Editing The Pen Addict 150/transcript (section)

== Pen Grind Language ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. But that's like a weird analog title suggestion system which we proposed earlier on. So I want to talk about, I want to come back to that. Yeah. Because that's like the kind of like the community aspect. I also want to talk about Nibwork. Yes. But before we do that, let me thank our final sponsor for this week. Okay. And that's our friends over at MashDrop who are an online community for enthusiasts of all kinds. From audio and electronics to quilting and cooking. It's a place for you to connect with people like you. To discuss your favorite products and activities and buy them together. That's what MashDrop does. They represent a new type of online experience that combines community, content and commerce. MashDrop offers a place where enthusiasts can meet online and connect over the products they love. The forum, they offer that as well. You can vote on and discuss the products that you're passionate about. And it also provides you with a platform where you can connect directly to manufacturers and buy the products together to get bulk pricing. They're not a flash sale website. They're not a deal site. They're just a place that helps you work with people like you to get stuff that you want from the people that you love. The thing that is most important to the people over at MashDrop is that they want to build communities around the things that they love. And the things that people love and the things that we all love together because that's what they really love doing. They're not just about creating flash deals and stuff like that. They want to basically create a platform that people who are like-minded and enthusiastic about things can get things at great deals and also discuss the stuff that they love as well. I know that group buys are something that are really important to people in the pen community, especially when we spend so much money at these pen shows. And some of the stuff that we buy is really expensive. Like we've all spent quite a bit of money today. We've been saving for it. But buying in bulk can really help lower the price and stuff for online orders. And this is where a service like MashDrop can help. They get prices like 20% to 30% off brands like Pelican, Frank and Kristoff, who we mentioned before. They're all on MashDrop from time to time. Now, one that the guys over at MashDrop sent to me today, which is fantastic. They're doing a stainless steel Lamy 2000 for $235.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah, so it's weird spending money at the pen show and feeling that you need to go make a purchase of a pen that you've been eyeballing for like a long time that I haven't been around like looking at the pen show. That's a really good deal on the Lamy 2000 stainless. I mean, I just bought a Lamy 2000 ballpoint today. So the stainless for that price is going to make me perk up a little bit and go, you know, poke around and see how many buttons I mash before, you know, I complete the order. And I just have one thing else to say about that. Hey, Matthew.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, he's been looking for one. So these deals are totally worth checking out. If you want to find out more, go to dro.ps slash the pen addict and sign up. Thank you so much to MashDrop for supporting this show and all of RelayFM. So let's talk about nib work.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah. So when we talked about pen show prep stuff, we discussed kind of the things kind of just laying out a game plan for people who've never been before. Just so you kind of have an idea and you're not going in totally blind. And people who've never been, one of the things a lot of them want to get done is nib work. They have a pen that's not working right or they have a pen that they need adjusted to write differently or they want to take a really gushing broad nib and turn into a stub or italic nib. And our recommendation was if that's the type of work you want to get done, walk into the pen show, head straight to the person doing that work and put your name on the list. So we did that Friday. I had two pens to get work on. You had two pens to get work on. And you've got something for tomorrow, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I have an appointment, but I haven't quite figured out what I'm going to get done. But everybody was like, if you're thinking about it, sign up. The worst thing that could happen is that I could go, I could get to that point and not be ready to make a decision. And so I just say, I'm sorry, cross my name off the list and it means the next person gets bumped up. So it's not a huge big deal and I've got some ideas, but I'm definitely going to continue to talk to you guys about what you recommend.

