Editing The Pen Addict 445/transcript (section)

== Book Recommendation ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Like all of them. I don't have any, I mean, I have Caroline's books.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, but they just don't, it's not a thing that it really exists. Like it'd be cool if there was

'''Myke Hurley:''' more, but. What it might suggest though is like maybe the stories aren't there to be told, like really riveting stories of pen production. Well, yeah. And I think in the day and age that we're in

'''Brad Dowdy:''' right now, like, like Emil, I don't want to put words in his mouth, but I'll say it from my perspective. Like I'm good on the originations of Parker, right? Do I need the Parker history book? It would probably be fine and I would probably enjoy it, but I would like something a little bit more modern, more modern tales. And I don't know that we're, we'll get these or not. So, you know, interesting. Second letter. If you want to send me a letter through the snail mail, maybe for IncoWriMo, my PO box address is on the contact page at penaddict.com. You can go get that information there, which is where this question from Michael and Natalie came. Okay. Says, hi Brad. I'm a new member of the pen addict and relatively new to collecting fountain pens. I had a question. Maybe you can answer in a podcast. How can one justify spending a couple of hundred dollars on a universal converter fountain pen? I feel like you get more for your money when I buy a piston filler pen. I have not been able to justify buying a converter pen yet. Should I continue to avoid them or suck it up and buy one? So here's a clarifying question here.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I mean like universal converter, what is, I would assume meaning like standard?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Any cartridge converter pen versus a mechanized filling system pen, such as a piston

'''Myke Hurley:''' or a vacuum. Right. I mean, cause like sailor and pilot don't have universal. Right. I think

'''Brad Dowdy:''' that I think we'll, we'll include sailor and pilot in this conversation as cartridge converter pens. Okay. Even though they are not a universal, but the idea behind the question is general converter versus hardware filling system, right? I mean, right off the bat, one thing that I would

'''Myke Hurley:''' say is that I ever had bad reliability issues with non cartridge converter filling systems, which, you know, like I have pens that I've spent a lot of money on. I mean, I was actually just going through these on the weekend. I was just looking, me and Nadine were looking through, it's just some of my stationary stuff. We'd like, see if there's anything in there that could be used or what that neither of us are using. And I found a couple of pens that like, I need to have repaired because something's not right about them. And one of them is a, is a piston filler, but I don't know what the problem is because I can't get in there and see it. So I think I understand the point, but like an initial pushback that I would have would be that, which is these, they could be more finicky and maybe

'''Brad Dowdy:''' more expensive because of it. Yes. Um, so like to the, the part of the letter I want to focus on is should I continue to avoid them or suck it up and buy one? You should never suck it up and buy one, right? Like if that's, if you think there's no need to ever buy a converter pin, if you just don't like the idea of converters and you feel like you're not getting your value in a product for a converter. For me, the filling system is never a priority or mostly not a priority for some people agree with Michael completely that the top priority is, let's just say the piston filler and it could be a vac or it could be whatever filling system, right? And it's not a real fountain pen unless I can get that piston filling mechanism. And that's a valid, valid point too. You just have to decide is like, do you feel that you're missing out by limiting yourself to one style of filling system? And if you don't, then there's no need to ever buy a cartridge converter filling system pen. And that's perfectly okay. There's people that will never buy a cartridge converter fountain pen. So don't feel that you have to do it by any stretch of the imagination. But I think the broader picture, which is what you were trying to say is that there's really not that much difference, right? I get more enjoyment from the physical pen and the nib itself, regardless of the filling system, right? Exactly. There you go. All right. Let me let you read off a couple of these. All right. I definitely, definitely want to knock

