The Pen Addict 579/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	579
Title:	You Should Not Buy This Nib
Release Date:	August 30th, 2023
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 579
Audio File:	Audio Episode 579
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 579
Length:	6161 min <br />1.017 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 579. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and Retro 51. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Hey, Myke. How's it going? I'm good, man. How are you? Good. That 579 makes me go. I swear, it's like every two or three episodes I go, like, that's a lot of episodes. It's like, y'all should get tired. Like, oh, here goes Brad again with a lot of episodes. But you said 579 and I just giggled. Like, I just like, good grief. That's amazing. I love this show.

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital fundraising

Myke Hurley: Brad, it's basically September around here. And you know what that means. It's time to donate to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. And let me tell you a little bit about why. September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. And once again, for the fifth year in a row, the RelayFM community is coming together to support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. St. Jude won't stop their life-saving work until no child dies from cancer. And with your support, we'll be one step closer to that day. One cure closer. One child closer. St. Jude cares for some of the world's sickest children, regardless of their race, ethnicity, beliefs, or ability to pay. Their patients receive customized care, the care that they need to treat childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases, no matter what barriers they face. Because of St. Jude supporters, they can provide children with cutting-edge treatments not covered by insurance at no cost to families. Families will never receive a bill from St. Jude for their treatment, their travel, their housing, or food. Meaning that they can do and focus on the one thing that matters most. Helping their child live. This September, join RelayFM and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in recognizing Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. And honor those impacted by childhood cancer. Before St. Jude Children's Research Hospital opened in 1962, childhood cancer was largely considered incurable. Today, treatments developed at St. Jude have helped push the overall cancer survival rate from 20% to more than 80% since opening. But there is still work to be done. We are so incredibly grateful for the generosity that our community has shown over the last five years. We have raised $2.2 million in the last five years as a community. Unbelievable. This year, we are asking you again to support the life-saving mission of St. Jude. And we want to surpass $2.5 million this year. Donors who make an individual gift of $60 or more will receive a digital bundle of RelayFM wallpapers and screensavers. Last year, screensaver sent shockwaves through the RelayFM community. You don't want to miss out on this. Also, if you make an individual gift of $100 or more, you will receive our 2023 sticker pack featuring all new designs. We have something new this year when you donate. Please click the blue Search Employer button on the Donation Summary page. This will allow you to do a search and check if your employer offers a matching gift program. This is so much easier than it's been before. Previously, this is information you've had to have known or you need to go to your HR department. But if you just do this search, if your employer shows up, the system will email you with details about how to get the match credited to our campaign total. So it explains how to do everything. This could double your donation. So really, you should check. If you work for a company, check the Search Employer button at the end. And look, over the years, we're adding more and more stuff in for ways that you can get involved. We understand that not everybody has the ability to donate themselves. So last year, we started the ability to allow for our community to set up fundraising campaigns of their own. It was a huge success last year, and we're bringing it back this time with more exclusive RelayFM merch. So if you sign up to become a fundraiser and you can share that fundraising link with your community, with your friends, your family, your co-workers, any fundraiser who raises at least $1 will receive the 2023 Face-Off RelayFM St. Jude Challenge Coin. And also, fundraisers raising $250 or more will also receive this year's incredible desk mat design, which features Myke and Stephen, that's me and my co-founder Stephen Hackett, in a Street Fighter-style fighting pose. It is unbelievable. These are on the website. You have to go look at this stuff. Also, if you're in the top 50 fundraisers this year, you will receive a limited edition RelayFM for St. Jude tote bag in an all-weather material. It's super cool. So I know there's a lot here. The most important thing, just give money. Whether you're giving it yourself, you're fundraising, or you're doing employee matching, all that kind of stuff, please go to stjude.org slash relay. You can find out more there and donate. That is stjude.org slash relay to learn more and donate today. St. Jude won't stop until no child dies from cancer. With your support, we'll be one step closer to that day. One cure closer. One child closer. This month and every month, let's cure childhood cancer together.

Brad Dowdy: So this is a big deal for us every year. It's one of those things, Myke, that I never thought I'd be doing this later in my life, but I've always loved being involved in charities and helping people out. And just to see the numbers that this community raises is just so uplifting to be a part of, and just the good that the community brings. And yeah, it's amazing to be a part of. So what I do at the Pen Addict to participate in this and to help drive donations to St. Jude, and I'm not telling you to not go today and donate to St. Jude, but if you're a Pen Addict listener, what I've done for the past four years, I guess this is the fifth year, right, is I've done a raffle to where you make your donation to St. Jude and you send me your receipt. And I'm going to have all these details up on Monday, beginning Monday, and it will run for most of the month of September through September 26, so we can announce a total that we raised through the Pen Addict on the podcast at the end of the month. And so what I do is over the past several months, really throughout most of the early part of the year, is I've talked to vendors, I've talked to friends, and I've gotten a bunch of donations to the Pen Addict for this raffle. So what I will do on September 4th is I'm going to start listing all the things I've received from just amazing friends and retailers and vendors and things like that, that you will be able to participate in a raffle for every $10 you donate. Starting on September 4th, you send me your receipt, and for every $10 you get an entry into a raffle ticket, and then when it ends on September 26th, I will start picking winners.

Brad Dowdy: And you can donate as much as you want, like your unlimited amount of tickets.

