Editing The Pen Addict 372/transcript (section)

== Independent Pen Makers Trend ==


'''Adina Hurley:''' significant trend that's been happening in the past years or at least I've seen it through the pens that Myke has been purchasing were these independent pen makers that really experiment and have fun with acrylic casings for pens but they don't they aren't the brands that I would know about necessarily the huge ones the pilot and all of those guys so what do you if you guys aren't around you you and Myke do you have a mental checklist that you could share with me in terms of what to look out for when buying a pen that doesn't come from an amazing big company with a big warranty system or even when buying a vintage pen that's been used by someone else yeah golly

'''Brad Dowdy:''' that's a good question she's a thinker yeah but I love it though it's super smart because so there's there's two parts to this there's the modern acrylic makers let's just categorize that even though that's not fully accurate and there's vintage so let's just take let's just take these two things separately so with the modern vintage makers for example there was one at the Raleigh pen show that I was at that I had never seen before never seen his work before never seen pictures of it much less never had the chance to test any of their pens so the one of the things that I look for at first is just how that pen feels in my hand like does it feel finished like is everything I don't know even though like coming at it from the perspective of someone new you can still tell if like a manufacturing process is done well at least 90% of the manufacturing process is done

'''Myke Hurley:''' well just by picking up a pen the seams match up like does it yeah does it feel like the cap like Brad was gonna say it's like does it feel like the cap screws on and off easily right like does it thread easily exactly it's from somebody who polished evenly some someone's experience this is how you can kind of like get to understand if they've done a good job and you want to know that because you want the pen to hold

'''Brad Dowdy:''' up yeah yeah one of the one of the good parameters that I look for as well is how much effort they put into their nib offerings that is not like a cut and dry thing these days because there's lots of different options but I want to know are they taking the time to make sure I get a great writing experience with the nib as in if I make a purchase are they going to make sure the nib is smooth and that it flows well and that it's adjusted correctly or or am I just getting stock nib X in there you know what is their level of care with my eventual writing experience not just their craftsmanship with the barrel part right because they're not making the nib so are how are they ensuring that I don't just get their wonderful artwork that I'm actually going to get a great writing experience too and you kind of see you know if they believe in that level of experience well I feel more comfortable knowing that they put that much work into the pin barrel on the front end right because it's like this one cohesive unit so again those are things that are super tough like for very very beginners you got to go a little bit by feel yeah make sure that you're having a good conversation with you know whoever you're purchasing from that they like believe in their product right you have to have some faith in them as a maker that they're going to stand behind their product even though they're not going to come out directly and say that but you can tell by the conversation you you have and say oh do you do you make all these pins where do you get your blanks from you know and just kind of the natural flow of conversation you start to paint you know you start to get comfortable or maybe uncomfortable and say you know maybe this pin's not for me you know I'm not real you know you know totally content with how this is going with vintage it's for me it's a lot more about restoration because I'm not a vintage collector I'm a vintage user so I want if I buy a vintage pin I need to take it home ink it up and have it work flawlessly like right out the gate and that's always your hang-up with vintage like it's a scary thing to buy a vintage pin that you don't know is going to work so most vintage vendors and I won't say most but you can find a ton of vintage vendors like I will introduce you to our friend Jesse who restores Esther Brooke pens who I have a feeling you might fall in love with her pens and we know that she does really good work and you know that if you buy a pin from her it's going to work flawlessly for you and if it doesn't she'll stand behind it so restoration is always key for someone new getting into the vintage market so you have to have that you have to be comfortable having that conversation with

'''Myke Hurley:''' a vintage pin vendor vintage pen buying is very intimidating yeah yeah yeah and

'''Brad Dowdy:''' that's not that's not something where you see price and hand over money right there's a much discussion to have yeah because I

'''Adina Hurley:''' have seen even on the Instagram accounts I've been following a really beautiful vintage pilot pen and that was in a right price range and everything but it's like you you can't order that online if you don't know where it's coming from who's been owning it how it writes it's really

'''Brad Dowdy:''' difficult yeah unfortunately for you this is gonna be a really good vintage Japanese pen show hopefully unfortunately for me too like this is this is my weakness right is the vintage Japanese stuff so we'll see if we can get in trouble together maybe I might get in

'''Myke Hurley:''' some trouble too I think yeah this is

'''Adina Hurley:''' gonna be bad yes yep and yeah it's yeah my final question shimmery inks do they really ruin pens or is it a myth or do they just require a different kind of attention because I've just put shimmery ink in my sailor and I'm wondering about that whether I should clean it more often

