Editing The Pen Addict 103/transcript (section)

== Pen Budgeting ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Greg Jackson, budgeting for pen addicts, what to do with the pens you've bought but no longer use? This is something I'm struggling with a little bit right now. So in the past, where I'd say most of my pen usage was gel, ballpoint, rollerball, you know, plastic tip pen, when I'd have loads and loads of extra pens, I'd give all the extras away. So I've given away tons and tons of pens. So that's one thing I do. I take them to the office, give them to people there, give them to friends, give them to the wife, let her take them to work, those kind of things. But when you get into fountain pens, you can't really give those away because a lot of people don't have experience with them and don't have anything to do with them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You know, if you can sell some pens, I'm totally for that. I haven't done that. I'm not at that point yet. But I have some friends that are saying, you know, okay, I'm limiting to myself to X amount of fountain pens. So, you know, say the number's 10 and I find something new I like, well, one of those pens has to go. And I can't buy the new pen until I've sold off the other one to make a spot for it. So that's not a dollar budgeting, but it's a inventory budgeting, if you will. And I'm wondering if that's more what you're getting at, Greg, is the buying of more pens than you can necessarily use in a lifetime, which is kind of what I have right now. But there will be a point in my purchasing that I will have to assess, you know, do I need another pen? What you really have to consider, what need is this pen filling when you're, you know, trying to budget for your pen inventory? And if it's not necessarily filling a need, then, you know, maybe think twice about it or you limit yourself to a quantity of pens and you never go over that quantity. And one of them has to go if you want to bring a new one in. So Brandon asks, how did you choose your vintage flex pen? Prior research or just talk to vendors? Any advice on vintage flex now? I in no way can give advice on a vintage flex nib pen. I've, you know, I did a lot of reading and research online. Two brands kept coming up as the kind of go-to brands, Waterman and maybe Todd. So I knew kind of those were the brands I was looking for. Those were the styles I liked. Those were the ones that always got good reviews. And there was enough quantity out there to where they'd be reasonably priced. So that's all I did from a shopping standpoint. That's how I chose it. But I still got, I still have to learn how to use it. I barely scratched the surface with it right now. And I finally got it inked up last weekend and started writing with it some. But I need to, I need to go at it more and try to get some more experience with it on actually how to use it. But I just did a lot of reading and research online. But by no means do I have all that knowledge to be able to talk about vintage flex pens at all.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Trent Ham. All right, Myke, this one's for you. What's your favorite small sturdy notebook? For example, what would you take if you were backpacking for several days?

'''Myke Hurley:''' There is this little company based in Chicago. Mm-hmm. Field Notes. Oh, I've heard of them. Look at those. Yeah, good stuff.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Seriously, that's the one you'd want. Yeah, that's backpacking several days. Part of the, I guess, love for these type of notebooks, the memo books like Field Notes and Dome Paper, is that they're not the most sturdiest. They're going to get beat up. And if you're taking that notebook on a backpacking trip for several days, I don't want to come back with a pristine notebook. Right? I mean, I want it to have dirt and fingerprints on it. And, you know, it's part of the memory of the trip. But, you know, I don't necessarily want, like, a hardbound pocket notebook that's not going to get destroyed. I mean, there's a balance, right? I mean, if you're doing something hardcore and, you know, and where it actually, it's going to literally get destroyed, you know, in a river or something like that, well, then that's a different consideration. But just for, like, you know, small travel, I don't see anything better than a Field Notes memo book or a Dome Paper utility journal. It's just, it's part of the deal is get those things banged up. They look better used than unused. How about that?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Perfect.