Editing The Pen Addict 174/transcript (section)

== No Name ==


'''Chris Manning:''' It doesn't have a name yet. That's something I have to, I have to figure out still. And it doesn't have a cap. As you can see, I'm, uh, I'm working on a new technique for making the cap. It'll be in silver and, uh, I'm working on a, a technique called deep drawing, which will allow me to make it from silver or from flat sheet and draw it down into the, into the tube shape that I need. The, uh, the barrels are, they came out of a weird situation where I had bought a, um, I'd bought a couple of blanks from the old Conway Stewart stock. A friend of mine wanted a pen made in, in, um, the lapis. And so I bought up a bunch of it and just said, oh, you know, let's, let's try it out, see how it looks. And, and I was happy with the look of it. And so I decided to start playing around with it a little bit. And, um, this design is actually based off of an antique sailor pen. And, you know, I wanted to try something a little bit different and, and make something a bit lighter that, that was more comfortable for the average person to write with. So the, the ones that you see up on there, the lapis, the blue one is, is a Conway Stewart stock. Uh, the one on the, the right is a celluloid acetate that was made in the thirties. Uh, so I'm going to try and find some more of that stuff and, and play around with this. This is going to give me a chance to sort of experiment with, you know, the odd thing that I find that's, that's not, you know, that's not just metal.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mm-hmm. Well, these are a knockout. I mean, I, I really, really love the style, the shape, um, the materials, uh, of this. And I can't wait to see what the, the finished product is. And I'm reading the, the description here. You're, so you mentioned a minute ago, you're going to be in Toronto. You, you'll think you'll be done, uh, have these ready for the Toronto pen show.

'''Chris Manning:''' Absolutely. Yeah. These, these are pretty close to being done. One of the, one of the problems with doing all of this stuff yourself is the ups and downs of, of, you know, developing these new techniques. So I was in the shop late last night and trying to get these, uh, these barrels done and managed to, uh, you know, to destroy some of the tooling that I needed to make the, the dies for the cap. Jeez Louise. You know, so that's the, that's the trouble with, with doing this stuff yourself.

'''Myke Hurley:''' How do you destroy tooling? Like that sounds like an explosion. Yeah, it was.

'''Chris Manning:''' Yeah. Safety glasses are critical in my shop. Something blew up. Exactly. Like most people go to work and, you know, they're gonna, you know, they're gonna knock their feet. They're gonna, you know, maybe bump into a wall or something like that. There's equipment in my shop that will tear your arm off. So you have to pay attention and, and yeah. But, uh, yeah. So last night was not a, not one of my better nights in terms of getting things done.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, glad you survived to make it to the recording today. Oh yeah.

'''Chris Manning:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We didn't need this from the emergency room. So the chat room wants to know what, uh, where are you sourcing your nibs?

'''Chris Manning:''' I'm getting all my nibs through, uh, through Franklin Kristoff. I'm a huge fan of the Yovo nibs. And, uh, I'm also a huge fan of the work that Myke Masayama does. All of my own personal pens have all been customized by Myke. And, um, and so, you know, it's just great for me to be able to get that stuff straight through, uh, through the folks over at Franklin Kristoff.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. They're awesome. I love those nibs. I could tell by the, uh, image in the picture, but I just wanted to validate with you, um, before I mentioned that, but it looks, I mean, those nibs are great. I mean, I talk about them all the time. Um, I always have something, uh, with one of their nibs, either one of their pens or something else. I've moved the nib over into because, um, they, they work in all kinds of things in there. Do a great job on the stock nibs and the Masayama nibs.

'''Chris Manning:''' They're the only steel nibs that I've been, I've been happy enough with that I would actually write with one. Uh, I, I put gold nibs in all of my own, in all the pens that I sell, but, uh, even the steel nibs are spectacular. So yeah, if you're ever looking for a good nib, guys, go out and, and, uh, pick those up. Yeah, I agree. I agree wholeheartedly.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Chris, this looks like a, a different, well, it is a completely different, um, manufacturing process. Uh, is it easier than, than the silver stuff? Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot faster. Is that why you're doing this? Like, are you trying to like diversify a little bit and maybe move into some different kind of areas and price ranges?

'''Chris Manning:''' Well, let's be realistic. Most of the pens that are on my site are outside of the range of the average pen collector, right? They're, most people are not spending $3,000 on a pen. And, um, they are time consuming. So it's, it's also one of those things that I, I couldn't actually make, you know, 200 or 300 of those a year. Right. I just don't have the time. Mm-hmm. So this, this gives me something to experiment with a little bit. They're faster for me to make. They're a little bit more cost effective for people to buy. And, um, you know, so that, that's a, that's definitely a factor. The, the cost is always, you know, whenever I, people pick up my pens though, they love them, but they just, you know, they couldn't justify buying them. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And, uh, this is something I was interested in because, you know, you mentioned you do this full time. Where do your customers come from?

'''Chris Manning:''' All over the place. Fortunately, the, uh, the internet's allowed me to get in touch with, with people that are, you know, that are all over the world. Um, publications like pen world, you know, anybody who's serious about collecting, uh, limited edition pens are, they're reading pen world. So, you know, I've had my, my stuff in there. Um, again, being in front of people at, at pen shows, the LA show and the DC show, if, if anybody has a chance to, to actually go to those shows, they're an incredible opportunity to get to see this stuff in person. And especially from the custom pen makers, the, one of the challenges with all this stuff as a, as a custom maker is, is just getting in front of people. Of course, you can go down to a well-stocked pen store and see, you know, your Pelican, and, and your Mont Blancs and everything. But, you know, these custom pens, they're, they're tough to find. So the, uh, the pen shows are a great, great place for me to, uh, to meet people.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And that, that was, uh, that's always the biggest highlight for me. You know, when we go to something like that, never been to DC before, um, you know, I, I agree wholeheartedly with that and you get to hold and like, you know, just being able to check out one of your pens is just, it's, you know, worth the trip just so you can know, you know, what it's like, you know, in case there's an opportunity later, you know, it's, it, it's a long game, right. You know, especially, you know, at, at your price point, you know, you, you get interested and you just kind of, you, you build it up and you're able to, to use it. And, you know, you know, later, you know, if that's something you're going to be interested in purchasing.

'''Chris Manning:''' Absolutely. You know, some of the people that are, that are out buying them, you know, I had people that walk around the show for four days and eventually come back and, and there are other people who, you know, they try my pens and I hear from them six, nine, 12 months later and they're going to say, Oh, I saw that pen at a show and I loved it. And I buy it.