The Pen Addict 588/transcript

From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 588. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet and Retro 51. My name is Myke Hurley. I'm joined by Brad Doughty.

Hi, Brad. Hey, Myke. How are you today? Oh, I'm good. Happy November to you. Can you believe it? No. Under no circumstances do I believe we are currently in November.

Barreling towards the holidays, you know? I'm completely not ready, completely unprepared, completely aghast that the end of the year is a mere 60 or so days away. It does not make sense in my head. Yep. Yep. Yep. And yet here we are.

I have no choice but to live the reality that we're in. - This is that reality. Yeah. And I had no choice but to live in Platinum Chokuro's reality. Correct. This past month. If you are familiar with our past discussions on Chokuro, this is the Black is Black ink.

We have mentioned this when it dropped from Platinum, then it was kind of delayed, and it finally came out like in the summertime, and people started getting their hands on it, and reviews started coming out, and then it was sold out real quick, and I waited to get my hands on one because I wasn't like totally jazzed about this whole thing.

So the idea behind this ink, just to recap, because we're going to talk about my review. Yeah. So I finally spent some quality time with it because that's what I wanted to do for this ink. It needed it. It needed it. It needed it. Yeah. As opposed to a standard ink, this is a special ink in many ways.

So this is not only the Platinum's words, the black is black fountain pen ink to be used in fountain pens. It's a very aggressive pigmented ink, right? Yeah. They, you know, the joke when it first came out was that you could only clean with distilled water, and they would actually sell you like a little vial of distilled water to clean your pens with and things like that.

Those initial kits weren't available anymore. Now it's just available in the bottle. But it's a tough sell for regular fountain pen users, right? Because I think a lot of people would prefer to use, hey, you know, we always get a question, what's the blackest fountain pen ink I can use?

And there's a few answers to that. You know, like Aurora Black is a very common one. Or Platinum's own Carbon Black, which is pigmented ink. I'll get into all those differences here in a minute.

But Chokuro is a little bit different in that it's, I call it an aggressive ink, right? And aggressive being an ink you really need to monitor when you're using it. So it's really close in color to like an India ink, which you would never use in a fountain pen because it does not flow properly.

It gums up the works in a fountain pen. But artists, for example, love India ink because of the rich black lines and the waterproofness, right? So Platinum tried to make this ink that you could actually use in a fountain pen that kind of had those properties. And I will say, without question, it's the blackest ink I've ever used.

And I don't have all the black inks, nor have I tested all the black inks. But I think it's a consensus among anyone who's reviewed it, anyone who's used it. Without question, it is the blackest ink you can use. The images are really surprising to me.

It has that Vantablack property in a sense of like it just doesn't look right. Yeah. So the idea with Vantablack, and we should probably put a link in the show notes so people understand when we mention this. It essentially is designed to absorb all light, right? So there's no reflection off of this.

It looks just like a matte blob on there. It's almost like a black hole, like you could reach into the page. And this ink kind of comes off that way, right? Like I haven't seen Vantablack in person, but the pictures, it's just kind of not creepy, but it's like, yeah, you can tell it's different, right?

From the images that are on your website, right? The pictures that you took. Like I feel like where you did the swatching, right? - Of all of the other inks, you can see like a variance between the left and right line, you know? Yeah. Or like between each line that you're doing.

In Chiracuro, it just looks like an absolute perfect black mark. Like it doesn't look like you went like back forward, back forward, like as you're doing the swatch. That was the thing that surprised me. The consistency of the color is kind of wild.

It is. It was really wild to use and to see the results on the page. And I tried like, you know, the photography is only as good as I can do. And, you know, I tried not to edit them too much, but I still think you can tell just in the image on the site that that's pretty clearly the blackest ink on the page.

And like if I took the names off of the cards, you would go, oh, that's clearly it. Like it's, to me, it's not particularly close, right? Even though there's a bunch of black inks on the page, it's very clear which one is Chiracuro. So, yes, black is black ink.

Sure. Yeah, you get that platinum. But can you use it, right? It's like can regular everyday fountain pen users use it? And I think that's really the question that most people care about, right?

Some people, you know, if you're mostly a black ink user, you have your favorites and, you know, you just kind of stick with that. Is this an option? And I actually think it's a maybe, which I think is a positive answer. And I was thinking it was going to be a no, right?

My idea going into this in reviewing Chiracuro that it was going to be too aggressive to use regularly in a fountain pen, right? It was going to be a no, right? It was going to be a no, right? It was going to be a no, right?

It was going to be a no, right? It was going to be a no, right? It was going to be a no, right? It was going to be a no, right?

It was going to be a no, right? I had a no, right? It was going to be a no, right? It was going to be a no, right?

It was going to be a no, right? It was going to be a no, right? It was going to be a no, right? It was going to be a no, right?

It was going to be a no, right? It was going to be a no, right? It was going to be a no, right? And I also wanted two clear pins so I could see later, you know, when I was done with this review, how they would clean out, right?

If it stained the barrel, if it's got stuck in the feed, if it took extra work to clean, right? That's an important factor because a lot of listeners who use more aggressive inks, you know, your shimmers, your heavy sheeners, your iron gall or pigment inks are used to the maintenance routine that's required to have that little bit of a no. extra in your pens, right?

So, you know, with a shimmer ink, you want to make sure you can kind of disassemble whatever pen you're using to make sure you get it completely clean. Yep. With a pigment in our iron gall ink, you want to make sure the same way so you can like rinse out the barrel so it doesn't stain.

So I kept these pens inked up for about a month before cleaning and I thought I wasn't going to go like six months or do some crazy thing. Yeah, I wasn't going to send it over to you. And then like the next time I see you, we would clean it out.

But I have to say after just a month of very little use in between that they cleaned out flawlessly. It was just like I was cleaning out like Pilot Black from them. So what's going on here then? Like why are they being so, so like scaremongery with it?

