Editing The Pen Addict 637/transcript (section)

== Japanese aesthetic in pencil design ==

* On the opposite end, I want a detail pencil. Now, I gotta say, you know, you say the Tombow's the coolest. No, this one is the coolest, in my opinion. This pen is so sick. That pencil is so sick looking. I love it. Yeah. And it's called the construction pencil. So this Tajima. Yeah. It's just Tombow made it, right? So it's got that Tombow clean Japanese aesthetic. And it's just really, really nice. The black and gold and like the fonts that they use. Oh my God. Yeah. That's so good. And the other side of it says, what does it say? For high precision, high precision drafting. That's a hard word to say. Easy for you to say. High precision drafting. Yeah. Ticonder October.
* You know it's like in Anchorman when he's warming up. Yeah. I'm going to be in the mirror. I'm going to be in the mirror when we're done. Ticonder October. So yeah, this is, again, it's just like the one pencil that I have. I actually went to go look for, when I was writing this up, I went to go look for a shopping link for this. And you just can't find it. Like I'm sure it's out there somewhere, but I couldn't find it easily. And I was just like, I just gave up. And I was like, oh man. And honestly, when I wrote with this pencil, I was like, oh man, this is so good. But like it's so light, it would frustrate me. Like at the end of the day, if it was my only pencil, but man, like this is, this is, this is the, uh, like the 0.3 mechanical pencil thing that when I write with it and with my like drafting style, my letters come out so good, but you can't use it that much because it's just not enjoyable to read or it, you know, it hurts your eyes by the time you're done, done using it. So, um, so we have our writing pencil, our sketching pencil, um, and our detail pencil. That's what I call the, the H side, the firm, firm pencil. Um, and then you want to have some fun, right? Like you don't, I don't need 12 or 20 pencils to like have a really good kit. Like I'm having one of a few different things. And the next up I said a fun pencil, right? Like I want a pencil that'll make me smile. And I mean, they all make me smile, but you know, like a character pencil, like my Aggretsuko pencil, or there's a lot of, um, hello kitty pencils or Pokemon pencils out there. Um, I also put in the Karen dash stinkwood out there because it's a fun pencil to use and it's got a fun story. Yeah.
* I'm never not going to call it that. It's a problem. Sometimes I can't even remember. Sometimes I can't even remember the real name of it. It's called the Swiss wood, but the names are so close. Like I just go with it. You also want to have, okay. I want to have, I don't, I don't know about you. I'm talking about my kid here. This is for me. I want to have a color pencil of some type it for this kit. I choose chose like a double sided pencil, right? This kinds that come in and half black and half red. So that's what I chose for this. But you could also pick like an orange or a green color pencil. If you have, you know, some of those laying around, I want one of those in there because.
* If I'm taking this kit and I'm writing with pencils a lot, uh, the way that I operate is I'll do like a lot of marking and lists. And things like that, where I want to see different, different weights of pencil. Like that's why I might have a very soft, dark pencil and a very light, uh, firm pencil. And then I want to have like color markings for like boxes, checks, notes, things like that. That's how I operate. So I always want to have like one colorful option in there. Um, and then with all these pencils, you got to have a sharpener, uh, the comb long point, which we mentioned before. Um, we, um, that, that's the best one. Uh, I think it's about $6. It has awesome blades and it's self-contained like any kit sharpener. I want to have it enclosed, right? Because I might not always have a trash can. I'm not just going to like sharpen a pencil, like, you know, over the sidewalk or on a restaurant cafe floor or something like that. Right. Or, you know, you sharpen over a napkin. I've done that before, but I like to have it self-contained until I can take it home and get rid of it myself. Um, I did give a special shout out to the Blackwing one step long point sharpener. I really liked the point that it puts on there. And I don't know what their current, current QC, uh, status is. Cause I had issues with that one. That's a, that's a very long article that I wrote and had some feedback from Blackwing on and got some replacement blades and it fixed the problem. Um, it was not a, it was not a, uh, a unique problem to me. Like they had some issues in the beginning. If that's like fully corrected and you feel comfortable like trying it, it makes a beautiful point on the pencil. It's expensive, but that's one of actually one of the, um, side Blackwing products that I have enjoyed the most. Um, as long as it works well, the eraser is important. I found myself when I have the kit and I have the eraser as part of the things that I have, I will actually use the eraser. And I buy this, I mean a standalone eraser, like a block eraser, like a Tombow, or I use the seed clear eraser. Um, recently I actually found when I was writing and I had that eraser near me, I would pick it up and use it. I never use the end of pencil erasers. I don't know why it's just, uh, I guess it's just cause I use pen so much and I'm just not, I'm just, I'm okay with making a mistake and scratching through it. I'll do that with pencils instead of erasing it because I think it's because I don't like the mess of the eraser. Right. And then you smudge it and then you run your hand across it and like you've smudged other letters and like, it just gets to be distracting. I just rather cross it out with a line. Um, it's funny. I think of erasers on pencils so little that when I did the Tennessee, I did the Tennessee red review. I did this whole long review on the Tennessee red pencil. Not once that I mean, I mentioned the eraser and I got called out for it in the comment section. I was like, you know what? You're absolutely right because I discount the eraser so much. Like I just actively don't use them. It didn't even register with me that I should test the eraser.
