Editing The Pen Addict 318/transcript (section)

== Mechanical Pencils Topic ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's awesome. All right. I'm definitely going to give that a shot. All right. So, let's get into the Ask Less portion of the show. I always like to get some questions specifically for our guests. And, you know, the first one, I actually wonder if you can help me out with how much of a mechanical pencil fan are you?

'''Les Herger:''' I'm not a huge mechanical pencil fan, but I do have my share of them like any artist or, you know, I've been using them since high school. Right. But not huge, but I know enough that I feel I can help you out with this question.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. So, Sandra wants to know, what do you recommend as a good mechanical pencil under $80? I don't know what it's called, but I like pencils that have a metal sleeve around the lid and that it retracts back into the pencil. Also, I prefer a metal body or plastic one. So, I'm going to say real quick and before I let you answer this is I think she's saying $80 because that's what that rotating retractable mechanical pencil is. We're going to scratch that one off the list from the jump. Like, let's not even put that in there. That's like a silly like amount to spend on a mechanical pencil and it's got this weird stylus tip on the front. Like, it's kind of crazy. Like, you can do so much better for a fraction of the price. So, do you have any that you like in that price like that fits her needs but is also not the Rotring 800? Yeah.

'''Les Herger:''' Well, I'm going to get a little nerdy with you. So, there are two types of retractable pipe style mechanical pencils. The type that slides as you write like the Kuru Toga pipe slide. I've never tried one of those because that just doesn't interest. I don't know. I feel sketchy about that. They're weird. But a lot of people really like them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. They're weird. I'm on the it works but it's weird. That's kind of what I say about those. It's like, it's cool but I'm a little bit uncomfortable with it. So, go ahead.

'''Les Herger:''' Yeah. So, then the other style is like the Rotring 800 or the TWSBI Precision.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes.

'''Les Herger:''' And I'm going to recommend the TWSBI Precision depending on how important it is to them that it squirts out the same amount of lead each time.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay.

'''Les Herger:''' Like I use a TWSBI Precision like the original style as part of my everyday carry. One, I use a retractable pipe, the original black mat as part of my everyday carry. It sits on my work planner. It's clipped to the outside of it with a rubber band around the whole thing and it gets thrown into my bag. It gets thrown on a desk. I've had a client, they didn't toss it across the room but they definitely knocked it off my desk. And that thing, I've been using it now for a little over two years. It just keeps working but it does have the first click, it squirts out a millimeter and a half of lead. Then the next click, half a millimeter. Then a click out, the next click is one millimeter. And it usually goes between half a millimeter and one millimeter each time. Okay. That doesn't cause any problems for me. But I gave you a link to Matthias of, I'm going to screw up the name of his blog, Blystief.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Les Herger:''' I think is the name of his blog. He's an OG pencil blogger as well. He wrote an excellent review of their fountain pen and the pencil. I just, I really like the TWSBI Precision.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I think that's kind of the perfect answer. You know, if the Rotring 600 is a pencil, you know, I love and talk about all the time. But it doesn't have that retractable pipe. The precision is kind of like what you were saying about its indestructibility. We have one at Knock on our shipping desk that we've probably had there for a couple of years. And it just takes a beating and just keeps working. And it looks cool. It feels good. It's got the full metal barrel. It's got the pipe protection. The only other, the one I like personally to use is the Uni Shift Pipe Lock. But that has a half plastic barrel, right? So it's only got the metal grip section. And then the upper barrel is plastic. So they may not, that may not fit. But that's one where you just kind of like pull it down over the sleeve and tighten it up. And it kind of protects itself. But the precision fits what Sandra's looking for better, I think. So that's a really good call. And it's $25. Exactly. And that's about what these good quality mechanical pencils, that's kind of the price range you're looking at. I think you can get like the ultimate pencil like in that price range. I think the Rotaring 800 is probably not worth it in the end as it relates to something like the Twisby precision.

