Editing The Pen Addict 400/transcript (section)

== Pencil Types ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' So you have two basic types of pencils. Your wooden pencils, which are the traditional pencil that you've seen for your entire life. The, you know, the yellow number two with the pink eraser, you know, that's your basic wooden pencil. And then you have your mechanical pencil, which has, you know, separate lead that you have to put into the pencil that is extended by a knocking mechanism on the back of the pen or a shaker mechanism within the mechanical pencil. So mechanical pencils can get fancy and complex or they can be very simple, straightforward lead delivery and writing mechanism. So the primary differences between the two is the wooden pencils are, are much more inexpensive because they're essentially, I guess, is disposable the right term. I don't want to say that in a negative way, but you, you use the entirety of the pen pencil and then it's gone. And then you pick up the next one and you use the entirety of that pencil. Then it's gone. Where a mechanical pencil, you keep one single pencil and you continue to refill it with lead. But, um, wooden pencils have seen a resurgence in the past decade. I love a really good quality wooden pencil. The popular brands out there now, um, Blackwing makes beautiful pencils. Karen Dash makes beautiful pencils. Viarco. There's a whole industry out there. Musgrave that makes wonderful wooden pencils that are way better than anything you've used back in your childhood or in school. Um, and they, there is a huge range with wooden pencils that you can kind of get in mechanical pencils, but there's a huge range of lead grades within the pencils. And I say lead, uh, it's not technically lead, it's graphite, but I like saying lead just seems to flow better when you're talking about pencils. Um, you can get a really, really firm and light, uh, lead grade, or you can get a really, really soft and dark lead grade. And you can get about, I don't know, 20 different grades in between, even more on some brands to, to, um, depending on how light, dark, smooth, firm, soft you want to write. So wooden pencils have great variety. Um, they're very out there fun to use, right? They just bring back these memories. Like this, it's like the purest analog writing, um, experience, I believe with, uh, wooden pencils, mechanical pencils. You can get very technical. You can get mechanisms that retract into themselves. So you're not poking yourself with the lead pipe that sticks out of them. You can get a lead that rotates within the barrel. Like the Urinubal Kuretoga is a famous mechanical pencil because it rotates the lead from a design and technical perspective. The Rotring 600 is kind of the, the cream of the crop as far as engineering type pencils go. This is what a lot of architects, engineers, and design students used, you know, back in the day.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's the classic look of a mechanical pencil as well. Like if you think of a mechanical pencil, you were thinking of this one or those colored barrel ones that like Bic, is it Bic made those? Like the plastic colored barrel with the black erasers?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Bic made the one that actually looks like a wooden pencil, the yellow or paper made made the one with the, with the, uh, that looked like a pencil. Then Bic made the one with like the colored clips, like black barrels and colored clips. Yep. Yep. So, um, I love pencils. Um, I use them quite frequently. They live on my desk. Again, like this is the, this is the top level discussion. The things you can get into with pencils, like people devote entire blogs on all of these topics that we're talking about, whether it's notebooks or ballpoint pens or wooden pencils, all of these things have their own specific categories and niche markets and all kinds of things you can get into. So, you know, this is a way for us to say, Hey, there's a lot of awesome stuff out there that you can explore. And hopefully this will make you ask more questions about, Hey, what's a good wooden pencil. And that's when you, you know, reach out to someone like Myke or myself. Well, in wooden pencils case, me, uh, not Myke, but, uh, I love, I love pencils. So I, they are a wonderful thing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'll say at this stage, we're throwing out a lot of brands and a lot of products and there's probably too many to keep an actual list in the show notes. I'm putting some stuff in there as we, as we're going through today. But one link that I will point people to right now is your top lists, your top five lists. Oh, sure. Because if you think to yourself, Oh, you know what? I want to try out a mechanical pencil. Brad has compiled on, on the pen addict website, uh, a selection of lists of different categories. Like, um, you're looking at different, some, you've got some ink stuff, wooden stuff, mechanical pencil stuff, uh, ballpoint pens, multi pens, fountain pens, under certain value levels. And a little bit of explanation about them all. It's like a really great resource to go in and take a look at. Like if there's a certain category that you're interested in, Brad has already put together some, some recommended lists and by and large, like me and him agree on pretty much all of them. Some numbers we'd swap around, but you know, I feel like that, that the, the, a lot of the lists that you've put together are really great consensuses of, uh, of what pens should people should buy into certain categories. Yep. And it's currently being updated. Always updated. Always updated. So I will, we'll give a little stretch now. We'll, uh, we'll limber up. Let's talk about fountain pens. All right. What I think we should do here is go end to end and explain each part of a fountain pen because they're much more complicated. They have a lot more going on. So I think we should do that. I think first we should start talking about the materials that they're made from and then kind of explain each part and what it does. How does that sound?