The Pen Addict 634/transcript

• From Relay, this is The Pen Addict, episode 634. Today's show is brought to you by Heinz Pens, ExpressVPN, and Factor. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad. What's up Myke Hurley, how are you? I'm feeling good, man. I would think so. How good are you feeling, Myke? I'm feeling like a million dollars. A million bucks, man. I love it. Unbelievable. So this week, in our campaign for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, we passed two pretty monumental goals. One being, we passed a million dollars raised this year, and the second being, since we started five years ago, we have now raised over four million dollars for the kids of St. Jude. So, thank you so much to everybody that has donated.
• It's hard to wrap my head around, right? It's incredible. It's incredible.

Reflections on podcasting journey and milestones

• Like, we're, like, I don't want to, like, belittle this, but like, hey, we're podcasters. Like, we like to talk about this stuff and that we can all come together over these past five years and build towards this. Like, you know, even, like, the first dollar in the first year was, like, a big deal, right? Right. And I think that's key to, like, how we've gotten here, and especially you and Steven, that first dollar on that first year is just as important as this millionth dollar this year, right? Like, it's very important to us. That's the campaign. That's the campaign. That's what it's all about. It's the mission. Yeah. Like, you know, it is kind of an unbelievable thing to me. You're not a dollar or not that you're here and you're aware of what we're doing. Like, that's pretty cool that we all get to be part of this, and we should all be proud. That's every one of us. you can still donate for a couple more days you can go to stjude.org slash relay and of course because you listen to this show you have the opportunity to nab yourself something from an incredible set of giveaway items I will put a link in the show notes to the most recent post so people can get all of the info and also see a selection of the incredible products that have been offered from the whole pen community yeah and that's we actually wrap that up on Sunday oh yes was the end date yeah yeah yeah I try to the official campaign runs usually like through the first week of October I try to wrap mine towards the end of September which makes sense prior to a podcast episode so I can kind of give the little recap for the show but the donations are still open like Myke said I actually forwarded on a link today to our good friends at Estabrook who through the gratitude pen that they donated and they gave to me and you they donated one for the campaign they're donating a portion of the proceeds to St. Jude so hopefully you'll see that you'll see that coming in today or tomorrow sometime this week before everything gets wrapped up so we're still we're still bringing it here for the pen addict but the what I was doing on the blog is wrapped up as of Sunday I just finished tallying up the spreadsheet I had over $36,000 represented by by the pen addicts here and yeah it's really really good it's amazing it's amazing stuff and again like Myke was saying thanks to everyone who participated who donated goods who donated money who shared the posts who just helped us raise awareness so the next steps for everything at pen addict that I did for St. Jude I'm in I'm in spreadsheet land right now I'll be in randomizer land you know sometime today or tomorrow and then contact all the winners for those who have not participated in the past there's no public list of winners I will contact everyone via email and I will put out a post saying I have sent all the emails to all the winners because there's there's I just did the spreadsheet so part of the spreadsheet is you know I have to tie in the winners to the product and I think there was 53 different products I'm responsible for coordinating so we'll get that done here pretty soon but yeah once once all the winners have been contacted I'll put out a final thank you post to everyone and give you all the details that I've shared here on the blog and a last thank you to everyone who participated so look for that this week and we'll get everything going and then we'll get then we'll get shipping Myke we'll get all this all this good stuff shipped because it's all sitting here I'm all staring at it you know I don't it's the deal it's what I can do for this right do the things that I can do the best for this and that's you know spread the love of pen and pencils and oh by the way let's raise some money and give away some cool stuff and I don't mind one bit shipping all the stuff so there we go good man all right you want to get into a little podcasting obviously today I feel this is a little bit OG podcasting we're not doing like you know what's on our desk stuff but I'm actually talking about what I use a bunch and some things that I'm buying some things that I'm receiving and some ideas I'm having right now I have committed October to be kind of a pencil month I'm not making that big a deal about it because I can't be exclusive Myke I can't be exclusive to pencils for an entire month which just listening to the rest of this episode people will understand why but what I can commit to is using a pencil as my primary writing instrument every day this month so can I give it a name yeah what do you think about Ticonder October does that work there you go yeah writing it down right now Ticonder October even though you're probably not going to use a Ticonderoga but if you wanted to no I will now Ticonder October yeah we'll get the official spelling because that's going to be it so or Unikuru Toctober we can go no it doesn't work so Ticonder October is maybe as good as I can get to be honest yeah really because I didn't think about this I actually said well maybe I should call this some some name and I'm just like nah it's probably just pencil month and it's it's not super hardcore because I'm not being exclusive right like we've discussed a long time ago I'm not a a pen or pencil monogamist I use so many things on a daily basis it's outrageous and just this week again we're going to go over this in a minute like I have one two three new pens that I just that we're going to talk about today so you know and sometimes I have reviews that need to be done it's not always going to be pencil so I'm not going to tell you I'm going to use a pencil all day every day for 30 days it's not exclusive it's not an exclusive but they will be my primary instrument so today for my podcast notes and really for what writing I was doing beforehand I'm using the Palomino Blackwing Pearl it's kind of one of the softer the second softest Blackwing I guess this one's called balanced I believe is kind of the generic term they use for this there is one softer than this one and then yesterday I used the Tennessee Red from Musgrave which was the dozen pencils that I jokingly not jokingly because I wanted them but I bought them in London even though they were like an American brand I bought them at President Correct on my trip I was like well I'm here and they're sitting right in front of me so yes I should buy these so I'm going to try to mix

Transition to focus on pencils and mechanical pencil episode planning

• I'm just going to focus on that focus on using pencils as my primary writing instrument and it's not just going to be wooden pencils we're going to do some mechanical pencil stuff which brings me to a topic I wanted to get on the calendar with you when do you want to do our mechanical pencil episode which I've promised and what I think I'm going to do and I just want some of your participation because I know you're more recent mechanical pencil I have like four of them to talk about yeah I think what I want to do is do my top 10 mechanical pencils sick so I would like six more so okay all right so you just tell me which ones I'll tell you which ones so should we book this for next week do you want to hold out a couple weeks like I can do this anytime but I want your participation the pencils that I
• I watch all types of graphite pencils so um a little bit related to that um I did a review and this will come up whenever we do the mechanical pencil episode I did a review the uni Kuretoga metal yeah um which is their kind of upgraded metal barrel still the Kuretoga uh on the inside and an aluminum barrel it's got so it's got a really nice grip texture !