I think there is a degree of care that is needed. Okay. Because one of the things you'll notice if you've ever used a pigmented ink, when you go to clean a pigmented ink, the ink residue in the water is a little bit stringier, right? And you can tell the difference between just the standard dye-based ink and water.

It just makes the water look like Kool-Aid where the pigmented inks, you can almost see the particles in there, right? So there is a little bit of a difference. There's a solid, like you can see a kind of solid in the liquid. Yeah. Okay. So you can see that.

And then that in turn, due to how it is manufactured and made, it's going to be a little bit rougher on your internals of your pens. So I think they're just being overly careful about this. And I think that's fair. I did not use distilled water to clean my pens.

I wanted to do, I wanted to just use tap water because I figured that's what 99% of the people are going to use. And it cleaned out fine. The only issue, I did mention one issue I had, I have a Kakamori dip nib, which has these little grooves in it.

And I did find, if I didn't clean that off right away, the ink would kind of stick to the grooves in there. So I had to do a little extra cleaning. So that was different to what you've seen in the past, that were different products? Yes. Nothing else.

None of the other standard inks. You would just kind of like wipe them off and it would be clean. This would get, the black would kind of stick in the grooves a little bit. So, writing performance between the extra fine nib and the medium nib, there was a difference.

My extra fine nib was very inconsistent. And I think that's a little bit of the behavior of this type of ink being pigmented and maybe a little bit drier or drying a little bit quicker when it hits the air, like on the tip of the nib. My extra fine nib was very inconsistent.

Whether I, I used it when I just inked it up, I used it after sitting for a day, I used it after sitting for a week and I use it after sitting for a month or for 20 days. And it wrote exactly the same every time in that it was inconsistent, right?

It didn't matter. Like my 20 days later performance was exactly as my initially ink performance. It didn't seem to like the extra fine nib. The medium nib on the other hand was glorious. Like it worked every time I uncapped the pen.

And I was worried it would have some of that kind of dryness in the nib or hard starts, skipping, things like that, railroading. And it just worked flawlessly every time. You know, I haven't used every pen and ink combination. I mean, every nib and feed combination with this ink, obviously.

You know, it's limited to these two that I chose. And the medium works spectacular in this normal. So I did quickly test the waterproofness and it's clearly waterproof, just like the other pigment innings I tested in platinum carbon black and sailor nano black. You know, that works as expected.

You know, an artist is going to know better than me, you know, when they're using this black ink as a as an underlayer with watercolor washes and things like that. I won't profess to to know that and how well that's going to handle, you know, that type of ink or that type of water or wash.

And the last comment I wanted to make was when I put the post up on Instagram that my review was live, the people in the comments universally praise this ink for how easy it was to use, which shocked me. Well, I guess it's it's that's coming from a different space, though, right?

It's like easy to use compared to what people believe. Right. And yeah, that this isn't an ink that's easier to use than regular inks. Right. Like, right. It's there's still going to be some asbestos, as you mentioned. But I think we've been talking about this.

Obviously, pilot is so focused on it that like this is a platinum. Sorry, this ink, maybe pilot, too. I don't know. Maybe they don't like it. That this ink is so particular and difficult that like it puts that thought in your mind.

And then when it works basically regularly, you're like, oh, this is a dream. It's like it's true. It's actually just working as it should. But it is interesting to me.

I wanted to ask a question about you saying the fine and the medium. And this might be a stupid question, but I'll ask it anyway. Do you think the fineness of a nib would make it so that less ink would flow through than a medium and broad? So like that way, the particles might be getting stuck?

I mean, it's possible, right? It still has to. So the way the capillary action works and the ink is drawn down the feed, it really the ink should sit under the nib on top of the feed. And then that's what goes down the tines to the point of the nib.

So I would expect it to flow okay. But the actual tipping and the actual tip when the tip hits the page, it was never flowing as well. Like I would still think it would be able to draw from a similar pool of ink, if that makes any sense at all.

For those who don't know how this works. So like the ink is actually being drawn from around where, think about where like your breather hole is on the fountain pen nib. Under that area of the nib and on top of the feed, literally like between the nib and the feed is where a lot of this ink is kind of stored before you write with it.

So I wouldn't think it would make too much of a difference. I would expect better flow from an extra fine nib than I got. So I don't think that's completely the issue. I'm just trying to work out why a fine doesn't give you as good results and a medium is perfect.

You know what I mean? There's got to be a reason. It's this fine and this medium, right? Like I didn't explore more.

Like could I have gotten another fine nib, tested it and be perfect? Like if I grabbed like a pilot fine nib or a pilot extra fine nib, what would my experience have been like? You know, that might have been a good test, right? It could have just been this nib and feed the way this worked versus the medium nib and feed and how it worked and how it was capped and everything like that.

So there's a billion little variables where it might just not be, hey, it doesn't work well and extra fine. It just could be my setup and I didn't explore it that much. Okay. So no, but I think that's a good question, right? You're going to get, it's, you get less ink on the page, but I think the delivery of the ink should be reasonably the same.

So I don't know if I'm explaining that right and if anyone's understanding what I'm trying to. I know what I'm saying. It passing through the system should be the same. It should be similar.

Yeah. But so there's something going on with like, why is the ink? Because it's not like, so it could be, it's not like on a medium, the tines are larger. Right. Right. Or like, you know, like the split in the tines. Right, right. Just the part that touches the page is wider.

So it's, it's allowing, it does allow more ink to flow down, right? Because it has to put more on the page to fill that, to, you know, surround that tipping. So it's out on the page. But if you are planning to do more testing with this, maybe that would be a thing like.