Myke Hurley: You can donate now as well and then also donate again from Monday.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, a lot of people do. What happens on the Pen Addict raffle is things escalate as we go through. Like once people see people want to participate in giving things to the raffle to help drive more and more donations. So I'll have people donate like once a week or once in the beginning and then once again at the end once more products and things get listed. So just to give you an idea, and this is not the entire list of things, but I know we have a Tesori pen from our friend John Tello. If you remember the ones from last year, the bright orange ones that were really beautiful. We're going to have two Caneleia pens from our friends Hugh and Carol over at Caneleia Pen Co. We're going to have a full Plotter set up with a very neat and unique cover that's going to be in there. So Plotter has been a great participant to this fundraising. We're going to have an ink set from Amarillo Stationery. We're going to have a spoke design build your own icon, which I'm looking forward to playing with. We're going to have a Pilot Custom 823 from – we have several mysterious benefactors, Myke, that will go unnamed, but people in the community, individuals, wanted to donate pens or other products to this and go nameless. We have a very rare Pilot Custom limited edition of 70 that I opened up on Twitch stream yesterday that someone sent me. This is going to knock a lot of people's socks off. Some very exclusive to the Japanese market sailor pens, Myke. We have an Elwood pen, and it just goes on and on and on. I'm not even coming close to listing everything. So look for it on Monday. Look for the initial listing and for all the details on how you can donate, where to send the receipt to, all the information you need. This has gone pretty well every year. I just set up an individual inbox for this, and it has gone swimmingly. It takes a little bit of manual labor to get it done, but I'm more than happy to do this to help shine a light on all the good that St. Jude does, and I'm just super happy to participate in this. And so, yeah, look forward to this coming up on Monday.

Myke Hurley: So that'll be over at thepenaddict.com. You'll be able to see all that information. Brad will have it all up. But, you know, that is a fantastic thing. The most important thing is to donate to St. Jude, however you do it. Yes, please. It is wild right now as we're recording. We're at $76,000.

Myke Hurley: It's been two days. Two days. I think, I believe, if my memory serves, that in the first year we did this, $75,000 was our goal. Yeah. That was the goal.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and I think I might have all these numbers wrong, but it seems like we did like 200 and something thousand that first year.

Myke Hurley: It was, I think, 312. It was something like that. It really went bananas, like, after the podcast-a-thon, like, in a way that we weren't expecting. Exactly. Things picked up fast.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and then a year or two ago we did like eight, right? 700. 700, 800. 700,000.

Myke Hurley: We've done, the last two years, it's been over 700,000. Yeah. And so who knows where we're going to go this time, but congratulations to all of us. This is a community.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, to you and Steven, I know, but you're like, y'all are the real driving factors behind this, so I'm super proud of y'all and happy to be a participant. All right, let's get into the pins, Myke. Let's do it. We have some fun new products I wanted to talk about today, some for me to just, like, fawn over, and then one in particular I wanted to get your opinion on. I got this sent to me through email, and I was unaware of this. Someone said, I get these emails a lot, Myke. You've probably seen this, but in case you haven't, here's the link. Yes. And a lot of times, yes, I have seen this. This one, I have not seen. It is through Hobonichi, and it is launching with their new planners. September 1st is Hobonichi launch day. They are launching a Hobonichi Pilot Capless fountain pen. So this is your Vanishing Point style fountain pen. I want your initial thoughts on this.

Myke Hurley: I was a little confused at first as to what exactly I was looking at.

Discussion of Capless and Vanishing Point pens

Myke Hurley: I'm often thrown by Capless. Like, I know that it is the more traditional and or Japanese name.

Brad Dowdy: It's essentially the regional marketing, but the original marketing, yes.

Myke Hurley: And I know the Capless, like, predates Vanishing Point, right? Like, as a brand. And I have a Capless, like, the original, like, faceted style one.

Myke Hurley: And then I was like, oh, okay. And I was like, wait, is this their own pen? No, that's a Vanishing Point. So I started looking through the imagery. And, you know, I don't really have a lot to say about this. This is like, honestly, I'm surprised it's not Hobonichi by Capless, like, or like Hobonichi by Pilot. Like, I don't, like, this is a collaboration.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, here we go. This wasn't even on my list, but here we go.

Myke Hurley: I'm not saying it because they didn't do it. I'm just saying, like, I'm just saying I'm surprised they didn't do that. Right? Like, that seems like the logical thing to do. But maybe this is more of, like, an American thing to do, like, to use the buy someone thing.

Myke Hurley: You know, like, the thing about this is, like, this is as much as us doing a Cortex Mark I. Like, they kind of, unless I'm missing something, there isn't anything to this other than, like, Hobonichi probably just want more products on their site as accessories when people buy the journals. And this is just, like, a very smart one to add. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And in the past, they've worked with Uniball and Pilot to do, like, some special launch pins, right? Sure. They've done Jetstreams in the past. They've done, I think they've done Frictions in the past. I'd have to go back and look. I don't have the full catalog here. So, I saw this. I was like, oh, yeah. Look at this Pilot Capless. And I'm still of two minds of this. And it hasn't changed. My initial reaction versus my current reaction. This design makes this pin look so cheap that it drives me crazy. But I also love it. But, like, I'm of two minds, right? Like, I think it cheapens the design. But I also love it at the same time.

Myke Hurley: What is it that's cheapening it to you?

Brad Dowdy: The clip. So, let me paint a picture here. So, this is the black matte vanishing point is what this base of this pin is. And instead of having a black matte clip, there's no, everything is black matte. The knock, the nose cone, the barrel. But the clip is silver plated, right? And which matches the nib. And I think that's cool. And the only addition, they have a little extra text around, like, the center, like, around the belly band. That's it. It's a black matte vanishing point with a silver clip. It is so basic, right? It's like, this is like platinum preppy level design. And at the same time, I really enjoy this aesthetic. It's just, it's like, it's like the least amount of effort they could put into this pin. Yet, somehow, I kind of like how it turned out. Like, I can't make it all add up in my head. Because I think, on one hand, they did a poor job of doing something so little. But I think it kind of works, too. Like, I don't know. Like, I don't know. What I'm trying to find is they don't have the price listed on this page. And I can't find it. It doesn't launch until September 1st. So, maybe the price won't come up.