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mm-hmm. Jim wants to know, how about talking about how to keep your pens at home, trying to find a box that will keep them nicely but not break the bank? I've actually talked about that recently, and I use cigar box storage, and I order them from a guy named Bama Pen, and we've linked to them in the past. I pay $40 for a refurbished, felt-lined cigar box pen storage that I think holds 12 pens. It might be 10. I don't have it in front of me. It's 10 or 12 pens, and I think that's a completely fair price for the work that he does. I don't have storage other than that. If it's not for my fountain pens, all my other pens, like my, all my Kickstarter pens, Retrax, Retro 51, anything I'm using regularly goes into the blocks and the grooves by Myke Dudek. So those are the things that are all sitting on my desk for pen storage. Everything else goes into, I don't know, like bins in the closet. But the stuff that I'm keeping out and handy that I use a lot is either going into the cigar box pen storage or into one of Mr. Dudek's fine pen holding accessories. Christopher Graves. I might need some help with this one, Myke, because this is a good question. I'm really into innovation and stationery. As the Kuro Toga, the Tombow Olno, and the LiveScribe Pen. Live, LiveScribe Pen. What are some of your favorite stationery innovations?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Maybe a bunch of the stuff that Evernote's doing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So they have like the Evernote notebooks and with Moleskine they have the Evernote post-it notes. That could be a place to start. Some interesting ways to bring the two things together.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I think my answer is actually a little bit simpler and maybe more obvious, but I think it's MicroTip gel pens. Just because you didn't, you know, five or, well, not five years, ten years ago, you couldn't necessarily get any pen under .5 millimeter. Gel, ballpoint, rollerball, whatever. And now the technology has come in to where manufacturers can make these really fine points. I mean, that's kind of hyper-specific to me because that's what I enjoy. But that would be one of my favorite innovations that now I can get a pen that suits my writing needs better. And it's just in the fact that they were able to make something that much finer with the same quality that they made the much larger pens in. So that's kind of my favorite innovation. Oh, I meant to look this up for Christopher. It says, I don't carry my specs in a floppy leather pouch, so why my precious pens? Are there any hard cases for carrying one or two pens on the go? Yes, there are. And I meant to look it up. I think it's Pelican that makes a box. It's like a hard, it's a leather box, but it's, I mean, it's super structured. And it won't break down, and it holds two pens, I think. I'll have to look that up. I'll have to ping Christopher. I meant to look that up before I got on the show today. And I think Kaweco makes either a one or two carry hard leather cover, too. But I think Pelican is the one that makes a box style. So I'll have to look into that for Christopher. So Pierce, who's my new friend from the Atlanta Pen Show, he bought the Franklin Kristoff Model 40 Pocket. And he's using it as an eyedropper. And he wants to know, is it normal to see ink in the section on top of the feed housing? Or talk about eyedroppers in general. It's, yes, absolutely normal to see ink in the section on the top of the feed. Mine do it 100% of the time. And it's nothing to worry about at all. It doesn't leak out of there. It doesn't get out of there at all. It's just the normal flow of the pen. And in something like the Model 40 Pocket that's clear, like a demonstrator style, you're going to see all the nuts and bolts. So that's probably in all of our pens right now. We just can't see it in all of them. So, yeah, that's completely normal.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Using that as an eyedropper has been kind of eye-opening to me. And I haven't really experienced any other eyedroppers yet. But I now, where I used to not consider eyedropper conversion pens at all, now I will consider them. Because it's actually easier than anticipated to keep them intact, keep them sturdy and safe and clean. And they work great. And it's really easy to fill and generally easy to clean. So, just got to add a little silicone grease and you're good to go.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, Terry asked a question that we've had a hundred times. But, you know, Terry might be new to the show. So, I wanted to see if you had any different answer to this, Myke. But Terry wants to know, as a newbie, what would you guys recommend as a starter fountain pen? And it's pretty much the Pilot Metropolitan still. Or the Lamy Safari, if you like that style. I don't have anything better than those right now. That's still the go-to fountain pens for me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' As a very beginner fountain pen user, you want to get into something new, try something different. Those are your two choices. And I don't think there's a third. Your thoughts on that? You agree, I think?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I agree 100%.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. That's actually come to be an easier answer in the past six months to a year since the Metropolitan came out. Yep. And I know it's not a pen. I don't necessarily love that pen. There's a... The section is a little bit not great for me. But it's too good of a pen to not recommend. It's just that good. So, Tony Roman. And before I get to Tony... Yeah, we're almost done here. Okay, cool. I was going to say, do I need to cut this off at some point? We've got a lot of questions. Tony, I want to say thanks to Tony for all of his Twitter questions and just all of his following. He's one of my favorite people to chat with on Twitter. He's always got good stuff to talk about. And I really like talking with Tony. So, he says, my transition to the dark side is nearly complete. I use fountain pens 95% of the time. How about you guys in day-to-day use? What you got, Myke?