Yeah. I would actually get. To work with different, with different nib sizes on a kind of like. I would go, my next test, I will go straight to something even finer than like a steel Yovo extra fine. And I would go to like, I would find one of my Japanese extra fine steel nibs and see how that worked.

And then I'd probably try like a 1.5 millimeter stub. We would, we would continue to like extend the range. I think that would answer the question, to be honest. Right. Like if you're straight to extra fine.

Yeah. Yeah. I'll probably do that. I'll probably do that because I think you can use this ink, right? Like I'm not scared of it. Like I'm, I'm, I'm pretty open to what inks I use.

And like, I, like iron gall inks don't bother me. Pigmented inks don't bother me. Some people won't touch them with a 10 foot pole. That's completely fair. And I get it. but I am happy with this ink where before using it, I was very tentative on this.

Like, oh, is this just going to destroy everything it touches? And it's pretty good. Like, it's okay. Like, you know, your mileage may vary. You definitely need to take care.

Just like anytime we talk about iron gall or pigmented inks or shimmer inks, you know, you need to, perform proper pen maintenance. but if, as long as you're paying attention, attention to this, I wouldn't have any issue using it. You know, I'm not going to put it in like my most rare, expensive, delicate pens or anything like that.

But as for an ink like this, that is literally the blackest black ink we've been able to use through a fountain pen. I would use it. I think I am going to ink up an extra fine pen, an extra fine Japanese steel nib with it and see how it goes.

Because realistically, this is like, if you like want a black ink, I mean, this is like the best one in a very simplistic term. Right. This is the blackest ink. Like what do you want? You know what I mean?

It's the blackest. So here's the thing. Here's the thing. And how I always like consider like the ending of my reviews is less whether I like it or not, but would I recommend it to people? Yeah. And there's just like this one has a list of caveats. Right.

But I would recommend it to people. Yeah. You know, if you minded some rules set around your brackets. I feel like I have the perfect use case for this ink and why people would consider it. You know, like you fill in forms a lot.

Yeah. And they're like, you have to use a black rollerball or a black ballpoint. It's because they want like a dark consistency of a line. Like your ink samples. It looks like you wrote this of a rollerball.

Like it's so black. Like in a way that I feel is abnormal for fountain pen ink. Like it looks so dark that I feel like you could use it to fill in forms and stuff. So that's the thing.

And one thing I didn't test and what you're explaining is a lot of times if you look at some of the lighter inks, as soon as you go over part of the first line that you lay down with a second line and there's some overlap, that overlap section is darker.

Whereas with Chokuro, the initial line is as dark as if I put five more lines over the top of it. And that's pretty cool. Yeah. Like your initial lines are like as dark as it's going to be, which is interesting to think about. I think I want this ink.

Yeah. Yeah. I thought I was going to be like a one and done by the time I got through with this. And I actually think I will ink it up in something else just to continue testing it out. It's compelling. You know, again, not for everyone, but I do think it's compelling.

I'm going to buy it, Brad. Yeah. I'm just, I want to see it myself now. Now artists are going to love it, right? Artists are definitely going to love it.

Like platinum carbon black is the go-to pigmented black ink. And I don't know that it's going to take away like some of the market from their own product because it's expensive, right? It's twice the price of platinum carbon black and platinum carbon black is just a workhorse ink, workhorse black ink.

It's a pretty different color than platinum carbon black. And platinum carbon black has always been considered one of the blackest inks on the page. So we'll see. It's interesting. It's, I'm just wondering if they're going to have a blue now. Like the bluest blue, right?

There's some like cobalt, cobalt blue stuff you can, you can make that is like an insanely rich blues with some permanents. So I don't know. I don't know. It's going to be interesting. Although now it's 50 pounds.

I don't think I want it that much. I don't think I want it 50 pounds. I don't think I'm going to get that kind of use out of it. That's really expensive. So real quick on the pricing, it is, but based on the level of nerdery that you're at with this stuff, the fountain pen stuff, a dollar per milliliter.

We pay $20 for 20 and 25 milliliter bottles all the time. This just happens to be a large capacity. I would say this is maybe a little bit more ink than most people need for this. Yeah. It's 60 milliliters. There will be a lot of people that want to do what I'm doing, which is like, I just want to try it.

Yeah. One of the biggest benefits of platinum carbon black is that it is available in cartridges. So a lot of artists use that for brush pens and like desk pens and art pens. So the cartridge availability. We'll see. They would have to charge a fortune.

This would be a good cartridge. Not very much ink. It would. I just, I think the cost might actually just, that might actually really be able to do it. really blow our minds because cartridges are always more expensive. But it's less cleaning though.

Cartridges are just easier, especially like, especially for artists, right? The platinum carbon black cartridges for artists are just like a core component. You just throw them in your bag. You know, when your brush runs out of ink, you just pop in a new cartridge.

You know, it's, it's just super, super convenient. So I don't know what the, I mean, I don't know what these would cost. It'd be like $15 for six cartridges, which would be outrageous, but I, it, it could be useful for some people. So, and this is not the way I thought this was going to go.

I'll tell you that. I agree. Like I had my hopes up, right? I just didn't think, I thought it was just going to end up like being bad inside the pen and having a fight to clean it out. But it was, I, I took literally no more effort than if I was just cleaning out pilot blue out of any pen.

It was simple. So good stuff. I hope to, to see more from Chokuro and I am going to continue to use it. So we'll see how it goes. We'll report back later. This episode is brought to you by our friends over at Penn Chalet.

Penn Chalet have your favorite brands and all of the products that you are going to want. They're an authorized dealer. They believe in very fast and reliable customer service. They're adding new styles of products each and every month and they run special discounts all the time.

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The first item is the Platinum Macchier Fountain Pen. So this is their steel nib artwork series that I reviewed the Mount Fuji model several years ago and I wasn't sure like, ah, is this going to be worth it? And you know, am I going to enjoy it? And it turns out I really liked it.

