The Pen Addict 435/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	435
Title:	Fine Fine Medium Line
Release Date:	November 4th, 2020
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 435
Audio File:	Audio Episode 435
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 435
Length:	6060 min <br />1 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 435. Today's show is brought to you by ExpressVPN and Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Bradley Dowdy. Hi, Bradley Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: Hello, Michael Hurley. How are you?

Myke Hurley: I'm good. We're both tired. We need to just say right up front, we are recording this show in the late morning in America time, American time, on the 4th of November. So we're currently, the whole world is looking to America right now to find out who your president is going to be. So, you know, depending on when you listen to this, you may know the answer. But look, we're here. We're doing the thing. This is what we do. And that's that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, we're here. We're doing it. I like that. I like that attitude, Myke. You know, it's hard to be here and doing it when your mind is all over the place. But I think I am ready to talk about pens. I'm super ready to talk about pens. But first, we need to talk about streaming because I feel like you're crossing a little boundary on your Twitch stream chat there, Myke. Your Twitch stream scheduling.

Myke Hurley: Well, I broke cardinal rule, huh? What would we say? I crossed into your time stream.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. You crossed the streams, Myke. It's what you did. But no, I'm totally kidding. It was a beautiful thing. It gave us a joyous experience on Twitch on Tuesday morning, 10 a.m. Eastern time, which is when I went live and normally go live.

Time Streams

Myke Hurley: As we know, as everybody who listens to the end of the show knows, Brad Dowdy goes live Tuesday, Thursday, 10 a.m. Eastern at twitch.tv slash pen addict.

Brad Dowdy: So I think it was just ingrained in your head, hey, that's when I go live on Twitch and I meaning you. So you're like, hey, what's 10 a.m. Eastern? You know, it's like what? 3 p.m. your time. That's when I go live on Twitch. So we did it at the same time. It was pretty funny.

Brad Dowdy: There's no like it was funny because there's like no crossover. You know, people who are into the keyboards, watch you. People are into the pens, watch me. And then a lot of people just pulled up, pulled up both because they're awesome friends like that. So I thought it was funny. Keep doing it. I want to see you keep doing it because I think it's awesome. My son left my stream last night. So I did an extra stream last night playing Warcraft. And he was watching the stream, getting ready for bed. And he signed off saying, OK, I'm going to go watch Myke build keyboards. So I got completely dunked on by my own son last night. So you have that going for you. I just wanted you to know.

Myke Hurley: I'm doing a thing that the kids like these days. The kids are into keyboards. I don't know if they're into Warcraft.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, no, no, no. That was like the diversion stream last night. And yeah, he is not into Warcraft or anything like that. And he's like he had already been watching your stream earlier and asking me every question in the book about keyboards. And I kind of love it. So it's pretty great.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I just I don't have a time for my stream yet. I will at some point, but I don't yet. Things are getting especially difficult here because we're going into lockdown again. And I have been streaming from my studio.

Myke Hurley: So I still will be trying to do at least one stream a week. But it's a little bit TBD as to where exactly and how exactly I will be doing it. But as I've kind of said this already, my stream is still kind of in a beta period as I'm kind of collecting up the knowledge that I need to make it work. I'm still working on branding. Brad, you are going to frigging love the branding that I'm working on. It's actually a very nice crossover between pens and keyboards in it. Nice. I think you're really going to dig it. So I'm still working on all of that stuff. But it's great because I'm enjoying kind of like building up my knowledge and making it work. And I've been really happy with the response so far. Now, if you want to subscribe to or follow my Twitch account, go to mike.live. That's the URL that you want, which I really like. And yeah, so I'm enjoying building this up. It's like another skill. But I'm taking it nice and easy. And then once I've actually got everything nailed down, then I'm going to start kind of doing things on a schedule that people can rely on. Because I think that is important for this kind of content that if people want to, you know, I've just noticed it that like the more notice I give people, the more people come and watch. So, you know, I want to make sure that I give people that kind of notice.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So once you have a schedule, it'll be ingrained. And I find, I promise we're going to have pen content here. And what I'm about to say is pen content because I find something useful on the stream. I didn't know how different I could make the stream than the podcast. But it turns out that there are things I'll talk about on stream that are kind of great topics for the podcast but don't work on the podcast. Like yesterday, we have some spoke design pen prototypes that I showed on stream. And they're not a great podcast topic because it's not a finalized product, right? Like it would be pointless to discuss, you know, that specific thing today. Even though I felt like totally fine showing it on stream because you could have just like a more open discussion saying, hey, these are early prototypes. We're testing these things out. Whereas if we talked about building a spoke fountain pen today on stream, you know, I might have to just like change that whole conversation. Like it doesn't make sense to have those topics. So I've been happy with the content of each, I guess, if you will. It's been working out, I think. So it's been good.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, there's definitely a good split there.