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That sounds good to me. And I would like to have a little bit of introduction to this as we still get so many new listeners that have only explored wooden pencils or gel pens that are interested in learning more about fountain pens. Don't let any of this intimidate you. No. It is actually very, very much more simple than what we're about to lay out in these next several minutes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But there is just more, there is more choice in this world, in this part of the pen world. So there seems to, so there are just more permutations of what you can go for. It's worth noting, if you go back to the beginning of this show, neither me nor Brad were using fountain pens at all. In fact, there is a quote, I don't remember exactly, but Brad Dowdy said that he didn't care about fountain pens. That was, you know, you can go back long enough in the show and you will come to that. And now we both use fountain pens predominantly, for me, almost exclusively. And we have lots of different types of fountain pen. And that's the majority of the discussion on episodes these days. We'll focus around fountain pens because there is a lot of really exciting stuff that you can get into there. So we'll, and as you hear us talk about these, you'll understand maybe a little bit more why. Because this hobby, the pen hobby, ultimately it becomes an idea of choice about you getting what you want. And there is no greater realm in this hobby than in fountain pens of being able to get exactly what you want.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I refer to the fountain pen market as the most customizable pen for you. Right? It's just, there's so many options and you can dial it right into the most perfect writing experience for you in particular.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like there are choices in mechanic, there are choices in wooden pencils. But you will run out of those choices quickly compared to fountain pens where you can just go forever. So let's start talking about what are the typical materials used to make a fountain pen?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The most common, far and away, huge percentage of the market is either plastic or acrylic. You know, those terms are interchangeable.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Easy to work with, easy to shape, easy to make in bulk, and also easy to make in lots of really interesting and fun colors.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. So that's the thing you'll see at the very inexpensive, like less than $10 end of the market. You'll just see like your basic clear or, you know, smoke gray tube, you know, essentially for the barrel of the pen. And then it can go all the way up into just rainbows and swirls and wild acrylic materials that people are customizing and handmaking pens from. But really, that's just the most common. It's the most, you know, affordable type of material that is made in bulk, right? There's always caveats to everything we're about to say. But in the general sense of things, you know, far and away, you're going to see more fountain pens made out of plastics and acrylics than anything else.

'''Myke Hurley:''' My cheapest and my most expensive fountain pens are both made of plastic. Yep. And I'll tell you right now, the difference in price between my cheapest is like it's many hundreds X, right? Like it's, you know, it's a big, big difference.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's a lot of X. Yeah. Um, you'll also find fountain pens in various metals. So there's metal is another, um, material that's, I won't call it easy to work with, but there's a lot of machine shops and large factories that work with metal barrel pens. Um, they're a little bit more expensive, obviously, just because of metal types, like the, the low end of the metal pens are going to be more expensive than the low end of the fountain pens. Everything above a certain price point at all gets mixed up into other, other things. But you'll find, you know, brass, aluminum, titanium, all kinds of pretty much any type of metal that is, you know, easily work withable by a machinist or, or factories is going to end up in a fountain pen. One of the classic styles of fountain pen barrels are made from wood. There's all kinds of wood types. I'm sure probably some of the early fountain pens were, were made with a nib, you know, stuck on the end of a piece of wood that you could use as like a dip pen. Right. Yeah. So wood has seen a rise over the years as we get more and more makers into this type of industry. You'll see less wood in the large brands, um, even though they still do make pens with wood parts like Lamy does. I know pilot has on occasion, things like that. Some of the brands we'll talk about later. Um, but you'll see that