So this is something fun to look at, you know, if you're interested, if you like Platinum nibs, Platinum steel nibs, and have a little bit of extra artwork on the barrel. And then I think Ron might have been listening to us. They also have the Platinum Brush Pen, the Macchier Fountain Pen, Mountain, Macchier Brush Pen barrel, which again, like takes the Platinum Carbon.

I know, Platinum Carbon Black cartridges. I might have to get one of these. I've always been wanting one of these. They're really good price and it's essentially a refillable brush pen.

Literally what I was just talking about a minute ago. Except a more, a fancier model. Like you can obviously get like cheaper models, but this is like, ooh, fancy model. And I really, really like that.

And also the Platinum Procyon is in here for a really great price. And I always love those along with, wow, just a random older, I'm going to, this will be a secret. You'll have to go see which Platinum 3776 is in here. Because I think this is an older limited edition one that I wonder if they just came across some inventory from and put this on the list.

Aside from this, I just recently used my, our discount code here to place an order. I got some Dominant Industry Inks. I bought an Opus 88. So maybe we'll talk about that by the next time our pen and chalet sponsorship rolls around.

I'll have you had time to use some of this. I just unboxed it yesterday on stream. So you can go check out my Twitch stream where I had a pen chalet unboxing of some fun stuff that I ordered. So as always, penchalet.com, P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com.

Our thanks to Penchalet for the support of this show and RelayFM. Shout out of the week since we're talking about inks. Let's go check out Explorations. I may have given them a shout out before, but that's okay.

I'll give multiple shout outs to multiple people because what they do over at Inks Explorations is review an ink, but in several different formats. There's lots of traditional writing and looking at the colors and swatching. And then there'll be posts on like the artwork and how the different inks handle like during like, you know, watercolor washes and things like that.

So there's a lot of different options for like take a single ink and then they'll kind of review it in several different ways and formats, which is something I like. That's something I don't do. It's something I don't see very much. So I always, you know, anytime there's an ink review, there's always like three different posts about the ink in different ways that they're going through the process, showing you the colors, how different colors work with different, you know, applications, whether it's just writing or, you know, with watercolors and washes and things like that.

So go check out Inks Explorations if you have not already. I have an anecdote for you, Brad. Okay. A couple of days ago, I was on Instagram and I got an ad for a notebook of some kind. And, or it may have been, yeah, I got an, I got an ad for this like notebook series.

I think it was like a British guy. You know, he, I'm not going to give too many details about it. He, he created a little notebook brand of his own. and I'm going to go with not you. Correct. We're not getting, okay.

Not me. This is like, not like one of these things where it's like a friend of mine. Okay. This is, I'm on Instagram and I got an ad and it was like a British guy and he did, he created this notebook brand. Yeah. Where he, I think used to be an academic and made these notebooks, which were effectively just like blank notebooks, but they have really cool looking covers.

And it was one of those Instagram ads that I feel like I should probably make one of these one day of like, look at me and how I started my business. You know what I'm talking about? Like that kind of stuff. Right. Like telling the story of the business, which I do think are interesting.

I'm not making fun, but like it's just that kind of stuff. Sure. The inspiration story. The inspiration story. It's like, this is how I did it. Right. And to kind of like tell the story of my company. And so I was like, oh, this is interesting.

Right. Like this is not too dissimilar from my life at the moment. So let me go and look on the page. And I went onto the page and one of the videos that was there was like a reel from an influencer or something like a product review thing or whatever.

Okay. And just one of the things this person said just really stuck in my brain. So they were like looking at the notebook and they were saying about how high quality it was. The paper is so thick you could even use a fountain pen. And that really stuck in my head because it kind of made me feel a little bit like, why do I bother doing the work that I do?

Like, why do I bother when like that's the way that most people will always think of it? Like the quality of using a fountain pen is that the paper is thick. Right. The end. And yes. And that like, so if the paper's thick, a fountain pen must be usable.

And the idea that like, even a fountain pen, like this, this, this incredibly weird product you might want to use. If you're a weirdo, a fountain pen, you know, like it was just a completely innocuous statement, which makes perfect sense for somebody to say. But it really stuck in my brain of like, I, I, I try so hard to get paper that works with fountain pens and all other types of pens.

And also just, I care about fountain pens to the level that I do and think about them as much as I do and talk about them as much as I do and have done for the last 10 years. But for most people, it's like this weird esoteric thing that a strange person would use.

And you need, right. And if the paper's really thick, maybe it will work. That's what I make do for you today. No, that's good stuff.

It's something I think about all the time. Like we're really in like that 10 percentile of the market that has any awareness of what all this stuff is. Yours is a little bit broader. There's a little bit of crossover, like in the tech stuff, just the way people like use like desk products and setups, you know, that, that, that range gets a little bit wider.

But I would say that's the common sentiment for the rest of the world outside of this podcast, like even fountain pens. So next time you do, if you do one of these reviews or do something on Instagram, you should, when you do, you know, going through your notebook specs, you should go, no, you should go even pencils work on the theme system notebook.

Even a roll, a bick would work on this. So, yeah. So, yeah, that's your task. But no, it's like we could literally have, again, this is one of those topics we could have an entire podcast on because it's just true. Like, and that's, it's totally fine.

We just see that a lot. Yeah. Right. That's like, that's like the normal outside world outside of, outside of these walls here. It's like thick paper means fountain pens work. And it's like. I mean, like, you know, I understand the context.

You maybe do the same, but I use like coded language when I talk about it in the products. I just talk about the paper being high quality and just assume that people will understand. Because I don't feel the need or the desire to like bog you down in the idea that like fountain pens work.

Right. Right. Right. And it's also kind of one of those things where like, I feel like I've been doing this, all of this for long enough now. You can't even make that statement. No. And like the, the common paper. That statement is like something that does not exist because there's too many variables.