'''Brad Dowdy:''' it's a myth oh good and I'll probably get some emails and I used to be on the other I'm scared I'm I used to be scared of shimmer inks but the true answer like most answers in life are it depends right so there are some that are harsher on your pens most of the general shimmer inks you buy these days from the main brands that you'd use you know diamine robert oster you know jay herban any of that stuff it's generally gonna be okay the problem is it's it's common sense that if there's particles in the ink it's gonna clog up your tiny parts in your pen eventually right it's just gonna happen so you have to be willing at you know we're not talking like every few days you have to clean your pen or worry about your pen but if it's sitting there for three months unused and you go to use it with the expectation that it's gonna that you're gonna write well you're gonna have a bad time right so there is additional overhead with cleaning on some sort of regular schedule whatever that is but in general they're not going to damage or affect your pens in any way but you just have to anytime I ink up a shimmer ink into a pen I commit to using that pen on a regular basis it's not a pen that gets set aside and used just willy-nilly you know once or twice every two or three weeks that's not gonna do your pen any favors and the ink performance is not gonna be not gonna perform well so in general I'm not scared of putting shimmer inks and almost any pens I probably wouldn't put them in vintage pens but they clean out of modern pens really easy all the shimmer inks I've used recently have been fantastic for that I really enjoy using shimmer inks which is not something I ever thought I would say personally but they're kind of cool and they do some cool stuff you're just a big fancy boy that's all I am I like my big fancy pens Myke and my big fancy inks and like I I had to make sure like I had it was just one of those thresholds that in this long journey that we have hey here's this new thing seems kind of scary I'm gonna put particles in my pen and then hope it works and not ruin anything well it really doesn't and they've been shockingly easy to clean for the most part and I've never seen any none have ever damaged any of my pens I'm also very meticulous about cleaning them not in like a crazy manner like I'll have it inked up for four six eight weeks and clean it out without any issue and use it regularly so don't be scared of the shimmer inks do put a little more thought into maintaining it than you would a regular pen perfect I'll set up

'''Adina Hurley:''' pre-mind those every two months I can't

'''Myke Hurley:''' trust myself don't trust Myke either don't trust me that's why I don't use shimmer inks that often because I just don't clean my pens so I clean themselves if you leave

'''Adina Hurley:''' it for long enough so yeah thank you so much that's been incredibly educational and I really look forward to the show I

'''Brad Dowdy:''' really oh I cannot I cannot wait this is gonna be awesome do we have anything else want to go to today no I think that's probably a wrap you know we we have a couple a couple of questions I will I will allude to them one of them in just our little recap here as we as we extra outro the pod the podcast that's another non-word that was a good word but yeah I'm very extra today but there was a there was a question about any after party meetup anything like that we're there the whole weekend Friday through Sunday we're gonna have plenty of hangout time you'll find me and Myke at the knock table a lot you'll find us wandering the show a lot if you see me talking to someone singularly in or in a group stop and interrupt me to say hi I'm telling you right now that that's okay like I want like we're there for a few days I know you may only be there for a few hours and if you want to come say hi I agree with us please I am saying that completely honestly interrupt what I'm doing to tell me hi because I want to say hi to you too

'''Myke Hurley:''' so nice if you see me run away I don't want anything no I agree with Brad completely Brad sets the great standard for us all understand especially if you see me on Saturday I'll be very tired because I am doing something I've never done before I mean guess you're doing it too Brad two live shows it's gonna be back-to-back that is gonna be a real experience I hope that we see you at the Relay FM live show if you're if you're coming out for that but I definitely if you're gonna be in San Francisco for the pen show we hope that we'll see you at the pen addict live show on Friday night very excited about that thank you again and we'll do this again next week to all of our Kickstarter backers who helped make this possible for us to get out oh I should say something about that can I real quick yes this actually is an

'''Brad Dowdy:''' update yeah I've started shipping the Burton cases a lot of people already have them in hand it's gonna be a slow process I've got about 300 cases in I think I've shipped about 180 to 200 of them so I'll probably ship one more day this week and then it's gonna be like a couple weeks like it'll be after San Francisco before the next batch goes in so I'm shipping in backer order so just hang tight if you backed us and help supported our wonderful adventures this year your case will be coming as soon as I can get them out to you I want to thank

'''Myke Hurley:''' you Dino for joining us do you have anywhere that you want to push people to like you can you now have the floor you have what is it they say on hot ones this camera this camera this camera tell the people you've got going on in your

'''Adina Hurley:''' life I have an Instagram account oh good

'''Myke Hurley:''' that's excellent that's a good start would you want to do you want to tell people how to find that Instagram

'''Adina Hurley:''' account you can find me at Adina Hurley

'''Myke Hurley:''' there you go nice to nice and easy to remember Adina Hurley on Instagram Brad is pen addict on Instagram and I am I Myke I M Y K E you can find Brad's work over at knock.co no and pen addict calm there you go I got those in the wrong order and spoke pen what's the spoke pen URL spoke design calm there you go so you can go and find that there thanks so much to our sponsors this week to find people over at Express VPN pen chalet and Harry's we're going to be back next time we're going to be the episode will come out on Friday or Saturday next week because it will be the live episode so we can't publish it before we've recorded it so it's going to be out on Friday night or Saturday morning we're hoping for Friday night but this is a later time than we usually record so I don't know what that one's gonna how that's going to end up going but so you can look out for it then and so you'll hear from us then we'll be back next time until then say goodbye everybody goodbye everybody

'''Adina Hurley:''' everybody you you

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]