more in individual, smaller shops, smaller makers. Ebonite is a classic fountain pen material because it's easily shaped. Um, it can come in different dyes and patterns. It has, it's, you know, basically, I guess the term is vulcanized rubber, but it doesn't feel like that. It's a very, uh, firm material, but it lends itself to fountain pens because it's able to hold its shape. Well, it's easier to work with. It's not as easy as an acrylic to color, right? You can't get the most bright ebonite pens materials, but ebonite is also used as a base for a base material for, let's say, lacquer artwork to go over the top of, which we'll explore a little bit later. Um, and the last one I wanted to mention is celluloid, which is a different, it's in that kind of acrylic ebonite category, but it's just a little bit different consistency and feel in the pen barrel. Um, out of this list, it's probably the lowest use and it's more expensive because I think it's just harder to manufacture. But celluloid is popular because you can get beautiful colors and patterns out of that when you're starting to get into higher end or some vintage fountain pens. It's just a beautiful, beautiful material.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. So these are what you'll find your pens to be made of. Typically there'll be some, some mixtures, you know, like a plastic pen may have some metal pieces to it. So you're looking at like, uh, you know, maybe it's a cap or maybe it's just a clip or maybe some bands. And when you have that stuff, when, when you have, uh, parts of the pen made out of a different material to the rest of the pens, it's referred to as the furniture of the pen, which is a wonderful phrase that I love so much. But if you have like a plastic pen and it has a silver clip and maybe a silver, we'll get into what this means in a moment, finial, uh, that is known as the furniture, the silver furniture, which is wonderful. So let's start with that then. What is a finial? Where does it go?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' On the top of the top of the pen and the bottom of the bottom of the pen. So the bottom of the barrel and the top of the cap are generally areas where manufacturers will do extra things, right? Whether it's having some type of etching or having some type of insert, it's just generally a place where extra artwork goes to make the pen look special. It could be just a simple, like, I don't know, a simple shape, like the tip, the top of the cap could be pointed, like, um, you know, or it could have a little medallion insert and, you know, that can go on the top of the pen or the bottom of the pen. And it's generally referred to as a finial.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So you already mentioned it, but the majority of the pen is called the barrel. So what is, what is, what do we need to know about that?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The barrel is pretty much what you're going to hold in your hand, right? It's kind of the important handwriting, uh, or it's the, the important comfort place for your handwriting. You want to have a barrel, the barrel can be wide, it can be narrow, it can have different, um, different etchings on it. It can have different shapes built in. It can be a little bit wavy, but that's the part that's going to hit your hand. And you want to, you're going to want to make sure that the barrel is comfortable when you're holding it. Um, and then for example, the cap will generally go cover up the nib of the fountain pen. And we're going to talk about all these things. It's hard to, it's hard to do this without do talk about the cap without talking about the other things that are involved with the cap. But I think the cap is pretty self-explanatory as well as the clip. So the clip is usually attached to the cap of a fountain pen and some fountain pens don't have a clip. And the clips, like Myke said, they can be made of all different kinds of materials. Um, and some people like clips. Some people don't like clips. Some companies make really fancy clips. Some people, some companies make very plain and nondescript clips. So it's just a place where manufacturers can, uh, take as many liberties as they want with the pen design.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The most important part, many people will argue with a fountain pen is the nib. So that is where all of the glorious writing that you see on Instagram comes from.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's where a lot of the money is, is taken up as well.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. So there's all kinds of different types of nibs you can get. The primary, primary categories of nibs are steel nibs, which are the least expensive. And I'll go over the properties of each of these after I list them out. Then there's gold nibs, which is your main upgrade point and huge price jump point. And then there's titanium nibs. So there's nibs made of, of other materials. Of course, um, there's things like glass nibs and other categories, but for 90% of your pens, you're going to either have a steel nib, a gold nib or titanium nib. So let me explain a little bit of the difference. So steel is definitely the most cost efficient nib. It is generally firmer than gold and titanium. You know, it's just a stiffer material. It's a very consistent line that you get because of that stiffness. It's not as pliable or as flexible or as moldable as gold and titanium. And it's