Yeah. And the, the common sentiment is even more general than that is that, that thicker is better for, or more pens, like wider pens. Right. That's like thicker paper is better when that's just factually not the case. So. No, it's not at all. Like, because it's, what are you tuning for?

Right. - Yep. Like if, if bleed through is your number one thing, then yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to feel nice. Look at Tomoe river. Right. Right. If they, if they only knew Myke, we need to, we need to assimilate more people. We've only been doing this for a decade.

Why haven't they learned? Maybe I should just get in the comments of all these posts. Do you reckon that will be helpful? Actually, you could be actually guy.

That feels like a good idea. I should try that. That feels like a great use of your time. Well, actually, someone should come up with a name for people like that, you know?

Yeah. All right. I'm going to save us here and we're going to actually go fill out an ink survey, Myke. So a friend, friend. Wait, is this for fountain pens? This is fountain pen.

No way. No way. Friend of the community, Dr. Nicole Sharp is starting a survey. They are, they study the physics of fluids and this is super interesting. And they've put out a survey and I've linked it in the show notes. I put it up on the blog.

They've taken like 10 very specific inks to want to know if you have tried these inks and have experience with these inks. And if you have experience with these inks, can you determine what you think about the dryness of the ink on the page or the wetness of the ink on the page?

So it's very, very specific. Go take a peek at it. Yes, this is very specific. So I'm wondering if there's going to be some like groups or like if this is like a part one, like are we going to see, like I would like to see some more basics, right?

But like this is even specific for me. I think I've used like three of the 10 inks on there and could answer. Otherwise, I just answered like not familiar or whatever. But still, go take a look.

The idea is interesting and I want to see this progress. So if you can go take a look at this, fill out what you can and we'll go from there. Like I think this is just a starting point and we'll see what they come up with in the results of the survey, if there's going to be additional parts and pieces and how it's all going to work.

But I just wanted to spread awareness of this and it would be very helpful to go fill this out. Speaking of helpful, Myke, I'm going to be manning the counters at Atlas Stationers this Friday for Fountain Pen Day, Myke. I will be in store in Chicago at Atlas Stationers with Kerry Yeager, Fountain Pen Day and Kinro Industries and the team at Atlas Stationers.

I tend to, I do tend to like wander behind the counters and help people out. That's just where I'm most comfortable when I do these in store events. But all day, this Friday for Fountain Pen Day, I will be at Atlas Stationers. We've mentioned this before.

I will say from personal experience, I'm going to jump on that for a second. Whenever I've done meetups and stuff, I always prefer the pen. Because there's usually a desk or a table that I can stand behind. Because when you're chatting to a bunch of people, it really helps to have like there is a physical thing where I'm on this side and you're on the other side and we're talking and I could be talking to six people rather than like and they're all in front of me.

Rather than what can happen sometimes is people start to like curve around you and then you're not sure where to look. Right. But like when you've got the desk or the table, everyone's there. Like you can all look at each other. There's like a defined distance where we're all standing and we can talk to everybody.

And like it's all going to be a good time. Like I've always liked that about the pen shows that there was this like defined like process of where we're all going to be standing and talking. Yeah. Because there's a much more physical show and tell aspect of these events.

Right. Like, hey, I like me personally, I put together a specific show and tell kit to bring. Right. I brought some pens that I would normally bring to a pen show where I'm meeting people for the first time and they've heard me talk about the Sailor King of pen and you know why they shouldn't buy it and a Nakaya and why I think it's so special or my pilot Murex, which I never shut up about.

Like I bring these things to do like a show and tell and you know, I want people to be able to try some of these things, even though we're in a, in a big pen store with lots of, lots of inventory and all kinds of pens, you can still give like these experiences to, to people who are just getting into things for the first time or maybe have heard about something and never seen it before or got to hold it before or use it before.

It's just such an enjoyable time to spend with other people in the community and I'm getting to do it on one of the biggest fountain pen days of the year in a store I haven't been to. So like, this is a very new experience for me and I'm, I'm actually very, very excited about this.

I mean, not that I wouldn't be, but like, I am stoked about what's going to take place on Friday. And like, I literally know nothing that's going to take place on Friday other than I'm going to be there in store all day, hanging out with Carrie, with Brendan, the whole team at Atlas Stationers.

I know we're going to try to do a little live podcast. They'll stream to like YouTube or Instagram or something. We'll see how that goes. But that's like the, there's like no official things.

So there'll just be a big hangout, a big fun experience and a new experience for me. So I am, I can't wait. I, I'm really, really excited. So I fly out tomorrow.

Is this your main thing in Chicago? Is this what you're going for? Yeah. So I'll get in, I'll get in Thursday afternoon, spend all day Friday at the shop and then leave Saturday morning. So like, I'm just hanging out.

So it should be good. I'm more than ready. I look forward to seeing the pictures and feeling the farmer. There'll be a lot.

Definitely follow me on Instagram. We'll, we'll have all the show notes. Nah. There'll be plenty of shenanigans. There'll be plenty of shenanigans.

That's where all the shenanigans will go. They're happening right now too, I think. They, Brendan is, is like the social media master at Atlas Stationers. So he's always tagging me and stuff.

It makes, it makes my life easy because I can just go add to story. Yes. Love it. Love it. So yeah, I can't wait. And I can't wait to tell you about it next week when I get back. This episode is brought to you by Retro 51.

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Thank you so much to Retro 51 for the support of this show at RelayFM. So a couple of things before we get into some shenanigans. I don't have a Retro 51 packed for my trip, so I think I should correct that. I'm staring at the pink robots.

Maybe that needs to make the trip with me. Classic. I also just bought the Owl Rescue, which is one of the cooler ones that they've released here this year in the past few months. I'm going to do a giveaway for that one on the blog. I bought that purposely to give away.

