The Pen Addict 637/transcript

• From Relay, this is The Pen Addict, episode 637. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet and Retro 51. Welcome back to Ticonder October. My name is Myke Hurley. I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad. Can you believe we've been doing this for like 12 years? I think we should do Pencil Month every October.
• Maybe. I'm not opposed to that. I'm enjoying Pencil Month a lot. Well, you brought up... I was trying to buy some of those mechanical pencils. There's like limited ones and Japanese ones from Japans. And Japans is like, nah, man, we don't ship to you. So I'm like, hmm, okay. Really? So I'm going to have to try and procure some of these via other means. Interesting. You can procure them through me. Send me a list. And I already have something coming for you from Australia. They're like, hey, I want to send you something. And what's my address? I'll send him something. I was just like, just send it to me. Like I get enough stuff. We'll just, I just collect and ship to Myke, you know, quarterly, you know, semi-annually. And we get a Myke box out there. So yeah. So if you need something else, you just send it over and we'll get that taken care of, Myke. All right. I'll let you know. We have some follow-up. Quite a lot of follow-up, actually. Love follow-up. Thank you all for sending all these follow-up in and some good stuff. Jordan wrote in and said, concerning multi-pens and red-green colorblindness, for my flavor of red-green colorblindness, because this is me adding this in, it is a bit of a spectrum, all the colorblind stuff. But Jordan says, for my flavor, the Uni Style Fit colors work much better than the High Tech C-Colito colors. I prefer the Jetstream bodies. So I cut about three millimeters off the back of the Style Fit refill and it fits right into a Jetstream. Okay. So yeah, I love the Style Fit. It's like the 1B for me to the Pilot Colito's 1A. The reasons I don't like the Style Fit is I prefer the Colito barrel and I prefer the needle tip of the Colito, which is why that one's always the first that I think of. Now, Jordan, having the proper experience with red-green colorblindness, says the colors of the gel ink that Uni uses are better in relation. So I would definitely take Jordan's advice in this. And to solve the, clearly, like I'm not the only one that doesn't care for the Style Fit bodies as Jordan's taking the Jetstream bodies and using the Style Fit refills, you can do a little modification. So I love the Jetstream multi-pin bodies.
• And the refills are not hot swappable. But as Jordan notes, if you just trim the Style Fit refills, which now I'm curious to try this for myself. I don't have any spare Style Fit refills, but I have a lot of Jetpins barrels. Excuse me, Jetstream barrels. And now I'm going to write myself a note to get some Uni Style Fit refills to try this out for myself. Because that's kind of what holds me up from the Style Fit overall. They're fine. They're fine. But they're just, again, it's 1A, 1B. There's nothing bad about the Style Fit. It's obviously a really good multi-pin option. Really kind of the only two options, if you want to build your own, are the Colito lineup and the Style Fit lineup, which came after the Colito, after seeing the success of the Colito.
• After that, I think most of the other companies, like the Pentel Sleachys, did not do very well. They weren't that good. And Zebra doesn't really have a super modular system like the Colitos and Style Fits. They just have your basic standards. You just have to buy them prepackaged. You can't really build your own. So yeah, good shout on that. And I'm thinking about it, and I would have to test it. And maybe this is more testing we can do on this. The Style Fit red and green might be a little bit brighter than the reds and greens. Because Uni's gel reds and greens might be brighter than Pilot's reds and greens. I don't know. I'll have to think about that. So good stuff from Jordan. I appreciate the feedback from someone in the actual know.

Early experiences with mechanical pencils

• Greg wrote in and said, I haven't thought much about mechanical pencils in a while, but your last two episodes reminded me that some of the earliest evidence of my pen addict tendencies were from a mechanical pencil. Specifically, the Pentel Quicker Clicker that I discovered in junior high. This eBay listing shows the two that I had, smoke gray and blue. So this is amazing. And I'll have a different follow-up that I didn't put in the show notes related to this after this. But I was all about this pencil, the gray and the blue one in high school. So this was like mid-80s. This was the go-to pencil for me for like the upgraded pencil. Back in that time, this was probably like, I'm just guessing, probably like a $2 or $3 pencil like in the 80s, which would have been like the premium choice, right? Instead of like just a wooden pencil or some other mechanical pencil. This was like the fancy pencil. Like this was one of my favorites. I use the blue and the gray one pretty consistently. They have the click at the thumb area, right? So you just advance the lead right there.
• You know, like while you're writing, you just kind of click it forward without having to go up to the end of the pencil and click a knock or something like that.
• They've made varieties of this over the years. I think it's, I didn't look at this beforehand. I think there might be a modern-ish version of it. But Greg is and I are definitely of the same. So is it like a button or like a precious? It's a button. It's a button. Okay. Yep. That's a good, that's actually quite a smart design. Yeah. So like the little mechanism is like that would be, if you take a modern like Kuretoga, if you look at the internals, that's around where like the mechanism runs, like a little bit above where you hold the grip in the center of the barrel. So this is just taking that click mechanism around that area and that's where the advancement is right kind of towards the base of the, so there's like a little, like a refill, if you will, that holds the graphite and that kind of goes into, attaches on the inside to the click mechanism and it's right around that area. So it doesn't really get in the way of your grip and then you just kind of lift your thumb up, you know, drop it back a little bit and hit the click to advance. It's really good. Um, so yeah, I love that one. This reminded me of my, like one of my very, very earliest memories, um, of being a pen addict was with the Paper Mate Non-Stop. Mm-hmm. I don't know that one. It's a mechanical pencil. They come in relatively bright colors. They're all plastic. And to advance the lead, you twist the cone?