'''Myke Hurley:''' out as many as we can today. Okay. This one comes from Blake, from Zoe. We're gonna start with Zoe's question actually. We'll get to Blake's question in a moment. I don't want to miss this one. Like many people, COVID did a number of my finances this year and bonus things like stationary indulgences don't get a place on the budget anymore. But now my FOMO is a lot worse. Are there any limited editions or hard to find stationary items that you regret not purchasing? Or do you always find a new best thing later on? And do you have any ideas for it or advice for enjoying what I already own? Like it's the new hotness that I can't buy besides having to learn to write with my non-dominant hand.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's an important question, right? Like I really think about this from time to time as someone who gets caught up and buys too many pens. I don't have any regrets, at least like in the near recent term, which is many, many years. Because just like Zoe says, whenever I feel like I'm missing out, I know for a fact there's going to be something later that when the budget allows or the life situation allows that, hey, I can pick this up and enjoy it and not regret missing on the thing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is also a hobby where things come around again. Like you may be able to pick one up later on from somebody else. Yeah. And I've been in that multiple times.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I was about to have a hissy fit on Sailor this weekend with Inks, but I decided not to put it in the show notes because it just makes me mad. It's the epitome of that. They're one of the worst of the things coming around again or the best, depending on your views of it. But yeah, I do too. So you should never regret not purchasing anything. So do you have any ideas or advice for enjoying what I already own? Yeah. Again, like it's the new hotness that I can't buy.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And you want to go first?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. If this is more, my advice is not for if you have no budget, but if you want to have still a very small budget, you could find some smaller upgrades to your existing stuff. So when the budget allows maybe a new nib in a new style to what you're used to, you know, maybe you go to an extra fine nib, maybe you go to a stub nib, maybe pick up a new ink, new ink, you can do a number on making a pen feel different. So they're the kinds of things that I would consider like that when your budget does open up just a little, buy some kind of ancillary item to the pens that you already own to help them get that new feel.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Perfect. And my suggestion was to take what you have and really refine it down to an understanding of what works best for your handwriting style. If you're a fountain pen fan, do you have extra fine, fine, medium, and broad nibs? One of those is going to be the best for your handwriting, you know, and maybe you, you, you enjoy that style of nib more than the other ones and you can sell, you know, any of the other ones and stick with maybe a medium. Or if you like gel pens, is there a certain style of gel pens that makes your handwriting look better? Like I have pens that I know for a fact are going to make my handwriting look better than the pen right next to it. So take what you already have, go through a little testing and discovery phase, rediscover what works the best for you, and then focus on that going forward. That will allow you to make a more refined purchasing decision, especially when the budget is in play, right? If you really have to think about what you're buying, you'll be more confident in when you do go to make a purchase that, hey, I'm really going to use this product because it fits exactly what I need from a writing perspective.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Blake asks, I tried to distance myself from social media for various reasons over the years. And so that has meant missing out in the communities that I want to be a part of. I'm wondering what my, uh, your thoughts are on the influence of social media and on the growth of the industry while also potentially alienating folks who want to be in on the conversations without the time sucking social media channels.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's pretty loaded. This question, Blake, I'm going to say, uh, it's a fair question. It's a good