probably, you know, the number one universal type of nib. You know, a lot of pens are just going to come with a steel nib option just because of cost. Steel nibs can be glorious. They can be some of the best writing nibs you'll ever have. Um, one of the things we're going to talk about in the future, in future episodes, and maybe the, the, the secondary episode to this is, you know, steel versus gold, uh, and why you would make a choice between the two. But in general, it's a cost thing, but it's not a performance thing to be perfectly honest. You can feel the difference between steel and a gold nib, but based on your writing style, it may not make your writing look that much different for the increasing costs that you're going to, uh, have to take on to afford a gold nib. Now, gold nibs are fantastic in their own right. They generally start with a, the 14 carat gold nib, um, and then go up to the 21 carat gold nib. So there, so 14, 18, and 21 carat are the main stops in the gold quantity of the nibs. The 14 carat being, uh, more of a mix, uh, of gold and other materials, and then 21 being more gold in the nib. And that just means it's a softer nib, um, a little bit more flexible, um, a little bit more feel and bounce in the nib. When you're writing also at a much greater price point. So 14 carat gold is going to be, you know, 10 times as much as a steel nib and a 21 carat gold is probably going to be 15 or more times, um, expensive than a steel nib. You know, it's just whatever the market rate for gold and how these companies are, are handling their gold stockpile to make this. I mean, it's a rare material and they're making, they're making these parts out of it and you will see the price jump greatly from a steel nib in the same barrel as a gold nib. It's, it's, it can be, you know, hundreds of dollars worth of difference. Titanium kind of falls in between steel and gold. And it's also not used that much, but it's common enough to where I think we should mention it. Um, it's an interesting material. It generally has some flex and some give to the nib. It has, um, a price point that is interesting enough for people to test it out. And it's just for some reason, whatever that reason is, it's never become as popular as steel or gold. I think it's just a little bit of a feel issue for a lot of people. It can get squeaky. Yeah, it can get squeaky or a look, a looks issue, right? It's not as good looking to be perfectly honest as steel or gold.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It looks like an unpolished metal basically because that's, you know, kind of what it is a lot of times. Right. Um, and it doesn't, it can be, it's more expensive than steel, uh, typically less expensive than gold, but doesn't offer the sex appeal that a gold nib has. Right. Right. Right. And a steel nib in a lot of circumstances can actually look nicer than a titanium nib as well.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Absolutely. And just to give people who are considering fountain pens for the first time, I'm going to give you just a ballpark price just to have in your head. And when we're talking about this for just a nib, let's say a steel nib would be $20, a titanium nib would be $50 and a gold nib would be $120. Right. That's just, just to give you a picture in your head of kind of what we're talking about just for a strict nib price. You know, there's obviously a million different things that can go into those costs and change those costs drastically, but just to give you a ballpark of, and something to work with when we're talking about pricing for those.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep. Because you also, you know, as well as the actual nib and what it's made of, there are lots of different quality aspects to consider about how they're made and customized and that kind of stuff.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. Yep. Now, if the materials weren't confusing enough, nib sizing can get very confusing because not all medium-sized nibs write the same. Mm-hmm. So, there's a thing in our industry where there's two groups of nib sizes and they're measured on a different baseline.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' European fountain pen nibs are probably what most people are introduced to first, what most people's fountain pen is sized with, and what most people's first fountain pen experience is. So, let's just say they range from an extra fine nib, which would be the finest line. Then they'll have a fine nib, a medium nib, and a broad nib for their line width grades of writing. Okay? So, your extra fine would be the finest line up to your broad would be the widest and wettest line. So, there's a difference in how the ink flows too. Japanese nibs will have the same extra fine, fine, medium, and broad, but every single one of them will write a finer line than their European counterparts. Mm-hmm. So, you have to know this if you want a medium line and you're used to, say, a brand called Lamy, which we'll talk about all these brands later, and you've used Lamy's medium nib, and you like a brand called Pilot, which is made in Japan, and you go to buy a Pilot medium nib, that line's going to write about half the width of your Lamy line. So, that's something you have to be aware of if you're buying a Japanese nib manufactured by a Japanese manufacturer, or, you know, in the case of Lamy, a German nib made in Europe. Those things are different. And that's one of the questions we'll get to this day of what nib should... I like to write like this, what nib is the best for me? That's a super common question that we get. So, it's a matter of trial and error and testing, and unfortunately, not all nib sizes are created equally. Mm-hmm.