Editing The Pen Addict 71/transcript (section)

== Pencil Portability ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' I know. I know. You know what my challenge is that? And I'm going to get a sidetracked right off the gate. My challenge is the portability of them. I think I just need to take some to my office because that's where I use my pens the most. I need to take some of these pencils and leave them there because carrying them back and forth in a pen case, that drives me crazy because I don't like, you know, I want to use the wood case pencils, you know, not the mechanical pencils. And just carrying them around in a bag all the time. I don't have a bag dedicated to get graphite all over everything. And I'm picky that way.

'''Ana Reinert:''' The first thing I would say is there are some companies that make the little tip, the little metal caps that you can put on the tips to keep the points from getting damaged, which is a very nice addition.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Someone sent me a couple of those. My friend Topher on, or Topher, actually, as he says on Twitter, he sent me a couple of the plastic tip ones. So I got to look into those metal ones.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah. And both of them, I mean, they work fine. The metal ones, I think, are more durable and will withstand getting sort of chucked around in a bag. The plastic ones are nice, too, though, because you can see which pencil is the sharpest.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So one of our tasks for this new pen case company I'm coming up with with my partner, Jeffrey, we're going to work on a pencil case design to hopefully solve the problems that I'm having.

'''Ana Reinert:''' But that's still curious to see that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. We'll need some help getting that design off the ground. So I'm sure I'll have some questions for you. But our friend Johnny Gamber at Pencil Revolution had a great article in The Atlantic. It was about a week ago. I guess you and I had both linked to it. And, you know, pencils are a huge deal for so many people. And just like pens, there's this huge, I mean, once you start going down that track, I mean, it's the same rabbit hole that you get stuck in with pens and ink and paper and everything else. And, you know, this article, we'll have it in the show notes. Y'all can find the show notes at 5by5.tv forward slash penaddict forward slash 71. This is episode 71. We're recording. We'll have this link. And you can check out the article in The Atlantic because it's great. And Johnny's knowledge on pencils is just phenomenal. It really is. And I know you've contributed there in the past. And I know you're a huge pencil person. So what do you use for pencils? What are some of your favorites? Or how do you use pencils in your day-to-day work?

'''Ana Reinert:''' Well, the nice thing with pencils is that they're not very expensive. Even a box of Palomino Black Wings, you can get a dozen for $20. So I don't feel so bad with pencils of leaving them at my desk or leaving them in the pen cup that sits on the corner of your desk. If someone walks off with a pencil, I'm not devastated. I would not put a vintage Blackwing, but I don't have one. But, you know, anything else. I mean, even, you know, yeah, like I said, even the Palomino Black Wings or pencils like that, they're, I mean, they're under a dollar. I mean, that's about what a pen, like a, you know, a G2 or something would cost that you don't mind leaving on your desk. So I have a, I keep a huge jar of pencils on my desk at work. And it also means I have something that I can grab right away and just, you know, if the one is not sharp enough for me, I just pull a different one out. But, yeah, no, I have, I did a post a couple months ago about my three favorite pencil brand, pencil brands. And it was the Palomino Blackwing 602, the Mitsubishi Tombow 8900, and the Faber-Castell Grip pencils, which are the, they were, originally you could only get them as metallic silver with little black dots. It's one of the triangular shaped pencils.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, yeah, I've seen those. Those are cool looking.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I, they're super awesome. The only time that I've ever had problems with them is do not leave them in your car if it's hot because those little rubber dots melt. But, but otherwise, I mean, as just the size fits really nicely in your hand, it's one of those pencils that doesn't actually have an eraser on the end. So the weight is pretty light, pretty evenly distributed. And actually, I think Pencil Talk, the blog Pencil Talk this week had an article that Faber-Castell is now doing them in new colors. They're calling them sparkle and they're all in like metallic gold, copper, and a more of a graphite, metallic graphite color. Oh, that's awesome. So with silver dots on it instead of the black.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' See, I could get in trouble shopping like this because I want to try out so many of these things. I got to, I got to make that commitment though. Those, the, uh, what the Tombow, one of these Tombows, I guess was recommended to me. The one that was recommended to me was the Tombow Mono 100, which seems to be awfully super expensive. Like I'm just looking at jet pins and they're $28 for 12 and come in every lead grade imaginable. I haven't used those. But that was when I was doing the Blackwing post. Um, I think the, one of the basic Palomino's, the, the orange one, I forget which, um, model it is. I'll find that in the show notes. I think it's got a specific name. Um, that one was recommended. And then the Tombow Mono was highly recommended to me. And it's hard just like with, with pens, you know, you think, you know, finding a pilot high-tech C with, you know, three or four tip sizes is difficult. Well, you know, I'm staring at what, you know, 20 different lead hardnesses on here. Do you have a, do you have a go-to lead?