'''Brad Dowdy:''' question. Language. It is tricky. It is. Well, it is a very personal, how you handle things question, because I, to me, I am not guns blazing on social media. Give me everything all the time injected into my veins. I'm a very refined social media user. That's why I say I'm comfortable saying I like Twitter and I love using it and I love reading it because I have refined it into an experience that works best for me where a general statement would be Twitter is a cesspool, right? Those two things are so far apart and unrelated. Like I couldn't even tell you because I've turned into something that works for me. Yeah. Same thing goes for Instagram, which are those are the two social networks that I use are, are Twitter and Instagram. I've actually been using Instagram a little bit less because their algorithm is very frustrating to me, but that doesn't really help with this question. So the influence of social media on the growth of the industry is enormous point blank to answer that question. Does it alienate folks who want to be in on the conversations without the time sucking social media channels? You have to get your information from somewhere. You know, if you're avoiding social media, which is a totally valid thing to say, how are you, but you like stationer and you want to keep up, are you subscribing to, you know, retailers newsletters? You know, what are these places where you want to get information? Because a lot of it happens on social media. You know, you can subscribe to a lot of blogs and you subscribe to newsletters. Yeah. And those are kind of the ways to get it outside of social media. And I think you can, you can get 90% of what you want. I think from, from doing that, if you want to try to avoid the social media parts of it and like that, I think that would be valid, but my social media for usage for my own mental health is best defined by the word refinement. And I really have it locked down on what I want to see and what I want to get involved in and have learned over the years how to be restrained with that where in the past I have not been.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep. I mean, the thing about this is though, it's where people are. Mm-hmm. Right. And, and I understand if you don't want to use it, but there are still, as you say, there are still blogs, there are still closed communities. Like, I don't know if you consider things like discords and slacks part of social media. I wouldn't, but, but you can, but if, you know, I understand that like, if you don't want to be on Twitter and Instagram, you're going to miss out and stuff, but it's kind of like, there was always a thing you could have decided to ignore. And I don't think that there's anything different about now. Like if 15 years ago, you're like, I'm not reading these internet blogs. I'm going to wait for the newspaper, like, or the new, the printed newsletter. I'm going to wait to read this in pen world. Like going back far enough, there's always a new thing that you could ignore. And if being on social media is better for your mental health, which I totally understand, that's fine. But I don't really think people can be, you know, I don't think it can be criticized that that's just where the conversation's happening. Like, unfortunately, I think that this is just a thing that you'll have to find a way around. And that might be is, joining private groups, forums, that kind of stuff, if that's something you're more comfortable with.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's another form of FOMO, right? Like, are you okay with missing out on the timeliness of information? And as long as you're okay with that, you know, you're going to be happy. You're going to be content. So I'll tell you, you just got to figure out what works best. If you're not on Instagram, you'll save money. That's a fact. Let's spend someone else's money this next question. We can spend some money on this next one.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. That sports gamer asks, I really like the perforated corners that some planners have to keep your place. The planner I got for this year doesn't have them, but I'd like to find a cutter to make them myself. Do you know of any that will do this nicely?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm going to say it, Myke. All right. The theme system version two has the best corner perfs I've ever used. It does. Because your boy worked on it for ages. They have not failed yet in using corner perfs in the past. The expectation is that they are going to fail, either not pulling out cleanly or going too far.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Or that you have to do some kind of pre-folding or whatever. Yeah. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' These work flawlessly. That said, taking your existing notebook and adding in a corner perf, I think would cause you to pull your hair out.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because you'd have to, every day you're doing two things, right? You're adding the perforation and then taking the perforation off.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And then pulling your hair out when it fails completely. So the items we've talked about, perforating notebooks, like we'll have a link to Amazon to this one that I have not tested. I do not want to vouch for this, but you know, I've been sent it as people who perforate full pages. I think this product would work, right? It's just like a roller that will put it, put in that perforation that you need. I don't think you're going to get a leverage, the leverage that you would be happy with in the corner with an item like this, unless there was a style that was more of a punch style as opposed to a roll style. So I think that would be, be scary, but like, again, at what cost is this for you? And are you going to get the value out of that? Um, yeah. So I haven't used anything outside of the theme system recently with good corner perf. So I don't have a pure recommendation for that, but making your own, you can try one of these rollers, but I would look for more of a punch style.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And, uh, sad Madifax asks, I have an eight year old fountain pen that's been writing very spotty lately. Ink stops running every time I picked up the nib, that kind of thing. I recently cleaned and reloaded it with a new cartridge to see if that helped, but it seemed to make it worse. Do you have