* It was, it was kind of funny when the person said that I was like, huh?
* I didn't even think about that.
* It's terrible. It's terrible. Um, I like to have a pencil cap, uh, because I'm a super nerd and I think they're fun and they're cool and they're stupid. And they're like, you don't need them because you can just sharpen your pencil again. But I like to have it on my one writing pencil because if it's the pencil that I use the most, I kind of want to uncap it and write it. And plus it's just that little extra level of nerdery that we all have in this hobby. We all have our, our little things that like make us smile. And I think pencil caps are just the appropriate amount of stupid nerdery that really, really gets us into this type of stuff. Um, pencil paper is important for your kit. You don't want a paper that's too smooth, right? So we talk about fountain pens a lot here and fountain pen nibs. And generally you want a smoother paper for that. It's also going to handle the inks better for fountain pen inks. And those papers tend to be a little slippy for graphite pencils. You can use them, but the preference that I have in most, um, you know, people who use a lot of pencils, want a little bit of tooth on the page to like grab that graphite and really have it set in. Um, when you're writing, you can almost hear like the scritch scratch on the page. Um, you know, like the classic field notes paper is, is great for that. You know, there's a lot of really, really good standard papers out there. Like I wouldn't use the Rodea dot pad, right? For instance, like your pencils are fine on there. You're just going to not really get like the purity. Yeah. It's just so smooth. It almost makes the pencils feel weird. Right. Uh, when you use too smooth of a paper. Um, the last part I kind of almost didn't want to put in there, but you have to have a way to carry all this stuff. Right. So like if I've picked out like five pencils, four or five pencils and eraser and a notebook and a sharpener, well, you got to have something to put them in. And, you know, it's shocking that, you know, I made the thing that I wanted to put the pencils in at knock because there really wasn't anything this simple and this basic that was the right dimensions. Um, on the market when I was looking for a pencil pouch. So in my opinion, from a design perspective, the pouch needs to be at least the length of a full unsharpened black wing. And most pencil pouches did not cover that, especially like, God, this is, this is just me in my head. There, there's a certain size.
* That's too big to be a pencil pouch, right? Because I'm not carrying 500 freaking pencils in a pouch. I don't need a 48 pencil pouch, right? I need a six pencil pouch. Well, when you get into pouches that small, one, they're not very economical to make, right? You can't really sell them for that much. They're, they're relatively expensive to make, even though they're inexpensive products. I hope that makes sense. And there's just not a lot of use cases. So you end up with these large, huge bags that really, that are called pencil pouches and they just don't work for that. So you need a small, uh, small volume, large length case. And that's what we made. And there's a few options out there. Rick straw makes a nice one that, um, it's not too big. Bellroy makes one that I've reviewed on the blog, but it's not long enough, right? It's a pencil pouch. If you find a good one, like hold on to that because there's not a lot of companies don't invest in that because there's, there's no market for this, right? Like, I'm not saying that someone needs to go out and make this. I'm saying you actively don't need to make this because there's no market for it. But if you do choose to make it, there's, I have clearly very strong beliefs about the pouch simplicity that a pencil pouch needs to be. And most of them are too much and overbuilt for just carrying a few pencil things. And, um, yeah, so, uh, I guess rant over on that. So that's my kit. Um, it's, it's simple, right? You want to have a little bit of variety and not too much, um, not too much waste. You know, again, I don't need a dozen pencils rattling around in a pencil bag. I need one, I need one good example of a few different things, you know, and, um, then put it together and allow me to have, be able to sharpen it. Allow me to be able to erase it around me to have some good paper and allow me to put it all together and carry it. Boom. Done. Pencil kit. Let's go.