• Yeah. The nose cone. The nose cone. Yeah. That's how you advance the, the lead on those. Yep. That got super, super popular. Yeah. Like in the nineties and, you know, probably when you were using nineties, early two thousands, something like that. So Greg, you know, I'm the same way. Like my stationary addiction really started with mechanical pencils because at the time, like in the late seventies and eighties, there were no pens that wrote as fine as even like a 0.5 millimeter mechanical pencil. That's why I love the Pentel Sharp so much. Right. Because that, that was kind of like my first memory was using a Pentel Sharp and just being blown away by what that pencil was and what it offered and how it worked for my handwriting. And my, my other comment that I remembered, I got an email when we were doing the, the list we did a couple of weeks ago. Um, you know, I did the superlatives for all, all of the pencils and the Pentel Sharp, my superlative was something like, uh, you know, you might be old if this is your favorite pencil. And like, I got an email. It's like, you know what? It's like someone emailed me. It's like, you know what? I didn't realize it, but you're exactly right. Like the Pentel Sharp is my favorite and I'm in my fifties. It's like, it's just of this, of a certain era while continuing to be an absolute perfect pencil in the modern era too. Like a lot of people grew up with it as their first like important pencil, like the first important stationary item that you didn't want to lose for a lot of people was something like a Pentel Sharp, right? Like back in the day, like that was like, that was like gold, right? You just, you just held on to that. I guess as well, when you're young, right? You're, you're not using pens, right? You're using, you're using some form of pencil. And like when I was a kid, it was either, you know, a, there were these like yellow and black wood case pencils. I don't know who made them. I'm Googling now. Statler. Right now, Stabler. Okay. Yeah. Statler. You were going to say a combo of Statler and Stabolo there, I think. Yeah. Stabler. I'm thinking of the, the Norris, the, is the model, I think, but the black and does it have the red, I'm thinking of the one with the red on the end. You're bang on Norris. Yeah. Look at you, man. You're just a wealth. That's a famous, that's a famous pencil. It's really good. Just a wealth of information. Is that right? Yeah. But yeah, we used to use that a lot, but you would, you know, you would maybe advance to a mechanical pencil if you cared, right? Yes. Because we would, we would do handwriting classes and stuff like that, like, you know, to do cursive. And that's when we'd get to use the pens, but you wouldn't get to use the pens otherwise, because that's how you make a mess, you know? Right. Yeah. Yeah. And the teachers would hate that, right? Like, you're just causing problems with ink in a classroom. I used to, do you remember my old, my Yikes fountain pen that I've spoken about on the show before? Absolutely. I was allowed to use that at home if I put newspaper down on the carpet first.
• Like, almost like, like preparing for a cat or something. You know, like you've got a kitten, I have to put newspaper down, then I could put my paper on top and write with it. That's amazing. I mean, look, it did, it did severely leak and or explode on more than one occasion, which was definitely due to me doing something I shouldn't have been. So it made sense.
• Yeah, no doubt. No doubt.

Correction on pencil sharpener material

• Guillermo writes in and says, as one of the handheld, as one of the handheld pencil sharpener nerds, I must demand you correct yourself, Brad, because the Kuhn masterpiece is made of magnesium, not aluminium. I find it truly preposterous that you would think so little of my favorite sharpener. I am joking, of course, but it's a good correction. I think it literally says magnesium on the sharpener. I don't have it right in front of me. I think when you pick it up, like one side says masterpiece. I think the other side might say that. It's just a brand name. They call it the masterpiece magnesium, but it's made of aluminium. You know, it's a nice, lightweight, shiny silver material. That just means it's aluminium, so there's no way I was going to ever call it magnesium, and I still won't. Magnesium is an interesting choice over aluminium.
• Is it? Can you elaborate on that? Because I don't think you can, and I'm going to call you out on it. I think magnesium is softer than aluminium and lighter, I think. So that's an interesting choice to use. So according to Google's AI overview, magnesium is the lightest structural metal. It has a lower melting point, so don't drop your sharpener into 650 degrees Celsius. You'll be in trouble. Magnesium has a better strength to weight ratio than aluminium and steel, but it's much more expensive to manufacture. So that was kind of, so many things are what I knew, but I wanted to make sure about it, what I felt I knew. That was literally about, I was about to say that, because man, you're making this sound really sexy for like a product, and then all of a sudden, oh, but it's very expensive. I was like, okay, there we go. Lighter, stronger. I mean, it melts quicker, but only, so you got to watch out. Aluminium's melting point is 660 degrees Celsius, while magnesium is 650 degrees Celsius. So, you know. Wow. Get wrecked, aluminium. Watch out. Watch out.
• Keep it away from those volcanoes.

Magnesium barrel Kickstarter pens

• So, how long until we see a magnesium barrel Kickstarter pen, now that we've talked about it on the- Surely someone's done it, right? You would think so. But if they haven't, what will happen is someone will do it, and then within a 12-month span, there'll be 75 magnesium pens. Yes. Just for the Pilot Hi-Tech C refill. Titanium, man. That's titanium. And Caroline writes in and says, I'm old, so take this for what it's worth. Yeah. Hey, welcome, Caroline. I love all the people that are saying how old they are now, not knowing how old I am. How old are they? Yeah. But my favorite pencil sharpener is the old Boston hand-cranked one that we screwed to every teacher's desk in the 1960s. We had one screwed to the back door of our basement. I now have one screwed to the top of a little bookcase in my office. I had the Blackwing handheld one, and it came in a sampler box that I got, but nothing compares to the Boston sharpener. There is a lively second-hand market for these things on eBay. That's the one I grew up with in school. Like, you just, like, vivid memories of that Boston logo on kind of like the off green and chrome, probably magnesium front-end sharpener, the face of them. But that was the sharpener in schools. They probably had, you know, like all kinds of contracts with schools at the time. And that was the one that you would also see, like Caroline's mentioning, at home. If someone had, like, a workshop area or a garage, a lot of times you would see these sharpeners mounted up on there. And there's a lot of people that will restore them nowadays and kind of bring back that vintage thing. I don't know if they're still making, like, new sharpeners, if that company makes sharpeners at all these days. But, yeah, that was the go-to sharpener at the time. It looks like the answer is no.
• That they still exist? I don't know if they still exist, but they do not make products anymore. Like, pencil sharpeners, it doesn't look like. Because every search I'm doing is just taking me to different things, you know? Yeah, it's such a generic name, too. And I'm wondering, like, did someone, did they just go away? Did someone buy them out and absorb them into some other, you know, conglomerate? And it just doesn't exist anymore. Who knows? Who knows? There we go. So there's another article someone can write, The History of the Boston Pencil Sharpener. Brad, I literally just found. Where are they now? I just found an article called Death of a Brand, Boston Pencil Sharpener Company. There we go. This is from, oh, it's from Patrick Ng.