• dive it is not the dive the dive is we have an whole episode on the dive it's um what's the word it's it's uh I don't know it's it's hard to pin down right it's a really it's not a love hate thing with the dive it's just a weird thing and can you function with this level of weirdness in the dive and some people can some people can
• have
• stores around the world here in the US I know you can get them I'm not sure about Europe and it was very popular but it's it's really expensive for what it is and it's one of those pencils that okay it's literally like no problem with this pencil whatever it's like a 9 out of 10 or 10 out of 10 like it's almost perfect except it's at a price point where I could buy when we get to you know my top 10 pencils list I could probably buy a handful of those for the same price as I could this one and yeah kind of kicks this out of
• could never go back to anything else but I don't think it is as simple as that but I am convinced that there are some people that like it is incredibly important to them I agree I agree and so like I do think it's good that uni offer a whole range of these products because it gives people who are really into that or think that they're really like that is a
• I wouldn't choose this over the original because I think the plastic original looks more fun and is better looking than metal anyway yeah and it's like six bucks so eight bucks so yeah like the mechanism like I pretty much called the mechanism like the kind of the best innovation in the stationary world over the last 10 20 years and like I would stand by that but I buy Kurotoga's
• everything else around the mechanism to make a really great mechanical pencil right that's why I buy Kurotoga's not because I need the lead rotation I'm still going to twist my pencils in my hand right like that's just the way it's going to be this was a weird one too because it has a nib damper is one of the features and people let me know in the ! review
• and down and these micro measurements that aren't really visible and people say they can feel it and I was like really it's taken them 15 years to do this no one ever complained about this before and generally mechanical pencils don't have any type of dampering mechanism here so I thought that was a little bit strange choice to lean into the marketing !
• it's the hot thing right now for all the pens I'm just thinking more that it's like what else can you offer right like if you're uni and you're making this product it's like the uh not ball twist or whatever it was called right yeah yeah where like you have to keep appearing to be innovative and we're into diminishing returns territory really with the kuratoga right where like yeah everything they add is not going to be anywhere near as significant as the advancing mechanism but they have to keep producing products that people will want to buy and so they'll keep adding new features I'm convinced they put something in there I'm convinced it makes a difference but I'm with you like is it a difference that 99% of people even knew that they needed no
• going to do right right like with pens historically tip rattle has been a thing right and that's what this nib damper is is you know saying it's it's fixing so but like with pens it's a genuine problem and like the zebra blend in the past five years like showed that hey if we focus on dampering the sound of the tip when it's writing like people like that
• and then putting it in a pencil I was like huh that doesn't really what's moving yeah so they did the best Kuru Toga innovation is they did a 2x speed rotation that seems cool like I don't know they probably just made the teeth finer or something however this it's designed to move right there's a certain spacing and gap so you can probably just change that the rotation steps are come quicker around the barrel so I don't know so and they've done some other things they've done some retractable nibs they've done all the classic pencil stuff I'm on the Japp Penn's website there are so many Kuru Togas so again that's to my point I buy the Kuru Toga because they make a good looking mechanical pencil not because I need the mechanism so luckily it's been successful for them to lean into this design but needless to say given the fact that I'm giving away this pencil now on the blog this will not make my top 10 whenever we decide to do that but there will be a minimum of one Kuru Toga on that list and possibly two but we'll see why does nobody ever tell me when there's Pokemon editions of things you know what I mean because they're fast I don't know what no but this is available I'm just not sure why people don't immediately let me know about it I will start letting you know because I usually buy them because those are the perfect giveaway item you just tell me every time there's a Pokemon something alright well I would like to tell you there is a Heinz pin on the schedule and we need to talk about !