'''Ana Reinert:''' For sure. For sure. And one of my favorite people in the world that I've ever met in the pen community is Myke Masayama. And I've only met him at the pen show and I met him first through Thomas Hall, which is the king enabler. Which is obvious. He tries to voice that title on me. We've had long discussions about this today and Thomas is at the top of the enabling chain. Although Lee Reyes. Also very bad. Yeah, she, she's, she might be the, she's definitely the queen, but she's.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' She could be an enabler except she bought the pen that she was supposed to enable me to buy.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Right. So Thomas introducing me into Myke's work, one, and then Myke as a person, two, has been really, really good. I have a great relationship with Mr. Masayama. He's a really genuinely nice guy. Um, people will be intimidated by a guy sitting behind a machine with his head down, you know, with a loop out and working on these, these pins, you know, behind this, you know, little screen. So, you know, you're with, you know, like a, uh, splash guard, you know, so you're not getting stuff on you. You know, you look at this and it's like, this is scary and intimidating.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' His wife is also really nice. She is super nice. So she was super, it kind of made it a little bit easier for me to go ahead and schedule the appointment and be like, okay, I can do this.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah. Yeah. But so just for everyone's kind of knowledge on how this works, um, Myke Hurley and I, when we got in Friday morning, we had our names on the list, probably 10 o'clock. Um, cause we were there at nine setting up and we put our names on early before. Do that. Cause like, I'm going to put all our names down. Yeah. So we were like third, fourth and fifth in line already at that time. And it was afternoon before our turns came up like one, two o'clock in the afternoon. And we were early on the list. So it takes a little time because what Myke does is he talks to you about what do you want? How do you write? What do you want it to feel like? What's your expectation of the result of this? And takes all that information and here's what you can and can't do. So like I had a Nakaya that I wanted to change up the nib a little bit. It's really close to being how I wanted to. And in talking to him and discussing what my end result should be, he led me down a path, including sketch drawings. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That was so awesome when he drew that up. Yeah.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Of exactly what I'm saying, what it looks like and what he can do all in this same little drawing. And then we came to a decision together. He's like, okay, I got it. And then you just kind of kick back in your chair, let him do magic. And he's grinding away and cleaning and inspecting. Like making jokes. Yeah. It's really fun. Yeah. Yeah. So you just let the magician work.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So did you take him anything specific being left-handed? Like were there any specific requests that you made?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I didn't. But I did show him and he did note it. So I don't know if he maybe made a difference with it. But there was, I think I was talking to Dave and he was saying that he said like, I'm a lefty. And like, I want you to think about that. So what Myke did is he ground the pen to a point and then he gave the pen to Dave and made him write on sandpaper. So he could see where it marked and then he ground the nib down that way. I was like, whoa.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And Dave got the architect grind, right? Yeah. Yeah. Because he handed it to me and I played with it and I'm like, oh no, now I want one of these. Uh-huh.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Uh-huh.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It was amazing. And because I do think that he made an effort to hit that because Dave has the same sort of upside down writing. Yes. We both do. Yeah. So I put it in my hand and usually somebody will hand me a pen and I'm like, it may or may not write it the way that I want it to. And it was like, oh.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Right. So the whole point of this is guys like Myke Masuyama and like everyone else here at the show is here to help you. They want you to be not just satisfied but like over the moon and they will work and work and work to make that happen. And that's what Myke does.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And it's interesting because when there's other – I've been to other events like when you go to a flea market or something and you see that pen in that case, you got to do the whole like super cool head, cool. So how much is that?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And hopefully like your excitement doesn't show on your face because then somebody is all of a sudden going to add $10 to the price because they know you want that piece. Here it's totally the opposite. Like I walked up to this table. This gentleman had a whole tray of Astro Brooks and I was just going bananas. And I was like, do I want this one or this one? Do I want this one or this one? I was so excited to get them. And he looked at me and he goes, these are going to a good home. I'm going to knock $20 off the price. I'm like, that doesn't happen anywhere else. And I had someone else. I went and talked to somebody about a Pelican that he had. And he says, you look like someone that would be a good home for this pen. And he's like, what if I make you a deal? And I'm like, that doesn't – like any place else if you act that excited about something, they'd be like, how much more money can I get out of you? Which is – it's a cool experience and it's very different. You can ask somebody if you really like a pen and the price on there is a little out of your price range if they can work with you. And I think most people are fairly flexible about it. Some are like, no, that's – I mean, there's a lot of work that I put into this. But at least they're not trying to really – I mean, like they want to make money so that they can continue to do this. But they aren't trying to hoodwink anybody or try to just make a buck.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah, it's a super consistent theme that you'll see. Like in – just from my experience, Atlanta is the only show I've been to and this is my third time. But the experience never changed. It's continually the same, which is continually awesome.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I had two pens worth. Yeah. So I had my Edison, my custom Edison. So there was just something not right about it. And I gave it to Myke. He just took a look at it. He's like, yep, I can totally see what it is. And he just worked on it. All I said to him was it just doesn't feel right. Like I didn't know what else to say. Like I had Brad. Like we had ours done together, right? He did yours and he did mine because I was a little bit intimidated. Sure. I didn't really know what to say.

