Editing The Pen Addict 135/transcript (section)

== Ink Properties ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. They are. They have stepped that game up. In a big way. Um. So. I called this. The. The ink that took the internet. By storm. Because. When people first got this ink. And saw this ink. And. And what it is. It's. If you're not familiar with it. It's a deep. Dark. Gray. Ink. Think of it like a dark storm cloud. Um. With. Gold. Flex in it. So it's got. It's. Literally has. It's.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Particles. In the ink. It's not. A sheen. Like you see on some other inks. Like if you have a blue ink. That has a sheen to it. Just from a chemical. Perspective. You know. Where it leaves like a little red trim. On your ink line. This literally has particles in the ink. And people went. Berserk. Over this ink. I never saw. Anyone who had this ink. On their first run of it. Um. It sold out. Really really fast. Across all sites. Everywhere. They couldn't make enough of it. I never saw anyone who got it. That didn't just. Absolutely. Head over heels. Love it. It's a really really stunning. Ink to look at. But to me. That's all it is. This is not an ink. I would ever use. Um. And this goes back to like. What we were talking about. Field notes. We all have different use cases. For things. And for me. I. Have a problem. Putting an ink. In a pen. That has particles in it. Um. When. J. Herban. Themselves. State on the outside of the box. Caution. Highly saturated ink. Clean nib and section with damp cloth. Damp cloth. To avoid potential staining. Do not leave ink. In fountain pen reservoir. Well that's kind of. The job of my fountain pen's reservoir. Is to leave some ink in it. From time to time. Um. You know. For weeks at a time. Or months at a time. In some cases. And it just kind of freaked me out. To be perfectly honest with you. Um. I understand the beauty. Of this. Completely. It is straight up beautiful. If. You know. You're. You're going to use it for that. Um. I can see this a lot in. Calligraphy projects. Or in. You know. Uh. Lettering and card projects. I don't see this as an everyday writing ink. Um. Just because of the maintenance. Um. That it requires. Other than. You know. On top of. You know. Just a standard blue ink. Or whatever. Plus. I. I just don't need those. Flex. In my ink. That's not something that does for me. But that's a personal thing. You know. Other people. Love it. And. You know. When I. When I did this review. I had several people say. I've left. I've had this. In my pen. You know. Since it first came out. And just cleaned it a few weeks ago. So it was in my pen. For. Six or eight weeks. And it cleaned out perfectly fine. And I. I totally believe that. Um. I'm just not going to bother with that. I. I couldn't. I couldn't sleep at night. Knowing that that's in my ink. I. The very first. Uh. Line I wrote in the written review. Was. I cannot wait to clean this ink from my pen. Because it even. The. The gold flecks.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Part. The particles in the ink. Are. They. Settle. Like a sediment. So it's like. You have ink at the top. And like. The whole bottom of the barrel. If you're not shaking the bottle. Is gold. Because all the flecks have settled. And so it does the same thing in your pen. If you're not using your pen. That gold settles. Into the. Uh. Into the bottom of the. The reservoir. Into. You know. If you're using a piston filler. It's. It settles at the bottom. Or if you're using a cartridge. It settles at the bottom. And even if you just lay. The pen down on the desk. I use this in a TWSBI 580 mini. So it's a clear demonstrator. If I set it down on the desk. And I picked it up. I'd have a line of gold. At the bottom. Where it all settled. That drove me crazy. Um. So it's like. I had to shake it. Like a paint pen. Every time I wanted to use it. Just to get a.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Equal. Layer. Of the gold flecks. In the ink. And I still didn't accomplish that. You can see it's really strong. Like in my title. Of the written. In a. Written review. And then as I. Went through some of the. The text of it. Um. It kind of. Um. You know. That the. The quantity of. Of gold in the inks. Um. Really lowered. So.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I understand. Why people love this ink. It's just not an ink for me. Um. What are your thoughts on this Myke?

