Editing The Pen Addict 157/transcript (section)

== Customization Options ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Only once. One of the things that... This isn't a con as such. But this is just a kind of warning thing. Just something to think about. Keep track of what you're spending during the process.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because it can be quite easy to be like, I want this, this, this, and this. Would you like it this way or this way? So I'd love it this way. Great. Would you like it this way or this way? Just keep track of what you're spending. Or set a budget when you're going in. And work out what the maximum is you can go there. Or tell the person you're working with up front how much money you're going to spend. Like for my Edison, I was kind of like, I'm going to get exactly what I want. And then I'll deal with the cost at the end of it. But then when the cost come through, I was like, okay, it is expensive, but this is what I wanted to do. But I could see how if I was just making those decisions, it would have been quite easy for me to rack up a huge bill that I wasn't ready for. So I think it's just worth just keeping tabs of what you want to spend and how you want to spend it. Do a bit of research and stuff before you go into the process. Because this is manual labor. And that's why it is craftsmanship. And that's why this stuff is expensive. Because you are having something crafted for you. This is not being spat out of a machine on a production line. So these things, because the more work you have done to them, the more time they take. And the more time they take, the more expensive they are. That is just the way these things work. So you just have to bear that in mind.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. I think a good way to talk about the pricing, it's essentially a la carte pricing. Right? There's a baseline. And then pretty much all add-ons are extra. So we're going to talk about pricing on various different pens here coming up in a minute. But if you think of it that way, well, let's dig into it. And let's start with Edison. Because that's who I'm the most familiar with. I don't want to say they're the biggest because I don't have any information to back it up. But they're very popular. They have a huge lineup of production line pens, which are your standard pens. You can get them in fixed colors. Say four or five different acrylics. And fixed sizes. And they're sold by several different vendors all around the world. And there's maybe four or five models in that production line. So that's Brian's retail business. But where he really does his best work, in my opinion, is in the Signature Line series. Which that's when you're getting into everything's custom. I mean, he messes around and has some Signature Line pens for sale. That where he's just made, you know, one-off stuff on his own. But they run you the same price as if you email Brian and say, Hey, I want an Edison Menlo. And, you know, not the green one that you have up on the site. I want to customize it. And I want to use, you know, these acrylics. You know, this nib. These colors. You know, you can mix and match the colors within the barrel. Which is something I did. We'll talk about this review I did in a minute. But basically, someone like Brian, and this goes for all these other companies. You go to one of their sites. They have a general pen design lineup. Basically the barrel shape, okay? So you find a shape of pen that you like. And then you go over to their, I'll just say acrylics for, there's several different, you know, there's ebonite. There's all kinds of different materials you can make these pens out. But when I say acrylic, just assume it's the different materials that you can have a pen manufactured from. And then there's different, you know, add-ons. Whether you want a steel nib or a gold nib. Do you want any kind of special nib modification done? Things like that. So all of these sites that I'm going to be talking about are kind of set up similarly. You pick out your style of pen. You pick out your colors. And you can have a conversation back and forth with everybody. Which is what I've done with Brian in the past. You say, you know, this is the material I'm looking at. And this is the pen style I'm looking at. And can we do something a little different on this end piece? Because it could be a different color. And how about on the cap? It could be a different color. And we can do all these tweaks. And, you know, Brian's generally like, yeah, we can absolutely do that. And he will tell you if you can. Yeah. So I've had two pens from Brian. One that I designed myself. And one that was a gift for me. And that's the pen I reviewed today on the Pen Enix blog. Which is my Edison Menlo pump filler. If you go look at that pen. You can see that it's a pen that's made for me specifically. Right? You're not going to find this pen for sale by Brian ever. You know? Because no one's as dumb as me to get a red and blue demonstrator pen barrel together. I love it though. Oh my god. I love this pen so much. It has