Brad Dowdy: They have some, yeah, they just have, it's just not listed. I'm trying to find it. Unless it's really $170, this makes me wonder. So, I'm going to hold my thoughts. So, you click it. It says $170. I didn't believe that on the page. This might go in with my cheapness comment. It might be a steel nib. But it says 18 karat nib on there. I don't understand what's going on with this. Because it says the pin nib is made with 18 karat gold. And it's also priced less than your standard basic vanishing points. If that's the case, yeah, it's wonderfully priced. So, I don't know. I'm a little bit confused. But I, like I said, I can't come together in the middle in my own head with this. Because I think it's just so basic. But it kind of works in an aesthetic way for me. So, I don't know. I thought it was interesting. But I, I don't know. Maybe I wanted more. But I kind of dig it. I don't know. I'm just talking in circles now. Because I can't quite figure this whole thing out. Especially if that price is accurate.

Myke Hurley: Jen in the live chat in the Discord makes a good point. It's like, I would expect something maybe a little bit more colorful from Hobonichi. Yeah. 100%. They're full of so much color in their accessories. It is kind of peculiar. This is just like matte black.

Myke Hurley: Doesn't really feel like it fits with the brand in that way.

Critique of pen design and branding

Brad Dowdy: It's literally like what I get on Sailor a lot of times. It's like a parts bin pen, right? Like, these are the parts we have. Can we put something together that we haven't put together before? Yes. Let me grab a silver clip on the matte black. Like, that is literally it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: It's not special in a Hobonichi type of way. Like, imagine if they did just like a mother wrap on the barrel. Well, yeah. That's what I'm thinking of.

Myke Hurley: Can you imagine that?

Brad Dowdy: Damn. Like, I mean, these are literally brass barrels. And like, when they do like the gradients and all these patterns, they're literally wraps on the barrel. Like, why can't we have like a mother wrap on the barrel? I don't know. I don't know.

Myke Hurley: Like, they have all this. Like, they have these like artist collaborations, right? And they're like doing one this year. I think of an artist called Pam, P-A-M-M. Or it's like a company. It's like a pajama company, right? Oh, that's the one. It's the pajamas, right? It's the pajama collaboration that they're doing. But like, that's got so much fun and color in it, which fits more with the brand. This is a little bit, not a little bit. It's got completely muted. It's like.

Brad Dowdy: The more I think about this, the more I think the expression is probably more of a pilot issue than a Hobonichi issue. I bet they probably, Hobonichi probably comes to the table with like, yeah, we're going to make this mad. And pilot's like, nah, bro. Black, silver clip, done.

Brad Dowdy: Like, that is a very pilot design if you have ever seen one, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, exactly.

Brad Dowdy: So, interesting. But, all right. That's enough of this. We're going to blow the lid off of the pen designs in a minute. But let's hear about our good friends over at Squarespace.

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Brad Dowdy: All right. If you need a palette cleanser after seeing that basic black palette vanishing point, let me give our shout out of the week. And I guess I just need to go ahead and book these like once a month. I'm always shouting out our meet your maker posts that Caroline puts so much work into. And this month, it's the Mad Science Pen Company. And I like to shine a light on these smaller makers too, right? A lot of people who listen to this podcast aren't going to be familiar with Mad Science. And I've seen Jacob's work on Instagram for a while because it is an absolute joy to look at. These pen designs are a complete trip. You know, he's putting his own unique twist on what he believes pens should be like and trying to solve some problems that have annoyed him like threads on the cap barrel. So he has this kind of hooded nib design where the threads are inside the barrel, if you will, and has these little short caps. And it's just a cool style. So I don't own one of these pens yet. But this is, again, one of those things I would like to try in person. All right. So I'm willing to hold off. But it's getting harder and harder to hold off seeing how wild some of these designs are and how much up these alleys like these colorways are. So shout out of the week. Mad Science Pen Co. Go check them out. We'll have some links in the show notes for you to go read the meet your maker post that went up yesterday on the Pen Ennic blog and Jacob's Instagram where you can check out these designs. What do you think, Myke? I can't decide if this is a Myke Pen or not a Myke Pen.

Brad Dowdy: It's unfair for me to put you on the spot, but I always like to get your opinion.

Myke Hurley: I love the designs. I don't think they would be... I need to... This is like, look, the classic thing. I need to hold this because like... Exactly what I'm saying. I can't even understand the scale of these pens. Well, some are small, right? I can't look at how big they are, you know?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. There's big and there's small and everywhere in between. So yeah. I'm with you. So yes, I would like to hold one of these, try one of these. So hopefully I'll get that opportunity soon. But yeah, I'm with you. Myke, I need to feel it first. This is the way I had to... I pick out a lot of maker pens in this fashion. Let me hold it first. I can... I'm trying to, you know, behave instead of just jamming the buy button all the time. Like I want to buy one of these pens, but let's just wait. Let's wait and see. Let's get one in hand first and see how it goes. Where I do need to smash the buy button is literally for the Pentel Smash mic. One of the great product names, one of the great product designs. I will never not link or discuss any new Pentel Smash colors. It is one of the most underrated products on the market. It is one of the great mechanical pencils ever made. They're just rarely available in the US, especially outside of basic colors. So Pentel a couple years ago, God, it may be like three years now. They did an edition called the Katakana edition where they had a red barrel, blue barrel, purple barrel, and orange barrel. And they put them up on their Amazon store. And so they were available in the US. This lineup is seems to be a little bit more of a Japanese exclusive that Yoseka Stationery has brought in. And the colors are great. They have an orange or green and a blue, blue barrel. And they actually come in a 0.5 and a 0.3 millimeter. I literally only put this link in the show notes for myself. There's probably no one that cares about this pencil as much as me. But it's just so underrated and such a great mechanical pencil. This is the, I don't know, this is checks all the design boxes for me. It's funky. It's like technically, you know, kind of perfect, but uses weird materials like with the rubber grip section and kind of like the plungery style knock. It's just all kinds of wild. But it ends up being like this one great, unique pencil package that I love. So it's really cool.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, this is a bananas looking thing. Even the logo is like, why does it look like that?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's super like the logo is in the logo has been similar for a while. Like this is, I don't know when this pencil came out. Maybe the 90s. It might be older than that.

