Editing The Pen Addict 382/transcript (section)

== Pilot Custom 91 ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, well, you may want a different color, like, for marking. Like, for... I love the Pilot Custom 91, which is an inexpensive gold nib cartridge pen. You can get some different color inks in Pilot if you search for their mixable cartridges. So you can get some fun colors in there as opposed to blue, black, and blue, black.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I would throw in the 3776 into this because it is an incredibly light pen. Very light. So could be comfortable. And also has about as good a nib as you could very possibly find.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, and same with the 91. It's a lightweight pen, like 3776, which I think is preferable for writing sessions. Now, that kind of throws the rollerball refill for a loop because I would recommend just a standard Retro 51 Tornado. It's not a lightweight pen, but the way it tapers makes me choose it over something like the retractableness of the Mark I. Like, for a long writing session, I prefer a standard Retro 51 and you can get the base tornado. All the other 8126 refills are heavier and metal. So I would prefer just the traditional one for that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Lined A5, probably Rhodia?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Totally Rhodia. Like, I think that's it. I mean, I think that's your kit. I honestly think, like, do we have to pick the ink if you're going to go Lamy? That's Pilot Black again, right? Yeah. I would put Pilot Black in my Lamy 2000, but the Lamy Black is pretty good too. But if you want, like, a special black ink, I'd be looking at the Sailor Nano Black or the Kyo Nyoto Nure Biro, which is my favorite black, but it's an expensive black. But it is very, very black and dark. But I would stick with the basics and go with Pilot or Lamy.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Good kit. Yeah, I think that's going to be a great kit. You'd be very happy with that if you end up with all of that. So let us know, Ryan, if you actually are going to take any of our advice on that one.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I'll take the next one because I've read this already and I'm kind of fascinated by it, even though I don't know that we have an answer. But I think the listeners will enjoy this question. It's very long. You ready for it?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I'm ready.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This is from Eric. And I've replied, OMG, I'm going to talk about this on the show. And that's all I told him. So your podcast has been an inspiration to me. That's really why I included is he propped us up, Myke. You helped me rediscover an old joy in a new way. Now I'm going to challenge you to think differently. I run chess tournaments for high school teams. It's a really great experience. 300 plus high school age players playing chess simultaneously. High school team will hire me to run a tournament on a Saturday and I show up, run the competition, and the host makes money off registration fees and concessions. Every year I get better and provide more of the tournament experience for the host. Last year I started bringing a box of pens to give players because they often forget theirs back in their Skittles room, which can sometimes be across the building. Rather than walk all the way back to their team's area to get their pen or pencil, which they need to record the moves in their game, they take one from the box. Not a problem at all. Pens and pencils are cheap, right? Well, the problem is scale. For example, yesterday I ran a tournament with 316 players from 26 schools. I had brought with me my usual pencil box filled with 100 pens. It was empty in the middle of round 2 out of 4 rounds. For the rest of the day, player after player kept asking me for a pen or pencil, but I had none to give. This stash of pens was the last of a stockpile that I had purchased from a local office supply store that was selling, on clearance, 10 packs of ballpoints for 10 cents each. At one cent per pen, I bought the entire shelf, $40 worth of pens, 4,000 pens roughly. The store clerk didn't believe that I needed that many and gave me a quizzical, hard stare throughout the checkout interaction. Those pens lasted just over one season, about 12 tournaments from October through February, and they just ran out this October. That's 4,000 pens in five months to careless, forgetful high school chess players. I know you love a good pen and pencil, but I need your help finding not the best pen and pencil, but the absolute cheapest that can be purchased in bulk. Aside from looking for clearance deals, the thought experiment I propose to you is this. Assuming I'd still office this service to host schools, and assuming coaches still won't provide their players with writing utensils, and assuming that chess players will still be irresponsible about their pencils,

