Editing The Pen Addict 615/transcript (section)

== Rapidograph pens and their use in architecture ==


'''Damien Alomar:''' Oh, you could, you could easily get 10. So like they have the normal set, which most architectural students wind up getting. And like Rapidographs on Mylar paper is just a really like classic look as far as architectural drawings go. Mm-hmm. In the sense that like you don't, can't really hold them like a normal pen. Like they want to be almost vertical to the page.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Damien Alomar:''' So it's a different experience.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'll put a link in the show notes. So if people aren't familiar with them, they're not something you go into without knowing what you're getting, like you're saying, right? For those two reasons. One, the tip, it's basically cut like a pipe at the end. Like we're used to say like our standard ball points and roller balls. They have a ball in the tip of the pen. This is literally almost just like a pipe, meaning like, you know, Damien's talking about having to hold it like vertically because there's no real angle. Like there's a smooth edge around there. So you can, so you're not actually shredding the paper as you write, but there's nothing to affect the ink application on the page. Like there's no extra mechanic in there.

'''Damien Alomar:''' Well, so inside the, the kind of pipe tube thing, there's actually like a small little like needle that goes in because there's no feed. And it also uses like India ink. So it's a thicker, more viscous ink. It's not like a water-based fountain pen ink. And on the, on the fatter ones, they're, they're more resilient. But when you get to the really, really fine ones, you actually have these, the piece in between is almost like this little fine little wire. And so on the really fine ones, if you bend that wire in the process of, of cleaning it, you've ruined the rapidiograph because it won't regulate the actual flow of ink anymore. And you'll just dump ink on the page.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, Hey, at least cleaning those got you used to what would, what would, uh, becoming later once you got into fountain pens, cause that's a nightmare in itself.

'''Damien Alomar:''' I mean, cleaning fountain pens is, you know, of course, like we all put them aside and then like every few weeks, a month or so we got to clean. I mean, without going through and doing customer pens stuff, I have to clean pens all the time.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You got good practice. So you, you got this fountain pen as a gift. How did that eventually transition into, I don't know, maybe it was after school or somehow you ended up in the past. I'm guessing trying to, I'm guessing trying to fountain pen at some other point in time.