Editing The Pen Addict 498/transcript (section)

== Pizza Making Tips ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't know that I have a good pizza making tip. I'm a basic pizza guy, so I just want like a really good pepperoni on mine. And my Uni Pizza tip is to watch the pizza while it cooks because it cooks so fast.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's a top tip.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like I'll cook an entire pizza in less than 60 seconds, right? So and I have the Coda, so it's the L-shaped burner. So you want to do like one 180 degree rotation in about 30 seconds. Yeah. So this is it is so quick and fast and good that you do have to pay attention to it, right? So watch your pizza cooking. I have the little temperature thermometer. I can hit the stone and see what my temperature is at to know that I'm at the right level to go ahead and throw that fresh dough in. Have it crispy in about 30 seconds. Throw it around, spin it around 180 degrees with my little pizza slider thing and then have it on the counter in 30 seconds after that. It's like madness how great this thing works. So yeah, it's really cool. And portable. Yes, it is portable. Very portable. Mine is mine. I store it away in like a closet. And then when it's time to use, I take it like literally two steps outside my back porch, my back door and pop it up, hook it up and it's good to go.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Listeners of this show can get 10% off their purchase of an Ooni pizza oven, which could be up to $50 off an Ooni Coda 16. Just go to Ooni.com and use the code PENADDICTFM21 at checkout and you'll get that discount. When you're there, you'll also find a great range of accessories from peels to cutters to oven tables. Everyone wants to make pizza at their own home, you know, especially as we, you know, people want to get that food. They want to get, you know, they want to be locked away. They want to get pizza. You can get it with an Ooni pizza oven. Super great. This is the perfect tool for the job, which explains why Ooni pizza ovens are always in high demand. So don't miss out. Ooni pizza ovens are the best way to bring restaurant quality pizza to your own backyard. Just go to Ooni.com. That's O-O-N-I.com and use the code PENADDICTFM21 for 10% off, I should say, for 10% off PENADDICTFM21. Our thanks to Ooni pizza ovens for the support of this show and Relay FM.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Next question comes from Frames and they ask, how do you clean your pen after you've used a shimmer ink with it? I'm looking to dip my toes into the shimmery pond and I'm concerned about the maintenance aspect of using shimmer inks.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Valid concern that I have shared in the past. Yeah. And I used to be super hesitant about using any shimmer inks. And in the beginning, I think some of those, in the beginning of shimmer inks of their popularity, rise in popularity, I think there were some valid concerns about how they would clean out of a pen. But the combination of the ink makers doing a better job with those formulations and people actually paying attention to their pens when they clean them, that it's almost no extra maintenance for shimmer inks. That is what I've learned over the time that I have used shimmer inks and had to, you know, clean pens once I've finished using the shimmer ink. You just have to pay slightly more attention to the feed, right? You want to go ahead and remove the nib in the feed as opposed to sometimes I don't always remove the nib in the feed. I'll just flush water through the nib in the feed. I want to go ahead and remove them just so I can, like, soak them. You don't even have to soak them, but just give them a full rinse of the feed to get any glitter out. But I've never had any, like, issues with clogging or anything stuck in any of my pens from shimmer inks. You just have to, you might have to do a little bit more, you know, flushing of the water through the barrel or through the feed. But we're talking, like, a small percentage more, right? We're talking, like, if it takes you, like, two or three passes for your normal pen, this might take four or five. And you're good to go. Like, I don't have anything to recommend other than I would go ahead and take the feed out completely and rinse that separately instead of just trying to flush water through the feed while it's still in the section of the pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think maybe it might be a good idea to use a pen, just in general, like, use a pen that maybe is on the lower end of the scale price-wise. Totally fair. But also one that you're comfortable with removing the feed from. You can do it with most pens, but it can be a bit of a scary experience sometimes. Agreed. So if you want to get that practice, this is another thing to just build your confidence. You know, like, now I'll take an expensive platinum and I don't know where to get it out of there. You know what I mean? Right. But the cracking sounds it can make and the creaking can be a bit scary. So maybe you don't want to start off with one of your nicer pens for that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So, like, the Twisby Eco that a lot of people use, and a lot of people use shimmer inks and Twisbys because they are easy to clean. The Eco is the simplest to clean because there is no section to unscrew. The nib and the feed are just friction fit. You just literally pull them right out and you can slide them back in easy without any real worries of damage as long as you're, you know, just paying attention. Like, I don't even, you don't even have to be careful. You just have to pay attention to what you're doing. Easy peasy. Yeah. So don't let shimmer inks scare you. I admittedly used to be scared of them. You just got to, you just got to pay attention.