Follow-Up Topic

Brad Dowdy: All right. Ready to get into some follow-up. I have a decent amount of follow-up from a single topic. Last week I went down. A little rabbit hole. So we talked about the TWSBI Eco Golden Horse last week as just one of those one-off TWSBI limited edition things they did for a small batch. And I guess they had some extras and they've sent them. They were selling them. And what I found interesting about the pen that we discussed last week is the build parts of the Eco. And as a transparent pen or a mostly transparent pen, you get to see like all the ins and outs of how the pen is built. And I thought this Golden Horse model was a little bit different than the standard Eco. I thought it looked like to me it used some of the 580 parts in the piston section. And I find that kind of thing like super interesting. Like they're still calling it the Eco. And I can really tell that this is fully an Eco pen. So I thought about, you know, could I get one? And I found one. So I have one on order. And, you know, there's a couple of shops that had it for sale. Someone linked to me a shop in Australia, but they weren't shipping out of the country at the time. So they had the Eco Golden Horse. I'm not sure what all shops and why some shops got them, but I found it at Most Wanted Pens, which is a German shop. And, Myke, if you're familiar, this is the Kaweco adjacent shop run by Michael Guprele, the owner of Kaweco. His son, Sebastian Guprele. Oh, yeah.

Myke Hurley: This was the place that I got the Kaweco sleeve for the Apple Pencil.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I got it from here because this place had them first.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So not a shock that they get all the good Kaweco stuff first, right? They have – it's basically – I don't want to say it's like an affiliate, but it's basically the right arm. It's almost like the retail spot for Kaweco. And they do some limited edition stuff there that you can't get anywhere else, which, like, I'm fine with. That's cool. I've ordered some limited edition, a pen or two from them before because I couldn't get it in the U.S. and I really wanted it. So, anyway, I forget what brought me there. It might have even just come up on a Google search when I was poking around. And I was like, oh, it's in stock, so let me order it. So I have that coming. It's already shipped, I think. I ordered it, like, I think Monday.

Brad Dowdy: So I don't know if I'll have it for next week. But it's just one of those pens that I don't know if I actually want the pen, like, per se, for, like, my own library of pens. But I want to break it down. It's like one of the few times I'm interested in looking at the breakdown of the pen and say, hey, does this eco use all the eco parts? I don't know why this fascinates me so much. It probably fascinates almost no one else. But it does. It does to me.

Myke Hurley: You know it. You know it. Lots of people listening to this show are as interested as we are.

Brad Dowdy: Of course. Yeah, yeah. But, like, this is a silly little rabbit hole. Like, this is a meaningless rabbit hole, right? This means nothing. I am just curious. So I am, you know, trying to fulfill my curiosity. So I got that on order. So I appreciate y'all reaching out for other links. And, you know, if you're in Australia, I can send you the link if you want to try to buy this pen or whatever. It's not a cheap eco. It's like an 80 plus dollar. It was 110 euros. It cost me like 80 or 90 dollars. Like, this is a very expensive eco. So we'll see what it's all about once I get it in. But when I was there, once I figured out I was on Most Wanted Pens, I obviously scrolled through the rest of their site because there's usually some weird Kaweco stuff in there. And I noticed one thing that they sell at Most Wanted Pens, and I'm not sure any other Kaweco dealers do. And I haven't looked and I haven't vetted this, but I thought it was so strange to see for sale individual front end sections for Kaweco Sports. Not just the nib unit, right? You can get the nib units from anywhere, all of your favorite retailers. But they sell like the entire front end, the color grip section and everything as a separate part. And I've never seen that before. So maybe some other stores do that.