Again, you know, like you say, you buy it for gifts because it's just so easy. And third, I might need to pick up the Pan Am Clipper because I bought the poster and I just haven't picked up the plane model yet. So if I see that at Atlas, that might be coming home with me.

So yeah, all in on the Retro 51s. What? I'm not sure there is dangerous, Myke, as a thrown Lamy, AL star. Do you recall last week's... No, no. This is last week's Ask TPA where we needed proof, Myke, of the stabbing of the bicep.

And I went in on Josh saying, okay, okay, settle down here. This was... There's no way. Like this is a tall tale. There was probably something that took place. Myke, let's just say I got follow up and there was an image attached.

Okay. We're not going to be sharing the image. I don't want to see it. But I didn't get to see the image. No, no, no. We're not going to share the image.

But I will refer to it. So I want to read the email in its entirety. It's not very long from Josh after my diatribe calling him out last week. You threw down the gauntlet.

I did. I did. And you know what? Josh came correct. So here we go. Howdy, Brad. I should clarify a few things. So now at this point, this is me, the total digression.

At this point, you're going to think, okay, you know, I oversold it. You know, maybe it wasn't that bad. Myke, let me tell you, he undersold it. Okay. Here we go. The pin was thrown from about 10 feet across the room.

And I would estimate the velocity was two to three meters a second with a nearly perpendicular impact. Listening back to my words, it would have been more appropriate to say pierced the skin of my arm than punctured my bicep. The pin didn't stick in my arm or anything like that.

The tipping briefly broke the skin and then the pin fell to the table. You are right that it was a mild injury. It was alarming more because of the shock than pain. No one likes the thought of airborne pins, much less airborne pins with exposed nibs that can poke people or force.

This person is a maniac who threw that pin. They're a maniac. It wasn't my intention to be dishonest, but in hindsight, my effort to convey my distress within the character limit exaggerated the physical injury. I don't think so. I think you actually undersold it last week, Josh.

This is more proper information. It was like a javelin. Yeah. You got javelined, basically. So sorry about that.

It says, the pin was uninked and it really did draw a small amount of blood. There is a small white mark on my arm one month later. Hopefully, the picture clears it up. I'm not going to share the picture.

There is literally like a grown over. Like if you had a scab and it grows over like the new healthy skin, there is a little dot there where he got stabbed. So Josh, I apologize for questioning you last week. And I think you actually undersold it.

I think this is more like, oh my gosh, you were around a lunatic. Yes. And you paid the price. Why would anybody throw a pin that way? Why would you throw anything that way?

You know? Underarm. It's the way to go. Yep. Jeez. It's like playing dance or something. So that was, I had that in my inbox, I think, the night of the podcast. It was immediate follow up to that.

So I've been sitting on that. I appreciate it. They were ready. All right. Speaking of follow up, we have more email. We have horror stories, Myke. Great. So do you want to lead us into this?

Yeah. So we've done this a number of times over the years where we ask listeners around the spooky season to write in and give us their horror stories, terrible things that have happened to them in the pursuit of using their stationary products. Now, there is a list of these on the stationary dot wiki.

Now, me and Brad were talking about this on the show. I'm not sure if we are not sure if this is the full list. We can't remember if we've done one of these episodes or we focus on these stories since episode 381. We both believe we have, but I don't know that to be true.

But this list has been kept up to date for at least a period of time of all of the horror stories that we have written in, plus the five entries that we have deemed Hall of Fame worthy. So there is like we get them and if they're bad enough, we'll put them in the Hall of Fame.

And I would like to give the brief summary of each of the five Hall of Fame entries as written by the authors of the stationery wiki. Okay. So the Hall of Fame entries are number one, blue foot. David was inducted in November 2018. I'm not going to bother with the dates because they're all like 2018, 2019.

David's with David's first pen and ink purchase. They accidentally spilled the bottle onto their mother's carpet and stained their foot blue. Violet palm, Emil, while packing for a hiking trip, decided to harvest platinum violet ink from unused cartridges with a syringe. After taking a break, they reached over their workspace and accidentally stabbed the needle into their palm.

The syringe was empty with the ink injected into their hand. That is... That might be the... I would be surprised actually if there is a worse one than that. That's why I go...

Yeah. Because I remember this now. That is just... Now. Upset. I remember that one. And yeah, that one was crazy. Makes me not feel good.

So I'm at... I will probably remember a lot of these when you say them. And I want to say this one. There is one that I will say that I do recall specifically that I thought was horrible. We'll see if we actually deemed it a Hall of Fame because there's different rulings on these things.

So let me see. I'll tell you if it is. Signatory from Antony. While walking a client through a plea in court, Antony left to retrieve a file before continuing. Upon returning and giving documents to the judge, Antony discovered his client had graffitied the documents of expressions of friendship and a heart using Antony's vanishing point.

After a stern dressing down by the judge, the client was allowed to refile the proper paperwork without repercussion. What the hell? I don't remember that at all. Yeah, that's Antony from Everyday Commentary. He's great. That's amazing. He always sends me like legal stationary stuff.

It's good stuff. Hulk hands from Roland. Before a church event, he helped organize. Roland opened delivery of ink only to find the cap had cracked in transit. The resulting cleanup still stained the tile grout, his kitchen cabinets, part of his suit, and his hands a bright green color.

He attended the church event late with Hulk green hands. Nice. And the final one is the Emerald Curse from Evan, who wanted to surprise their wife at Twisby Go filled with Emerald of Shavor ink. Evan accidentally spilled the ink in the kitchen. Despite best efforts to clean the ink, their daughter still later came out of the kitchen with green ink spots and has continued to find fresh ink in the kitchen since that initial spill.