• Unscription. Nice. So that's back in January of 2010. So I'll put front of the show Patrick's article. I would like to read that. Yeah, it's in the show notes. Oh, that's hilarious. Yes. You go, Patrick. That's funny. That's very funny.
• All right. This episode is brought to you by our friends over at Penchelet. They sell rollerballs and fountain pens, ballpoints, mechanical pencils, and so much more from a variety of your favorite brands. And they're adding new products every couple of weeks. You're going to find new stuff from your favorite brands over at Penchelet. But it's not all about the writing instruments. It's all about the accoutrement that we need around them. Whether you need some ink or some refills. Maybe you need a carrying case. Maybe you need, I don't know, a nice little notepad. You can find anything you need over at Penchelet. They've got the products that you're looking for. They have limited edition products. They're doing the best possible deals they can do every couple of weeks. As well as finding new products added to the site, you're also going to find a selection of new discounts. And they sell internationally. Very reasonable shipping rates. But if you're in the U.S., you'll get free shipping on orders of over $75 at Penchelet, which is a very easy number to hit because they have so many wonderful things. Penchelet has low prices and high quality products. And they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. So take yourself over to Penchelet.com slash PenAddict right now. And you'll get 10% off anything at Penchelet. And you will see a selection of exclusive offers for listeners of this show as put together by Penchelet. I don't know if Ron's trolling us or if he actually listens to the show or what has happened, but you're not going to believe what is on this page. The Caran d'Ache Fix Pencil. Mechanical pencil. He knows what he's doing. He knows what he's doing. Wow, that's a good price. Yeah. Straight up. If y'all have heard me rave about this mechanical pencil, which is not a mechanical pencil. It's a fixed pencil. It's a clutch pencil. It's a two millimeter cord. Just go buy this. This is one of my all-time favorite products.
• We're going to talk about my pencil kit later. And if I was just making a stationary kit for any stationary, this is in the top five or ten items that I carry. It's one of the greatest products around. This design has been in Caran d'Ache's lineup for like 100 years. They have a 100th anniversary one that I couldn't get years ago. And now it's just secondary markets. Like way too expensive for that.
• I've got some good looking Heinz pens on here too. Yeah. So the Heinz. So that one just that one shocked me. That's a great, great troll job from Ron there. And I appreciate that very much. So they have a bunch of the great Heinz pens. Awesome colors. I really am really digging Leonardo DiPenchi. The colors of that one. It's pretty amazing. And I just like saying the name. And then the Butterfly Cove and the Let's Flamingo. Like, you know, I'm about some Flamingo pencil there. Oh, if you scroll down further. So the fixed pencil, there's the second one in there. I thought that would have been in the same dropdown. There's a two millimeter and three millimeter version. If you want to know what I prefer. Yeah. I prefer the two millimeter just for the record. But, you know. You'd like the one millimeter if they did that. Then we're getting into 0.9 millimeter mechanical pencils. And there's not enough variance there. So I would probably try it, though. I'm sure. I don't know if anyone makes a 1.0 millimeter. But 0.9 is pretty popular. Aside from our sale page, I did want to bring up the Dracula set that they're selling. Since it's that time of year, it is spooky season, Myke. The Leonardo Wearingool Dracula set and ink. So you get the Dracula pen. You get the Dracula box. You get the Dracula ink from Wearingool. And it's just kind of a rad kind of combination. Oh, this is cool. We'll put a look in the show notes. Yeah. So it's just a little set they put together. A little combo pen and ink set with some special artwork. And a really beautiful pen, honestly. This pen is pretty amazing. Do you know I've been there? You might have known this. But do you know I've been there? I've been to this hostel. Yes. In Transylvania.
• Yes. Yeah. I remember that. It was several years ago. Yeah. I think we've talked about that offline. And you're like, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You got to do the fun tour. If you do the educational tour, they don't tell you anything you want to know.
• What you want is the fun tour where they talk about Dracula. Because otherwise they just don't. But it's a beautiful castle. And Transylvania is a really nice, actually a really nice place. Yeah. So, and Pen Chalet is a really nice place to go check out all these pens. And apparently pencils too. Go get your Caran D'Ache Fix pencil. So you too can experience one of Brad's favorite products of all time. P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T dot com slash penaddict. And thanks to Pen Chalet for their continued support of this show. And Relay. All right, Myke. We have our shout out of the week. Shout out of the week. Dime Novel Raven. Multiple times shout out. At least twice. Because I just love Casey's blog. And they posted an article this week. Very, very straightforward. Brown. Anything but nondescript. I have become a Brown Inc. fan. And if you had that on the bingo card in my early days, there's no way I would have ever thought you would have filled that spot. I just didn't understand Brown Inks. I don't know why anyone would use a Brown Ink. Look at all these pinks and purples and bright greens and blues you can use. Why would you ever want to use a Brown Ink?

Preferences for brown ink shades

• It might be in one of my top few colors that I use. Just period. Like I'm always on the hunt for a Brown Ink. I always want to have a Brown Ink inked up. I don't know. And I can't explain it. I think it's why I like talking about Brown Ink. It's because I genuinely can't explain why I like it so much. I think it's because I finally spent some time. Just like with anything. You know, you actually, you know, Hey, do the work. And you might find something interesting.
• And a lot of Brown Inks I tried in the beginning were too light. Or too yellow. Or too red. And didn't really fit. And I didn't know what color like description I was looking for. And I really almost like a, like a, a real coffee color, like a, a black coffee color Brown. So it's almost like a Brown black. And then once I got into that, I was like, well, I like these. And it's a little dark. Sometimes it doesn't look Brown. Sometimes those, those inks look black. And then I find kind of found just like a sweet spot, like in a, in right in the medium Brown, just like a, like a good dark chocolate or maybe like a darker milk chocolate, not too light. Not, not, not in the caramel zone, but I just really, sorry. I like Brown Inks. No, I just, there, there's lots of descriptors. I just enjoy the phrase, the caramel zone.