'''Brad Dowdy:''' any advice? So sometimes just like cleaning and depending on your cleaning, um, system, I guess, um, you know, it does, it might not get everything that you need. So the first thing that when I hear about this is thinking that there might be something in the tines, like paper getting in the tines that like a regular rinsing would not necessarily clear out, right? You have to kind of split the tines open, even on your thumbnail, like in rinse it or get like a little brass shim to, you know, slide through there. I'm wondering if that's what it could be. If not, the second thing, depending on the pen, you want to pull the nib off the feed and make sure that there's that getting behind the nib and into the feed and yeah, you got to clean the feed separately. If it's, if it's never been cleaned, that might be more of the issue. Um, if it's never been cleaned separately, I'm not saying you don't clean your pen, but now we're at a point where new inks or your cleaning routine is not improving the writing. I think we've got to look at going a step further in actually, um, removing nibs, cleaning feeds separately. And if you do that already, then we might have some type of issue. I don't know what it could be, but like, I would want to hear from you to see if, if you're doing that level of cleaning, because you do that once you feed do, if you do this feed cleaning once, you don't have to do that every time you can wait another, you know, six months or a year to completely, um, take apart the nib and the feed. It's really, depending on the pen, it's, it's really easy. Don't get overwhelmed by me saying this. It's, it's pretty easy.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. We have a, uh, four part question to round out today's episode.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. So this comes from scrolling. And so question one, I was gifted a vintage shafer with a touchdown filler, which is a bit of a family heirloom heirloom. I would like to use the pen, but it needs some work done specifically. A new latex sack. Uh, maybe the, as a bit, the clips got a bit of wiggle to it. Um, and probably maybe some nib tuning or something like that. Do you have any recommendations for someone who would be willing to do this work for me?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Shockingly, Myke, I have the perfect person. Okay. Normally, normally if it was anything, but like a Schaefer or maybe like a Parker, like if we're starting to get into some, some specific things, I may not have the perfect answer. I might have an answer, but I have the perfect answer from you. And that's my friend Stacy at paper, once a pen, um, I'll it paper, once a pen.com is the website. Uh, I'm friends with scrolling on Twitter. I can send them the link to Stacy's work. He does some of the best Schaefer restorations I have ever seen. He's like a Schaefer pro and he does other pens and does other work, but he crushes the work on Schaefer's and I would send him my pen without hesitation to get it fixed. And I am not the only one of that opinion. He does awesome restoration work and, um, I'm sure he would be happy to take a look at your pen. Question two, I keep my pocket pens in

'''Myke Hurley:''' my purse, but since many of them are metal, I don't feel comfortable having them loose for fear of what they would do to the other stuff in the, my phone, especially. That is a good point. Uh, any recommendations for pen holders that are sized for pocket pens? So I have a Kaweco denim sleeve

'''Brad Dowdy:''' that I like for this. Not a lot of people make the nylon ones. Rickshaw does some different size single pen holders and they're not always in stock, but you can always, I think just get a custom one made, but shown design does have them in stock because Ian does make shorter pens. So they're kind of a stock thing for him. Look there. If you like that style, if you don't like that style, I'd look at the Kaweco denim ones, which I think are super cool. Um, and outside of that, there's really, really not a ton. Like I had to rack my brain on this one, but for like shorter pens, I tend to just throw them in my pocket without a case or use the Kaweco sleeves. Um, I've used the Kaweco leather sleeve in the past, but we're trying to avoid that here. Um, so yeah, like the Kaweco, like Lily put sleeves, you can find those or the sport sleeves. Um, they're pretty cool.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Next up is question three for sketching. I much prefer square over rectangular paper for a sketchbook, but these don't seem widely available. I found some square watercolor books, but the per page cost is prohibitive. Do you have any recommendations? So when I first

