Editing The Pen Addict 397/transcript (section)

== Wancha Bakelite Pen Review ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' I did. I did. It showed up. We talked about it last week, the Wancha Kickstarter launch for the 7Cs. It's a Bakelite fountain pen, which... That's a very interesting material. I still won't profess to understand fully, despite reading many articles and an extremely long Wikipedia page. It has gone through several transitions over the last many, many decades as a material. And now, it's...

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Whatever its current form is, Wancha is using it for a fountain pen barrel. And it's pretty cool. So, the short version... I think there's two conversations to have here. So, the short version, the TLDR version of the Wancha Bakelite 7Cs fountain pen is... It's an excellent pen. I think it's priced correctly. It feels like a good deal. It's very well made. It's fun to hold. It's, you know, a great size, a great shape. It feels and looks and acts like I expect it to do. And I feel like the price point is good. So, like, Wancha has made a good pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The longer version of that is I still have a lot of questions, right? So, number one, it's a very large pen. So, if you have small hands, this is probably going to be too big of a pen for you. Like, I likened it to the modern Parker Dual Fold, which is a very large pen. And we'll put in the show notes our friend of the show, Drees, from the Pencil Case blog. He has a very thorough review of the Bakelite. I'm going to call it the Bakelite. The Bakelite fountain pen, just because that's what I'm used to calling it so far. And that I'll be referring to his review a lot because he did a really good job. But he referred to it as, like, a modern Parker Dual Fold shape. It's a big pen. So, I had my King of Pen, my 1911 King of Pen next to it, Myke. It's almost identical in size length-wise and pretty close in diameter-wise to the King of Pen. But I'd say it's at least twice as heavy. Like, I didn't put them on a scale next to each other. But it's not overly heavy, though. Like, if you have, if you like a larger pen, it's not outrageously heavy just compared to other types of pens. This Bakelite material has a density to it that leads to a heavier pen. The most interesting thing about this pen is the filling system. You know, outside of the design, which is very classic, it's very well done. Like, the manufacturing really, really feels on point. The filling system is a piston filler-ish, right? So, like, it's definitely a piston, just as in, you know, a converter uses a piston-type mechanism to fill. This one is built into the pen. And to fill this pen, since Bakelite can be and is a somewhat porous material, you don't want to get ink on the barrel because it could stain it, right? I haven't tested that. It looks like the exterior of the pen is coated well enough to where, like, if you get some ink on it, I don't know that it's going to, like, stain immediately, but I guess there's some protections in there you want to take, you know, instead of dipping the grip section into an ink bottle to fill it. The section actually removes itself, Myke, from the pen. Just the little grip section screws off. And it leaves you with an exposed plastic tube where the nib is fitted into. It's a very strange look. I haven't seen a fountain pen like this.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But where is the piston?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's inside the barrel. So the piston knob moves. It twists on the back end. But the knob does not move up and down. It's more like a ratchet system, right? So the knob on the back of the pen is kind of loose all the time. It doesn't lock in, right? So that's a little bit of a negative thing for me. That's a concern. Yeah. There's other pens that do that. But they tend to lock in a little bit tighter. Like there's a definitive start and end. And like when I uncap the pen. So like if you pick up a pen off a desk and it's capped, a lot of times the back end of the pen is in like the palm of your hand as you're unscrewing or in your fingertips. And you can, you feel that back knob moving. Like I would worry about like it being a little bit too loose and knocking, you know, knocking the piston and maybe budging the ink a little bit out the tip. Yeah. I haven't had that. I haven't had ink come out yet, but I do notice it's like, Oh,