Myke Hurley: It looks very 90s to me.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So they've kept that smash ideal, like that design and the aesthetic the same ever since its launch. Like this is this pencil has not changed. They've just decided to add more colors. You could use you used to just be able to get it in a black barrel and then like the rubber parts were black and then the logo was in red, right? Like a very traditional, the only smash that they made for years and years and years. Well, it's been able to hang on in, you know, the more modern times just by mixing in some colors and doing some unique things. So I'm all about the smash. So it's really good. Really good pencil. What else I am all about is Y studio, which I haven't talked about them in a while. And they continue to pump out great products. And I find this one interesting. So this one's called the ocean ocean sustainable rollerball pin. And it obviously caught my eye because of the colors. And mostly because Y studio from their launch, they have kind of slowly moved from the initial brass color and then the brassing pins, which were black coated over brass. So they do like a raw kind of copper. Excellent. They did a copper color. And then they did the brassing color and the brass pencils and rollerballs. And then they took those same brass pins and they lacquered over them. So they'd have a red lacquer or a green lacquer or a blue lacquer. And you could see the brass kind of underlying that. And then they did a resin pin lineup, which I enjoyed. I didn't think I was going to enjoy it as much as the brassing pins, but it turned out to be one of my favorites. So they had this plastic barrel resin. Now they're taking that resin pin and moving it into this sustainable barrel. Right now, it's only looks like it's going to be in the rollerball or ballpoint tips, like not in the fountain pins, but they make some of the same shape as the previous resin pin. And they're doing them in these unique colors, kind of like an ocean blue, yellow, orange, lavender, some really, really cool things. And what they're doing, how they're getting these materials and why they're calling it the ocean sustainable lineup is they're using recovered fishing nets, like fishing nets that end up being waste out in the ocean. So they're doing this recovery out in Taiwan. They have this whole like little infographic where they're talking about the recycling program. You know, they recover the abandoning fishing nets. They meticulously clean and sort them based on material. They break down all the organic matter found in these nets. They transform them into granular materials. The materials are structured in line, reformulated into particles, and then molded into the pin body. And that's just pretty cool. And it's nice to see not only that sustainability built into these pins, but I just find it endlessly interesting to see the amount of color why Studio has in their product lineup now. Compared to like when I started just completely falling in love with this, their basic black and brass pins. Like this is pretty cool. I like, I like the path that why Studio is on always been one of my favorite makers and designers. And they're continuing to like really put things out there that are interesting and compelling in the stationery space. So I love what why Studio is doing and I look forward to getting my hands on these. They're not launching just yet, but I think next month they're starting to become available. So I will definitely check them out. Actually, I will find out next week. I'm going to the Orlando Pen Show and the US distributor for why Studio is Kenro Industries and they will be there. So I will ask them about this because I'm very interested.

Pens made from recycled fishing nets

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I like this kind of stuff. It's made from fishing nets. It's super interesting. What is it? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: It's just like you're breaking down. Like those nets are generally like of plastic type. Yeah. Like if you've ever felt like a plastic rope, like that's what those nets are made out of generally speaking.

Myke Hurley: It's also not what I expected. Like a lot of this kind of stuff these days, it's like plastic from the ocean. Like that's what I thought it was when I. Exactly. When I first opened it, you know, like I know like Xbox just recently did a Microsoft do a lot of this anyway of like ocean plastic peripherals and stuff like that. Yeah. So that's what I thought this was going to be when I opened the page initially. So it was intriguing to me to see something like so specific like fishing. Exactly. But it's cool. Like, you know, and it's like I think they've done a really good job in making this like a bright and colorful range. Right. Because it differentiates in like these pastel colors, differentiates it from the rest of their line and actually makes it like something you might want irrespective of anything else, you know?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I mean, it definitely broadens their market too. I mean, not everyone wants like a black or brass pin or a heavyweight pin. And this is, you know, they've you can see this very clear path they've been on since their launch because they're a company I follow very closely. And it's it looks great. Like the things that they're doing. It's just like, yeah, they're just keep on going and getting involved in new and interesting things. And I'm here for it. I love it. So like y'all can tell like the things I love to talk about are like just very, very interesting to me, like the between the smash and the Y Studio Ocean, you know, that's like that's just the cool stuff that really gets me going. Like this product you you dropped in the in the notes here. Yeah. Question.

Feedback on the new Shown Design pen

Myke Hurley: Colton wrote in via penatic feedback dot com and said thoughts on the new shown pen and provided two Instagram links of a black and silver model and a funfetti model.