The source of the ink has not been discovered. There is an Emerald Curse upon my kitchen evermore. That's amazing. That's amazing. I remember that one. That one tracked through.

That was the one? No, no, no, no. So the one I recall that was, it was very horrible. And I'm wondering if we didn't do it because it was very like a self-inflicted, like on an accident.

Someone left their case on top of the car and had like canalea and some other stuff on the car and like drove off. I'll have to go back and find that one. Yes. I remember that one specifically, but I can't remember the outcome. But remind me, did they recover those pens?

Seems like they might. Somehow there was some recovery. I have the memory of this. And if they did, that was why we didn't put it in the Hall of Fame.

Because it was like a temporary bad thing that happened. Right? Where like I think we were starting to get a lot more strict about what would go in the Hall of Fame and what wouldn't. And I think the ruling that we made on that, if I'm remembering it correctly too, was that they weren't lost.

So it was just temporary. Yeah. Crazy. Oof. But yeah, that one sticks with me. That one sticks with me. All right. We have two to go through today.

Myke. And I have not read these. I've copied them into my text app so I can read them easily. And we'll see how this goes. So this first one is from Alex.

Says, hi, Brad. Hi, Myke. Here's my fountain pen horror story and a bonus bit of follow-up about traveling ink at the end. So I haven't read this, so I don't know the organization here. So here we go. The San Francisco pen show snuck up on me this year.

I live in the Bay Area, so it's usually a given that I'll go. But this September was unusually busy for me, so I didn't get a chance to plan out what I wanted for the show or set a budget. On the very first day of the show, I spot the most beautiful vintage vanishing point at Peyton Street pens.

I've always preferred my fountain pens small and black. And because my everyday writing is so bursty, my everyday carry has always been a vanishing point because of the convenient click mechanism. One of my big pen regrets has always been not buying the 2020 Link Black Limited Edition. I think that was a vanishing point edition.

But now on the table was a completely black, faceted vintage vanishing point that I liked even more than the black links. Once I picked it up and discovered that it was even lighter than the modern decimos, I knew I had to have it. And this was still the first day of the show, so if I got up early the next day, I could put my name down on the list to get Myke Masayama to put a grind on it.

Best pen show ever. I love my new setup. I got to try out tons of new paper at the pen show and I started carrying my new pen around in a single pen sleeve to jot down quick thoughts whenever they came up. The pen was freshly full of black ink.

The new platinum Chokuro. There you go. To match my all black setup. Oh man, is this going to be a Chokuro horror story? I don't know. But it just wasn't meant to be.

Just two days after the end of the pen show, I got my new pen out, admire the faceted body and click it to write. Unfortunately, I then discovered possibly one of the reasons the new vanishing points are created heavier. The force of the click mechanism causes the pen to fly out of my two light grip into the air and embed itself nibbed down into the wood floor.

So they had it in their hand. They basically engaged it in their hand and shot it right into the floor. Basically, is the way I read this. I stared in horror.

And it wasn't a regular nib. There was a Masayama grind on this, right? So I stared in horror at the pen completely upright in the floor. Maybe if I pulled it out carefully, it would be okay.

No such luck. Oh God, it's a needle point. My new Masayama needle point was completely destroyed. It didn't look too bad at first. The tines were still both facing the right direction.

That's how you know your pen's in good shape. Yeah. But I guess the tip took the entirety of the damage because the writing was scratchy and the ink wouldn't flow. On the verge of tears, I took the nib unit out and carefully stored it away. Maybe I could get Myke to look at it at the next pen show.

I guess I was lucky to some extent. The nib unit took the entirety of the damage, leaving the pristine black body of the pen unscathed. I had swapped out the original gold nib unit from 1994 with a modern and more replaceable black vanishing point nib. And I never had to experience any maintenance issues or buy distilled water to clean out the chokuro ink.

But I really can't carry the pen anymore without worrying about it flying out of my hands. Oof. Oh, that's crazy. That sucks. That sucks. So I own this pen. It's a really special pen, right? It's a very unique vanishing point in that it's a plastic barrel, right?

This is in the mid-90s. They made these faceted. I have one of these too. Jeff gave me one.

Yeah. So I'm going to put a link in the show notes. We can put in the link in the show notes. This is a picture of Alex's vanishing point. I don't think it has the nib damage in it.

But just, I think this actually does have the black nib in it. So, yeah. Yeah, this looks like the black nib. This is a good looking one, right? It's one of the great pens.

It's also got the Meeky on it too, which is even cooler. It's one of my all-time favorites. It's in my top 100. I also have a nib grind on the original nib that came with it.

I got a Curse of Vitalik grind on it. I have not shot it through my hands yet. I get what they're saying because it's kind of feather light, right? And you can push it and just not have a grip on it.

So the needle point, I'm sure, exacerbated the damage because that is a very fragile grind to begin with. You say that. You say that. But there is, I see a potential world in which a different grind that the nib section could have gotten, could have taken more damage.

Yeah, I don't know. Like if I, if my Curse of Vitalik went down, it probably would have just bounced off the floor. Yeah, but that might be worse for the overall nib section, right? That could have. Could be. Because you're saying it's so pointy, it just went straight in.

It could absorb the blow, you know, rather than if it like bounced, it might like shake around in there or something. I don't know. We'll have to get some kind of engineer to tell us if what's, what's correct there or not. But yeah, like I have damaged a Masayama needle point, not from dropping, but yeah, they're very fragile.

So good stuff. Good stuff. If it's very bad, I don't think it's Hall of Fame. Correct. I agree. But this is very bad. This is, this makes like. Did you say it was Alex was their name?

Yeah. I feel bad for Alex. Yeah. So this gives me chills, right? Like thinking about it. But yeah, not Hall of Fame.