'''Myke Hurley:''' I've used pens that have this kind of system, but it takes force to twist them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. Like I have the Monte Grappa, Monte Grappa, which I love. It has a similar type system.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Or the, um, uh, the Aurora that I have. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. So like, it's fine. Like it works well, but the issue more than that piston knob is this section to where you unscrew it. And I'll, I'll post some pictures. I I've just started taking some pictures. I'm going to review this on the blog in a couple of weeks. I need some time to spend with it. I don't understand my first impressions here.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Why you can take it apart.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Uh, so the thing is you can't take it apart. That's actually my bigger problem with all of this. So, uh, if you look in Dries's blog post, if you scroll down, you'll see the image with the section removed from the barrel. And his actually looks a lot nicer than mine. Mine is pretty gross looking to be quite honest. I don't like how it looks. It's not, it doesn't feel, it doesn't feel.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I see what you're saying now. So this, the, the, the, the grip section, you can just take it off. Yes. And then, but then the rest of the pen remains intact. Yes. What's the benefit of this? To not stain the bakelite. When you're filling it. When you're filling it. That seems too annoying to me. It's very particular. That wouldn't, I know it's not a lot, but that, that feels like, uh,

'''Myke Hurley:''' in a way it's kind of similar to the cure it as, right? That there's like a whole to do to fill it. But the cure it as one is fun. Cause it's weird. This would annoy me because it's like, you, you chose to make the pen out of bakelite, but I will, if I mess this up, I'm going to stain this pen. Right. Like if I forget to do this and I would, because I don't need to do this to any other pen that I own, that I would, if I was, because what I tend to do with my pens, I do like a filling day. Right. Where I'll go in and say like how much ink is in this stuff. Oh, this one ran out a couple of weeks ago or whatever. And it's usually like predicated on one or two of my pens running out of ink. Right. And I'll be like, all right, time to fill them all. So like, I'll get them out. I'll clean what I need to clean and then I'll fill them all up. And so I get into kind of like a rhythm and this is like a weird thing. I've never come across a pen that does this. How does it even unscrew? Is it just like through tension? So it's,

'''Brad Dowdy:''' so it's, it has a threading on the interior of the barrel. Wow. So if you look in the pictures, the threading you see on the barrel is for the cap. Oh. This thread on the section goes underneath that. It's like a thin cut. Yeah. That's interesting. It's actually pretty, it's actually pretty well done. That's that. I mean,

'''Myke Hurley:''' I will say that that is like very clever, very intricate design. And I would be concerned about the strength of that area of the pen because threading on both sides is going to leave some very thin material in certain areas. You get what I'm saying?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty thin.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like I would be a little bit concerned about that. Like just making sure I was careful with that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Hmm.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I mean, here's the best way. Here's the best way I explained this little filling system deal is that you're probably dealing with that 2% of the time. You're dealing with this pen. If you like the pen, you're going to be writing with it. I just,

'''Myke Hurley:''' why did they make a piston filler?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I, I, no one made them make a piston filler. I am in agreement with you that, but what they've done is they've made the 2% of the time, the talking point of this pen, right? The 2% usage of this pen is the only thing we're going to talk about. Yeah. Because it's weird.