Discussion of Heinz Pen Company and their product offerings

• Heinz the Heinz pin company they really do make incredible products whether you're looking for something that's classically elegant or something loud sparkly with a colorful resin base the Heinz pin company has something that will look right at home on your desk founded in 2017 Heinz has grown from a one person shop to an internationally recognized brand one of their unique signature features are their color electro plated nibs and matching hardware which are available in more than 20 colors and this little addition can take a stunning pen even further and make it more personal for you Heinz has recently incorporated an integrated piston filler mechanism dubbed the Kolben Fuller as an option for their pens a rare feature for small independent pen makers they also have introduced multicolored nibs on select pen models just taking it that little step
• personal preferences from their Tashin Stift Pocket pens to their giant Koenig and sizes in between you'll be able to find a comfortable pen that will fit perfectly in your hand artisans Jim Heinz and Rachel Neal craft each instrument with care in small batches using traditional methods while Francisco Lopez provides top tier customer service and sales support as well as driving product design and development you can find Jim
• these are including Orlando Dallas Detroit script us in Toronto the Chicago planners conference and the atlas station is holiday sale and of course you'll always be able to shop online at Heinz pens dot com what have you got to tell me about Heinz pens today Brad if you're in an area in the rest of the year like Detroit script I know those are upcoming ! Dallas just wrapped up if you're in the area and have the opportunity to go see Heinz pens and get to talk to them the level of passion they have for the products they make is infectious I literally walk by their table it can be multiple times in a single show and either Jim or Francisco will say hey come here and bring out something to show me hey come here check this out they're always
• in really cool really fun to work with and yeah I'm a big fan you should go and check all this out for yourself right now and give Heinz pens a look there is a special offer for listeners of this show you can take 15% off your next purchase using the code pen addict or by visiting heinz pens dot com slash pen addict that is Heinz h-i-n-z-e pens heinz pens dot com slash pen addict this is good for one use and expires on November 30th 2024 thanks to Heinz pens for their support of this show and all of relay all right Myke we have our
• Lamy Global on Instagram wow it's shocking little upstart brand so I'll let you I think is how you say it let me let me um so one I'll let you in a little uh little behind the scenes here at the pen addict household the one thing between uh myself my wife and my daughter we're always sending each other uh dog stagram stuff you know silly dogs on instagram those are what get sent on the private messages well I had to send this one to them so Lamy Global said um um you know what do your pet and your favorite pen have in common so they are comparing their pen lineup to some of these awesome dogs uh and it's it's it's a fun um it says if our pens were dogs you know what would they be everyone's not so secret favorite mike they're showing the dachshund and then they're showing the all black Lamy safari right so they're doing all these little comparisons it's just really fun really cute I keep watching it over over um seeing how wrong they are about most of these comparisons but uh yeah it's it's fun stuff so uh hire me Lamy I approve of this post it's kickstart a season oh my

Kickstarter projects and intentionality of product launches

• no it comes in these waves so we're in a we're in a wave right now intentional I don't think so and we're going to talk about this specifically I actually have a specific point about what you're what you're actually asking me the intentionality of the schedule release um so last week we talked about the a pin that's launched on kickstarter I've backed it I'm actually getting a little bit more excited about that pin I was like it's probably going to be pretty cool we'll see how much I really use it I wasn't down on it like I really want it but I'm like am I going to really use it and I just kept looking at the the video and all that stuff I was like it's pretty cool it's pretty cool so two pins I want to talk about today and we definitely have some disclosures on both first up is the journeyman by wingback they are sponsoring the pin addict blog this week so you'll see an ad for them this week on the site they've also sent me a preview version of the pin so I have the stainless steel model with me but with that out of the way I've been a wingback supporter since day one when they lost their first small pocket black aluminum pocket pen I've been supporting them they make a really high quality pen these are standard pens they use the first one came out with the Fisher space pen refill later on after the aluminum version they've made other versions so I backed the stainless steel one I have a little pen addict etching on there so yeah I'm a fan of the wingback they have a mechanical pencil model that came out a couple years ago I also have that one in stainless steel and now I have the journeyman in stainless steel so what's the difference between this one and the other ones they initially made the first wingback to only use the Fisher space pen refill a lot of people think the Fisher space pen refill is a standard Parker style refill or international G2 refill on its own it's not that's why if you buy a Fisher space pen refill in the little blister pack it comes with an extension to make it truly Parker sized so if you build only for the Fisher space pen refill without the added extension on the barrel that's the only refill that will fit in there so they made a pen that will fit this international G2 what we often call Parker style refill which is smart so this pen is a little bit longer than the original one I love stainless steel as a barrel material and they added a clip on this one this is the only part that I don't like on this pen the clip has an air gap on purpose right it's a full metal integrated machined clip it looks freaking amazing and it's going to clip over your pants pocket or a backpack pocket the lips can be wider than normal or have extra binding on there this clip will go over but you can look on the Kickstarter pages if you clip this to your shirt it's going to slide because the base of the clip does not grab to the barrel so like that's my only thing I don't like ! I was like there's a gap between the where the actual end of the clip the clippy part of the clip and the pen they don't touch correct on this design it's on purpose why would you do that because of the way they integrated the machining of this so it's a separate piece from the knurled piece because one of the cool things about this is you can interchange materials on the parts and I've backed this so I can have basically like a calico build on the pin so I can choose a barrel material a twist mechanism material and a clip material so they machine this clip without an angle down on the clip I'm assuming for aesthetics and for functionality and actually attaching it to the knurling so it's not going to bother me because I'm not going to carry this in a shirt pocket but it's going to clip to a pants pocket or a backpack something like more EDCE which this I would imagine gets a lot of hype for it's made in England so this is a British company these products are made in England just like a Johto wing back and hand and a Johto are all British companies I'm looking at this pen this is what I was going to ask you why is this speaking to me I'm not sure specifically there is nothing about this pen that's a mic pen you know what I mean I'm looking at it and I'm like I really like the way it looks I think it's the stand right and everything that's going on I think I'm going to back one of these I mean yeah I mean this is a 10 year process right they have been around and been doing this for a while and they're like refining the process now this is not an inexpensive pen by any imagination but like the Johto's that I love like I don't even I don't even question