Brad Dowdy: So I think we covered the original model, maybe when I was talking about the DC pen show, the black, the black and the black ultimate and stainless model or titanium. Excuse me. It's not for me. Like it is not my style. Like I love the craftsmanship. Right. I got to hold and test this pen out in DC. It's meticulously made. Right. Like everything Ian does is he doesn't release it unless it's kind of like perfect. And this is no different. Like holding this. It was like, yeah, this is pretty cool. And I told it to Ian at the time in DC. I was like, yeah, this is not for me. But of what I see from this and what I see like you working in your brain as you release this pen is this is now a platform pen. And what I meant by that is it's a platform for different like design features, elements, artworks, etchings, things like that. And he's like, yeah. And then like two weeks later, we see the funfetti. Right. And now we're talking. Now you can get me into this pen even more. So he's when you see a blank titanium pen laying on Ian's table and then you compare that with what the rest of the table looks like. It's very obvious to me and probably to literally anyone what's coming next on this pen. So for San Francisco, he did this anodization where not only is the barrel anodized in this really cool funfetti colorful way, the Monarch titanium nib is anodized to match. And I was like, yes, like this is exactly like it's still not for me. Like this is not my type of pen like that I want. I actually really like and he doesn't have any pictures on Instagram. They might be on his site. But this model, which still needs a name, Ian, like I'm going to need a name for this pen soon. It's still yet to be unnamed is what he keeps saying. Maybe that's just the name and that's fine. I need something official. I don't like that as a name for things. I don't either. Yeah. So we need a name for this pen. But there's another model that uses the natural amber Ultim. I actually prefer that one. If I was going to get one of these pens, there is a model. So this is black Ultim. When you look at the pictures in the show notes, there is actually an amber Ultim within the same parts, just replacing the black. I actually one of my friends bought that one at the show. And that one I can get behind a little bit more than the black. It's just not my not my style, like in the basic form. But when you get into like with Ian, it's always OK. I see you working here. And what is the path going to be? Just like I was talking with Y Studio, right? Like there's this certain path that they're on. Well, with Ian, like you had to know this was coming. And it's great. Like I really like the fun Fetty.

Myke Hurley: All right. Take a break. Let's do it. All right. This episode is brought to you by Retro 51. I love having Retro 51 as a sponsor. Long time listeners of this show know how important this company is to both me and Brad. Like Retro 51 kind of opened my eyes to a specific type of pen. Like and the idea that a non-fountain pen could be a ton of fun. Right. And like that's what this is all about. Right. And their rollerball is just as good as anything on the world. In the world, in my opinion. It opened my eyes to the Schmidt refills that they use, which are just like that is an unparalleled experience. And, you know, this goes all the way back to our orange lacquer Retro 51s, which is like a really important pen in my collection. I don't even know how many Retro 51 Tornadoes I have now. It is a countless amount. I did a tour of these once, I think, for our Kickstarter backers, right, in 2020. I love them. You opened a drawer. Yeah. Like there's all these bins. I have a full drawer of them. Like they're currently all safely tucked away inside of a box that I've yet to take them out of since we moved. And I'm going to look forward to looking through them all again. There is so much to love about Retro 51. From the classic lacquer models, there's a great start, a pen to gift to friends and family for birthdays, promotions, graduations, or back to school. But the best thing about Retro 51, in my opinion, is that there is a pen design for everyone. They have so many unique designs. They're always doing new ones for different vendors and their own. They have a new Cleopatra pen, which is awesome. The Owl Rescue Pen with donations given to Blackland Prairie Raptor Center. That's always cool, too, that there are a bunch of pens that are created. They have these fun designs and they benefit great causes. They also have some amazing licensed designs, including the Smithsonian, Metropolitan Museum, Rocketeer, USPS, and Pan Am. We spoke about the Pan Am one recently, which is super cool. There really is like a Retro 51 Tornado for anyone, for anybody's interests. No matter what it is that they like, you'll be able to find one. You can head to your favorite Retro dealer now, or you can shop directly on Retro51.com. If you do shop there, you can get free domestic US shipping with the code PAFALL, P-A-F-A-L-L, with a minimum $10 shipment. The offer ends September 30th. So that's Retro51, R-E-T-R-O-5-1.com, and the code P-A-F-A-L-L, P-A-F-A-L, to shop now for free shipping. Go there, as Retro51 love to say, life is too short to carry an ugly pen. Our thanks to Retro51 for their support of this show, and RelayFM.

Brad Dowdy: So I ended up getting the first Pan Am edition, like the Hawaii travel poster one, right? Kind of like the ivory and pink. Have you seen the new clipper, the plane one that came out? Like, we were waiting for this. Like, it's obvious they're going to do a plane one, because they do some of the aircraft stuff so well. Have you gotten to see this yet?