'''Les Herger:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I agree. So the next question was stealthily entered into the show document.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I'm going to read it like this. So to reverse this a bit, Mary Elizabeth from the RSVP group wants to know why are you, being me, such a weenie about shimmer inks? So Mary Elizabeth, let me just tell you something. You're 100% right. I'm a total weenie when it comes to shimmer inks. And I don't know why. I think it's because I like those extra fine nibs. And I'm concerned about the glimmer or glitter or sheen or sparkles or whatever's in there in those inks clogging up my fine nibs. But I've seen the light. I'm coming around. It's slow. But I just did a Twitch kind of mini review of the new Jairbon, the Coraline DG, the orange and with the silver sparkles. And I really liked writing with it. So that ink might make me a convert. I used it in a wide nib, like a TWSBI. I used it in a TWSBI Eco 1.1 stub nib. It wrote beautifully. It had excellent particle spread. It was even. There wasn't two lines of writing orange ink and then two lines of heavy sparkle. It was dispersed properly. And I left it in my pen barrel for about three weeks. And it cleaned out like a champ. So I'm coming around, Mary Elizabeth. Y'all are going to make me a shimmer ink lover after all. So I'm getting into it. So, you know, I'll try and, you know, maybe that'll be my goal for 2019 is not to be such a weenie about shimmer inks because Mary Elizabeth's right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. The inky, wow. The inky side says, Brad, you obviously made your pencil pack to convert pinheads to the graphite dark side. If Les was going to make their pencil pack, pencil conversion, pencil pack, pen conversion. Pencil pack, that's hard to say. What would you include?

'''Les Herger:''' This is a tough one because I sort of think of like pens in two different ways. I think of them for like sketching and then also for writing. And I think about pencils in the same way. So for sketching purposes, and I think this would go towards people who like fatter nibs, medium or broad nibs as well. The Midori MD paper products pencil in B, that thing is just so silky smooth. It skates cross page. Sketching purposes, it also gives you great tonality. So you get a lot of lights and a lot of darks out of it. The next pencil I'd suggest is the Mitsubishi Uni for handwriting and 4B.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay.

'''Les Herger:''' Deep, deep darks. Just really a great pencil for sketching.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I'm like two for two in things I need to try already. I'm writing all this down.

'''Les Herger:''' And then any pencil with the Blackwing Pearl core. Because it gets you some of the lighter shades with it. But you can also switch it out and write with it. So if you just want to get some details down, quick ideas, Blackwing Pearl I think is fabulous. And then for writing, I like things a little harder when I'm writing. Any Nataraj with the super black core. Like the metallic.

'''Les Herger:''' The Gleemo. Anything like that. The Joy. All of those are just... It's a really great pencil for writing.

'''Les Herger:''' Then the Blackwing Volumes Extra Firm Core. Which I think is kind of unfair to suggest a limited edition edition. But they need to just make it in the regular edition. I'm pretty sure, at least in my testing purposes and in feel, that the Extra Firm is actually just the regular Palomino HB.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay.

'''Les Herger:''' But they've never said that. They've never confirmed that. But to me, they're the same.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And they've got to release it as a regular lineup product, right? I mean, they just have to.

'''Les Herger:''' Well, they've been stringing us along. It's the carrot on the end of the stick at this point. And then the Ticonderoga Stripes, I think. Which are the multicolored Ticonderoga. They're made in China. Which is usually a sign with Ticonderoga that you're getting better quality than the Ticonderoga made in Mexico.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Gotcha.

'''Les Herger:''' So, yeah. And they're at Staples right now. Super cheap for the back to school. So that would be my package. Awesome.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, I can double down the price for the Ticonderoga Stripes. That's in my hand right now. Writing in, let me get this name right, the No Brand Notebook. Like, we didn't even get to talk about, like, all the bookbinding and paper stuff. God, you're into, like, as I started to go through this, it's like, this could be, like, a 10-hour long podcast. You're into so much stuff.