• Pretty sticky. There's lots of little, there's lots of descriptors. Yeah, it is. It is. You know, caramel gets a little yellow, right? And gets a little toffee and a little, little light and which is, or too light. So I guess I put in some links to some of my favorites, the Sailor Fika Tea Time coffee, which you can't get anymore. That's kind of the, that's kind of the one that turned the corner for me. And I was like, oh, this, this is the Brown ink that I like. This is the color that I like. There's not too much going on with it. And it's just a very rich Brown. And then I've tried Kobe Catano Antique Sepia recently as a replacement for the Fika Tea Time, which is a very limited ink, the Fika Tea Time. You can't get it. And when they, we talked about the new Sailor Tea Time series is out. They do this every year. So that ink was kind of like a one and done thing with that.
• Last one, I'm call, I'm categorizing it a Brown ink, Jacques Herbin Shogun, which is my favorite shimmer ink. It's kind of black, kind of Brown, but the way the shimmer reacts into the ink, it gives it kind of this, this Brown kind of overall vibe. So I kind of put that in the Brown category too. So that's, those are, I could have all three of those inks inked up at the same time and not get tired of them. Even, you know, even if they're fighting with each other for, you know, which, which Brown ink do I want to use today? Like I could tell the difference between all three and enjoy them. And I keep hunting now for good Brown inks that I like. I like a lot of different sepia inks. And yeah, I don't know what it is, man. I never would have thought I'd be a Brown ink person. I thought I would have turned into a green ink person or a red ink person before a Brown ink person, but here we are.
• I don't think I can get on board the Brown ink train personally, but I respect you. I never thought I would. And in the same category, the burnt oranges, I avoided those completely back in the day. Like I love orange ink, obviously. Like that goes without saying. Really, really good oranges are a staple in my writing. And I never went into that kind of burnt orange or brownish orange realm until I fell in love with Brown inks. And I was like, oh, well, if you combine these Brown and orange, they have some of the characteristics that I like in Brown and orange and avoid some of the characteristics that I don't, which are reddish oranges or reddish browns.
• So yeah, it's a good combo. It works for me. So anyway, that was a long way to say, go read Time Novel Raven's Treatise on Brown Inks. There's lots of good Brown inks out there. So go check them out. I genuinely forgot we were still in Shout Out of the Week.
• This has kind of been a new thing for me with Shout Out of the Week jumping into a topic. Shout Out of the Week extended. Yeah, maybe a shopic. That's a bad word. That didn't really work out in my favor. But like last week, we talked about Fude fans. So we could talk about the inks that they shared, the Pilot of Roshizuku new ink colors, and this time, Time Novel Raven. I wanted to talk about Brown inks. So there you go. I also want to talk about pencil kits, Myke. Okay. So I built, as we go through, what is this month you say that's better than me? Ticonder October? Ticonder October, yeah. I think I did it that time. Good me. Go me. I think you've done it lots of times, but you just won't say it. It makes me nervous to say. Like I get hung up in the middle of it for some reason. Well, the middle of it is the tricky part. Yeah. Yeah. So the tricky is hanging me up. So I'm still like full steam ahead with my pencil usage this month, which was the goal of mine. And as we're winding down the month, I have one more review planned for next week, which we will definitely talk about on next week's show. But this week, as I was using pencils so much this month, there's lots of little accessories that go around with these pencils as well, between sharpeners, erasers, things that carry them in. And as I was choosing, I try to pick a new pencil every day. Like I have dozens and dozens of pencils. It's real easy. So I'll just go grab one, and that'd be my kind of go-to pencil today. I started thinking about which ones were my favorites, and if I could build a grouping that I could just put together, say, like five or six pencils and the accessories I need, could I build a little kit? And that would cover all my bases from what I've discovered that I like throughout the years and then kind of put a point on it, an extra long fine point on it in the case of some of these sharpeners, and put together a little kit for myself. So we all love our little kits. And I tried to make this kit like a solution-based kit, okay? So what I mean by that is like, okay, I want a pencil for writing, right? Not all pencils are created equal. So I can have pencils for different things. So I want a writing pencil. And what I mean by that is I just want it to be like dark and smooth and have really good point retention, right? That means that I sharpen it and I can write a lot of words before I sharpen it again. So, you know, firmer pencils obviously fall into that category, but they're not usually dark enough for me to write like a page of notes. I would end up getting frustrated just by the lightness of the graphite on the page with a hard pencil. But I also don't want it to be too soft because then I'm sharpening like every paragraph or something like that. And that's kind of like a detriment to wooden pencils, right? Some people will say that's like their biggest flaw is you constantly have to sharpen it. Well, you can get pencils that you can write a lot of words with without having to sharpen them. The two I pointed out for my kit would be the Mitsubishi 9850, which is the classic office pencil, which is probably the best pencil on the market, especially dollar for dollar in the nerd pencil range, right? Like it's not going to, you know, outprice like a Ticonderoga 24 pack on the shelf of a grocery store. But, you know, a dollar a pencil compared to like Black Wings, which are bordering, you know, $253 a pencil. The Mitsubishi 9850 is one of the best writing pencils out there. And then I included the Black Wing Ares as well, which has just an awesome core. It's the firm core from Black Wing, which I really, really enjoy. And it's also a really good looking pencil, the Black Wing Ares, which honestly plays a role when you're picking out products to put in a kit that I want to use all the time. He's like, you know what? I have a lot of good pens and pencils. I tend to lean to ones that also look good too. So second up, I want a soft pencil, which I'm calling the sketching pencil, right? So I have a writing pencil, which is going to do the bulk of my work. And then the rest of this stuff is going to be my options, right? For when you want to do specific work. And for sketching, I like a softer pencil on the B side of the scale. The Tombow Mono KM KKS 4B is just an awesome pencil. And I need to figure out a way to find more of those. They're not easy to get a hold of. I got mine at CWPE back in the day, which no longer exist. I think St. Louis Art Supply might have them. But for some reason, only the 6B seems to be available. And that's too soft. This is a 4B pencil that has an amazing point retention for being such a soft pencil. It is one of the best looking pencils out there. It's just a true joy to write with. And I only have one. So I'm kind of like, I am being a little bit particular about it. Yeah, I wouldn't want to use it. Which is weird. I'm like halfway down it. And like, that's fine. Like, I don't mind using this stuff up. But I would like to pick up like two or three more. Like, I don't need a dozen of them. Because I don't use it for writing, right? I just use it for other stuff when I want to do it. Yeah.