'''Ana Reinert:''' Well, um, an HB is about what people think of as a number two.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Ana Reinert:''' So if you start off sort of in, HB is kind of the middle range. Um, the 2B, 3B, 6B. The B means soft. Mm-hmm. Don't ask me. Um, and anything like 2H, 4H, 8H. Those are, H is for hard. So if you just know that H means hard and B means the other thing. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, so if it's your sort of first 4A, if you aim right in there for the HB, which is sort of the middle ground pencil, and try that first. See how you like it. If it's not dark enough, then go into the B. Like, try a 2B pencil or something. If it's too dark and smudgy for you, move into the H. I have a feeling you would like something in, like, the 2H, 3H that would be a little bit harder. And the lead would be, doesn't wear down as fast. Mm-hmm. And then it goes down much lighter. It's a harder pencil, especially if you have a heavy hand. Yeah. Or if you're doing just more writing, then, I mean, you're not taking any of those scantronic tests where you need the HB. Right, right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And I've looked at, like, the lead hardness maps where they show all the shades. And, you know, I think I'd be somewhere around the middle and, like you say, probably a little bit more on the H side where it's a little bit more firmer. The lead's going to be a little bit lighter color, which I'd actually prefer the darkness of the B side of the scale. But I think I would be more happy with just over on the H side of the scale for the hardness and firmness of the lead. So that's something I need to check into.

'''Ana Reinert:''' And it can also depend on the manufacturer. Sure. You know, I mean, in the same way that a fine nib fountain pen from one manufacturer isn't necessarily as fine as another manufacturer. You know, they use the same terms, luckily, across the world. But, yeah, there's still some little differences depending on how they blend their graphite. So some write a little scratchier. Some write a little smoother. Some a little bit softer. It just – and it's, again, you know, start with – maybe don't start with the $28 per dozen. Yeah. Try something a little bit less expensive. Actually, I don't think the Faber-Castell's are – the Grip series are super expensive. And I do think that probably on Amazon or other places you could probably find like a pack of three. And sometimes they'll offer them like as a drawing pack where you'll get a couple different grades. So you can try out a few and see which ones you like.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, no, that's a good idea. I can get behind that. So I want to hear some recommendations from anyone who's listening. Shoot me an email or, you know, get in contact via the blog. And I'll have all that information at the end and it'll be in the show notes. But I like dark – a dark, firm lead. So something probably on the H side of the scale. And if there's any brands that skew darker as opposed to lighter and still retain that firmness, I'd love to know if you listeners have a favorite brand that I can check out in that 2H, 3H range, something like that. I think that would be something kind of where I want to start off with.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I did try a random Uni Mitsubishi at one point that was way down the B scale. And it was just – the darkness was great, but it was just way too soft for me. Because unlike you, I mean, I'm mostly writing where you're writing, but then you're also sketching and doing some design work and things like that. So you kind of have that – you know, you want that range where for me I just want, you know, something good to write with.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah, absolutely. And even – I mean, even for what I do, most of my sketching is more just – I mean, right now I've been working on, like, iPhone apps. So I'm drawing – I'm drawing a square and then I'm drawing squares inside of squares. Like, there's not a lot of shading or highlighting or anything like that. It's pretty much draw a square, draw another square, write a line, draw another square. This is going to be an icon later.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, exactly.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah, so a little bit harder works well for me. I tend to go right at the – usually anywhere between a 2H and an HB. I do run a little bit on the harder side too.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Gotcha. Gotcha. All right, cool. Well, one other new topic I want to get to that we have not discussed on the podcast. I don't think you and I have discussed it either, but I know we've probably been – we're probably – we're on the same email list, I'm pretty sure. There's some new notebook projects that have launched, one on Kickstarter, one on Indiegogo. So let's tackle the monsieur. That's what I'm going to – how did I do?

'''Ana Reinert:''' Okay. Pretty good.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I think that's what –

'''Ana Reinert:''' My French isn't much better than yours, so –