• but like this one I'm going to end up getting like a mix and match barrel where I can they sent me the full stainless to go with my other stainless wingback pens and pencils that I already have but when my backing one I back to do I'm looking at a page here and I'm like oh that one looks right it says backers and your little icons right there I'm
• and it'll take the and I prefer even though I like the smaller original wingback I prefer having the ability to use different parker style cartridges I don't mind the Fisher space pen cartridge whatsoever I use it a lot I like to have the choice and with this one I've got the choice to build it up a little bit as well so yeah I don't know if I'll get to a proper review like on the blog for this but I have one I'm going to post it on Instagram like they don't ask me to talk about it when I do a sponsor they just sponsor the blog but if they send me stuff like I generally talk about it and tell the pros and cons I don't know that I'm going to do a proper review of it but it's fun it's fun to check out but that's not all Myke there was another Kickstarter literally launched on the same day so we have the jester and the muse by good made better my good friend Dan has always made you know the pinwells Myke that's how he got his start that's how you'll know good made better if people are listening to this and go why does that name sound familiar so he makes the pinwells and then he made the right well portable desk and then like all kinds of different types of pinwells he's always iterated on that where you have a portable one we got the big brass weighted ones for our relay campaign one year so always been a great supporter of the pin addict and I've always been a great supporter ! Dan so he came out with these prototypes I think at the DC pin show he was there and he was yelling at me for not being there so he could show it to me but he sent me a bunch of pictures and a bunch of people were able to pick some up some of the original models and they really liked them people kept sending him to me and he sent me pictures !
• Dan asked me for Kickstarter advice in the beginning before he was making this campaign even though he wanted to pick my brain because he knows I've done a bunch and I said the only thing you don't want to do is start a campaign where people think they're going to get their product in time for the holidays so I don't care what you do when you do it but make sure you don't release it with a November or December shipping time frame so most of the products that are coming out now on Kickstarter are 2025 deliveries a Johto wingback all of these are even though it seems like it's kind of alluding to hey I'm going to order this now these projects don't close until November there's no way you're getting your products before the end of the year and

Review of an ebonite pen and its features

• it was funny so this pen is so good Myke he sent me one it's ebonite number one that's all you need to tell me I'm an ebonite pen fan it's lightweight it's durable it's strong the colors of this are what really stand out to me but only when you get into the finish of this of this pen so there's a smooth finish of the ebonite there's a brushed straight line finish of the ebonite and there's this wood grain that Dan has put on these pens this is hand finished all these pen barrels are hand finished so I have the wood grain jester and I have sunrise so I have a pink cap orange barrel and given that I'm a Kaweco pocket pen fan this is completely up my alley it feels great it looks great it posts the jester which is the short one the short one and then the color one there's a sunrise and sunset which are the pink orange and orange pink versions just reversing so I'm gonna he sent me the sunrise and I have I've backed it and I'm gonna order the sunset so I get the exact opposite so I have a pink barrel pink
• and yeah I just love the I love how this pin is made I love how it's put together I love the design I love the feel I am a small pin fan I like these pocket style pins again right back to the wing back right before it all the other smaller pocketable pins that I like why do I like Kaweco so much well they hit a certain feel that I like and pins and they're really good quality and support a really good company like good made better and shout out to Dan for his video his flow is looking sharp man he's got some lettuce and it's looking great looking great Dan so shout out to you so anyway I got one of these I have one you have one you're not the only cool guy ! town I have one too what did you get so I have the jester the small guy in Orion blue oh nice and I have all brass furniture so I have a brass grip and a brass finio I guess on the body of the pen which is also how you screw the cap on right it's the brass on the end of the pen is threaded this pen uncapped is unusable it's too small right yes it is absolutely too small to be used unposted which is the design but like it's worth noting I have the kind of tree bark texture that you have same and just in general I don't know if I've owned a pen body made from ebonite what a peculiar material like Dan in his video says people think it's wood and it definitely has more of a wooden feel it's a very peculiar material to use and I think it's really interesting actually like the brass and ebonite being used in this way it almost feels like you would more likely see them used in the opposite you know like an ebonite grip and brass body right yeah you want the ebonite to put in the work right like it's a durable material right I this is a pen you know I don't post pens right it's not what I do even small pens that I've owned I tend to use unposted this this one you can't and you know it's balanced well but this is never balanced in the way that I want what I would love to see for this pen and maybe this is a version two put a bit of brass in the cap yeah what yours is yours is interesting and it has a different feel because I don't have any brass parts on mine so yours is weighted very differently than mine so I've got quite a lot weight at the front where I'd want it and there's a little weight at the end of the body of the pen right but I feel like if you put a little bit of weight at the cap I don't know how that would feel but I'd be intrigued to know if it adds a little bit of top bottom balance to the pen because at the moment the balance is coming from the grip in the middle which is interesting it works well enough for me but I think I would like a little bit different also I was surprised not surprised but it is interesting takes short cartridges only I I think we've been through this before you can get short converters but they are almost pointless I don't see yeah I just don't recommend them I would rather syringe fill a short international cartridge that I've used up and refill it that way you're going to get more ink it's less it's honestly even doing all that is less hassle something I really love about the design of this pen the cap has a