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The nib itself rests in what is known as the grip section, and the name of this section of the pen is pretty self-explanatory. It's the place that you hold.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, and we mention that because there are a lot of different things that go into a grip section. They can be straight, they can be tapered, they can be concave, they can be molded. In the case of Lamy, there's a ridge in the middle that will help you, theoretically, have a better grip on the pen to give you better penmanship. So, there's all kinds of different considerations that go into the grip itself, just from a shape and comfort perspective, right? It's depending on, again, this goes back to the most custom writing experience you can get is with a fountain pen, and right down to where you're holding the pen is going to feel different from person to person based on their grip. For example, I'm right-handed. I write with a traditional, what's called a tripod grip, like any, it's a pretty normal basic grip. Myke is left-handed. He would feel, his fingers would feel the same grip that I'm using in the same pen differently than I do, and is it comfortable for him? So, these are things you have to consider when you're making fountain pen purchases.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep, because there are many pens that, this differs for me and Brad. I'm what's known as an overhooker. So, I kind of hold the pen, I kind of circle my arm around the page, and the pen kind of faces back down towards me, which is a very peculiar thing, but it's a pretty standard left-handed grip. And so, yeah, but it results in a very, very different experience for the two of us from exactly the same pen. And this can come down to not just the grip section, but the performance of a nib,

'''Myke Hurley:''' and also it also helps equate to somebody's own preferences as to what they enjoy as well.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right, so there are filling systems. So, every fountain pen, so you will probably be aware that a fountain pen requires ink, right? I think people know that. It's a pretty standard thing that people are aware of. And there are two broad ideas, like two major ideas as to how you get ink in a fountain pen, and then one of them has lots of offshoots to it. The two basic ideas are, do you put a cartridge in it? So, like a typically little plastic thing that you buy from a pen company that's already filled with ink, and you buy like a box of them, and then you just refill them whenever it runs out, right? So, you're just refilling it. That is a cartridge. Nice and simple. That's typically, again, how most people will experience their first fountain pens in most instances, because it is the easiest, the least messy way to deal with a fountain pen. But then, it's also the least fun. The most fun is to refill it, to have ink from a bottle, typically, that you are going to refill your pen from. But then when you get into the ink refilling world, there are then a bunch of different filling systems that you may come across.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, so, like Myke said, cartridge is the basic. If you're starting, and you're just buying the most entry-level fountain pen, it's probably going to come in a package with a single-inch ink cartridge. You unscrew where the grip section meets the barrel, you take that cartridge out of the packaging, and you pop it right into the pen, screw the barrel back together, and start writing. So, that's your basic filling system. Everything else is going to require a bottle of ink. So, the converter essentially looks like a glorified cartridge with a little twist mechanism on the back, to where you unscrew the barrel, you put in the converter just as you would the cartridge, but it's empty. So, you twist this little knob, and the piston filler goes down, and you dip the front end of your pen, you know, where the nib is, and the grip section starts, into a bottle of ink, and then you twist it back, pulling the ink up into the converter. That's how people are getting all of these cool colors in their fountain pens that are not available in cartridges, right? That's the limitation that Myke was mentioning with cartridges. You know, you can get some wild, cool-color cartridges, but some of them are also specific to brands, and that's a whole, you know, that's the 201 level. We'll get to that. But for the basics, the converter just helps draw ink into the pen from the bottle. The advanced version of a converter is when it's actually built into the pen, and that's called a piston filler. It's, you know, expanding on the converter design to where the mechanics are actually physically built into the pen, where you're just screwing the back end of the pen barrel has the twist mechanism built in it, and the piston is built into the pen barrel, and it moves up and down the barrel as you're filling, and that's kind of considered, I don't know, one of the best filling mechanisms, right? Some people will only buy piston mechanisms. You know, it's, as you can imagine, it can be much more costly, much more expensive than filling, than using a cartridge or a converter. There is a cost consideration when you're talking about a piston filler. Same with a vacuum-type filler. It's similar to a piston, but it's more of a plunging mechanism. You unscrew it from the back, and then you kind of snap down the piston rod that is in there, and it sucks up the ink in a more aggressive fashion than a piston. This is a very interesting conversation, Myke.