Myke Hurley: I don't even think I knew that you could take them off. I guess you can. That's how you would put – yeah, of course you can. So, excuse me. That's where the cartridge goes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think the funny thing here, though, is like, because you can look through it. So the website has, like – it's not just Kaweco. They actually have this for a couple of different pens. But Kaweco is maybe unique here. But you could end up creating your own Frankenstein Kawecos from these kinds of parts, couldn't you? You could mix and match the colors.

Brad Dowdy: And that's what caught my eyes because we have talked about this before. And I've written about it in Refill of how, hey, you can customize your Kaweco. Just if you have two Kawecos, you can just swap those parts on there and make a different section. Like, they have a clear section, right? So, or it's like a frosted. So they did this, it looks like, for the Frosted series mostly. And so they have the clear, the yellow, the pink, the blue. And so they might not match as well with the solid colors. But I thought it was cool to see them have done that because that's something I talked about, right? That is something that I think is a feature of the Kaweco Sports. And I like seeing that. I was like, huh, that's cool. I didn't bother going to check. Like, okay, does, you know, Cult Pens offer this? Does Jet Pens offer this? Do all these shops offer this? I didn't go look. But I'm assuming they don't because I think I might have run across it before. So, yeah, I'll be interested to see if it's just that one specific run of pen, which is like six different colors of that model. And I don't know. It just brings up a lot of questions. It's, again, it's the TWSBI Eco Golden Horse question in my head. It's like, okay, why are they doing this? Why just these sections? Why don't they, if they're going to do these sections, why not do the standard colors like the white, the black, the blue, the red, you know, the classic sport colors? It's, you know, why only these colors? Was there extra parts? You know, I'm sitting here rambling all this in my head.

Myke Hurley: There is a certain level of being an enthusiast in which you start to care a lot about what the companies in that industry do. You know, like I have this with technology, right? I don't just care about the products. I care about the decisions the companies make. And this is a similar thing, right? Which is like, you could if you wanted to, and it would probably be, I don't know, easier in some ways, to just care about like the color of the Kawekos. But it's also, there is an extra level, a higher tier of interest where you're like, why did this company make this decision? It's just like a different type of being an enthusiast as you start to go to that additional level as you just care more and more about digging deeper into the hobby that you're in. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So two final things on this little topic. They call these the front part, right? So this is the front part. The part name is the front part. So that's very interesting to me. And two, the cost of these is almost exactly half of the overall pin cost. And I'd argue that that's fair. That seems, that's where the bulk of the cost goes. It's where the stuff is, isn't it? Yeah, it's where the stuff lives.

Myke Hurley: You can imagine that actually being expensive. The acrylic is not that expensive. And especially you make it at scale, you know.

New Kaweco Sleeve

Brad Dowdy: Right. So anyway, interesting. And since we were on Kaweko, unrelated to most wanted pins, I was sent a link for a new US exclusive model. What did we see? The Paladin Green, like a month or so ago, was the, I don't know if they were, were calling it the European model. I don't know if, I think it was more of the Dutch model. Like it was, it seemed like it was the Netherlands and Belgium or some really kind of like exclusive area. So the new US model AL Sport is called Golden Espresso. What are your thoughts on this pin, Myke? I hate it.

Brad Dowdy: That was my initial thought too. Like it wasn't that I disliked it. It's that it was awful. Right? That was my initial reaction is this pin is awful because it says Golden Espresso in this script on the side. Like what they've done with this naming thing.

Myke Hurley: It's like they have just chosen like the most basic font and they're like, oh, we'll just use that. I suppose that would like, it's so bad.

Brad Dowdy: We're a hundred percent on the same page as this. I did say my one caveat to that is I bet you anything this looks way better in person than it does in pictures. Because that brown does not show well. It's not the color.

Myke Hurley: Right? Because like I can imagine that being fine. It's like I hated the Paladin Evergreen. I hated that. Right? Because that also is bad. Like the font that they use is bad. Right? But at least, I don't know, it kind of looked like it was written by somebody. Right? It had that more kind of like playful look to it, I guess. Yeah. But this is just like, it's just terrible script.

