Editing The Pen Addict 673/transcript (section)

== Focus moves to a new product, the "Ink Thrower" nib holder. ==

* Like the pen show stuff, pen stuff. This is a great product to carry around. So one product. I don't know if you could travel with it, Myke. But what about a nib holder called the Ink Thrower, which I just launched? You could travel with it. I don't think that nib holders are your typical travel stationery. But, you know, it comes in all sizes. Yeah. TSA compliant. Who knows? Right? You know, your mileage may vary. But I did a collaboration with Turnt Penco and River City Penco. Turnt Penco, Tim helped me make a material that met the idea that I wanted to make with this nib holder. And then River City Penco makes great nib holders that I've used several of his over the years. So Rich over at River City, I got them and myself all together to make a product I wanted to use. Right? So it's always fun to make a thing you want to use yourself. Right? Like, that's how I make, that's how a lot of things come to be. A lot of, like, collaborative products that I work on. And this, it came out spectacularly. Like, I got, this is one of those times, and I do this a lot. And I know this is my product, so I should, like, really, really like it. But I opened up the first one and pulled it out of the little sleeve it shipped in. And I just, I went, holy, you know, I said words we can't say on here.
* Like, that was my instant reaction. But, like, I know, like, I made it. So I should be, I hope I'm happy with it. But it was, yeah, it was, like, a really reactive visceral reaction for me. So I'm looking forward to this. Basically, the concept, like, with nib holders, if you're not familiar with them, it's just a way to put down a lot of ink on a page, right? I don't necessarily write with them. But they're good to dip into ink bottles, do ink samples with, do a little bit of drawing or coloring. They're very easy to clean to where you can just, you know, write with a bunch of different inks in one sitting. You know, you could just write and clean it, dip it in water, clean it off, dip it in the next bottle, and just keep going. So it's become a very popular idea these days. Again, this goes into that broader concept, again, at the beginning. Like, individual pens are getting very expensive. What are other things we can use to play with the things we already have? Like, a shelf full of ink that I already have, right? Like, this is an expensive product, right? But it's also different than, you know, maybe a lot of pens that I have. And I can do things differently with it, right? I think $100 in this hobby is not quote-unquote expensive anymore. Yeah, well, if you don't know what it is and you aren't familiar with this type of thing, you could see that. But yeah, for like what this is, like, I'm good with this. And also, I guess you do have to, you know, your BYON on this one, you know? Yeah, BYON. Yes, yeah. Like, it doesn't even chip with a nib because, like, the nib that I use, the nib alone was $50, right? Right, okay. But you can use less expensive nibs, right? You can use, like, a $5 nib in there. But, you know, it's just one of those things. I've enjoyed seeing people experiment with ink. I've gotten roped into that. And I wanted to make a product of my own to use for myself. So, yeah, it's really, really good. So, I'm enjoying it. They're available for sale.
* I only made 50 of them. Like, this isn't a push to, like, sell a bunch. I've sold, you know, more than half of them. So, like, they're not going to be around forever. And, you know, maybe there's a round two. Maybe there's not. Who knows? So, it's just, like, a small little personal project that I wanted to do. And it came out great. So, for you, this product is, like, it's for testing. Like, you're not trying to do calligraphy or whatever. I know. I actually don't like writing words, letters with the nib. I could probably practice and do a little bit better. But I'll do ink swatches with it. Sure. And then I will, if I'm going to do some writing, like, if I'm then going to write, like, say I use Orochizuku Toro, which is a recent ink review I've done. I'll do all the swatching and different coloring and, you know, put a lot of ink down on the page. And then I'll grab, like, a black pen, like, a very fine nib black pen, like, or, like, a fineliner and write, you know, Pilot Orochizuku Toro under that. And so, like, that part's consistent. So, I don't know. That's just one of my little particular nuances. But, yeah, you can totally write with these. When thinking about the shape of the barrels, you have three shapes, is there one of them, or is there any consideration into making the product work the way you want it to? Or is it just you just like the shape? Yeah, you just like the shape. There's not too much difference in there. The only difference is the, like, the concave grip section. Like, there's one called the Slim, which is actually what I thought I was going to do all of them in Slim. But then as I talked to Rich, I learned, like, what's the most popular one. So, the Slim is just a complete straight edge, just like a brush, right? It feels most brush-like when you hold it. But then the two contour shapes, there's a standard one, and then there's a mini one, which is, you know, about an inch shorter. They both have, like, a dedicated grip section in there, which a lot of people like. And that's actually the one I'm going to use for myself. So, I stole one of these for myself. I had to make sure to do that before they all sold out. I mean, it would kind of suck if you made a product for yourself and then ended up not getting one. Well, I also like selling them to people, too. Like, other people have them. There's a lot of things I don't have that I've sold. But this one I had to have. Like, I made this one because I wanted it. It's specific. Yeah, it's like, you know, if you did, you know, your fourth version of a collaboration pen or whatever, then maybe, you know, it's like, I like the design. I don't need to own one or whatever. I prefer to sell it. But this is more specific as like