Japanese aesthetic in pencil design

• On the opposite end, I want a detail pencil. Now, I gotta say, you know, you say the Tombow's the coolest. No, this one is the coolest, in my opinion. This pen is so sick. That pencil is so sick looking. I love it. Yeah. And it's called the construction pencil. So this Tajima. Yeah. It's just Tombow made it, right? So it's got that Tombow clean Japanese aesthetic. And it's just really, really nice. The black and gold and like the fonts that they use. Oh my God. Yeah. That's so good. And the other side of it says, what does it say? For high precision, high precision drafting. That's a hard word to say. Easy for you to say. High precision drafting. Yeah. Ticonder October.
• You know it's like in Anchorman when he's warming up. Yeah. I'm going to be in the mirror. I'm going to be in the mirror when we're done. Ticonder October. So yeah, this is, again, it's just like the one pencil that I have. I actually went to go look for, when I was writing this up, I went to go look for a shopping link for this. And you just can't find it. Like I'm sure it's out there somewhere, but I couldn't find it easily. And I was just like, I just gave up. And I was like, oh man. And honestly, when I wrote with this pencil, I was like, oh man, this is so good. But like it's so light, it would frustrate me. Like at the end of the day, if it was my only pencil, but man, like this is, this is, this is the, uh, like the 0.3 mechanical pencil thing that when I write with it and with my like drafting style, my letters come out so good, but you can't use it that much because it's just not enjoyable to read or it, you know, it hurts your eyes by the time you're done, done using it. So, um, so we have our writing pencil, our sketching pencil, um, and our detail pencil. That's what I call the, the H side, the firm, firm pencil. Um, and then you want to have some fun, right? Like you don't, I don't need 12 or 20 pencils to like have a really good kit. Like I'm having one of a few different things. And the next up I said a fun pencil, right? Like I want a pencil that'll make me smile. And I mean, they all make me smile, but you know, like a character pencil, like my Aggretsuko pencil, or there's a lot of, um, hello kitty pencils or Pokemon pencils out there. Um, I also put in the Karen dash stinkwood out there because it's a fun pencil to use and it's got a fun story. Yeah.
• I'm never not going to call it that. It's a problem. Sometimes I can't even remember. Sometimes I can't even remember the real name of it. It's called the Swiss wood, but the names are so close. Like I just go with it. You also want to have, okay. I want to have, I don't, I don't know about you. I'm talking about my kid here. This is for me. I want to have a color pencil of some type it for this kit. I choose chose like a double sided pencil, right? This kinds that come in and half black and half red. So that's what I chose for this. But you could also pick like an orange or a green color pencil. If you have, you know, some of those laying around, I want one of those in there because.
• If I'm taking this kit and I'm writing with pencils a lot, uh, the way that I operate is I'll do like a lot of marking and lists. And things like that, where I want to see different, different weights of pencil. Like that's why I might have a very soft, dark pencil and a very light, uh, firm pencil. And then I want to have like color markings for like boxes, checks, notes, things like that. That's how I operate. So I always want to have like one colorful option in there. Um, and then with all these pencils, you got to have a sharpener, uh, the comb long point, which we mentioned before. Um, we, um, that, that's the best one. Uh, I think it's about $6. It has awesome blades and it's self-contained like any kit sharpener. I want to have it enclosed, right? Because I might not always have a trash can. I'm not just going to like sharpen a pencil, like, you know, over the sidewalk or on a restaurant cafe floor or something like that. Right. Or, you know, you sharpen over a napkin. I've done that before, but I like to have it self-contained until I can take it home and get rid of it myself. Um, I did give a special shout out to the Blackwing one step long point sharpener. I really liked the point that it puts on there. And I don't know what their current, current QC, uh, status is. Cause I had issues with that one. That's a, that's a very long article that I wrote and had some feedback from Blackwing on and got some replacement blades and it fixed the problem. Um, it was not a, it was not a, uh, a unique problem to me. Like they had some issues in the beginning. If that's like fully corrected and you feel comfortable like trying it, it makes a beautiful point on the pencil. It's expensive, but that's one of actually one of the, um, side Blackwing products that I have enjoyed the most. Um, as long as it works well, the eraser is important. I found myself when I have the kit and I have the eraser as part of the things that I have, I will actually use the eraser. And I buy this, I mean a standalone eraser, like a block eraser, like a Tombow, or I use the seed clear eraser. Um, recently I actually found when I was writing and I had that eraser near me, I would pick it up and use it. I never use the end of pencil erasers. I don't know why it's just, uh, I guess it's just cause I use pen so much and I'm just not, I'm just, I'm okay with making a mistake and scratching through it. I'll do that with pencils instead of erasing it because I think it's because I don't like the mess of the eraser. Right. And then you smudge it and then you run your hand across it and like you've smudged other letters and like, it just gets to be distracting. I just rather cross it out with a line. Um, it's funny. I think of erasers on pencils so little that when I did the Tennessee, I did the Tennessee red review. I did this whole long review on the Tennessee red pencil. Not once that I mean, I mentioned the eraser and I got called out for it in the comment section. I was like, you know what? You're absolutely right because I discount the eraser so much. Like I just actively don't use them. It didn't even register with me that I should test the eraser.
• It was, it was kind of funny when the person said that I was like, huh?
• I didn't even think about that.