'''Brad Dowdy:''' and assuming that I cannot purchase wholesale because I can't store tens of thousands of pens in my home, what is the best way to purchase a massive number of very cheap pens or pencils? Why I need you is this. I also want these cheap giveaway pens to be of the best quality possible given the above conditions. Anyone can hunt on Google or Amazon to find bulk pens. I need Brad Dowdy to tell me how to ensure that each one of these pens is so wonderful that the player doesn't want to lose it and will remember to bring it with them for the next round. We need the absolute best cheap mass-produced pen on the market.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This might be the hardest asked TPA question of all time.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's why I included it. It is brutal. This is a brutal question. It's an amazing question. I haven't done the homework on it because I'm just blown away by the question. This is why I love doing this show, Myke, and this is why I love this community, and this is why I love being a pen addict. Because this is abnormal, but for Eric, it is perfect, and it's everyday. This is what we do.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I wish I had an easy answer, but I'm going to work on this and figure it out. I don't know what it's going to be. My guess is that it's going to be a BIC of some sort because BIC makes really good, cheap ballpoints. But I don't know because I would be scared to go the generic route for this because I think the quality is going to be poor, and those are just going to be super disposable, and the kids are just going to pitch those. But anything that's good quality is going to have a price attached to it. So, you know, my first thought was golf pencils because they're so cheaper. You can buy them in huge amounts of bulk or a pencil of some sort, even though those might even be more disposable than pens. You might go through more. That may be the better, cheaper answer, but they can get something that is quality. I don't know. I'm open to receiving email and comments and tweets on this. You can email me hello at penaddict.com. If anyone has done anything in huge bulk that has turned out to be very cheap and very high quality, I would love to know so I can help Eric out because Myke needs my stamp of approval on it, and that's the tough part.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I have no idea how you answer this question.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I love it. It's amazing. I love this question so much.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's impossible.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's pretty much there. It's impossible, but we're going to give it a shot.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Question from M.A. Wolf. My son bought his car of a Lummi Pico. What is the best thing you bought for a specific pen?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I can't remember. Like when I've signed our house paperwork maybe seven years ago, I was trying to remember what pen I brought with me, and I can't even remember at the time. It was something, you know, ballpoint-ish. You know, I didn't go like fancy fountain pen, crazy ink, just because I'm too obsessive about, well, it's probably going to be crappy paper, and I just want to give me something nice that I know is going to be fine on this. So I haven't totally obsessed over that one pen for that one big document. Do you have that thing?

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, because every time that I've been in a situation where I could have used a good pen to buy something like my house or like the house paperwork or whatever, it's ended up being that I've not been in an environment where I could choose.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of times, like I said, it's been seven years since we bought this house, and a lot of it was digital. So, like, they put it up on a projector, and, like, I signed the digital copy, like, on, like, the tablet, and up on the projector is, like, so weird. So, yeah, I haven't had that thing, but I love this. It was a cool picture that they sent, and it was the Blaze Orange Lamy Pico, which I just thought was fantastic. Like, that is the most outrageous orange pen on the market, and I love it so much I ordered me one.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, it's a cool little pen. And it's a great pen. All right, let's do one more today from R.P. Scott. I have been a fountain pen user for years of a modest collection of Japanese pens. I want to expand my collection and add a stub nib, wondering how does nibsmith work affect manufacturer's warranty? So the question here, like, if I have a pen and I get it ground, what happens to my warranty? I would assume you absolutely void it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Absolutely 100% has to void the warranty. Like, I haven't looked this up, but there's no way this doesn't void the warranty.

'''Myke Hurley:''' There's no way, because you have effectively broken it, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So at this point, so the worst case scenario, let's invoke Myke's platinum here. If Myke had bought his pen and had the nib ground and then started using it for a month, then it cracked your SOL, right? Yeah. Like, you wouldn't have even contacted Pilot at that point because, excuse me, platinum, because you wouldn't have known where the problem lied, even though it was probably sitting dormant and you just didn't notice it, right? Like, it has to void every warranty you have. You know, just like we were talking earlier about the sailors, I guarantee all of these brands have something in their documentation that says if you don't use our ink, you've voided the warranty. And we're not even talking about nib modifications here. So this is just the risk you take as a fountain pen user and you hope that the community is large enough that whatever problem you have, someone else can solve for you outside of the warranty, even though it would cost you.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, you can't. This is the same of all sorts of stuff, right? Like, if you make modifications to a product, you will void its warranty because you were doing things that the manufacturer did not plan for.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right, right. I mean, they are lawyered up in their documentation so much. Like, I've never even had a situation where I've thought I could use a warranty to fix. Like, your situation is the first I've even run across something like that, which is a clear warranty situation with the Platinum. Yeah, it was immediate. So, yeah. Yep, yep. But, you know.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Still weighing on that. It is on its way. Last we knew is that it was being sent to Platinum. They said it should take about six weeks. And so, I don't know. We're looking like mid to late November. I should have it back. Okay. If you're going on what they said.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Cool. Well, we will follow up with that in the future.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. If you would like to ask a question for a future episode, just send out a tweet with the hashtag AskTPA or you can send it via email to hello at penaddict.com. A few times in this episode, we have mentioned Twitch. Brad streams every week at twitch.tv slash penaddict. What is the schedule, Brad?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' 10 a.m. Eastern Tuesdays and Thursdays.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, you've got to go check it out yourself. Twitch.tv slash penaddict. You can do that. You can also follow Brad. He is penaddict on Instagram. You can go to penaddict.com as well. Dowdyism on Twitter. And I am imike, I-M-Y-K-E. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

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