Editing The Pen Addict 280/transcript (section)

== Jax Letter ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You know what I mean? Because sometimes just like thank you isn't enough. And so this is a very, very wonderful project to start. And to be a part of that is heartwarming. So thank you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And I appreciate that Jax allowed us to share this because it's personal. Like he wrote a letter to us and published it online. And like not everyone's going to see that. But now we're like shining a light on it. And he allowed that. So I appreciate that. And I like in his response to us, he says, my girlfriend affectionately teases me and calls me a pen nerd. And it's a title that I'll happily accept. Yeah. I think we can all appreciate that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's a badge of honor right there.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So thank you, Jax. This was super cool. And, you know, he might be doing more later. But it's just something to think about. You know, I life's difficult and having like this little light of positivity and something you can do for yourself to, you know, make you, you know, have like a good headspace. Right. I think about these things a lot in my personal life is like, how can I remain, you know, in a very positive attitude and, you know, lift people up and, you know, keep a smile on my face. And it's not always easy, but doing little things like this, you know, whether it's digitally or analog, I think it's great. So very cool. Very cool. All right. This is an interesting question, Myke. It's very short and sweet from Lerlenny. It says, why do some pens stop writing after a couple of refills? I've cleaned them between fills. Examples, Lamy Safari, Pilot Metropolitan, Nemo Sign, Singularity. So the answer is, I don't know.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But you have observed this too as a thing that occurs? Because I have.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The Safari, yes. The Metro, no. The Nemo Sign, I don't use. So what I find after I've cleaned a pen and refilled it and it stops writing is that I haven't cleaned the nib and feed enough. So you have to get in between the nib tines. You know, this is part of that maintenance that's required with a fountain pen. You know, some will say, unfortunately, some will say it's part of doing business. Some will say, this is the thing I love about these pens. Yeah. Sometimes in between the nib and the feed, not just flushing water through the feed and through the nib in those tines gets clogged up. So go online, order a brass sheet. It's like a little shim. You essentially floss the tines. It's I've found more times than not that changes everything about the flow on my pen after I've cleaned it. Sometimes you like if you're cleaning it and drying off with the paper towels, you might get fiber in there that you don't see and it's just going to clog it a little bit. I don't have an absolute for a fact answer for this, but if you're cleaning the pen well and then you floss the tines or take the, if the, both the Safari and the Metropolitan, you can get the nib off the feed very easily. Take them completely apart. It may sound like a hassle, but it's going to be a better writing experience.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. If you're able to, I mean, I just did this over the weekend. If you're able to get the, the feed out of the section, like if that's the thing and like you're able to separate the feed and the nib, like that's going to go a long way to helping you get a lot of that gunk out there, even if you don't have specific tools, right? Like if you're able to, and also what that does, I've found it reduces the amount of frustration you have when you change ink, right? That like, I have a pink ink now, but it's still blue, right? Like if you can separate as much of it as possible, you get a better job of flushing a lot of the old color out as well. So, but yeah, I have observed this happening like Brad, I have no answer. I hope Brad was going to be like, oh, it's because of this, but no, it turns out there isn't, there isn't an answer we have for you, Lola and I am sorry. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So one last thing on this, and it's not an answer to this question, but it was something I was thinking about right before we got on the show, I was saying, I need to clean a bunch of my pens. I have one pen that I can't get the old ink color out. So I'm going to give this, I need to break out the big bottle of JB's pen flush again. So remember when we talked about that?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I have a slightly purple bottle of pen flush in my ink drawer.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. Yep. So I put in some blue black ink that's coming out with some purple in it and that's not the color it should be. You know, it looks, it looks kind of cool, but since I know it's not supposed to be that, it's bothering me.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, because then you don't want to get used to it, right? Because it's got an impermanent shelf life on it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. You're wonderful in your ink color. I'll be breaking out the JB's here maybe this weekend. All right. Last one. I'm going to let you answer this because you've most recently hired, you've most recently hired someone. And this is from our good friend, Doug, who we both saw this weekend in Chicago.