Myke Hurley: The Pan Am Clipper Retro? Yeah. Yeah, it's fantastic.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's fantastic. They do such a good job. So I have, obviously, a long, long history with Retro51. And the reason why, and you kind of alluded to some of this in the ad, and this is no longer the ad. This is just me talking. But they were so important to us, because it was a discovery of this level-up pen from people wanting to, you know, spend $25 on a pen instead of $5 on a pen. And give me this, like, more unique writing experience. And what can I get that's high quality? And what Retro51 has always done well is they've filled that gap to where, you know, people, you know, may not want to spend, you know, like, $300, $400, $500 on a Mont Blanc. But they're super happy to test out, like, a turquoise and silver Retro51 for $25 and get this amazing writing experience. Amazingly designed pens. Great feel. Like, the shape is very consistent, right, between the model, like, between the styles, right? The Tornado, like, it's a very classic Retro51 shape. And it's this platform for beautiful artwork and all these types of things. And I've even done, gosh, I wasn't prepared for this. I've done one, two, three, four, five editions. Five Pen Addict-related editions, like, for myself. And, like, I'm kind of, I don't have one in the works right now, but I'm kind of been jonesing for the past year or two. It's like, ah, I should make another Retro51. It's been a while since I've done one. I've got an idea. I want to explore for a pen. So, yeah, maybe I need to get Retro51 on a call myself. So, yeah, huge fans. And definitely go check out everything that Retro51 does. Myke, I finally tested all of the Pilot nibs. All 15 of the nibs got the testing done. So I've been talking about this for a month or so. And, you know, having the nibs, what am I going to do with the nibs? How am I going to test all these nibs? What mistakes I made originally by inking up the pens? And I finally got my post done. And I ended up deciding, which I mentioned last week, that I was going to do a ranking of the nibs, a personal ranking of the nibs. So I felt like this was going to be the most fun way for me to talk about these nibs and how they work, what my perception was from each of the nibs, what were the pros and cons of some of the more outlandish nibs, which they have. So I literally did a ranking from 1 through 15, Myke. And guess what? You get the benefit of hearing me talk about every one of those nibs right now. You know I want it. Don't worry. It could be. I could make this an entire episode, but we're just going to kind of go through them a little bit. And we're going to start with number 15, last on the list. But before we get started, let me clarify. There's no bad nibs here, right? And this was a list on how I would use these nibs. And I felt that was an interesting perspective to do it. I wasn't trying to be like super generic and say, hey, this is good for everybody. I was like, even the nibs that I dislike, they're going to be really good for some people. So I was hopefully able to share like some of why I didn't like the pen or the nib, excuse me. And those might be a feature for other people, right? So number 15 on the list is called the coarse nib. It's just a big ball of tipping, but not in like a broad nib kind of way. It's a little bit chunkier. And I disliked it because there's no line variation in this nib. It's not like a big zoom nib where depending on your angle, the line would be wider or thicker. It just literally wrote like a Sharpie and where you just had like a completely rounded tip. And I don't like that in a pen. But if you're looking for that type of experience, like people will love this coarse nib, probably more than my number one nib, which I'm going to allude to now. But we're not going to talk about till I get there. But I imagine this pen in this nib sells pretty well because it's also a great platform for nib grinding. So this is kind of an advanced nib for people like you don't want to go in blindly and get it. Hey, let me try this coarse nib and spend, you know, $280 or whatever these pens run for this nib and dislike it. Like you want to know what you're getting into with this type of nib. But if you're going for like a big architect grind or some big Naganatotogi grind, you have this platform here for a great nib grind. So coarse is a great nib. It's just not for me. That goes with the broad broad. So a lot of other companies would call this double broad. But palette goes with broad broad, which I kind of approve of. And it's just too much. It's just too much. You know, my style is more of a fine line printing style. If you like a super inky, you know, big nib on the page and you want to see a lot of ink, like the broad broad, I would actually choose the broad broad over the course. If you're just looking for a writing nib. I thought it managed the ink a little bit better. Like the with the coarse nib, it was interesting. The way the tipping is designed. It really pushes the ink around the page. And if you've used a lot of fountain pens, that can be good or bad, depending what you're looking for. And what I mean is it kind of thins out the ink. Like as you're writing, it spreads the ink and pushes it around. So it's a thinner line. And it'll dry quicker. Where the broad broad didn't. It just like laid down thick lines of ink. And you're going to get a lot more inky characteristics with the broad broad than the coarse. If that makes sense. The broad broad will, excuse me, the coarse will show the underlying colors a little bit better. But the broad broad is just going to just dump ink on the page. Now we get into the weirder category.

Brad Dowdy: There's a few nibs in this that are kind of in this no man's land area of why do they exist? Like do we really need 15 nibs? Could we wind this down to like 10 nibs? And it's like still be happy. The soft medium at 13 and the fine medium at 12 in my rankings. They just don't do anything for me. Right. So they're just in the middle of nowhere in relation to a standard medium, which the soft medium is very close to. Or the fine medium, which is just kind of like stuck in the middle. Like do you want a fine or do you want a medium? Like this is for people who can't decide. Well, I guess I'll just have the fine medium. Well, it's kind of like the worst of both worlds. Like you kind of need to commit, I think, to either fine or medium and soft medium. Like there's just I don't know why you would pick these. Right. They just don't make a lot of sense to me. The music nib, I thought I might rate higher, but there is a similar nib in this lineup that I did rate higher. So what the music nib is, it's stub like to where you have wide vertical lines and thin horizontal lines. And the ink is delivered through a nib that has two slits in it. So there's like a, it's a three time two slit nib. So it gets very inky, like in a good way. It's think of it like a wide stub nib, like a very wide stub nib, like a 1.5 millimeter stub nib, maybe even wider. So it's pretty good if you want a super inky stub style pen. But for me, there was a better choice that later on down the list that I much, much preferred. Number 10 was the Waverly nib. And I don't want to call it a disappointment to me. It was the one nib that I really had zero experience with in Pilot's nib lineup. And I was kind of looking forward to maybe some line variation with this. But I think I just kind of had a misunderstanding of what this nib was for. This is really a nib designed to write at any angle. So if you're a person, like say like you, Myke, like a left-handed writer with maybe an overhook, a lot of times you'll run into like nib issues with like time splitting and not really working with how your handwriting motion is. It's the Waverly's designed to combat that, right? To where no matter like the angle or the way you hold the nib, you should get a good writing experience, right? Like have a smooth line. And for that, it absolutely works, right? Like for what it's designed for, it works, right? I was holding it at all kinds of different angles and having no problems with like the tine splitting or anything weird going on. It's like a little bit of an upturned nib. It works great for what they sell it for. I just wanted more like and that's my fault. So maybe it's an unfair ranking. I don't think it is because the line result is basic, right? There's no line variation. It's just it's like a medium nib, but more usable for non-traditional writing angles or grip styles. So it was it was fine. I just it just didn't really do it for me. Okay. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Up next is the stock medium, which I had at number nine. And that's probably like it's a medium nib, right? And it's right in the middle of the ranking. It's just kind of it is what it is. If you're looking for if you're going into like Japanese nibs for the first time and you have, you know, just regular traditional handwriting cursive or print medium is a good line width to start with to see what you like. If you know if you don't exactly know what you want, it's okay to start with just a basic medium nib. I think these are kind of like the best sweet spot for your everyday writing. Like, hey, I'm going to pick this pen up at work and I'm going to write my meeting notes and I can also journal with it later or I could draw with it. Like it's a good jack of all trades nibs like you're going to love this nib. Soft fine is next. And I liked it a little bit better than the soft medium.