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Once you get into more advanced levels of fountain pens, people will use what's called an eyedropper filling, and it's not even a mechanism. It's really when you have a certain barrel type that is sealed off by silicone grease, and you just fill the barrel in its entirety with ink. So it's the highest capacity. This is the most advanced.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This really is, like, you've got to feel very comfortable with yourself, and your ability is to pull this off, I think, because it is also the most prone to make a huge mess.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, and it's really an old type of mechanism, old type of filling that, you know, was probably around late 1800s, definitely early 1900s. This type of eyedropper filling system was in vogue at the time, and it kind of went away because it can be very messy, and at the time, you know, the consistencies built in fountain pens weren't as great as they are now from a manufacturing perspective. So eyedroppers give you basically the largest ink capacity, and for some people that's a very important consideration. So that is a lot of your consideration in the filling system is, one, you know, do I want to use an ink that's not available in a cartridge? And then number two, how much of that ink do I want to put into the pen? So a converter, it's going to be a smaller capacity than a piston filler, which is going to be smaller capacity than an eyedrop-filled fountain pen in general terms.

'''Myke Hurley:''' What else? Do we want to talk anything more on fountain pens today?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think we want to clean them, Myke. I know you're not interested in this, really.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's a good point. I'm not interested in it. I just don't do it as much as you do.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So cleaning your fountain pens is important. You don't have to overly obsess about it. What I always say about fountain pen cleaning is you have to be considerate of when your pen needs cleaning, right? So this is clearly the highest maintenance form of pen writing that you're going to do above, you know, your ballpoints, rollerballs, and gel ink pens. There is maintenance involved. And I think that's more, that's the biggest roadblock for people testing fountain pens.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, it's more than just refilling them, right? You do occasionally, if you want to maintain the life of your pen, you do have to clean it as well. You have to give it some tender love and care.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. It is not difficult to clean a fountain pen just for your basic use. All you have to do is unscrew the barrel, you know, hold the nib section in one hand, remove the cartridge or converter, and run it underwater until it runs clear, right? If you have a blue ink in it, when it's no longer running blue. So you can shake out the nib, you know, in a paper towel. You just want to have some idea of how to clean a fountain pen, because what happens is the nib and the feed will tend to get dry. That's the exposed part of the fountain pen. And so where that liquid is, it will tend to dry up a little bit over time. And that will cause the ink flow not to flow as well. So it just won't be as nice of a writing experience. But if you clean it, it's like getting a brand new pen again. I use a couple of tools aside from just running the fountain pen nibs and grip section under the water. I use, oddly enough, a nasal aspirator, which is a little syringe bulb that you use. And it just pressure pushes water through the nib. And it just cleans it out faster and more forcefully. And I find that to be well worth any investment. Even if you only have one fountain pen and one bottle of ink, spending $1.50 on a nasal aspirator to shoot water through the nib when it's time to clean it is worth every penny. And will just make your writing experience more enjoyable. You can also use blunt nose syringes to kind of shoot water into a pen. Sometimes that's good for piston fillers, right? Because you'll clean out the nib section. And then you still have like a barrel that, you know, you normally can just run water through the piston, just fill it back and forth. But a syringe, you can kind of pop in there and pressure wash it a little bit, if you will. And then there are ultrasonic cleaners, which is a really, that's your advanced move. They're not necessary unless you're a very avid fountain pen cleaner into vintage pens that need extensive cleaning. It's not something you should really consider buying if you're a beginner. But I wanted to mention it because it does come up enough to where people ask about, do I need an ultrasonic cleaner to clean a fountain pen? Well, the answer is no. But there are extreme situations where people who have extensive pen collections do find them useful.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Did we do it?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We did it.