'''Les Herger:''' I got to stay busy. If I, I, I, I'm just someone that has to stay busy, you know? I get bored easy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So I will, I'm going to hit you up for that in just a second. So, um, the, the Inky Spide. Or, yeah, I guess I'm saying that right. You never know with Twitter handles. This was, uh, to me, I'd also love to hear if you want to make any changes to your existing pack on CW. So I have a pencil set. I work with Caroline and Caitlin and the whole crew up there. Who is now selling mechanical pencils, by the way? Did you see that coming? I didn't see that coming.

'''Les Herger:''' I did. I didn't see it coming. But I saw the, the advertisement. I was like, yeah. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They did a good job. Uh, curating, like, their, their first set of mechanical pencils. Some really, really neat stuff. So I think the only thing I would swap out in my set of what I have right now is I love the Mitsubishi 9850. For just like the, I think they even stamp it on their like office pencil or something like that. Or for office use. It's a very basic pencil, but it writes phenomenally. And I didn't realize until I talked about it once, um, our friend Tim from the erasables said, hey, did you know there's a, an eco-friendly barrel for that? Same core, but, um, different, you know, you know, eco-friendly recycled wood, recycled eraser. So there's a model called the 9852EW, which when I looked up online, whose review popped up first, not yours, but D. So your good friend D has, has a review on this exact pencil, which I didn't realize was the same internals as the 9850. So I prefer it over the 9850. So maybe I'll have to switch that around one day, but still, um, both of those pencils are cool and they're, they're pretty cheap. They're like in the dollar, dollar 50 range. So that would be my only choice. All right. So since I didn't get to talk to you about like making notebooks, you know, more of the book binding stuff, um, you've done tons of posts on your process of making notebooks. And you just said, you got to keep yourself busy. I want to know what's next. Like, what are you making next? Like, I know you're big into the watercolors right now. Like I'm following you. Yeah. The, the rate at which you produce things, it boggles my mind. So like, it's not only the NaNoWriMo, it's the, it's the watercolor painting per day. It's the color palettes that I comment on your ridiculous names. Cause they're hilarious. Like, you know, pizza calzone and I don't know, booger snot. I don't know. There's just whatever pops into your head and I'm just dying, but it's always something. How do you do it? Uh, number one. And then what's next? Cause there's gotta be something next.

'''Les Herger:''' Well, so, so some of the stuff that I did really doesn't take a lot of time. Like the, uh, watercolor swatches, those take literally five minutes and they're meant as a speed journaling technique. So basically it's, and it also helps me learn what colors blend well in my watercolor palettes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Gotcha.

'''Les Herger:''' So it's, it's, it's a useful, but quick thing I can do every night to keep my watercolor practice going. Um, so it takes five minutes and then I shoot a picture of it, put it up on Instagram. Uh, and then the, the, uh, a hundred days project, um, that takes a little longer. That really takes between 20 and 30 minutes, a little longer if I'm setting up to video.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' See, I'm just going to hurt you now. Like I couldn't draw, you know, a stick figure in five hours and you're making these super cool watercolors and God, it takes a long, like 20, 30 minutes.

'''Les Herger:''' So, so, um, I decided, God, when was it? I think it was back in 2006, maybe 2009 that I wanted to do portraits better and literally sat down and drew faces. And I should, I've posted some of my early drawings from back then. I mean, they're horrible. I mean, you, I mean, people look deformed, like I deformed people who are beautiful and, you know, but so part of it is just like, I decided I wanted to do this better. And I set aside a few minutes every day to do it until I got better at it. And now I'm at the point where, you know, after a couple of days of practice, like my, the first, um, I'm not going to name cause I'm not going to get political on here, but the first person I did for my hundred days project, which was, I think I'm at 40 now. Wow. It was horrible. And then by the time I got three faces in, I, it was like, it's like riding a bike. The skills are still there.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Right. Right.