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's. Stunning. To look at. Like. And. And. I. Want it. But I also don't want it. Like. I. I've passed this. I've seen it pop by. A couple of times. Um. On. On some UK sites. And I've seen it. Whilst looking around. For some other stuff. And it's been there. And it's not too expensive. But. I. I don't. Want. An ink. That I have to worry about. Like. I. I would use an ink. Like this every day. Like. I use garish ink. As it. Enough as it is. You know. It's like a bright orange ink. Like. This is fun. And I. I really like. The look of it. But. I'm not up. For an ink. And we've had this. Conversation before. With. The noodlers. Something or other. Mm-hmm. What was it?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Um.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Bay state blue?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Bay state blue. The. The staining ink.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. And I. Cannot for the life of me. Understand. Why. Anyone would want to put an ink. Of any kind. Into their fountain pens. That they spend. Hundreds of dollars on. If it has. The. The potential. That it may damage it. Like. It just seems crazy to me. Like. It really seems crazy to me. It's like. Yeah. It just looks good. Don't put it in a fountain pen. Get a dip. Get a dip pen. Right. Or something. Anything. But don't put it in a fountain pen. Yeah. Because it just seems silly. Like. I don't get it. I really. I don't get why it's made. And I don't get why people buy it. But. Not that I judge anybody that it does. Like. Because I want it. I really. Really want it. If I could. Get over that. Myself. Like. I would be using this ink every day.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. You know. And I. That's what I think it is. And you know. I look at my. My online friends. Like. Aziza. And Lee Reyes. And people like that. Who have some real artistic talent. They've taken this ink. And turned it into like. A very artistic result. With. You know. Just beautiful calligraphy. And design. That's where it looks the best in. You know. That's where you're like. Oh my god. This ink is amazing. You know. Watching them. You know. Work their magic. On. You know. Take it. Taking their pictures. And writing ink samples. But. You know. But. Just for. Loading out. In one of my pens. And taking it to work. And writing. I'm never going to use it. Never. Ever. Ever. It's. It's. It's not a daily ink pen. It's a specialty. Specialty ink. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like we talked about this before. One of the reasons. Why I use. Like one or two inks. Maximum. Is because. I actually hate cleaning out my pens. It just annoys me. It's not something that I enjoy to do. It's just messy. And I don't really. I don't get a great pleasure out of it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So. It's actually. I know this is. This is not good. Phantom pen maintenance. But. I very rarely clean them. Mm-hmm. You know. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's not good. I know. But we've talked about that before. That's something new to me. You've. You've said that. Several times. But that's also why you don't. You have a couple. Ink colors you stick to. And. And I don't.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't have a lot of inked pens at a time. I don't. I keep. Right. I don't keep them.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I keep them in low rotation. I guess. Yeah. Is what I'm looking for.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And I'm trying to refine that as we go. I'm up to about six or seven inked pens right now. And that's too much for me. I like three. Is a good number. But then. You know. I have pens that I have to review. And those get inked up. You know. For a month or two at a time. You know. Before I. Before I review them. So I end up with like six or seven. That's a little much. But none of them will contain stormy gray ink. I can tell you that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I think that's a wrap buddy. You know. We've had. Lots of fun stuff to talk about today. And you know. We hope to. Hope to hear from the listeners. If. I would. I would like to hear. What they think about the fire blue. And the stormy gray. If they have opinions. I've heard a lot of opinions on those. Already. And. It's always good. When we hear from. People.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. It's a great. A couple of great ways to do that. If you go to the show notes page. Relay. You'll find a bunch of links there. You'll find our Twitter links. I'm I Myke. I am Y K E. Brad is at Dowdyism. D O W T Y I S M. And you'll also find a link to send us an email too. So you can send us in any comments. Questions. Thoughts or feelings that you may have. They're kind of the best ways to do that. Twitter and email are really great. I want to thank our sponsors again. For helping support us this week. That's our friends at lynda.com. And Squarespace. If you want to catch up with more of Brad's great stuff. And you. I mean you can find the links in the show notes. But if you want to read these great reviews. Of the. Caveco. Lilliput. Or the. J. O. Bon. J. O. Bon. Stormy Gray.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We need to resurrect that video. Just for old time's sakes. For all the new listeners.

'''Myke Hurley:''' J. J. O. Bon. I can find it. I can try and find it now. We'll add it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We'll add it to the show notes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You can go to penaddict. Penaddict.com. And you can. You can find. All of. Brad's. Great writing there. I'm. I'm. Quite literally googling. J. O. Bon. Inc. Right now. We're going to do this. Just to play us out. With the. The great. Where. Who made it? They made it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Maybe it's J. Herban. Pronunciation. Or something.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I will do this. It's worth it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's like a. It's like a two minute video. Of just.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The deep. French. Pronunciation. Of all the.