'''Ana Reinert:''' You didn't know how to speak the language of pen grind language. Yeah. Right. You didn't know how to say what I want Masuyama to accomplish for me, how to relay that information. But even if I wasn't there, Myke would just take over, right? Like if I wasn't pointing you in this direction or telling Masuyama what we had talked about previously, how we need to look at this. Myke would take over and just like he did with Dave, show me. Yeah. Put your pen in your hand right with this. And if you're wanting something that you don't have currently, he'll reach over. Like he grabbed me two or three different pens when I was getting one of mine stub. And he's like, write with these. Let me see. Let me see how small you write. We were talking about how small I write. He was hilarious. He was dogging me a little bit. And then he's like picking these out. He's watching me. And he's going to be able to make that recommendation just from watching me because that's his job. I mean, he's a super professional. So like if I wasn't even there, he's going to direct that traffic, right? He's going to make sure like you're going to leave with a pen that's going to make your jaw drop. And a nib, I should say. And I think you got some jaw dropping work done.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It was incredible. Like all I said to him was, it doesn't feel right. Because that's all I could say, right? Because I didn't know. I couldn't like really express what was wrong with it. But he just tried it. And he was like, yeah, I know what it is. And then he was doing this really interesting thing where he like balanced the end of the pen on his finger. I was just dragging it along the page. I think he was trying to see where it was scratching. Yeah. And he started working on it. And he was like, I'm going to make this. I don't know why he did this. But he's like, I'm going to make this look like a Mont Blanc.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay. He was just like, because this is when you left. You'd left at this. Right. Right. And he was like, I'm just going to, he says, I want to make this look like a Mont Blanc nib. And he started working on it. And he ground it down. And then he gave me his loop at the end. And he had me look at it. And he was like explaining what he did. And then later in the evening, I told Thomas Hall this. And I showed Thomas. And then he grabbed a Mont Blanc that he had. And he was showing me. And I don't, like it was just the way it was slanted on one side. And it looked just like the Mont Blanc nib that Thomas had. And I just think that Myke was just like, I want to have a bit of fun. And he was like, I'm going to make it look like this. That's amazing. Yeah. You didn't even tell me that. That's beyond cool.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I want to play with it. I want to try it out.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's fantastic. And then also I took him the sailor and he just tuned it. Yes. And that was really awesome. Like he turned the pen around and basically put his fingers into the nib. And was like prying it open to look inside. It was crazy. He didn't really do too much to me. He was just like positioning it. Right.

'''Ana Reinert:''' It was a really awesome experience. Yeah. It was a new pen that didn't have any issues that would just, you wanted to get tuned a little bit. You want, you have the opportunity to have something done that's not easily done anywhere else. But here today. Right. So you go do that. He has 20 years experience with these nibs. Yeah. Yeah. And even more after that doing all his own work. So yeah. If we haven't heaped enough praise on Mr. Masayama, we all think very highly of him. And you know, you hear us, you hear me talking about him a lot on the show. And there's, there's a good reason why.