• I like the rings that go around the body of the pen it helps the cap go on and off it just looks good I like it a lot I love the textures the brass has a kind of it has a brushed texture but going horizontally which I like because that's texturally different to the body of the pen but the thing that really sells me on this is the colors I just a back to your points on ebonite just for clarification number one these colors aren't normally seen right number two you get say we get an orange ebonite like in this pen that I have or blue ebonite in this pen that we have we're used to seeing that blue in acrylics or orange in acrylic so we have a different visual of what we're seeing in this type of material ebonite is also very light it doesn't have a ton of density to it but it's very strong right and like Dan mentioned in the video people normally are used to seeing ebonite being polished and then like so like a Nakaya is an ebonite base with a rushi lacquer over it that's why the pen feels so airy so these this material is literally like the base for a lot of arushi lacquered pens you know these types of ebonite materials so you get this real lightweight to it so it's really cool so yeah huge surprise that you got one too that was awesome y'all tricked me I didn't this was not a bit I did not know Myke had one and I put it in the show notes I don't know if Myke was going to put it in there or not but I definitely wanted to talk about it because this is like could not be more right up my alley like this is funded already so yeah funded already same with the wingback previously that one's funded the Jodo's funded you know some people like to wait and see you know how that's going and I certainly don't blame people for that you know most of these campaigns run like 30 days so you can kind of see you know get your questions ask questions in the comment sections email the creators of any kickstarters you have questions about see what other people are saying what other questions they might have like I'm surprised I haven't looked yet but I'm sure people be yelling ! Dan it's like where's the clip I need a clip I can't back this if it doesn't have a clip yesterday there were no comments so the clip comments are incoming how do people react when there's a clip but the clip doesn't clip I don't know I didn't look at those comments either but that is a thing so there we go it is Kickstarter season and I don't know why it is in October or late September Myke because you know you mostly want to do Kickstarter like February or May or at the latest like September beginning of September is kind of when I always advise but yeah because people are going to ask people are going to be in your inbox hey any chance I can get this for the holidays for my partner for Christmas can just print off a piece of paper and give it to him instead it doesn't matter that your delivery says May 2025 the mail's coming just like the clip where's the clip Myke there is no there is there's no comments about clip yet so Dan has currently stayed away this this pen does not look like it would be good with a clip it's no wrong aesthetic I I think adding the roll stop will I'm sure help with that yeah yeah I mean it's a it's a little bit but yeah yeah all right this episode is brought to you by friends at Express VPN using the internet without Express VPN it's a little bit like being on a Zoom call and forgetting to mute yourself and then every person on every team in your entire company hears you listening to the pen addict like while that would be awesome for us it might be not great for you look all of your traffic flows through servers of internet service providers and your mobile network that is possible for them to know every website that you visit like because your traffic flows through their servers your ISPs the mobile networks they have the ability to know that information Express VPN reroutes 100% of your traffic through secure encrypted servers so your ISP can't see your browsing history there are loads of reasons to choose Express VPN it hides your IP address which makes it incredibly difficult for third parties to track your activity it's easy to use you just fire up the app click one button and you're protected it works on all your devices phones laptops tablets and more so you can stay private on the go and it's been rated by sites like CNET and The Verge as number one I rate it number one too I use Express VPN I use it all the time when I'm traveling when I'm on networks that I'm not sure about I also use it as a way to say that I'm in a different country so I'm able to catch up on my favorite shows protect your online privacy today by going to expressvpn.com slash penaddict that is expressvpn.com slash penaddict and you'll get an extra three months of Express VPN for free that is at expressvpn.com slash penaddict a thanks to Express VPN for the support of this show and relay alright that's not the only pens I got in this week Myke and this now you're seeing why I can't only use pencils for you know as my one and only writing instrument because things just the hits just keep on coming Myke and I'm glad to be able to work with a lot of these vendors to get sneak previews of everything that they make and I also got in a non-Kickstarter product but from River City Penco they are making a thinner narrower pen which is right up my alley again given my taste this model is called the Fine View and Rich we have a Meet Your Maker post on Rich if you want to learn more about River City Penco make some really cool pens if you listen to my San Francisco pen show recap you will hear me talking about an Oper X pen that I bought from him and also a nib holder that I bought from him well he wanted to send me over a new product to try and that's the Fine View model so it has a narrower barrel which is my preference in writing instruments I think it's all the way it's it's not too narrow it's just pretty standard size for me I guess it's just that Rich's most of his pens are a little bit wider like my Oper X model is a little bit wider like around like 14 millimeters and this one's like closer to like 11 millimeters in the narrowest diameter of the barrel so it's really cool it's really beautiful so this one I have not taken a picture of yet but I will because it's stunning so it's in a material called rainbow shuffle from turn pin co as you can imagine it's like the primary colors of the rainbow and a swirl but the way he cut this material the barrel is most of the red shades and the cap is most of the blues and green shades and it just all works together super super well I inked it up with roaring cling near blue mare !