• It's terrible. It's terrible. Um, I like to have a pencil cap, uh, because I'm a super nerd and I think they're fun and they're cool and they're stupid. And they're like, you don't need them because you can just sharpen your pencil again. But I like to have it on my one writing pencil because if it's the pencil that I use the most, I kind of want to uncap it and write it. And plus it's just that little extra level of nerdery that we all have in this hobby. We all have our, our little things that like make us smile. And I think pencil caps are just the appropriate amount of stupid nerdery that really, really gets us into this type of stuff. Um, pencil paper is important for your kit. You don't want a paper that's too smooth, right? So we talk about fountain pens a lot here and fountain pen nibs. And generally you want a smoother paper for that. It's also going to handle the inks better for fountain pen inks. And those papers tend to be a little slippy for graphite pencils. You can use them, but the preference that I have in most, um, you know, people who use a lot of pencils, want a little bit of tooth on the page to like grab that graphite and really have it set in. Um, when you're writing, you can almost hear like the scritch scratch on the page. Um, you know, like the classic field notes paper is, is great for that. You know, there's a lot of really, really good standard papers out there. Like I wouldn't use the Rodea dot pad, right? For instance, like your pencils are fine on there. You're just going to not really get like the purity. Yeah. It's just so smooth. It almost makes the pencils feel weird. Right. Uh, when you use too smooth of a paper. Um, the last part I kind of almost didn't want to put in there, but you have to have a way to carry all this stuff. Right. So like if I've picked out like five pencils, four or five pencils and eraser and a notebook and a sharpener, well, you got to have something to put them in. And, you know, it's shocking that, you know, I made the thing that I wanted to put the pencils in at knock because there really wasn't anything this simple and this basic that was the right dimensions. Um, on the market when I was looking for a pencil pouch. So in my opinion, from a design perspective, the pouch needs to be at least the length of a full unsharpened black wing. And most pencil pouches did not cover that, especially like, God, this is, this is just me in my head. There, there's a certain size.
• That's too big to be a pencil pouch, right? Because I'm not carrying 500 freaking pencils in a pouch. I don't need a 48 pencil pouch, right? I need a six pencil pouch. Well, when you get into pouches that small, one, they're not very economical to make, right? You can't really sell them for that much. They're, they're relatively expensive to make, even though they're inexpensive products. I hope that makes sense. And there's just not a lot of use cases. So you end up with these large, huge bags that really, that are called pencil pouches and they just don't work for that. So you need a small, uh, small volume, large length case. And that's what we made. And there's a few options out there. Rick straw makes a nice one that, um, it's not too big. Bellroy makes one that I've reviewed on the blog, but it's not long enough, right? It's a pencil pouch. If you find a good one, like hold on to that because there's not a lot of companies don't invest in that because there's, there's no market for this, right? Like, I'm not saying that someone needs to go out and make this. I'm saying you actively don't need to make this because there's no market for it. But if you do choose to make it, there's, I have clearly very strong beliefs about the pouch simplicity that a pencil pouch needs to be. And most of them are too much and overbuilt for just carrying a few pencil things. And, um, yeah, so, uh, I guess rant over on that. So that's my kit. Um, it's, it's simple, right? You want to have a little bit of variety and not too much, um, not too much waste. You know, again, I don't need a dozen pencils rattling around in a pencil bag. I need one, I need one good example of a few different things, you know, and, um, then put it together and allow me to have, be able to sharpen it. Allow me to be able to erase it around me to have some good paper and allow me to put it all together and carry it. Boom. Done. Pencil kit. Let's go.
• This episode is brought to you by retro 51. Retro 51 has a pen design for everyone, including the classic lacquers, the brand new stealth lacquer rollerballs and fountain pens, the vintage metal Smiths, the animal rescue series, and the literary collection, including the just released Pride and Prejudice rollerball and limited edition fountain pen. I don't know if you've seen the Pride and Prejudice one, Brad, but I did just yesterday. Oh, good. It's so good. Uh, there are also amazing license designs, including favorites from the Smithsonian, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Pan Am, and a new license pen launching later this month. Retros make great gifts for every occasion and for every personality. Head to your favorite retro dealer. You can shop directly on retro51.com and you can also see about personalizing your gifts there too. If you order over $75 at retro51.com, you'll receive free shipping. And in addition to all of their fun pens, Retro 51 looked to support the pen community. Uh, we mentioned this, I think on last week's episode, uh, but just this past month, Hurricane Helene left a trail of destruction that included, unfortunately, Origami Inks store in Asheville, North Carolina. And to support their recovery from this natural disaster, Retro 51 presents the Origami Hopping Frogs Tainado pen, which is available for pre-order until 11.59pm on October 27th. So just a couple more days as you're hearing this over at retro51.com. All profits for this pen will go towards Origami Inks recovery. I just think it's wonderful that they're doing this. Uh, and also the pen looks fantastic, which is the same for all retro51s. And my favorite thing, I've been such a fan of them for years, right? As people listen to the show know, um, I have so many, I have an entire collection, like a whole separate collection of just retro51 Tornadoes. Um, and what I love about this pen is how incredibly giftable it is because you will definitely find one that matches either a tastes or hobby of somebody in your life. And they'll get the pen, they'll think that it looks cool, and then they will use it for the first time and they will be forever changed because that refill is just the best in the biz. So go and check it out for yourself right now. As retro51 likes to say, and it's true, life is too short to carry an ugly pen. Thank you so much to retro51 for the support of this show and all of Relay. Yeah, so it's getting to be that time of year where, uh, being, being the local pen guy to, to our friends, um, you know, that want to give gifts. And I, I vividly remember so many times people who's, who know that I'm the pen guy, they're like, okay, I think this person likes pens and I'm going to ask Brad what they want. And I don't know what to tell Brad, but I know that this person likes X. Well, guess what? If you go to retro51, I can probably find something that's going to really like speak to this person on like whatever hobby or whatever interests they have. And by the way, they're going to get a really great pen that's going to make them say, wow, when they start writing with it. So it's a, they're just a really cool company in that way. So, uh, I always recommend them a lot, uh, this time of year. So it's great stuff. So, and also we, I, I did, I just wanted to give a shout out to, we have a listener that, uh, sent me some pictures from the area around Asheville where origami ink is. And it was just mind blowing the destruction there. Like they had a live picture of like when the water was peaking, it's like over the top of like a Wendy's on like the main street. It's like up to the sign on the street, like in a, just, uh, it's unfathomable. It didn't look, it didn't look real. So, um, yeah, I appreciate, uh, all the support that y'all are giving this area. So, um, it's, it's, it's wild. So go check out the, um, the, um, the, the frog pen at, uh, the origami frog at retro51. So, all right, next topic, Myke, I, um, it hasn't been strictly Ticonder October around here, which I laid out at the beginning of the month when I was getting to this. I can't only use pencils, right? Because I have other things I need to do with pens. I have a lot of reviews and like, I'm just going to use pens like as, as well. I'm primarily using pencils, but I, um, I had a, what I'm calling a squirrel moment where I was reading my articles that I always post in refill. I'll do the ink links and I'll do the misfill post on the pen addict blog. And so I'm always reading articles. And one of my friends, JP at minimal scholar, um, just in the blog title mentioned something about, I needed two daily drivers this, this week. And like, I just stopped right there. I didn't even read the article. I was like daily driver, daily driver. And I got stuck. I was like, I don't like, I don't have this pen. Like I understand the concept of what a daily driver pen is. And so I spent some time in refill trying to define what that is for me, right? What could that, what could that be for me? Could I solve for a daily driver, um, out of my personal collection and of, out of more importantly, how I use products, right? Because again, I have all the products. They're all sitting right here. I can use whatever I want anytime and just, you know, and, and I do like, I use all the things all the time. But what if there was one that I really, and this is the way I put it. What if there was one pen that I just absolutely destroyed?