Brad Dowdy: I'm a little surprised at how much we agree with this. Oh, God. Because that one, we opened the link on chat and I was just like, oh, my God, this is terrible. Yeah. This is literally terrible. And, you know, in the end, like, I don't think it's going to be that bad. Right? They made 700 of them. They'll sell them out. It's fine. Like, I think if I was interested in this pen, I'd buy it and I'd be happy with it. But that was my initial reaction, too, is they're...

Myke Hurley: I could never be happy.

Brad Dowdy: They're really... I think they're messing up this putting the color names on there. I think they're messing this up.

Myke Hurley: If you're going to insist that you need to start printing the names on the sides of these, you need to make some decisions. Like, I think ultimately the decision that they should be making is it should be a set font that they use. It shouldn't keep changing. Because that doesn't make sense to me why they would do that. And they should just have it match the Kaweco fonts. I mean, I know that Kaweco use multiple fonts for their logo part. But I feel like they should just pick one of those. One of the, I think, three typefaces that Kaweco already use on their pens. Just pick one of those and put that on the other side.

Brad Dowdy: Or go completely, you know, opposite it. Like, right now, it's like in the ballpark, which makes it worse.

Myke Hurley: But no, but my point is, like, I actually don't trust that they can pick good fonts to keep choosing new ones every time. Personally, I like the idea of having a different typeface. A typeface that matches with the overall aesthetic of that pen or what it's meant to be. But they have done neither of these things so far for the ones that we've seen. So they're picking bad typefaces that don't match with the naming, the branding.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, the Paladin was at least close. This one is.

Myke Hurley: It's close enough, I suppose. It's like, I remember not liking that one before. But now I've seen the Golden Espresso one. I'm starting to like the Paladin Evergreen. So maybe they just make them, like, every single one of them is worse than the one before. So people like the one that came before, I don't know. But no, I think that this is a bad move. And I don't, I will never understand how a company that has good design can produce something that looks so poor. Yeah. You know? It's like, who was out of the room when this decision was made? It doesn't work for me. Nope.

Brad Dowdy: I agree.

Myke Hurley: All right. This episode is brought to you by our friends over at Pen Chalet. They sell authentic, amazing rollerballs and fountain pens, which are especially important for something we'll talk about in a moment. But also ballpoints, mechanical pencils, and so much more. They offer the fastest and most reliable customer service around. And they believe in backing this up. Pen Chalet has low prices on high quality pens. And they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. But it's not just about the pens themselves. Also, any accessories that you're going to want, Pen Chalet will do it. They do carrying cases, refills, converters, ink, pen holders, and so much more from your favorite brands. And they're adding new products all the time. Every month, they're adding new stuff. And they're also doing great discounts as well. Every couple of weeks, you can find new deals over at Pen Chalet. So it's always worth checking in. Now, if you were in the US, you can get free shipping on orders of over $50. And they also sell internationally with great shipping rates. I have had stuff shipped to me from Pen Chalet many a time here. And I always find that to go really, really well. So go to PenChalet.com, P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com and click the podcast link at the top of the website. Enter the password Pen Addict to get your hands on our special offers. And to get the code that you need to save 10% on anything at Pen Chalet at any time. Now, in a moment, we're going to be talking about Fountain Pen Day. But Pen Chalet are running a great giveaway in celebration of it. You can check it out right now and enter for free via the form on the website. And random orders that will be placed on Fountain Pen Day itself will be selected to win the majority of available prizes. So Pen Chalet have a ton of items on sale all weekend to celebrate Fountain Pen Day. But go and check out the site right now to get more information about the great giveaways that they're going to be doing to celebrate Fountain Pen Day.

Pen Chalet Giveaway

Brad Dowdy: So I want to talk about this giveaway that they're doing real quick. It's 35 different giveaways, close to $6,000 worth of prizes. And they have them all set up as packs, right? So like giveaway item one is a pack and it's a pen in a pen case. Gift pack number three is a Retro 51 prototype fountain pen. Like that is pretty wild. Like I've never seen that before. So I haven't gone through all these nor do I have the time to go through all these. But you should go and check out what Pen Chalet is doing for Fountain Pen Day. They always do it up big and it looks like they're doing that again. Secondly, from a sale perspective, I am very curious on our Pen Attic Deals page. There is a pen by Marlin called the, I don't know if it's the Riff Lessie or the Rifle Lessie or something like that. But it's a piston filling demonstrator by Marlin, which I have heard about their pens. I've seen their pens. I haven't used any of their pens. The style is right up my alley and the price point is obviously up my alley. So this might be a time where I jump in and test one of these out because I, to me, it's kind of compelling from a style and a price point perspective. So I'm going to save that and look at that after the stream and, you know, maybe enter some giveaways while I'm at it.