* This episode is brought to you by retro 51. Retro 51 has a pen design for everyone, including the classic lacquers, the brand new stealth lacquer rollerballs and fountain pens, the vintage metal Smiths, the animal rescue series, and the literary collection, including the just released Pride and Prejudice rollerball and limited edition fountain pen. I don't know if you've seen the Pride and Prejudice one, Brad, but I did just yesterday. Oh, good. It's so good. Uh, there are also amazing license designs, including favorites from the Smithsonian, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Pan Am, and a new license pen launching later this month. Retros make great gifts for every occasion and for every personality. Head to your favorite retro dealer. You can shop directly on retro51.com and you can also see about personalizing your gifts there too. If you order over $75 at retro51.com, you'll receive free shipping. And in addition to all of their fun pens, Retro 51 looked to support the pen community. Uh, we mentioned this, I think on last week's episode, uh, but just this past month, Hurricane Helene left a trail of destruction that included, unfortunately, Origami Inks store in Asheville, North Carolina. And to support their recovery from this natural disaster, Retro 51 presents the Origami Hopping Frogs Tainado pen, which is available for pre-order until 11.59pm on October 27th. So just a couple more days as you're hearing this over at retro51.com. All profits for this pen will go towards Origami Inks recovery. I just think it's wonderful that they're doing this. Uh, and also the pen looks fantastic, which is the same for all retro51s. And my favorite thing, I've been such a fan of them for years, right? As people listen to the show know, um, I have so many, I have an entire collection, like a whole separate collection of just retro51 Tornadoes. Um, and what I love about this pen is how incredibly giftable it is because you will definitely find one that matches either a tastes or hobby of somebody in your life. And they'll get the pen, they'll think that it looks cool, and then they will use it for the first time and they will be forever changed because that refill is just the best in the biz. So go and check it out for yourself right now. As retro51 likes to say, and it's true, life is too short to carry an ugly pen. Thank you so much to retro51 for the support of this show and all of Relay. Yeah, so it's getting to be that time of year where, uh, being, being the local pen guy to, to our friends, um, you know, that want to give gifts. And I, I vividly remember so many times people who's, who know that I'm the pen guy, they're like, okay, I think this person likes pens and I'm going to ask Brad what they want. And I don't know what to tell Brad, but I know that this person likes X. Well, guess what? If you go to retro51, I can probably find something that's going to really like speak to this person on like whatever hobby or whatever interests they have. And by the way, they're going to get a really great pen that's going to make them say, wow, when they start writing with it. So it's a, they're just a really cool company in that way. So, uh, I always recommend them a lot, uh, this time of year. So it's great stuff. So, and also we, I, I did, I just wanted to give a shout out to, we have a listener that, uh, sent me some pictures from the area around Asheville where origami ink is. And it was just mind blowing the destruction there. Like they had a live picture of like when the water was peaking, it's like over the top of like a Wendy's on like the main street. It's like up to the sign on the street, like in a, just, uh, it's unfathomable. It didn't look, it didn't look real. So, um, yeah, I appreciate, uh, all the support that y'all are giving this area. So, um, it's, it's, it's wild. So go check out the, um, the, um, the, the frog pen at, uh, the origami frog at retro51. So, all right, next topic, Myke, I, um, it hasn't been strictly Ticonder October around here, which I laid out at the beginning of the month when I was getting to this. I can't only use pencils, right? Because I have other things I need to do with pens. I have a lot of reviews and like, I'm just going to use pens like as, as well. I'm primarily using pencils, but I, um, I had a, what I'm calling a squirrel moment where I was reading my articles that I always post in refill. I'll do the ink links and I'll do the misfill post on the pen addict blog. And so I'm always reading articles. And one of my friends, JP at minimal scholar, um, just in the blog title mentioned something about, I needed two daily drivers this, this week. And like, I just stopped right there. I didn't even read the article. I was like daily driver, daily driver. And I got stuck. I was like, I don't like, I don't have this pen. Like I understand the concept of what a daily driver pen is. And so I spent some time in refill trying to define what that is for me, right? What could that, what could that be for me? Could I solve for a daily driver, um, out of my personal collection and of, out of more importantly, how I use products, right? Because again, I have all the products. They're all sitting right here. I can use whatever I want anytime and just, you know, and, and I do like, I use all the things all the time. But what if there was one that I really, and this is the way I put it. What if there was one pen that I just absolutely destroyed?