• And I mean that in a loving fashion, right? You used so much the wheels fell off kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, have I ever had that pen? And do I want that pen? And I was like, well, I don't know. We can try. So I went through this whole process. Um, and I ended up on choosing the Edison Beaumont and we'll have a link in the show notes to this, to this review. And it's basically, it's a simple pen. Um, I narrowed it down to like three pens. And when I looked at those three pens, I was like, oh, this is like the most utilitarian pens that I have. Right. It was a pilot Murex all metal pen, uh, not magnesium. It was a shown design Ultem pen, which, you know, it's just a very durable plastic. And then just this black acrylic Beaumont. It's funny that I didn't pick any of the wild color pens or interesting shaped pens, because I don't think that would have fit my definition of what a daily driver is. I think, you know, I love my pink pens and my orange pens, but I will get tired of those. And I will want to rotate that out. Well, with these other three pens, they're very basic in style. Like they're just kind of boredom proof, right? They're bored. They're boring by default. So they're not going to get more boring than they already are for my, for me picking them up and using them for the first time is, you know, they'll be the same as the hundredth time. It's still just going to be a black pen. And so like, I was good with that. Um, so I got some feedback on that and I wanted to read Rob's email real quick. Um, says this is from Rob says you read my mind. I've been thinking the last couple of days about how I want to write more and trying to think of the right pocket pen. This is primarily for not at work times. As I rotate through my pens, having two or three with me at my desk every day, traveling in my Tallulah case, shout out knock RIP.
• I've generally in jeans or shorts, depending on the season. My ideal carry would be a fountain pen, full size, not something I worry about breaking in my pocket and not something that would come uncapped. In the past, I've thought about a pilot decimal, which I love writing with, but I worry it would get clicked in my pocket. Maybe an unreasonable fear. That's not unreasonable. We'll get back to that. Also try to show design pocket six. We found the grip section to be frequently a mess. When I pulled it out, all this was going through my head. And I was thinking about sending a podcast question. When I read this refill, I don't have any of these pens, but, uh, you did make me think of a pro gear slim. They're also acrylic. So they should have the same durability as the Beaumont you picked. Did you consider a pro gear? Any thoughts on how it would or wouldn't fit well in this use case?
• Um, so I replied to Rob number one saying, I'm putting this in the show notes. Um, and to also say, I didn't consider a pro gear slim, but the next pin on the list was the 1911 standard. So the next two pens are probably better choices. Uh, I don't know that the 1911 is maybe a better choice, but there were two pens that I thought of that I purposely didn't choose. The 1911 sailor 1911 standard is a small pen, right? I was looking for something not too big, not too bulky, right? And the 1911 fits that the 1911 is one of my favorite writing pens. And I'm, again, I'm speaking of the standard. That's the small one. Uh, the other one is called the 1911 large. Don't at me at sailor. It's their naming convention. We've gone through this a thousand times. So when I say 1911, I'm talking about the small one.
• It is such a good writing pen. It can fit in your pocket. It's very durable. I've used the Royal Tangerine one. I have a lot. I've reviewed it on the blog. We'll put a link in the show notes to that. It's such a good pen. And I thought about it and I thought I might get tired of the nib a little bit because the sailor nibs can be fine and firm, which I like overall. But if I'm going to say I want to use this all the time in all kinds of weird situations and just carry it and have it be the one, the nib turned me off. I think if I had like a stock medium nib in my slim, I either have a fine or a medium fine in there. I'll have to double check. If I had like a stock medium nib in there, it might have been the choice. That's how close it was to making the final cut because it's just a simple, honestly, plastic barrel pen with a really great nib. And if I had a more standard nib on that, it might have been my choice. Because I chose with the Beaumont, it has just a fine steel Yovo number six nib. And I've used this pen so much I knew how it writes. I know how like this feed and this nib work together. And it's not an overly flowy fine nib. It's a very contained fine nib. So it writes probably like a Yovo extra fine, to be honest, which is why I was okay picking it. So I very much considered the 1911 standard, which the Progear Slim is in that category as well.
• I don't know why I didn't necessarily consider that. I don't know. I just like the 1911 for its basic style, right? It's not as flashy. I don't know. It's simple. I like the tapers. You know, the Progear model is my preferred design from Sailor. But something about this 1911 standard, really, really, I really enjoy it for a writer. The other one, which I did not mention. The 1911 is more comfortable to hold.