'''Myke Hurley:''' If the material you choose can be stained by ink, don't make me put the body of the pen in ink.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Correct. I would be totally content to pay the exact same price. If it was a standard cartridge converter filler.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Although even though, even if it was a cartridge converter, if I put a converter in it, I would still fill it by dipping the grip section in anyway.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' See, but it gives you the option. It tells you like, I feel, you know, converters directly in the bottle or I feel converters with a syringe. There's at least different filling as opposed to having this system. Like when I take my pictures of the interior of this, it's going to look much worse than Dries's. Dries's looks very nice and clean. What's wrong with yours? It's, it's dirty. It's ugly. It looks like it's, there's like ink under it. And this was before I inked it up. Huh? Like I, I likened it to, um, Darth Vader with his helmet on and then removing the helmet. And you're seeing Anakin's bald head. Like that's what it looked like. With all the gross scars and like, yeah. That's what it looked like underneath mine. And see, like this conversation is taking away from really, what is a really good pen, right? This is the, this is the reviewer's dilemma, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Well, this is just what we do with the curatus too. Right? Sometimes there are decisions that are made that are small decisions, but they become frustrations over time. Yeah. And then when you see that kind of thing, like, why did you, why did you make this decision?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And it's like weighted. I feel like it's weighted unfairly for what this pen actually is, which is a very good pen. Like the TLDR is, this is an excellent pen at a good price. If you like how it looks, you're going to enjoy this fountain pen for what it is.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But then there's a whole bunch of context that you're leaving out on what's going on under the hood.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Huh?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. It's a, huh? But yeah, I mean, I just, I mean, I love writing with it. The nib is great. I have the stock steel Yovo medium nibs, you know, with the launcher stamp. They're great. It's fantastic. No, great nib choice. The, um, the barrel design is beautiful. It's, do you find the warmth in the material? Absolutely.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Because it's, you don't feel a texture, but you're like, you can see some like little different colorations in the material, which I like, right. That makes you know that the material is something different than your normal acrylics that the pens are made from. Um, the artwork on the top of the pen, of course, is stunning. Um, you know, mine is like a red, red sparkly with like a gold leaf in it. It looks really pretty. Like it's different from trees. This is green. Like you see in the picture. So like, they're not all the same, I guess. Um, yeah, it's just a, it's a really great pen, but there's some big butts, right? There's some, like, it makes me think other things, even though, you know, 98% of the time I'm using the pen to write with and enjoying it. There's these underlying things that make me question stuff. Like what is bake light, right? You know, how do you explain, explain the chemical composition of bake light and how it's going to function, right? Um, you know, what is this filling system and why can't, you know, like it took me twice to fill this pen, to be honest. Um, the first time I thought I filled it sticking it in the bottle. And then I started writing with it and I was like, Oh, there's actually no ink in the barrel, but I couldn't see that visually, right? There's no visual indicator. It's like a black hole inside the pen. You don't know what the, what the ink status is. There's no ink window or anything like that. Like I'll get over that, but that's just like one more thing. It was like, I sat down, I put away everything and started to write. And I was like, well, this isn't going well. And then I realized that there was actually no ink in it. So the second time I did it, I filled it up correctly, but you know, one of those things, but I couldn't, the point is, isn't that I couldn't fill it up. The point is that I couldn't see it if I had been successful or not.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right. Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like you could with a converter or a piston with a window, you know, things like that. So anyway, it's like, I like the pen. Like I, I have, I have no negative to say like about the build and the feel and the writing experience and the, the looks and the style of it. It's, it's really good, but it's just got some weird stuff going on. It was like, it's a little bit extra.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's been the kind of a theme of this episode.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I guess so. I guess so. So yeah, I'll have a full written review up probably in a couple of weeks, probably before the Kickstarter Kickstarter ends. I can't decide if I'm going to back it yet or not. I'm going to wait and spend some time with this pen. I've gone back and forth. I was like, yeah, no problem. I'll back it. Now I'm like,

'''Myke Hurley:''' Hmm,

'''Brad Dowdy:''' maybe I just, if I back it, I won't use it. Like, I don't know what to do yet. So I'm still working that out. I'll know. I'll know by the time I review it though, what I'm going to do.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, I hope so.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That'd be weird, right? Like, it's just a, it'll just be a deciding whether to pay money for it or not. So yeah. Yeah. It's always a tough decision.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. If you want to find links to this episode, you can go to relay.fm slash pen addict slash 397. There's a bunch of stuff in there, including all the sales and stuff that we were talking about earlier on. Thanks so much to Harry's and Pen Shillet for the support of this show. You can go to pen addict.com for Brad's work. You'll be able to see that review. Follow us on Instagram. Brad is pen addict. I'm I Myke. I M Y K E. Brad streams live at twitch.tv slash pen addict. Twice a week, Tuesdays, Thursdays, 10 a.m. Eastern. And don't forget to check out my new show, the test drivers. I hope that you'll enjoy it. If you have any, any, uh, care about technology, it's a show for you. Uh, thanks so much for listening. We'll be back next time. Until then say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. tittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittittit

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[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]