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Got a question from David. I'm fond of my two millimeter clutch pencil and I'm looking for a lead that would equate to a black wing extra firm core. Any ideas, Brad?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Man, I wish I had an answer to this question. I would love to know the answer to this question too, because everyone knows I'm a fan of the 2.0 millimeter clutch pencil. And generally, when you get a 2 millimeter lead or a stick of graphite, they are mixed with clay to strengthen that type of core. Right? So it's a, it's a generally not just like a straight stick of graphite that I've seen for most instances. So they have a little bit of a different texture when you're writing with them, a little bit smoother texture because of that. And I haven't found one that behaves in the way that David is asking it to behave. But that's actually a great question because what if there is something like that? And now I want it. So I'm going to, I'm going to poke around. So I don't, I've used, you know, obviously the Karen dash stuff I've used. I'm trying to think if I've used one other kind of 2.0 millimeter.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But any, any 2.0 millimeter I've tried always has that clay texture to it, right? Like it's a little bit softer or a little bit, a little bit less graphite-y. And to have that extra firm core, I don't think you're going to be able to do that. I don't think you're going to be able to have that kind of like graphite mixture to make that stick of graphite. So, yeah, I'll poke around a little bit and see what I can come up with because as a big proponent of the 2.0, I would like that as well. I'm very curious now how that would work. It may not work at all, which is why we don't see very much of it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. This is a longer question. Yep. And it comes from Johnson who says, My Lamy logo, which is my first EDC pen, has finally bit the bullet after close to 10 years of use. Bravo. Now I'm in search of a recommendation of perhaps something a little bit more special. My absolute favorite thing about it was the hinged clip, which allowed for easy clipping to the front pocket of my pants, as well as being relatively secure. So I think it sounds kind of like the clip on the Lamy 2000 where you could kind of press the top of it and it would go inside the pen a bit like on a seesaw mechanism as a hinge. Exactly. All right. Yeah, fair enough. My requirements for this pen are it must be a ballpoint. It must be clicky and must have a clip that allows for ease of clipping. My dream Frankenstein EDC pen would have the clip of the Lamy logo, the silent click of the Caran d'Ache and the refill from a Montblanc M ballpoint. I'm very much considering the Caran d'Ache Various ballpoint at the moment, but it's slightly over my price point by a lot.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I am hoping to aim at around $300. I feel that one. I don't know this pen. I'm going to Google it while we're talking. I'm looking it now, too. I finally, it's okay. Yeah. So that's where we are. $300. Do you have any ideas?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You don't have to spend near that much.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You know, at that point for ballpoints, you're paying for the materials, right? That's an expensive pen. The Various is an expensive pen. It's like a thousand bucks. Yeah. Let me see here what this shape is.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I just want to get an idea of the shape here. Okay. So, yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, they're between in pounds, I can see. Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' $615. I got it in a US dollar. So, the base one is $615.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, Myke was onto something accidentally before. I love the Lamy 2000 ballpoint. It has the same hinge clip. It has a slightly louder knock than the Caran d'Ache 849. Not much. It's a little bit more clicky. I think Lamy's blue ballpoints. Ballpoints, even though they're proprietary cartridges outside of the weird Monteverdi copy that you can get. I've never used that one. I think they're excellent. I think some people don't care for them. I don't mind them and actually enjoy them. And that's like 70 bucks, maybe? If you wanted to... That's going to be... That's going to help solve like some of the clip questions that you have. Because not everyone makes that kind of rocker style clip that you're liking in the Lamy logo. But the 2000 does. And it's an exquisite pin. Myke, the design is just wonderful. So, outside of that, like I hate reverting back to something we just talked about. But those tactile turns, even if you don't like