personality. And it fits my personality. It's just a cool looking pen. But the way it was built. I was talking to Brian about getting my first Edison custom pen. And I was saying, well, what if I did this barrel and these colors? And I had this whole email chain from him. And I never decided on a pen. Well, Jeff, my partner at Nock, wanted to do something for me. So he emailed Brian. And Brian's like, look, I've got all this stuff from Brad. I know what he likes. Let's make him a pen. And so they did. And Jeff got that for me. But it's basically, he went back and forth with Jeff on the colors. Where to put the colors. Make the barrel blue. Make the cap red. Make the section clear. Things like that. Those are the kind of things you can do when you're making a custom pen. You can really do some weird stuff, which I'm all about doing weird stuff. So Brian's real easy to work with. You share these emails back and forth. They want to do it right for you, right? It's not like a one and done, you know, tell me what you want and I'll make the pen and you'll get it whenever. It's a really great communication process I've had with Brian and anyone else I've purchased pens from. For example, the next person I want to talk about is Sean Newton.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The only Sean Newton pen I have is a nib holder he did for me, which several of these companies do that. You know, they make these nib holders that fit loose nibs. Like I have an Esther Brook nib. Thomas Hall and Sean collaborated to make me a nib holder. Well, I've seen some of Sean's other work, including the Shinobi, which is a really uniquely designed pen. And I was like, okay, I want one of these. So I did this one from scratch, just communicating with Sean. Sean, I emailed Sean. It's like, hey, it's time. I'm ready to order my first Shinobi. What do you need from me? You know, that's how you start off the email. You know, have a great, you know, just a little introduction. Hey, this is what I'm thinking. Tell me what you need from me. And so Sean replies back. He says, all right, go to this link. Pick out your acrylics. And you can do this with your acrylics. You know, you can, you know, you can do the barrel one color. You can do the section another color. You can do whatever you want to do. Pick those out. Tell me what you want. And I'll let you know, you know, what I think, you know, of your results. So I emailed him back. And I'm getting like a smoke gray translucent barrel and a orange translucent section, which the way the Shinobi's designed, it's going to have like a line across the middle. So it's, it's, I'm excited that it's going to look pretty sweet. I haven't seen it yet. But to kind of put an idea in your head how long these types of things takes, I think I ordered that in February from Sean. Paid for it. Got the design right up front. And we solidified it. He sent me a purchase order and I should get it in June. So that's like five months.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's normal. That is completely normal, especially for Sean. Sean's in a transition, right? He's leaving his teaching job to make pens full time. So I wonder, you know, in the future, maybe it's quicker, but you can just assume it's going to be close to six months when you're getting into this.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And doing this. And I'm going to back up a little bit. And I'll roll Sean and Newton pens and Edison pen in together. The price, kind of what you were talking about. Like the Menlo that I got that Jeff bought for me was $350. And I think my Shinobi, I didn't pull up the invoice, but it's right around that price too. $330, $350 range. Those are... The Menlo is a little more expensive because it has this pump filling system that took a lot of... It's a lot of engineering going into that pen. But these are not cheap pens. I mean, it's not something you go into without a lot of thought into it. Because you're going to spend a good amount of money on making any of these pens. And this is going to be the case on a lot of these manufacturers. It's just something you should know going into it. And I'm really excited about this Shinobi and getting it in. And maybe when I get it and review it, I'll talk more about the ordering process on how I did it. That might be useful. Because that's the first one I've kind of walked through all the steps with someone to make a pen for me. So those are the two that I've had direct experience with and having pens. But I wanted... I didn't want to leave out... Well, I'm sure I'm going to leave somebody out. But I wanted to talk about a lot of other manufacturers that are doing awesome custom work. And I see all these things on Instagram. All these other examples of people doing great pens. Doing great designs. Using beautiful acrylics. Doing awesome work. So I want to shine the spotlight on a handful of other vendors that I haven't used but I hope to use in the future. But first, Myke, let's do our second awesome friend of the show that I'm dying to talk about. And then we'll get into some of these other vendors.