* And I mean that in a loving fashion, right? You used so much the wheels fell off kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, have I ever had that pen? And do I want that pen? And I was like, well, I don't know. We can try. So I went through this whole process. Um, and I ended up on choosing the Edison Beaumont and we'll have a link in the show notes to this, to this review. And it's basically, it's a simple pen. Um, I narrowed it down to like three pens. And when I looked at those three pens, I was like, oh, this is like the most utilitarian pens that I have. Right. It was a pilot Murex all metal pen, uh, not magnesium. It was a shown design Ultem pen, which, you know, it's just a very durable plastic. And then just this black acrylic Beaumont. It's funny that I didn't pick any of the wild color pens or interesting shaped pens, because I don't think that would have fit my definition of what a daily driver is. I think, you know, I love my pink pens and my orange pens, but I will get tired of those. And I will want to rotate that out. Well, with these other three pens, they're very basic in style. Like they're just kind of boredom proof, right? They're bored. They're boring by default. So they're not going to get more boring than they already are for my, for me picking them up and using them for the first time is, you know, they'll be the same as the hundredth time. It's still just going to be a black pen. And so like, I was good with that. Um, so I got some feedback on that and I wanted to read Rob's email real quick. Um, says this is from Rob says you read my mind. I've been thinking the last couple of days about how I want to write more and trying to think of the right pocket pen. This is primarily for not at work times. As I rotate through my pens, having two or three with me at my desk every day, traveling in my Tallulah case, shout out knock RIP.
* I've generally in jeans or shorts, depending on the season. My ideal carry would be a fountain pen, full size, not something I worry about breaking in my pocket and not something that would come uncapped. In the past, I've thought about a pilot decimal, which I love writing with, but I worry it would get clicked in my pocket. Maybe an unreasonable fear. That's not unreasonable. We'll get back to that. Also try to show design pocket six. We found the grip section to be frequently a mess. When I pulled it out, all this was going through my head. And I was thinking about sending a podcast question. When I read this refill, I don't have any of these pens, but, uh, you did make me think of a pro gear slim. They're also acrylic. So they should have the same durability as the Beaumont you picked. Did you consider a pro gear? Any thoughts on how it would or wouldn't fit well in this use case?
* Um, so I replied to Rob number one saying, I'm putting this in the show notes. Um, and to also say, I didn't consider a pro gear slim, but the next pin on the list was the 1911 standard. So the next two pens are probably better choices. Uh, I don't know that the 1911 is maybe a better choice, but there were two pens that I thought of that I purposely didn't choose. The 1911 sailor 1911 standard is a small pen, right? I was looking for something not too big, not too bulky, right? And the 1911 fits that the 1911 is one of my favorite writing pens. And I'm, again, I'm speaking of the standard. That's the small one. Uh, the other one is called the 1911 large. Don't at me at sailor. It's their naming convention. We've gone through this a thousand times. So when I say 1911, I'm talking about the small one.
* It is such a good writing pen. It can fit in your pocket. It's very durable. I've used the Royal Tangerine one. I have a lot. I've reviewed it on the blog. We'll put a link in the show notes to that. It's such a good pen. And I thought about it and I thought I might get tired of the nib a little bit because the sailor nibs can be fine and firm, which I like overall. But if I'm going to say I want to use this all the time in all kinds of weird situations and just carry it and have it be the one, the nib turned me off. I think if I had like a stock medium nib in my slim, I either have a fine or a medium fine in there. I'll have to double check. If I had like a stock medium nib in there, it might have been the choice. That's how close it was to making the final cut because it's just a simple, honestly, plastic barrel pen with a really great nib. And if I had a more standard nib on that, it might have been my choice. Because I chose with the Beaumont, it has just a fine steel Yovo number six nib. And I've used this pen so much I knew how it writes. I know how like this feed and this nib work together. And it's not an overly flowy fine nib. It's a very contained fine nib. So it writes probably like a Yovo extra fine, to be honest, which is why I was okay picking it. So I very much considered the 1911 standard, which the Progear Slim is in that category as well.
* I don't know why I didn't necessarily consider that. I don't know. I just like the 1911 for its basic style, right? It's not as flashy. I don't know. It's simple. I like the tapers. You know, the Progear model is my preferred design from Sailor. But something about this 1911 standard, really, really, I really enjoy it for a writer. The other one, which I did not mention. The 1911 is more comfortable to hold.
* I wonder what it is. It's slightly longer. I think it's the length. Because of the tapers. Yeah. And just, it is a softer, just a softer design, right? Like, the Progear has sharp, like, lines. Yeah, maybe. And the corners in the 1911 is just really smooth. And it's quite slight. Yeah. It's comfortable. I vividly remember my review of that one just being just completely confused by why I liked it so much. It's like, this shouldn't be better to me than, like, the Progear Slim. But for some reason, I'm enjoying writing with it more. And I think it was some of that length and shape of that barrel.