Editing The Pen Addict 24/transcript (section)

== Listener Question ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, next topic.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I need the readers, I always say readers, the listeners help on this. Readers and listeners help on this. I have a gentleman that sent me an email, and he's very, very specific on what he wants. And let me just go through his hit list because it's reasonably straightforward. I mean, it's a very detailed list, but it's a pretty normal thing. So, he wants ink that's archival in his pen. You know, water-resistant, acid-free, UV-proof. He wants it, you know, these journals. You know, if he's going to use it for a journal to last a long time, or if he writes a check, it's not going to wash out, things like that. He prefers a liquid ink, like a rollerball ink. He does not like gel and does not like ballpoint. And not too light in color. You do tend to find that with some liquid inks, especially blues. Blues tend to be lighter in a lot of rollerball liquid inks. Won't explode on a plane. That's a kicker. That shortens the list greatly. Looks halfway decent. Something, you know, he'll enjoy using, breaking out, and, you know, giving to someone else, let someone else use, things like that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' He says right now he uses a Uniball 207 that skips and is way too light. A Stadler pigment liner, which is not smooth, but, you know, that handles the archival ink qualities. It's also, I guess those types of pins are plane safe. I'm not positive. And he uses a Fabric Castle ballpoint, which is airplane safe, because the ballpoint inks really, I haven't had any, no one really talks about the ballpoint inks linking on a flight, although I guess they would, but not as much as liquid or gel ink. So when I read that, the easy answer for me was there's a pin called the Uniball Vision Elite. And I know we've talked about this pin before, and I can't remember if it was called something differently over there in the UK, and I'm thinking that it was, but I can't remember. It's the one that Uniball markets as airplane safe. But it's liquid ink, rollerball, uses archival ink, right? It's their Super, Uniball Super Ink technology. They've started to put all of their pins now, including the Vision Elite. Obviously won't explode on a plane. And, you know, it's reasonably good looking. It's a plastic barrel pin, but it's one of the more professional looking pins that Uniball does. And I mentioned that, and he said, yeah, he's tried it. And he said what he would really like is to find a rollerball that uses refillable ink cartridges.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And have you ever seen a pin like that, Michael? Just a rollerball pin, a rollerball tip or a nib that uses an ink cartridge, like a fountain pen ink cartridge.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I've never heard of it. Okay.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So Kaweco, I don't know of many. Kaweco makes all of their, let's see, classic, ice sport, all of that entry-level fountain pen, the plastic barrel Kaweco, the classic, and that entire line. They make that, all of those pins in a liquid ink cartridge rollerball. And I have one of these, and I've reviewed it. And I'll send you a link to that for the show notes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And it's just as you imagine, it's the same body, the same ink cartridge as the fountain pen, but just has a rollerball tip. Now, what this gentleman would like to do is refill those ink cartridges with his favorite ink, which I think is, you know, the Noodler's, like, bulletproof black, you know, super dark archival. You know, that's his favorite ink.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And it's not going to, this isn't going to fit his airplane safe criteria. There's no way that this is going to be an airplane safe type pen. But for everyday writing and journaling, that would be his perfect solution. Now, the only other pen I've seen like that is Zebra has actually started to make one that they've put on store shelves, like Walmart and Target. I don't have the model number. I'll also give you a link to that. I've reviewed it as well. I was not impressed with it, but it is basically a stainless steel body pen, like, you know, in the Zebra style that they make. And it's just got, you know, black ink cartridges that just snap right in. So what I'm wondering is, those are the only two I know of. There has to be, some manufacturer has to make a higher end rollerball with an ink cartridge refill. So that's my question for the listeners. If you know of any other pins that take, any other rollerball pins that take ink cartridges, please let me know because that's not something I'm too, too familiar with. Like I said, I've reviewed a couple, but those are, you know, lower end entry level type stuff. Is there something more substantial available for that type of pen? So, I mean, it's good in theory. The two that I've tested, I haven't been impressed with the feel of the rollerball, right? They both felt not as smooth. The ink flow has been fine, but the rollerball does not roll very well, in my opinion. Like there wasn't enough, I don't know if it's lubrication or if it's just the design that it was that made it feel scratchy. I didn't care for it. I like the idea of being able to use different inks. Like I like Kaweco's blue-black ink, which is what I used in mine. And that was cool. But just overall, I was, that's not a pen I would use very frequently. It just didn't fit my needs.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, hmm.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I guess we'll throw that out there, right? I know there's something else out there. There's got to be other things out there. So, I'd be interested to see. Would you ever use something like that?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, I find it a bit oddball, personally. Like if I want replaceable ink, this is just my own opinions. If I want replaceable ink, I'm going to use a fountain pen anyway. That's just because I prefer them to rollerballs anyway. We've spoken about this a bunch of times. But I don't, I've never really come into contact with many rollerballs that I would, you know, the barrel's so great that I would feel like I would need to have replaceable ink like that. I don't know. It just seems weird. Like, why not just get a refill? Like a rollable refill.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right, right. Does that make sense? Yeah, because he can't use, he can't customize the ink. Like, I mean, it's a pretty specialized type of question, right? I mean, he wants a level of customization in his pen, right? And there's very few things that are going to allow for that except a fountain pen or, you know, if there's some other, you know, rollerball with cartridge options, which are very few and far between.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, anyway, so hopefully we'll see if any listeners know of anything. Y'all can shoot me, send me an email. You can get me at penaddict.com forward slash contact. Or you can tweet it to me at dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. And, you know, that's probably a good place to leave it today, Myke, unless you've got anything else.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I totally agree. I'm on Twitter as well. I'm I-M-Y-K-E. But Brad is always, of course, the man that you should get in touch with these things.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Until next time, Brad, we will speak to our listeners later.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Absolutely.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Enjoyed it as always. Thank you very much for listening. Keep writing. Bye-bye. Bye.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]