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, it's constant. I use fountain pens. I'm a fountain pen user.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, you're at least 95. If not 100.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Maybe not 100, but like so close to it, it might as well be.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I'd say, for me, it's a little different because I'm actually having to test and review pens. So, I actually use other pens a lot just because I'm trying to learn about them. But if I'm choosing a pen and I say, okay, I'm going to take some pens with me and I'm going to go right, it's going to be a fountain pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' These days. I'd say I'm probably 80-20 because I still use a lot of my Kickstarter barrels. I carry the Render K with me all the time because it's got my high-tech C refill in it. And I carry the Tactile Turn Mover with me all the time because it's got the .38 blue-black Pilot Juice refill. So, I use those a lot.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. A couple more. From Martin, I have a Lamy Vista and a TWSBI Classic, both with an M nib. What do you recommend going forward? More pens or, first, other nib sizes? This is a really good question. And I have a hard time answering this.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You need to research what you're trying to accomplish, what you want to accomplish with your next pen purchase. There may not be a next pen purchase. Maybe these pens meet your needs. You have to ask, why do I want another pen? This is coming from a guy who's got an insane amount of pens and buys pens left and right without asking himself those questions. But I don't want people to look at it as, okay, I've bought this and I've bought this. What's the next pen I buy? Even though that's kind of the path I've taken. And I've enjoyed that path and I've learned a lot and I've found pens that, out through that experimentation, that I never thought I would have liked. But when you ask the question like this, I have a hard time saying, this is what you should try next. I mean, should I say, you should try a gold nib pen because you've only tried these steel nibs. I mean, that's a decent place to look at next.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You know, something like Alami 2000, a Pilot Vanishing Point, that lower end tier of gold pens. Actually, I would recommend the Pilot Custom Heritage 91 over all those if you can find it, just because it's a better value than both of those pens. But philosophically, it's hard to answer this question because everyone's different. You know, maybe these pens are good for you. And, you know, so you need to look at, like something with the TWSBI Classic is a piston filler. That's a great option. You know, you can buy, like you said, you can buy an extra fine nib for that TWSBI Classic. You can buy a stub nib for that TWSBI Classic. That's why I always talk about TWSBI so much because they do a really good job at giving you the best bang for your buck with the most options. No one else can really compete with them in that price bracket at all. It's not close. But recommending that next pen, that's hard. The only thing I can say is maybe a gold nib pen, but I wouldn't force it. I mean, figure out, okay, what do I like about the pens that I currently have? What don't I like about these pens? And then see if there's an answer that kind of fits that. So I hope that's a decent answer, Martin. It's a really good question and it's kind of a hard one to answer. And I'd be happy to talk about it more with you if you have any more questions about it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' My advice would be not more pens yet because what you will inevitably do is buy more pens without necessarily understanding what your best and favorite nib size is right now. So I would maybe suggest if you haven't already, get a pen that does have a bunch of different nibs that you can get for it and just buy a few and try them out. So like a Twisby, if you haven't already got one, you know.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, he's got the Twisby Classic, which is easily swappable nibs.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right, then you should try and invest in a few different nib sizes and try those out. Find your favorite nib and then start buying new bodies that you like. That would be my advice.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, so you're right in the middle of that spectrum right now with a medium nib. I'd try maybe an extra fine and then maybe a 1.1 stub nib.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And then you'll kind of see between those three, these are the types of things. This is the nibs. These are the nib sizes that I prefer and what pens and nibs are going to give me that best option going forward. So that's good advice.