All right. Next one from my good friend. My good friend Toasty Treat sent me this months ago. Just knowing, just like, Brad, I've got a horror story. I'm going to send it to you and you do whatever you want with it.

You can read it. I said, you know what? I'm just going to file this away. I'm not going to read it.

And when we do horror stories in, you know, around Halloween, I will break this out. So I've had this mail for months and I have not read it. So here we go. Hi, Brad. Here's my fountain pen horror story.

I hope you enjoy. Last weekend, I was on my way to the Chicago pen show when I decided to do a little journaling on the plane. I've used fountain pens on planes before without issue. So I didn't think anything would go awry.

But I want to stop you right here. This has potential. I don't know this story. Right? I like the start. And I'm trying not to hype it up, but I'm hyping it up.

This has potential. Right? Like, I'm journaling on a plane. Like, I'm strapped in right now. Yeah. Yeah. And given my friendship with Toasty Treat, they would not submit a horror story that wasn't like legit. I have a feel here.

I'm pretty excited right now. I hope this doesn't let us down. All right. As soon as we reached 10,000 feet, I opened my Hobonichi Cousin on the tray table. I chose my Pilot Custom 823 because it contained ink that would match my pre-decorated journal spread. Pilot Roshizuku Konpaki.

That rich blue most of us are familiar with. Though I had a complex love-hate relationship with this pen since obtaining it, I remained determined to give it the chance it deserved. Also, a really great pen choice for a flight, right? Because it has a vacuum seal.

So, fate, however, had other plans. As I attempted to write, the pen refused to cooperate. Thoughtlessly, I gave the back of the pen a couple of turns. Immediately, the ink spurted out of the nib, only it didn't grace the page.

Instead, several fat drops of Konpaki dripped onto the light tan interior of my limited edition Hobonichi cover, a sold-out Japan exclusive gifted to me by a dear friend. With the plane still climbing to its cruising altitude, the fastened seatbelt sign remained illuminated. I couldn't run to the bathroom.

I was trapped, unable to call for help from the flight attendants who were themselves still secured in their seats. No help was coming. In a panic, I resorted to using the bottom of my t-shirt, attempting to absorb the ink. The result? A spreading stain on the cover, my shirt stained blue, and my hands covered in ink.

Oh, and a blue stomach to match. I forced myself to take a calming breath and think, what did I have in my bag? What could help me in this situation? Then I remembered the microfiber cloth I carry for cleaning my glasses.

Retrieving it from my bag, I used my water bottle to dampen the cloth and dab at the ink. At first, I feared I was just making things worse, the water spreading the stain, but to my amazement, the stain began to lighten. I persisted, continuing my frantic cleaning ritual for the next 30 minutes until the cover was as clean as I could get it.

Though my hands, shirt, stomach, and somehow even my thighs bore the evidence of my inky ordeal. My precious cover had been miraculously saved. As far as the pen, it is destined for a new home. And what of my seat neighbor, you may wonder?

They bore witness to the entire spectacle without uttering a single word. Oh, that's rough, that part of the end. This is bad. I was hoping for more, I think. But that part of the end makes it, oh, I would be dying.

Right? Like, if I was having to deal with this next to a stranger, I think I might just get a parachute and go for it. Like, I'm off, man. You ain't gonna see me anymore. So I'm, like, living vicariously through Toasty Treat, knowing that I would not have ever stopped doing exactly what they were doing to try to correct this situation, to get the ink up.

Like, you're contained, you're fixed in place, you can't go anywhere, you've made a mess. Every move you make is making it worse, and you finally figure out a way to make it better. But you can always see it, there's always something there, and it would absolutely drive me bonkers to continue to do this.

That's pretty rough. Not a Hall of Famer, not a Hall of Famer, I don't think. But this is bad. But I am more anxious now than I was before starting to read this. This is one of those skin crawlers to me, I think.

Yes. You know, like, imagining being in that situation. You know, like, what do you do? Like, do you try and make jokes? Do you just pretend that it's not, that there isn't anybody there?

Like, you just try and, like, oh, God. And while someone's, like, yeah, someone's sitting there witnessing the whole thing. And guess what? I'm flying tomorrow. This is gonna go well for me. I'm just guy-dying you, you know, like, the whole time.

Like, what are you doing? Like, please stop. I don't want this on me. You know? Oh, my gosh. So, yes. I will tell you, Brad, by the way, what would have tipped this over is if the internet story said, one of my, like, seatmate, they were also covered in ink, that would have done it.

Right? Like, that would have been it for me. For sure, for sure. I'm glad their seatmate was not covered in ink, let's just be clear. But for the story, that would have been the clincher.

For sure, for sure. So, that was good stuff. That was our horror stories. They were very, very good.

Don't use santa pens on a plane. Like, I don't know. I think, you know, go for it. No, I'm steadfast in this.

No, I think we've just proven why not. Don't use santa pens on a plane. You know what? You need a vanishing point with Chokuro in it. And, you know, you need to, like, click it and then shoot it.

Shoot it into your seatmate's thigh while you're in there. That would be the ultimate horror story. It's the only way to go. If you would like to send in your questions, your follow-up for this episode, you can always go to penaddictfeedback.com and you can send them in there and we can take a look at them for a future episode.

If you want to find Brad online, but in between now and next week's episode, let me tell you of a few ways in which you can do it. You can go to penaddict.com where you'll find Brad's writing. You can find Brad's streaming three times a week over at Twitch. dot tv slash penaddict.

You'll find him there. You can find him as penaddict on social media, including Instagram and maybe threads. I don't know. But, and Mastodon. Brad also has products over at spokedesign.com. I am iMyke. I am YKE. You can find me here on RelayFM along with this podcast and many others.

And you can find my products over at cortexbrand.com. Thank you so much for Retro 51 and Pet Chalet for their support of this show. We'll be back next week. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.