Editing The Pen Addict 415/transcript (section)

== Ink Shelf Life ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Next question. Yep. All right. I think this is our last one for today, right? Last one for today. I'm listening to a live stream this morning with Stephen Brown. He took a question. How long is the life of a bottle of ink? His answer is about a year. He expressed some highly sought Parker ink is still okay for many. However, he recommends the obvious to watch for floating mold. I realize that you most likely in 10 years have answered this question many times. I'm not new to ink. However, I'm new to fountain pen dyed ink. I'm certain factors of permanent shimmer machine all work toward a varied response. However, in overall age, what is your experience? I don't know where that a year comes from.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I've never heard that short of a time frame, but I will say this. My best experience on how long an ink is good for is that you'll know it when you see it. That's how long it's going to last for. Or smell it. Right? Yeah. Or smell it. You will know if your ink has gone bad by if there's something growing on the top, if the color has changed, if it's separated within the bottle.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Something as short as a year for a bottle of an ink doesn't make sense to me. So, um, I have bottles that are probably close to 10 years old that are perfectly fine. I keep them in, you know, I keep them in a closet and dark, you know, it's in temperature controlled, right? Temperature and, you know, how you store your inks are going to affect that. You know, I have them in a dark temperature controlled room. That's going to last longer than anything else. But you will know visually if an ink has gone bad. And out of probably the 200 or so bottles that I have right now, I've only ever seen one ink go bad that I had to throw out.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I've never had it. It's very... I have ink bottles that I've had for five, six, maybe, you know what, longer. Like my original Fuyugaki, I still have some in that bottle. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I know I've had that for like probably like seven or eight years at this point. I wouldn't say that there's a defined period of time. Like I think there's too many factors at play.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. And so what the best advice is kind of what you're saying. You've used that Fuyugaki so much. You know how it behaves. You know how it performs in all nibs. And if you ink it up now and it's different, it's done, right? But that's just, it's just a rare thing. It doesn't happen that often. But it does happen. Like inks can go bad. And there's been, you know, definitely some batches of inks that have gone bad from manufacturers and they'll catch pretty quick. But if you're concerned about buying a fountain pen bottle of ink and not using it up in a year because it's going to go bad, I don't think you can really rely on that. I think it's going to last for years and years.

'''Myke Hurley:''' If you would like to send in a question to be answered on a future episode, just send out a tweet with the hashtag AskTPA and it will be put into a sheet where we can draw from. Or if you have a question that's longer than a tweet length, you can email them to hello at penaddict.com. If you want to find Brad's work online, he's on Twitter. He's at dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. You can go to penaddict.com, knock.co, spokedesign.com. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Look at you, pro.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Have you still got stuff in stock? I know you've got to restock.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We do. We do. I'm going to ship more when we get done today. Yeah. Plenty in stock right now.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, spokedesign.com. They've got some of the wonderful, wonderful spoke pens available. Do you have some of the limited edition ones even? The Joker?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Joker is in stock right now and we've sold a bunch of them. Dang.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm going to put that one in the show notes. That's my favorite. That's the one that I keep on my desk. That's the one I buy right there. That's the colorway. You can also watch Brad's stream live on Twitch at 10 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays at twitch.tv slash penaddict. I'm imike. I-M-Y-K-E. This show is a part of Relay FM. You can find this show and many more at relay.fm slash shows. You can find links and information for this episode at relay.fm slash penaddict slash 415. Thanks again to Pen Chalet for the support of this show and also to our Relay FM members. We really appreciate your support. Thank you so much. If you want to become a member and support this show, there's some links in the show notes so you can just go to relay.fm slash penaddict and you can sign up for that as well. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

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