the GT, to have the side click, even though it's a little bit more thunkier than like the top knocks of the 849 or the Lamy 2000. Like it's going to snap back. It's a good mechanism. It's a simplistic mechanism. But you're... In that style of pin, you're not going to get like a spring back end on your clips, right? You just... The clips are designed to go over like pockets and edges and, you know, jeans and backpack pockets and things like that. But they're not going to have the movement that the Lamy clips do. But they're going to be like really, really solid. It's going to fit your ballpoint refills. And are just going to be just all around nice, right? To have that type of retractable pin. So, I think like out of the retractable pins that I use, I use the 849, you know, which is your standard Caran d'Ache, you know, on the lower end of the Caran d'Ache scale. I use the Lamy 2000. And then I use like the bigger tactile turn, even though I have a gel refill in mine. You can... If you get the medium sized one, that fits the good type of ballpoint refills that you like. And it's still a retractable pin with the click mechanism. Like those are my... Like some of my favorite ballpoint pins to use. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I like the Lamy. I like the texture. It feels special.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's one of the kind of best bang for the buck type of fancy ballpoint pins. Because for that price, it almost doesn't seem correct, right? Because it's well less than half of the fountain pen. And I know the fountain pen has the gold nib, which is where all the price comes from. But it's crazy similar, but includes like the knock mechanism as opposed to the capped that the fountain pen and the rollerball have for the Lamy 2000. I just think it's an extremely underrated pen, in my opinion. I've said that for years.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Last question today comes from Carol. I store inked fountain pens horizontally. Is there any rationale on how to store in-use ballpoint and rollerballs? Does it create a worse flow if I store the point down versus point up?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I thought this was a really good question. We never talk about this. We talk about it with fountain pens all the time. We get this question a lot. Most people, myself included, store their fountain pens horizontally, right? It's just kind of the best. I know, but I mean, you have that big block and they're all nib up. And like, it's okay. Like, I would rather nib up than nib down. Yes. I think. But I think other people.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You're looking for trouble.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. That's the only thing I'm hesitant with on open tip ball, excuse me, rollerballs, like retros. I store them tip down, but those are the ones where you'll see a little bit of funkiness in the tip, like where maybe there's some extra ink collecting. Or if you store them tip up, they're just harder to store, right? No one stores like rollerball pens, generally stores rollerball pens tip up just because they have the clips in the way and there's just, they're too hard to point up. So I think rollerball pens, like tip down is how I do it. But they tend to get a little bit messier if you leave them unused for too long. But that said, they're also quick to rectify that problem. You know, just wipe off the tip and you're good to go. Like the pen's just going to start writing. So it's not that big a deal. So gel refills, rollerball refills, ballpoint refills are all designed to be like airtight capacity refills, right? Like there's generally not air getting into those refills. So you can store them any direction you want is the short answer. But I do think about rollerballs sometimes when they have uncapped tip down rollerballs that they do get a little messy. But outside of that, I don't think it's a big deal to store standard pens just because the refill, the way the refills are built, they're going to manage better than fountain pens who oftentimes have air getting trapped in there in places you don't want.

'''Myke Hurley:''' If you'd like to send in a question for us to answer on the show, just send out a tweet with the hashtag RSTPA. Use question mark RSTPA in the RelayFM members Discord or you can email them to hello at penaddict.com. But the most important thing we want from you is to go to the show notes, click the link, which is the Pen Addict episode 500 questionnaire and fill that out. We will remind you next week. But the sooner you do it, the better it is for everyone.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Thank you so much to Pen Chalet, Trade Coffee and Ooni Pizza Ovens for their support of this week's episode. If you want to find Brad online, you go to penaddict.com. You can go to knock.co. You can go to twitch.tv slash penaddict. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10 a.m. Eastern Time, Wednesdays after we record. What else, Brad? I think that's it, man. All right. Oh, Dowdyism on Twitter, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. Oh, yeah. I'm iMike, I-M-Y-K-E, and you go to cortexmerch.com. You can find some cool stuff there, too. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

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