• I wonder what it is. It's slightly longer. I think it's the length. Because of the tapers. Yeah. And just, it is a softer, just a softer design, right? Like, the Progear has sharp, like, lines. Yeah, maybe. And the corners in the 1911 is just really smooth. And it's quite slight. Yeah. It's comfortable. I vividly remember my review of that one just being just completely confused by why I liked it so much. It's like, this shouldn't be better to me than, like, the Progear Slim. But for some reason, I'm enjoying writing with it more. And I think it was some of that length and shape of that barrel.

Daily driver fountain pen recommendations

• The other pen that I think a lot of people should consider if you're just going to have a daily driver pen and you want it to be a fountain pen is the Pelican M200 series. So, the M200 or the 205. It's a piston filler, which eliminated it from, there was two things that quickly eliminated it from my list, but that I think would work for a lot of people. One, it was a piston filler.
• So, I didn't want as much capacity with this because if I'm going to use a daily driver pen, I'm going to fill it with ink, I'm going to use it, and then I'm going to switch to a different ink. And I want that to happen more quickly than it would with a Pelican. I would end up getting bored faster and wasting ink with a larger capacity. So, I choose a cartridge converter fill for my choice. But I think for a lot of people who don't want to change inks as much, that's a great option to have a piston filler. Also, the main issue for me is the nib. Even their extra fine nibs, Pelican's extra fine nibs, can be too wide and wet for me. And I needed to have some control over that nib. And sure, I could get one and go through the trouble of getting a modified nib and swapping it out. But that kind of defeats the purpose of what I'm going for here. It's interesting to me that you would want to change ink. Like, I feel like you should, in my mind, you would like pair the daily driver pen with the daily driver ink. Like, and it's like fixed, you know? Sure. Yep.
• That's a very fair question. And I went into this understanding that that would not be the case. Because it's just you know yourself. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if I wanted to do that, I would pick something more simple. Sure. Like a Lamy Safari with a black refill. Yeah. Which I absolutely love. But one of my rules was I wanted to have some skin in the game. And I mean that I didn't want just like an almost disposable pen, which I'm not saying a Lamy Safari is. It's one of my favorite pens of all time. But I wanted to have, like, I really wanted to destroy an expensive pen. And if that, it's, I don't mean it like literally that way. But right, I wanted to have some importance behind this pen, not just another Safari I can go pick up when I ruin this one.
• Does that make sense? It makes sense. It makes sense. But so in that event, if I'm going to keep using this pen, I'm going to swap out inks. Yep. I will, I do have pens that I only use specific inks in though. So that's like, that's a completely different conversation. Hmm.
• So anyway, I, I, this concept was, was interesting for me to kind of drill down on because I don't really do stuff like this. Like I use a lot of pens. I have favorites. I have things that I carry a lot more than others. Right. Like I didn't want it to be a standard pen. I have a roadie, a spoke roadie that is probably my most used pen this year. But like I didn't want, you know, just the regular black Jetstream refill to be my everyday pen. Right. I wanted a fountain pen to, to do this project with. So we'll, we'll see how it goes. You know, we'll check back in on it and we'll see, see what I'm thinking about this and see if I made the right choice. And it feels pretty good so far because I, I've, I'm just a Beaumont fan and I love the size and shape. And, you know, that's the other reason, like I could have gone for a pocket pen and that's absolutely not what I wanted for this either. Right. I did want a smaller, like Kaweco number five size nib. I wanted just like a full writing experience and a smaller pen. And, um, I feel like I made the right decision so far, but, uh, we'll see. Like I'm, I'm sitting here with it right now. I've used it pretty much every day. Um, again, it's not gonna be the only pen I use, but it's going to be the only pen that, uh, doesn't, doesn't rotate in and out. Right. It's just going to be in use. But what I'm interested in for this, cause I think it makes perfect sense as an idea is actually seeing if you do it. Like, like just having this pen inked up all the time is not actually making it a daily driver pen. Correct. And so like, I'm, I'm intrigued to see like, what does this realistically mean to you in the medium to long term? Like, are you actually using this pen on the daily? And if so, what for? Because I would maybe wonder if this should be a fountain pen. I'm not sure that it should be a fountain pen because you're, you're really skirt in the line. And you've even mentioned it a few times. We're calling it every day. And now we're into everyday carry and fountain pens are not EDC pens. Yeah. And I know that's not what you're doing, but like, I'm just intrigued, right? Like, you know, this probably isn't the pen you're going to use to like, I don't know, like sign a, like a check in a restaurant or whatever. Right, right, right. So here's the one flaw in my philosophy, right? Again, this is something I'm trying to solve for myself. And so I'm just giving everyone ideas of what I do. So here's the one flaw with my setup is I don't leave the house very much.
• Right. So I'm just being honest, right? Like I'm at my desk a lot writing, like, you know, and when I leave the house, you know, maybe we're going to the grocery store or going to pickleball or doing whatever, you know? It's like, I'm not writing that much, like I don't have the need. So I'm not, so that's why I'm not calling this like an EDC pen. Like that's an EDC pen is a different category of pen for me. That's where my spoke roadie comes in. But I don't know, but there's some crossover here as well with what I'm trying to do with this. So we'll see how it goes. It's like a philosophy thing for me, which is why I wanted to think about this as a concept. And, you know, maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. But, you know, that's all it takes is for someone to write a blog post title that said Daily Driver. And I've spent like hours thinking about it now. I was like, huh, I should, let me see if I can have one of those. So we're going to try.
• If you want to tell us what your Daily Driver is, go to penaddictfeedback.com and let us know. Or if you have any thoughts about this topic, I'd be really intrigued to explore those a little bit more.
• If you think that Brad should not be using a fountain pen, also let us know. It is Ticonder October after all. So maybe you should be using a spoke mechanical pencil, which you can find out more about by going to spokedesign.com. And you can find Brad's variety of products available there and also find all of Brad's work over at penaddict.com. Brad is at penaddict on social media and is at twitch.tv slash penaddict as well. I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. And you can find my products over at cortexbrand.com. Thank you so much to our sponsors of this week's episode, Pen Chalet and Retro 51. But most of all, thank you for listening. We'll be back next week. Till then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.