• coming up here in the next month and what Rich wanted to do was wanted me to test it try it out I told him I would review it and then we're going to auction it off at the end of my review we'll figure out how to do that and we're going to donate 100% of the proceeds to the Trevor project so we have this pin and I also have a nib holder which I know you've heard me talk about Myke I bought my first nib holder from Rich for these Kakamori dip nibs so I have that as well and again I'll check out my Instagram later this week I'll post some pictures I just opened these yesterday so I haven't had time to do it this is in the Kraken material from the pin smiths the rainbow shuffles from turn pin co this is why I like all these makers Myke this is like talking to Jim and Francisco at Heinz Pens get to talk about they know like all these different makers all these different materials and put together some really cool stuff so if you're looking for a Kakamori dip nib holder um Rich makes my favorites I have two of them now he just sent me this third one which I'm going to review and give away well I'm going to review and we're going to auction off as well donating all the funds to the Trevor Project this was Rich's idea and of course I'm dialed in to that uh it was an easy yes for me so uh stay tuned but I again this goes into like all these all the makers like I was talking about Heinz them just trying to there's a lot of makers on the market and trying to do things in their own way to make them stand out a little bit I know Rich has done really well with these nib holders right so this is really really cool to see each different small company kind of innovates in their own way and I love to see it and I love sharing their stories out there so thank you Rich very cool you want to hit some RSTPA today yeah let's do it all right so first question today comes from Austin who says what are your favorite ergonomic pens I've gone back and forth between buying the pilot doctor grip gel or the uni jet stream alpha gel pen my specific use case is that I'm a clinical psychologist doing a type of trauma treatment that requires patients to write for 30 continuous minutes as a writing exposure intervention for a traumatic event obviously hand cramping is the last thing I want a patient to be focusing on in those moments so number one awesome this is great work like this is like this is awesome I'm I'm glad you're doing this this can't be the easy stuff new and yeah and ergonomic pens that definition is is it's pretty tough to define right because I don't know that the doctor grip gel or the jet stream alpha which I'm going to specifically talk about or I would classify as ergonomic although I think one of them is the right answer for what you need ergonomics generally or what I think of ergonomic pens are not just cushiony pens but generally uh they morph your grip into a more comfortable shape and put less stress on your handwriting now both of these pens do that but just from the grip I will say I very much dislike the pilot doctor grip because it's almost like a false pretense of a soft grip those grips are actually firm they just have the appearance of being soft they're actually a very firm grip the good thing about the doctor grip and what you really want for your ergonomic pens is you want a wide barrel the doctor grip has that so the less tension the wider the barrel generally speaking for most traditional grips there's always exceptions the wider the barrel the less stress you're going to have on your hand when you're writing which that just makes logical sense if you have a narrow barrel take like the pintel sleechy or even some of these mechanical pencils that I love are very narrow sometimes some users will really really just kind of clamp down trying to like you know overwhelm the pen that they're writing with for being so small they're trying to make up for like the lack of grip area and it puts more stress on their hand while they're writing these wider pens like the doctor grip and the jet stream alpha kind of remove some of that just simply by giving you a wider barrel to grip onto I really like all of uni's alpha series so alpha generally denotes the big squishy grip it looks just like the doctor grip but it actually has comfort the doctor gel grip doctor grip gel is not comfortable to me whatsoever the alpha gel is like writing with a cushion and that's the one I would focus on I don't know that there's any better option for that unless you're getting into almost like manipulating like other pens like you want a pen that's smooth right so these gel pens are good rollerball pens would be good you know you could get like a uni ball vision and then have like those added grips people will put like almost like the the spongy type grips over the top of that which makes it even wider and softer and that's really for like hand cramping or arthritic grips or people that can't make a real firm grip um you can have that addition additional soft grip on there but I would stick with the alpha gel any of those models um or I would look at getting like a uni ball vision elite and then adding a grip over the top of that um but anything to widen the grip as opposed to like clamping it down tight is going to help um with fatigue would you recommend any of those kind of like grips that you would add to a pen yeah I mean like like I was saying like the squish the squishy ones you just want to just want you don't want to do the triangular ones right you just want to do so because we're not trying to correct people's grip form okay so you want to stick with the cylindrical spongy ones that way they can grip it however they want they can grip it like like me or they can grip it like taylor swift and it's all going to be fine if you get into those triangular grips you're for you're now trying to force a grip on someone which is not what you want to do because that might not be comfortable for them if they if they have to write for 30 minutes with something that's that's not compatible with their grip so just go for a round grip all right that's cool yeah I would like to know if this is helpful if Austin wants yeah tries this yeah and it works then yeah and if there's more details like you know the other ergonomic pens like I've tried the euro pen before which is designed to relieve pressure by base it basically puts the barrel in a different position in your hand and I've reviewed it on the blog and it technically works