pens. But the fountain pens are usually too wide for that. And I'm thinking maybe I'll get a Lamy CP1 and get, like, a needlepoint nib grind. And that will be my official Plotter pen. Um, I don't know. I'm thinking about that for my pen purchase at the Chicago Pen Show. So, um, side note related to Lamy. And this is probably, like, a whole different topic. But we've talked about this enough recently. They put up a new, um, Instagram post on the Lamy Global page. Create your own Lamy Safari. What are they trying to tell us, Myke? They want you to buy lots of Lamy Safari. That's what they're trying to tell. Hey, if you buy three, you can mix and match. Or, or they should just make an orange Lamy 2000. All right. We're not going to get into that too much. But I was like, what are you? Okay, Lamy. Like, you're, you're, you're lining us up for something here. So, um, back to Chicago. Uh, Kimberly and Sarah, both who write for the Pen Addict, are going to be there. So, we're going to try to record something in person there. Maybe a friend of the show episode, uh, for Pen Addict members. Maybe just some fun silliness I publish. Who knows what we're going to do. But I'm going to bring my microphone. Um, we'll see. So, and we're just going to hang out. Have fun. Like, I'm just going to these shows to chill out and have fun, really. Talk to people. See things. Have a good time. Relax. Um, these have been pretty relaxing for me. Um, we'll try not to buy too many pens this time. I've, I've bought a lot. At the Baltimore and Atlanta Pen Shows earlier this year, we need to slow that roll a little bit. Um, where we're not managing our, uh, our acquisitions properly right now. So, we'll see if I can continue down that stretch as I link to all the things that I want to buy at the show. So, we'll see.

Myke Hurley: Well, I'm very jealous of you.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And if anyone's there, definitely, definitely pull me aside. Say hi. Interrupt me. Like, I'm very, uh, happy to talk to anybody. Anybody want to, want to chat and say hi. I hope you're there. If you have any questions, need any help at the pen show, I am, I am all yours. That's all I'm doing all weekend. So, uh, well, it's all set Friday afternoon, Saturday, not all weekend. I won't be there Sunday. So, definitely stop by, say hi, and, uh, let me know if I can help you.

Myke Hurley: So, we can look forward to a review next week of the pen show? Yep. We'll do a recap, uh, recap episode next week. All right. Until then, if you want to find Brad online, I guess Instagram's probably pretty good for some pen show updates. Instagram's good. Instagram.com slash penaddict. Uh, Brad is also a penaddict on Mastodon. He's on Mastodon.social. It's the server that Brad is on. He's at penaddict. You can find him there. Brad is on twitch.tv slash penaddict. Usually three times a week. I'm assuming not so much, potentially, when you're traveling. Although, I guess it won't interrupt too much, will it?

Brad Dowdy: Well, let me, let me go ahead and say this now. Next week, I have Grand Jury Duty. Oh, yes. My Twitch streaming is probably going to be zero next week, but I have a status page. Uh, penaddict.status.lol. Is that the correct link? Um, hit that up. I will let you know if I'm planning on streaming next week. Normally, I would, but Grand Jury Duty is probably going to take up most of my time next week, which stinks.

Myke Hurley: You would think so. You'd think so. Uh, penaddict.com, spokedesign.com for Brad's other work. You can find me. I'm at imike, mike.social, and Mastodon, and you can find my products at cortexbrand.com. Thank you to Pen Chalet and Enigma Stationery for your support of this week's episode. But most of all, thank you for listening. Until next time, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. See you next time.