Editing The Pen Addict 264/transcript (section)

== Retro 51 Tornado ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. I think, gosh, we, I think we got all our topics covered. Let's hit a few Ask TPA and then, and then I think we, I think we have a show for today, Michael. Good. Before you melt. Yeah. Before I melt. That is true. So it's actually, I guess since I've been talking and thinking, well, someone, I guess we could, thinking is arguable, but my mind has been off it. So, uh, good.

'''Myke Hurley:''' We'll just do this for four hours then.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, so let's find, let's find Tommy song, a gel ink refill for the retro 51 tornado. This is a constant question we get, and there is no perfect answer because there's no perfect gel fit other than I think Monteverde's, but they don't come in a very fine tip size. So you have to hack it. And there are plenty of hacks that you can get a gel ink pen. And our friend of the show, Jimmy Reeks, um, has a website called pins and planes where he writes, and he has a pin hacks post. And looking through that for the retro 51, you can use the Uniball Signo 207, Uniball Jetstream, the Pilot G2, or the Pentel inner gel with just by just trimming the ends of the barrels to get them fit. So those are the kind of the ones you want to look at. Um, if you're not going to go for like a, a, a Monteverde kind of stock refill, if you want to use one of your favorite gel ink pens and you can get the finer tip size, those are the ones you just kind of want to match it up lengthwise to the existing Schmidt refill and trim off the ends until you get a good fit in there. And that's going to be the best, best thing to do for your retro 51s. I actually haven't done this yet, which I need to do that because I like them. Um, and I, I, I like the Schmidt refill as it is. So I don't tend to change them because I have gel ink refills and every other pen. So I might as well keep that in there. So I've never really gotten into that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Do you, do you keep all the Schmidt refills in your retros or do you hack any? You don't never change it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Never, ever. I love that refill. It's my favorite refill I've ever made.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I change them into the 8126 from the 8127, but I don't worry about it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I consider that a perfectly canonical, um, change outside of that. I feel like you're doing some kind of horrific surgery on a beautiful.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So Myke says, don't hack your retros, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I really don't think you should, but if you don't like it, I get it. But I really think you should keep it in the Schmidt family.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. All right. Fair enough. All right. Yesterday's pens wants to know, and we actually got a, uh, a similar question to this in the Slack room. Would you prefer one fountain pen for $1,000 or four to five fountain pens over time to total $1,000? Do you want to take a stab at this first? Cause I have a pretty clear answer on this.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So do I, four to five over a period of time. Like I, I wouldn't want to just have one pen that costs that much money. Um, I would prefer to stack it out. Like I have done, I'm happy with the route that I've taken over my pen buying history so far.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. So I totally agree. I think you will get more enjoyment out of your writing if you had three or four or five fountain pens over time, because you can try different nib sizes. You can have three of them inked up with three different ink colors. You can try different brands. I, I think four or five pens to total $1,000, I think is a really, really great way to go over the longterm because you could have like a pilot eight 23 and a Lamy 2000 and a sailor pro gear. And you can have all these, there's so many good pens in the $200 range, you know, give or take, you know, $50 that you would end up with three or four or five pens that you will seriously enjoy. And I think you will enjoy them more than a single $1,000 pen. So that's my take. Now, the problem is when you don't stop and there's a podcast for that. It's called the pen addict. You should come join us. Hi, how you doing? Hey, it's been. Zero days since I've purchased a pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. So this is a hard one. We're going to throw this to the crowd. I have a thought, but I don't know that it's accurate, but I think it's a really good question. Any advice for a fountain pen ink to match the color of the Statue of Liberty right on the knife edge between green and blue? So the first thing that came to my head was Diablo Mint from J. Herban. It's a really bright, light green, but in the minty kind of thing. You know, it's that, that copper green. I don't even know what you call or that. Call that color. But yeah, so we're getting like in the chat room saying Diamine Soft Mint. So I'm thinking around that same type of color. Do you have any idea? Like, I don't use that color. That's not a color that appeals to me. I can't say how accurate that is. I have two issues. For a match.

'''Myke Hurley:''' One being the fact that, you know, I don't have an extensive ink knowledge. The other is I've never seen the Statue of Liberty. So, you know, I'm familiar that it's green, but I've never paid that much attention to the color.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, you've seen the Statue of Liberty retro 51. Well, sure, but not in person.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. I mean, you know, Canalea pens makes, makes pens based off photographs. You know, I've seen photographs of things that look pretty accurate. I've never seen the Statue of Liberty in person, but I've seen a picture.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm obviously being silly, but, but the, the, the real answer is I couldn't tell you the name of more than one green ink.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So. Yeah. Well, I think I'm on the right track. The, uh, the chat room saying Diablo Mint, Diamine Soft Mint, Sailor Kobe number 13, um, KWZ Mint. Menthol green. So you want to kind of, you want to kind of get in that range, a lighter, softer green, uh, more in the minty green. So start looking in that category. So, uh, so yeah, um, Myke's no help. He's, he's claiming, um, he's claiming, um, British royalty rights instead of Statue of Liberty. I don't know what that means. All right. I absolutely love this last question because I've gone mental over this. It's a very simple question and it's very hard to answer in my opinion. And our good friend, Tony Scullum Breen at everyday commentary says, and he's a lawyer, I need a good pen for redactions. So, the conventional wisdom in my head says, okay, Sharpie. That's what redactions should be used for. But is it really? And what paper are you using? And is it typed? And can it be washed off the page? Are you getting, are you talking about first generation paper redactions or photocopied after redacting redactions? I think this is a very deep question that should be simple, but I don't think it's even remotely simple. You know, can you see the letters on the back? Will the chemical composition of the ink allow the cartridge ink on the sheet to show through after? I wish I had the perfect answer. I think it would be some sort of pigmented black ink pen almost, or even like Sailor Nano black fountain pen ink. But I don't know. I don't think this is a, am I taking this too seriously? This is all I've been thinking about, that I don't have a great answer for this, because I think it's on like 50 different levels of what you really need.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, this feels like a risky one to give an answer to, right? Because there are so many permutations, there are so many potential slip-ups for where this wouldn't work. It feels to me like there isn't a really a good answer, right? Like I assume that there are probably not many tools that you can use to do this effectively.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I think like Sharpie on the front end, then photocopied is perfectly fine if you're handing out photocopies. But on the originals is where I don't have a great answer. And I think that's why I enjoy this question so much, because I think it's extremely, like you could go wrong on this pretty easily. And we've all seen things on the internet that have been redacted that people have backed out, you know, in certain ways. So I'm open for emails and tweets on this, and I'll pass them on to Tony, because I don't have experience with it or have tested it, and I don't think it's a straightforward answer. Nope. But that's why I love the question so much, right? It's an amazing question, because now I have to think about all these different things, and that's how obsessive we are over pens and paper, that we want to get the right redaction pen and not have any issues going forward with it. So, yeah, wonderful question. I'll find out some more for you, Tony, but absolutely love it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I would like to just say at this point that the Pen Anic Podcast is not responsible for any failed or missing redactions, provided to your paperwork. That was, wow, you're a professional podcaster.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That was tight.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I got an official statement from my legal team.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes, good. That was quick. That was quick. So let's redact a lot of what I said in this show, because I'm having heat stroke, and we'll look forward to next week. So we'll just call this episode redacted. Sorry, I got all my notes. I know where I'm cutting you out.