but what happens is is it so weird that people just kind of get flummoxed by the whole thing like once you put it hand in your hand it works but it's just it's just not going to be a good choice that's what I think of when I think of an ergonomic pen not a pen with a squishy grip so this episode is brought to you by Factor sweater weather pairs perfectly with savory fall food if you're busy schedule sometimes it's hard to eat the way you'd want to that's why Factor comes in that's where it comes in their chefs do the shopping and the chopping oh I love that the shopping and the chopping to bring you fresh never frozen fully cooked meals right to your doorstep all you have to do is heat and eat I love this man whoever's writing this Factor copy is fantastic shopping and the chopping and the heating and the eating all of their meals are dietitian approved so you know you're getting the nutrition you need along with the full flavors you crave Factor offers 35 wholesome meals every week including gourmet plus keto calorie smart vegan and veggie and with over 60 add-ons from easy breakfasts and smoothies to delectable midnight snacks you can stay fueled and focused all day you work hard so treat your body right with Factor they're fresh never frozen chef crafted meals make it easy to get the nutrition you need of a restaurant-like experience that you deserve there's no prep and no mess just delicious meals that feature premium ingredients like filet mignon shrimp and blackened salmon delivered right to your door they're ready for you to eat in just two minutes and you'll savor every last bite Brad you said to me before the show today you're like oh I can't wait to talk about Factor yeah so I I've had some Factors come in in the last few weeks and been eating using love them like I've I've raved about like the different types of meals that I got so I wanted to try a couple different this time so I got some more seafood ones I've gotten um salmon and shrimp ones both were fantastic and you know I always rave about like the chicken ones and the pork chop ones well I ordered um I ordered an Indian butter chicken one and as I've mentioned before when talking about Factor my son likes them right he's 16 year old boy he's on his own schedule he likes just something that's that's good to eat and quick and easy and he can get back to doing whatever he's doing he had that Indian butter chicken he actually yelled at me last night it's like why haven't you ordered more of those like literally just out of the blue last night on your next order I want those and that one's mine like he's putting a claim on on that one he's like I've never eaten one so fast I've never had one so good he's like I just want that one I was like can we order can we order six of those I'm like no I don't think I can order six of those but uh it was it was good so there it's just really good food it's really easy and that's why I enjoy uh getting Factor also I would like to order some of the sweater weather that they're uh that they're selling yeah they can put that into the kit I would appreciate that yeah well you can wear a sweater but also something over the top of that there you go keep you dry uh head to factor meals.com slash penaddict 50 and use the code penaddict 50 to get 50 of your first month and 20 of your next month whether you're managing calories maximizing your protein intake or simply trying to eat more balanced factors dietitian approved meals will help you meet your goals this fall you've got a lot going on outside of the kitchen keep your plans and turn to factor that is code penaddict 50 at factor meals.com slash penaddict 50 to get 50% of your first month plus 20% off the next that is f-a-c-t-o-r factor meals.com slash penaddict five zero to get 50% of your first month plus 20% off your next our thanks to Factor for the support of this show and relay our next ask tpa question comes from chris who asks can the two of you use the vast powers of the pen kingdom that you've acquired over the years to lean on pilot and get a better pen body for the high-tech c kalito multi-pen for the friction and the acro ball you get some pretty awesome multi-pen bodies including metal bodies and even real wooden grips for the kalito cheap plastic unless you know of a great kalito multi-body multi-pen body that's out there that i've missed all right so number one hire me lami number two make a better uh high-tech c kalito multi-pen barrel it's not the same company and myself it's not the same company but you know this these two things can coexist i i'm on board chris and the answer is there isn't one and i i'm gonna make an assumption here as to why it's because of how they design the refills for the kalito to integrate the knock mechanism into those refills which they don't with the friction and the acro ball they make a different refill that basically slides in inside the barrel up into the click mechanisms and snap in that way the kalito barrel essentially comes over the top you load them from the top and then the refills are part of the click mechanism so why they've never made a more unique looking barrel they'll do a bunch of different colors a bunch of different plastics from translucent plastics they've tried to sell like a higher end fancier plastic one which just feels like the basic three dollar barrel it's one of the if not the best multi-pen on the market especially for gel ink pens with all the different colors all the different options but i will admit that the barrels are lacking um my preferred kalito barrel is literally the cheapest one you can get um it's it seems to be the most sturdy it has the little rubber grip on it um they're translucent but even as you upgrade through those barrels think you're going to get something better they actually feel worse to me so i actually prefer the least expensive kalito barrels and i i don't know so maybe they just can't fit