'''Brad Dowdy:''' answered this question, so scrolling sent this like two weeks ago and I answered this question, there was a, a product called the Quattro, um, which in the past has made a square notebook, but in their current offerings, they do not. So I was a little flummoxed in this. Then just yesterday, our friends at right notepads came out with a seven inch by seven inch engineering notebook. Now it may not have the paper style that scrolling is looking for, but this is one of the only, uh, I'm trying to find the link right now. Someone sent it to me yesterday, but it's one of the only just like pure square notebooks here. I got the link. I'll put it in the show notes that I've seen. I'm going to order this for me because it looks great. Um, Rodia also makes some square notebooks, but they have, they are generally harder to find than their standard notebooks, right? Like if you have a Rodia supplier, they may not choose to carry the square notebooks. You don't always see them in like product offerings, um, from people that carry a lot of Rodia. So the only ones I know right now are the Rodia one and the right pads one. And I'm not sure if that's going to work for the type of writing you want to do on these notebooks, but take a look. And I would like to explore this one more because I like square notebooks, as long as they're like the seven by seven would be like the max size. I wouldn't want anything bigger. Um, but yeah, that that's new right pads. I it's called the engineer, but notebook, and I am a hundred percent all over that. I will be ordering that for myself.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Finally, a bonus discussion question. Do you ever have products where you prefer the stock lineup over the special editions? And do you worry that as a community, we get too invested in the special editions? The second part I can answer easily. Yeah, of course, but that's, that's what hype's all about. Yeah. Except for any, um, any hobby. All right. So I want you to think, do you have a product

'''Brad Dowdy:''' line that you love or let's just go with enjoy? It may not be your, even your favorite where you would take, you use more of the stock releases than the limited special releases.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I'm thinking about this. Like you look at the Japanese brands, right? Sailor, a hundred percent, not stock because they've kind of given up on that. So pilot. Yeah. Pilot. I use a lot of stock products from them, from the vanishing point, even the base colors, vanishing points, the nine 12s, the 90 ones, those are pilot does a really good stock lineup because maybe it's because they don't do that many special editions. They'll do like one, one here, one there. Um, you know, um, it's like the stock lineups are dwindling. Like I think the biggest stock lineup out there is Pelican, right? But it's the same stock lineup every year because it's always the stripes, right? You get the green stripe models, the blue stripe models. Um, and they're in every size range, but then Pelican mixes in so many special editions. Once you've bought one stock edition and you enjoy that pin, where's there to go next, but into the special edition. So does the community get too invested in that? Yes, but it's because we love the product, right? If I fall in love with a Pelican 600 green stripe, the only thing net Pelican now offers me if I want a second one is going to be a limited edition style, right? So I do think of it from that point, like once you have one, if you're a heavy user and you find something you really love and you want a second one, maybe for a different nib size, you're probably not going to go back to the stock edition again. So I, I value the special editions and limited editions. There is a lot of times where we place too much investment, um, in those special editions, but it's, we're also a community that tends to have more than a singular pin, um, stock lineups right now. I think pilot does it really, really well because they're not mixing things up as much as like sailor Pelican, for example, but this is a good question. Yeah, I think it's just

'''Myke Hurley:''' like a preference thing where just like, I feel like I've used all of the stock stuff and each of my tastes just go towards the things that are different and then that, and they just end up being limited. But going back to what we were talking about earlier is I'm happier to let a lot

'''Brad Dowdy:''' of this stuff go now than I used to be. Right. I think Kaweco does a very good, um, stock edition lineup as well. That's one I'll continually buy stock lineups. Um, they do a good job either in the plastic barrels or the, you know, other material barrels. I don't consider those special edition.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. That wraps it up for today, right? That was the, we had a great selection of questions. We have many more great ones that we will get to over the coming episodes, but we do always encourage that you please continue to send in your questions for our Ask TPA segment. You can tweet with the hashtag Ask TPA, or you can use question mark Ask TPA in the Relay FM members discord. If you have a longer question, you can email it to hello at penaddict.com. Penaddict.com is also where you can find Brad's work. Uh, Brad also streams on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10 a.m. Eastern over at twitch.tv slash penaddict. You can find Brad on Instagram as penaddict and dowdyism on Twitter. I am imike, I-M-Y-K-E, and I stream about once a week, uh, from my Twitch page, which you can find at mike.live. Um, we'll be back next time. Thank you so much to Squarespace for their support and thank you for listening. Until next time, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]