Editing The Pen Addict 35/transcript (section)

== Pen Weight ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Agreed.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But for a piece to own as a collector, like we are, the brass would be the one I would choose. Right. Because it does, again, doesn't look like anything I've ever owned either. The mechanism is the most fun mechanism I've ever had in a pen. Like, it's, to me, more impressive than the mechanism and the vanishing point because it's so different. Like, basically, you push it down and twist it to get the pen to come out. What's the right term for that? Is there a term? Because you retract it when it's going back in.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I call it eject. Yeah. And I don't know if that's the right term. And that's one of the terms I've struggled with ever since I've written this blog. I don't know what the right term is when you press down the knock or, in this case, twist down the mechanism. And I call it ejecting the nib or the tip. And whether that's the right term or not, I have no idea.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm sure somebody will be able to correct us if it's wrong. But the way that you retract it is you kind of, like, push and flick to the side. It's a real interesting, like, way of doing it. You kind of just sort of, like, take your thumb and just flick the mechanism around again. And then it flies back up. It's like a rifle, right? It's like a bolt-action rifle, I guess.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. So there's, like, some spring tension on the inside. So you just push it down and twist it back over and it snaps back up. It's really well done.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And I guess that's where the idea comes from. Now, because of, basically, there is a downside with the brass with the weight, an extra one, in that it comes in two sizes. Now, this is something I've never experienced before with a pen either. And it has a long barrel and a short barrel. So that's so you can use different types of refill. And you sent me the Moleskine, the gel Moleskine refill and a Pilot G2 refill. Now, I naturally gravitated towards the G2 refill because you sent me it even in my preferred size, which is a .7. But the barrel is so long when you use that that the weight of the pen is far too heavy on the end. Yep. Because there's too much of the pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Too much of the pen is over my hand, like, as it goes back towards my wrist. Yes. So, therefore, it's far too heavily weighted.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But with the shorter barrel, the weight is great. Like, the proportion of weight is perfect. So, I would probably, I mean, having the aluminium, you can say whether I'm right or wrong. But I would expect that it's still very comfortable to use the longer barrel with the aluminium. I played with it a lot.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And I went back and forth a lot. And I preferred the shorter barrel. Right. Just because the shorter barrel was manufactured to just the right length. It falls within the realm of a normal length pen. Right. Whatever that measurement is. It's around what you would expect as a normal length pen. And so, to explain this for those who haven't looked at it yet. And, you know, go click on the links and you can see the different parts. And I think it was an add-on at the time that they did the Kickstarter project for it. It was, you know, you bought the shorter barrel. And then you could add on the longer. It doesn't come like the kit that I sent you. Right. Right. It doesn't come with the full kit in one shot. So, you get the shorter barrel when you purchase it. And that fits Parker style refills. Any Parker style refill you can come up with. I sent my – I had an extra Moleskine gel pen. Everyone knows I like those Moleskine – those rectangular body Moleskine pens. And I had some extra refills I bought for those. That fits in this pen perfectly. It fits it really well. But any Parker style refill will fit in the shorter barrel. And what it does, the bolt, it unscrews in the middle. So, your whole bolt mechanism and clip, the whole upper barrel stays in one piece. The shorter barrel just has the front end barrel and a spring. You unscrew that, take that off, and you pop in. And the longer barrel is designed for a G2 style refill, a Pilot G2 style refill. So, you just grab the longer barrel piece, which is – I didn't look at the measurements or didn't do it. But it's on the realm of maybe a half an inch longer, which is – it's quite sizable in a pen. But it fits the longer G2 ink cartridges. And you put that on there, and it's just a little bit too long. You start running into balance issues. Even on the aluminum, it's not weighted so that it's really way off balance. It's just that it's a heavy pen to begin with. And on the aluminum, it gets to be too heavy. And on the brass, it's probably even more so. I didn't even use the brass one. But I know the brass in itself is just a heavier, more dense pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But it does give you that flexibility to where you'd want to – if you want to use a – like the G2. I think some of the other refills that are similar to the G2. I think the Uniball Sino RT is around that same dimension. Like I didn't try all these refills in the longer barrel. But there's a few other ones that fit in there besides the G2. But I – for day-to-day, I prefer the shorter barrel. And I actually use it quite frequently with the – I have a blue 0.5 millimeter Moleskine gel refill in it. And I use it a lot. I used it last night at work. As a matter of fact, it's a good pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. As I say, it's extremely well made. And I think that's the main thing that comes across to me. I mean my advice would be if you're thinking, oh, I have a refill that I love, which is one of the longer ones, I would suggest that you just find a shorter one that you like and then use that. Like don't buy – I wouldn't suggest to buy this pen with the idea that you want to use the longer one because it doesn't really work that way, I don't think.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. It definitely works better on the short one. The only kicker is if you like to use micro tip pens like sub 5 millimeter, like 0.4s, 0.3s, 0.38s. I don't know of a Parker-style refill that's going to fit. So I'm using a 0.5, which works great for me. But just keep that in mind. It's not like you can fit a high-tech C, you know, something super fine in there.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But the refill – the Moleskine refill is an excellent – it's an excellent refill. I have the Moleskine pen and I like it. I just don't like the shape of the Moleskine pen. I find it really uncomfortable to hold and use. So I'm very happy to actually have a body that it fits in a lot better. Oh, cool. But, yeah, I'm really, really thankful that these guys were happy for you to send this over because it's quite a piece.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. They do really good work. And the samples that I've seen and have and use, I've been real happy with the construction. You know, on the bolt, I've been trying to – you know, with a retractable pen, the key to like a retractable pen is you want to be able to have like a one-hand use, right? You want to be able to take the pen out and use it one-handed for quick note-taking. So I've been practicing trying to get the bolt down with one hand and twist and thing. It's a little bit awkward. It still takes me two hands to kind of get it down and I can pop it back out with one.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I can do it with the thumb.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's just something I keep playing with.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's fun to play with. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I know. I mess with it all the time.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, because of the – like the pens that I like to have, I like people to ask about them. Right. You know, I kind of – some of my pens are definitely show-off pieces. You know, I use – not only do I use the Retro 51s a lot at work, I use the Metalsmith series ones, which are very striking. So like the brass and the nickel ones and they've got the interesting body shapes and things like that and the detailing on them. And the vanishing point also people ask about that. So this is one that falls into that. Like people want to know what – why not only – because one, this pen looks like a bullet. Like in brass, it looks like a bullet.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. That's why I was worried about getting it to you.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Just an extremely long bullet. And then it's also got the bolt action, which is – you know, it's – yeah, it's cool. I really like it. And just for – even like the clip is – it's got these two huge screws in it and it's this really thick metal.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And I just think it's great. It's stunning. And I just feel like this is something that as it gets older and gets dinged and stuff like that, it would look even better. And it's just something that I know that if I keep – as long as I don't lose it, you know, basically the only reason this pen wouldn't stay around forever is if I don't lose it. Right. It will be around forever if I know where it is because I just can't imagine anything being able to damage it to the point where it couldn't be used anymore.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. Yep. So it's a very cool pen. I've been happy with it. So I was glad to get the opportunity to send it to you. So thank you, Dan, from Keras Customs.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much.