Brad Dowdy: But this is where I start having some expectations between soft fine. And then number seven is soft fine medium with soft fine. My expectation is that I'm going to get a pretty fine line. But what the soft designation does, if you're not familiar with a nib that's being called soft fine or soft fine medium as opposed to just fine or just medium, the nib is designed to have a little bit of a give to it, almost like a bounce. And so what that does with the gold nib, by default, it's going to make your lines wider. So that's okay. Like you're just you're just getting a little bit more bounce in your line. But what happens with like the soft fine, that one isn't fine enough. Like if I'm buying something with a Japanese fine nib, my expectation is a very fine line. Right. We talk about the difference between Japanese nib sizes and Western nib sizes. Right. And Japanese fine nib should write like a Western extra fine nib or even finer. When you mix in the softness of this nib, it just turns it into like a medium nib. Like I would rather just have a standard fine nib than like a soft fine. And then the same goes for the soft fine medium. Right. It's it's just in the middle. Like if you're an artist or something that needs like this little bit of variation that you're getting in these soft bounces and these nibs, then fine. But from a writing experience, you should never use the word fine.

Myke Hurley: I know. I know. Intentionally. I have yet to discover a benefit to the to using a nib that's called soft something like I honestly can't even really tell. Like I don't even really know what I'm feeling. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: See, I can absolutely tell. And I tend to go for the rigidity of the traditional nibs. But there's going to be one big exception here towards the end, which is which we haven't got to yet. So number six is extra fine. And so I think people knowing me and knowing how I write, I think that this would be closer to like the top two or three or maybe even number one. But Pilot has a better option than extra fine for fine lines. And it just I was never as comfortable writing with this as I was with what we're going to get to later. Right. It's a little it's see, I can't say this is soft when they have soft nibs in there. But when you have a traditional gold nib by default, it's going to be have a little bit of balance. And when you have an extra fine nib and a gold nib. And that little of a writing platform that's touching the page, it's very delicate. Right. It's a very delicate pen. So these extra fine Pilot extra fine nibs or any gold extra fine nibs, especially of the Japanese writing, they're very delicate. Right. And sometimes I feel like I get a little bit heavy handed where extra fine isn't the right choice for me. On the other hand, number five, this was probably the biggest surprise out of the whole list. I really liked Pilot's broad nib. Do you own a Pilot broad nib or just mediums?

Myke Hurley: I'm going to say I do. I can't recall to mine, but I'd be very surprised if I didn't.

Brad Dowdy: So what I experienced with Pilot's broad nib was that I was able to control it. Right. And what I'm talking about when you have a large size nib, like a broad, a lot of tipping and a gold nib. They still have some give to them. The line gets wide and spreads a lot. I won't say that this nib was stiff or firm, but I was able, it exceeded my expectations for how it delivered ink to the page in a controlled fashion. I know like you're going like, Brad, like you have said so many words on this. But this is a very particular thing for me and it's definitely kind of like, you know, I'm comparing it mentally and physically to like a Pelican nib, right? Like a Pelican broad has, it's an 18 karat gold nib where these pilots are 14. So the 14s are firmer. I'm used to a broad line, just unloading ink, like the double broad or the broad broad and kind of the tine spreading, right? Making the lines just very, like you have to have a big writing stroke or a big cursive stroke or, you know, just trying to put down a lot of ink on the page. I was surprised at how much control of ink flow and line management that I had with this broad nib that I actually would consider buying one in the future where I completely discounted it just based on other experiences before. Like I will actually consider the broad nib in the future if I find the right type of pen for it to go on. It would have to be a larger size pen. Sure. But the 912, which is the barrel that all these were in, was a pretty good platform for the broad. So I, yeah, shout out broad nib. Who knew? Number four, number four, Pilot Fine. This is one of the, and for my experience, this is just like the classic writing nib for me. You know, the medium is a little bit, obviously a little bit wider line and maybe for more people. The fine is just kind of the sweet spot of I'm just going to pick up a nib and write and I'm not going to have any issues with it whatsoever. It's not too narrow of a line like the extra fine. It's not too fragile or delicate of a nib like the extra fine. You know, it feels very solid and stable. This is probably my go-to pilot size for the most part. And as far as like the basic nibs, right? Fine, medium, broad, extra fine. Those things, not the outlandish nibs or the outlier nibs. Because that's what we save the top three of this list for. I know you've been anxiously awaiting this, Myke. Number three.

Myke Hurley: There's no way I could have worked this out without you saying it to me right now.