a product that you wanted that didn't exist in the way that you wanted it to. Yep. They're really cool looking. Do you have, I know you've kind of written in the post, but do you have like a specific nib recommendation for somebody that wants to do it like you do, right? So, to buy the ink thrower, to throw ink, what nib would you recommend that they check out? I prefer the Kakamori nibs. I'd say that's also the most popular, right? I'm not, that's not something like unique. The only thing with the Kakamori nibs, like when they came out, they've been hugely popular. We've probably talked about them several times on the show. They're $50 a pop, right? That was, it was a real interesting product when it came out because we went from our basic calligraphy nibs or comic nibs, like the Zebra G nib is a very popular shaped dip pen nib. And those are like $3 a nib, $5 a nib. They don't last necessarily, they last forever. They're made to be more disposable. But it was a very inexpensive way to get into dip pen inks. And then Kakamori came out with this bullet, stainless steel bullet nib. Even though it was so expensive, it just kind of really hit the mark for what people were looking for. It's basically a glass dip pen idea, right? Made in a metal nib, right? This one's stainless steel. They have a brass one. You know, they have things like that. So this is, I don't want to say this has become the default or the de facto because of the price. It's like, again, it's pretty expensive for that, but it is so enjoyable. And it works how I want to want this type of pen to work. I can get a lot of ink when I dip it. And I'm not writing calligraphy with it, right? So I don't need like a flexi nib to be dipping these pens. So yeah, it's just great. So that's the other option is the Colorverse Shuttle. Those just came along beginning of this year, late last year, beginning of this year. Same concept as Kakamori. I prefer the Kakamori in feel over the Colorverse. The Colorverses are a little bit sharper, right? But it's all kind of a feel thing. You have to test. This would be a good thing to test out, like the different types of nibs. But that's the good thing is they're interchangeable, right? You're not stuck with one. So you can pop in whatever you want. And I guess one of the benefits to using a pen like this, like a nib holder, that's what I'm looking for. Thank you, Myke, for doing that for yourself. Good work. Is they're very easy to clean and very easy to change. So if you're trying to test out a bunch of inks, you can do it easily without having to like clean out a feed. Right. Yeah, it just gives you, it just, we like, I guess I'll speak for myself. I don't want to say we, but I look for a variety, right? This is why I like a lot of different colors of inks. And, you know, even if I have like three inks in front of me and I'm trying to decide, maybe I want to put one of these in a fountain pen, I can grab this dip nib, test them all in the span of like five minutes and, you know, kind of, you know, see what I'm feeling and pick them out like that. So it's just a fun, easy way to test inks. And you can do this, you know, a lot cheaper than, you know, getting something like the ink thrower and a Kakamori nib. Like you don't need $150 setup to test inks. Like you can get just your, your basic Tachikawa like holder and nib for like 10 bucks. Or, you know, platinum and sailor have started doing, you know, less expensive, like dip nib type of thing. So this has just been a fun thing to see in the community over the last several years, the exploration and explosion of fountain pen inks and characteristics and testing and seeing what all of these inks do and how different people use them. So it's, it's really, really been fun to see. All right. You good? You good with that? You, you quizzed me a lot there, man. Oh, you know, it's not what you're up to. Yeah, it was good. Well, what I was up to aside from dropping the ink thrower this week is checking out the international stationery of the year awards. Okay. So I followed this Instagram account called a Bungu store. No, and I don't, not Bungu box, Bungu store.
* And it's a pretty big account. Like how many followers they have? They have a lot of followers. Like I'm not totally familiar with their game, but they, they're literally a store, right? 760,000 followers on Instagram. I think they're a store that appears to sell Japanese goods outside of Japan. Yeah. So they sell a lot and like, um, you know, they pop up in my feed every now and then. And recently they popped up with the ISOT awards, which is the stationery of the year awards. So I wanted to go over, this is different than the, um, like the different, uh, voting. Um, I forget the name of it. The, the vote we do like at the end of the year where the stationery fans will vote on their favorite products of the year. And they'll do like a top 40 or top 50 pins. This is a little bit different. This is more like that red dot category where there's a, there's a group. Uh, I was trying to actually find more on like, who is the ISOT panel who is voting in this and things like that. And I couldn't really find that, but, um, they did pick out some award winners this year. And I always like seeing this because it's usually what we're going to see next, uh, like in the rest of the world. Right. Because most cool stationery, and this is definitely a stationery award, not pin awards, right? There's what, and we're going to talk about like 10 products. There's one pin in here. Yeah. Uh, to talk about. So they had one, two, three, four, four categories, and then a grand award winner. So I'm just going to go through these real quick. Uh, and maybe have a couple of comments. Like the very, the very first, uh, one is the functionality award, the first award. So there were two products that won the functionality award. Number one is the max Vimo 11 flarm a flarm stapler. That's literally how it's spelled and how they said it in the video. I looked at it very, very much. I don't know what that word means. It's not the flame stapler. Uh, it's not the farm stapler. It's the flarm.