• i don't know they would they would have to reverse engineer a couple of these things i think to get the kalitos fitted and then if they redid the kalito refills then they're not going to fit what the kalito traditionally is so i think they have designed a refill problem that requires two uh two different product lineups and that that's just some kind of assumptions on my part but that's kind of what i see from that from that product lineup and why it doesn't fit in with the rest of the really really cool stuff i wonder too if maybe just the the market for the pen is different that was coming that was literally about to come out of my mouth and and maybe just like the color of bright plastics fits the kalito pens more which tend to be brighter colors um and maybe this it fits the product a little bit better i don't know yeah so the way that it's marketed in japan is you go into a store and you pick all of your parts for the kalito right with the jet stream or the friction you're buying the completed pen right so um yeah the the kalito is is a different market so um um but i mean they've they've made some barrels where they want to charge you some real money for like you know 10 15 barrels and they they just don't add up to compare it to some of like the the wooden barrel jet streams even if those are 25 or 30 dollars like they're worth that price differential you just don't get that those the variety of kalito refills this question comes from pam who says i purchased a monteverde in over m formula one with a fine nib and a monteverde cartridges that go along with it the fine nib writes like a medium or maybe a broad and the ink flow out of the nib uh after 20 to 25 words so much that it pools so like as the as pam is writing the more that they write the more ink that comes out uh even those 20 to 25 words when it writes okay bleed through my best papers do you know why this is is it the ink at fault or is there a nib problem or what's going on a lot probably um the monteverde generally their nibs are hit or miss right and that's just usually in like um like a tip finishing like scratchiness width things like that but if this flow is is going that crazy with your ink i would think it's almost like a setup issue like somewhere with the feed and the housing and the connection of all of those things so if i have a pen that is gushing ink i am stopping and i'm taking it apart as much as i can with the monteverdes you should be able to remove so do this over the sink this is like you're cleaning a pen right you have to take the nib the whole nib unit out then you have to take the nib unit apart and you need to reseat that stuff to make sure that the feed is in there properly and the nib is in there properly and everything's tight and you can find videos online on how to do this it's it's it's not scary do not be intimidated by removing a nib from most pens there's some nibs some you should be this one you should not be that's what i would see um it should not be the ink but it could be the nib and how it's set up so i would try that first if that doesn't work and you're still seeing a problem um try a different ink and if it still persists then i might talk to who you bought it from and see if there's something like visually like constructed wrong because you should have proper metering of the ink flow as long as everything is tightened in there correctly um and this may not miss may be a case where something's a little bit loose or not set properly

Advice on choosing between ballpoint pens for everyday carry

• majed asks my main edc is a fountain pen but i'd also like to carry a ballpoint that i would basically use for signing things i've come down to two options the caran dache 849 or the fisher space pen ag7 what do you think of these choices i'm also happy to consider other suggestions within a similar budget let me check the ag7 model i watched you i watched you highlighting that as well as i was talking it's like is that the click one with the clip here let me just pull that up okay so
• where is it maybe it doesn't just on the let's see so i i'm thinking it's not the it's not one of the standard ones ag7 huh oh here it is i clicked the wrong link let's try this link ag7 so i'm i'm thinking this is the um this is the one with the the knock and the clip um i'm i'm doing all this to to make sure when i tell you the caran dache 849 that i'm not that i'm not missing something the only reason i would choose the fisher space pen in this case is literally if you need the uh the pressurized refill um other than that i'd choose the 849 so just from a styling perspective like you're you're asking the wrong person right i am the biggest caran dache 849 fan in the world i also love fisher space pen refills i don't love the ag7 barrel for fisher space pen refill delivery yeah i would actually recommend not getting either of these and going for something like a regular fisher space pen like if it's going to be in your edc and you're going to use it for just one thing have it be as minimal as possible yeah if you told me you were going to get the choice was the 849 or the fisher bullet space pen we'd have a conversation yeah because i think that pen is amazing and i use that that's the pen i took to london with me like it's that's how much i that's how highly i think of that i just don't like the the larger click and clip mechanisms for me that kind of undoes the whole point of the fisher space pen in my mind yeah so he is open to other options or they are open to other options um i would say look at this fisher bullet space pen for a real small um compatibility um caran dache 849 is obviously excellent and in this case um yeah i mean i think those are two really good choices um i would skip the ag7 and look at the the other fisher space models this is the very small and compact but uh bullet ones if you'd like to send us in a question for a future episode of the show just go to penaddictfeedback.com and you can send them in there we'd appreciate you can also send in some follow-up if you have any other things you want to hear us talk about based on what we spoke about today if you want to find brad online go to penaddict.com he is at penaddict you can find him on twitch.tv slash penaddict and at spoke design.com did i get that right spoke design.com i don't know why that's just you got it my brain for a second that happens when you just say it like as as a habit you think all of a sudden i also didn't do that in the right order as normal i think that was what threw me off i mixed it up and i didn't like it uh i am at i mike i m y k e you can find me at cortexbrown.com and of course here on relay and don't forget to check out our saint jude fundraiser at stjude.org slash relay if you have any donations you still want to give you have until the end of the week to give them thank you so much to everyone for your support this month thanks to factor express vpn and heinz pens for the support of this show we'll be back next week until then say goodbye brad goodbye brad