Explanation of the SU nib (stub nib)

Brad Dowdy: Number three is called the SU nib. S-U nib. It stands for SU-TAB. And what that is, is their stub nib. Now, I have owned a Pilot SU-TAB nib before and I did not love it. I actually got rid of it because they're with a stub nib. My number one requirement for a stub nib is line variation. I don't care if it's a wide stub or a narrow stub. If there's no differentiation between horizontal strokes, which should be wide and, excuse me, vertical strokes, which should be wide and horizontal strokes, which should be thin, then you start to think it's not really a great stub nib. My old SU-TAB nib didn't have a lot of line variation. This one I tested had perfect line variation. It is great. I want to get a SU-TAB back into my rotation because it's narrower. It's more in that 1.0 millimeter, 1.1 millimeter width. They don't actually define that width on here, but it's not too wide. And the line variation was spectacular. It was something I had not experienced in my previous ownership of a SU-TAB nib. So very high marks for the SU-TAB. And I will be adding one of those to my collection before any other nib on this list. That's also because I own the number two and the number one on this list. Number two is the FA nib. This is where you want to go instead of some of the soft nibs. If you're looking for true line variation. This is the best representation of a modern flex nib. It's not vintage flex, which is very loopy and spaghetti-like bounce. This is more controlled. But you can push this nib and you can get a lot of line variation on this nib. But what I like is when I don't want that line variation, I can control the tip very, very easily and get a nice basic line out of it with a little bit of bounce. And it gives my style of writing a lot of character, like my block print style. Like it looks really good. It gives it a little bit of flair. It's enjoyable to write with. I could write all day with an FA nib or I can take it if I wanted to get more creative with it. I could really push the nib and get a lot of line variation in there. Like it's a very, it's an extremely well done nib that not a lot of companies are able to produce this well. That's how highly I think of the FA nib. And I think that it's not overly specific to where you would have to have a certain handwriting style to use this. I think a lot of people could actually use this nib. Now, you might want to test it first, but it's going to be more universally fitting than some of the other nibs, right? You might just be able to get right into it and go and enjoy it for what it is. Number one on my list is the Pilot PO nib. And the caveat here is you should not buy this nib. And I mean literally everyone. I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about no one should buy this nib. It is my favorite nib that any manufacturer makes. But you have to try this nib before you buy it. It is only if you want a teeny tiny line that comes out of the tip of a nail, right? It's a very specific nib design. And why I rank it so much higher than the stock Extra Fine is that it's very, very firm. And part of that is the turndown style of the tip. This is designed when they originally created the posting nib. It was literally for postal mail. And the idea was, well, you're going to write on terrible paper. So we're going to give you this nail that's going to be able to handle that. Well, it turns out this nail is like the best Extra Fine nib going on the market. But it's not for everybody, right? I've told the story dozens of times that my PO nib came secondhand from someone who bought it after I tried a loaner pen. Did a review on the posting nib. Before I could even go order my own, they ordered it based on my review. Said this nib is terrible. Would you like to buy mine? And I said yes. And now I've had it ever since. And it's my favorite nib I own. So I don't need two of these nibs, right? Like I have my one PO nib. And it's glorious. Again, this is my list. This is my number one. And this is the one nib I can definitely say you should not buy unless you try. Like all these other ones, I mean, I would definitely like the course on the opposite end of the ranking seal here. I would definitely try before I bought that one. But this PO is a very unique feel. It's a very unique style of nib. It doesn't really require a handwriting change. But if you had a different style grip or an odd writing angle, like you're going to have a problem with this nib. The way it delivers ink onto the page. So it's the best. It's one of the most unique nibs on the market. I love it to death. It's my ride or die nib. And it's my number one. But this could definitely be number 15 on someone else's list. So, yeah. That was my experience with these nibs. I think overall, I love that Pilot offers this variety. Could I eliminate five nibs and stick with ten? Sure. Like I don't know why we need soft, fine mediums. Like, why is that a thing? Like, whatever. Like, we are just like really, really fine differences between these nib choices. And it adds to confusion. Well, what's the difference between soft, fine, soft, medium, soft, fine, medium? Like, which one should I pick? I'm like, I don't know. Just do it randomly. Like, and you don't want to say that, right? About a product. You want to be able to say specifically, you should buy this one because X. And when you have a bunch of nibs in that middle realm that are hard to differentiate, I don't know that that's like a benefit to the customer. But at the same time, if Pilot said, okay, we're expanding this to 20 nibs now, I'd be like, yeah, let's go. So, like, whatever you have, let's just give me more. Give me more choices. So, I don't know. It was a great experience to be able to test these out. I appreciate Pilot North America for sending this massive amount of pens to me to let me hold for weeks at a time. And now I just need to go get everything cleaned up and back into their hands and on to the next reviewer. So, look for more content from this. So, these nibs are making the rounds. So, that's it, Myke.

Myke Hurley: Are you going to buy any of these nibs?

Brad Dowdy: I have a broad nib on my shopping list. I have Sutab, number one, broad, number two. I already have PO, FA, fine, medium. I don't own an extra fine, which is weird. I don't like, I've had a Pilot extra fine in the Vanishing Point, which is obviously a different nib platform, and I disliked it. And I think maybe that has a little bit of bias in this extra fine. Like, I don't need an extra fine nib. I think the PO is better for me. So, I'm looking at Sutab, and I'm looking at broad seconds. Sutab is almost a no-brainer. If I get the next opportunity I have for a Pilot Pen that I want, and it has a Sutab option, I'm 100% getting that. Broad is a little bit more of a, let me think about that a little bit, but I will probably end up with that. And then everything else, I don't need anything else. I'm good.

Myke Hurley: All right, if you want to find the links to this week's episode, including a link to Brad's post, you can go to Pen Addict. Wait, no. Relay.fm slash Pen Addict slash 579. That's where you can go. But also go to PenAddict.com. That is where the 15 Pilot Fountain Pen nib mega post lives, as well as, from Monday, the information about the raffle. Please go to stjude.org slash Relay to learn more about our campaign this year and donate. Thank you so much to our sponsors this week, Squarespace and Retro 51. You can find Brad online. He is at Pen Addict on all of the social places that you wish to frequent. I'm at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Brad streams multiple times a week at twitch.tv slash Pen Addict. Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode, and we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.