Myke Hurley: So go and check it out for yourself right now. Go to penchalet.com, P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. Our thanks to Pen Chalet for their support of this show, Relay FM, and also for being such a great pillar of the community. Our thanks to Pen Chalet.

Brad Dowdy: Happy Fountain Pen Day, Myke. I know it's not today. It's Friday. It's almost, happy almost Fountain Pen Day then. So Friday, the ninth anniversary of Fountain Pen Day. Myke, can you believe it?

Myke Hurley: That's really great, actually. This is a wonderful little thing that started from a fun idea. Obviously, Fountain Pen Day was created by our friend, good friend of the show, Carrie Yeager. I'll put a link in the show notes to the interview that we did with Carrie. I think it was a couple of years ago now. Talking about Fountain Pen Day itself, kind of how it began, stuff like that. It's a really fun story that's worth listening to.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's interesting to go back the first couple of years. He just wanted to do it. Carrie's always been a super Fountain Pen fan, and now he's in the business with Ken Monroe Industries. And to hear him talk about the first couple of years where he might have 10 participants or 30 participants, and now we're into a place where all of these companies are fully bought into the idea and all the retailers are into the idea. And the whole community is into the idea of Fountain Pen Day having its own day. And now it's like, what are you doing for Fountain Pen Day? Are you doing something cool for Fountain Pen Day? It's totally a thing, and that's all Carrie.

Myke Hurley: My friend Jeremy Burge, who runs Emojipedia, he created World Emoji Day. And at first, it was just like a thing that he did, and then it picked up a little bit of steam. And now Apple does stuff for World Emoji Day. Right. Right? So it's like a real holiday now. I have a friend who created an international holiday.

Brad Dowdy: And now people think Jeremy created Emoji, and they yell at him, it's great to watch. It's good fun. I don't help that.

Myke Hurley: I like to. Whenever I talk about Jeremy, I reference him as the creator of Emoji, which technically he helped create some of them. Right.

Brad Dowdy: That will work. So anyway, Fountain Pen Day is awesome. And on the Pen Addict blog, Kenro Industries, employer of Carrie Yeager, maker of the Estabrook, sent me the Estabrook Estee Sparkle in Tanzanite, which is a really wild, awesome Estabrook Estee. I'm giving that away on the blog in honor of Fountain Pen Day. So yeah, definitely be checking out that giveaway. Check out Pen Chalet for all of their awesome Fountain Pen Day deals. And I'm just wondering, Myke, are you going to do anything to celebrate? Like I've celebrated this week by buying the TWSBI Eco Golden Horse. I think that was my Fountain Pen Day.

Impulse Purchasing

Myke Hurley: You know, I was thinking about this actually recently. I haven't had a pen come up, which has really pushed me outside of the Kona Snow, the Kenalea Kona Snow, which I'll just say, I absolutely freaking love that pen.

Brad Dowdy: I've seen some people who have gotten those in hand and they're definitely raving about them.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it's stunning. But yeah, I think, you know, I was going to say like my threshold for what I am encouraged to buy has changed temporarily while I'm getting kind of like settled in the keyboard hobby. Yeah, absolutely. There's only so many hobbies that I can contribute money to. But like, you know, it's like it reminds me, honestly, of my early days of pen addict life, right? Where it's like you kind of have to, I think you spend more money more frequently at first while you're getting used to like what do you like, what do you don't like? And then eventually, which is like how I am now, I spend, I buy less stuff. The purchase is maybe more expensive, but I buy less stuff because I have many, much, much more particular tastes now because I know what I like and what I don't like. And just the amount of products that come onto the market that fit my exact kind of like desires for pens right now is slimmer.

Myke Hurley: And, you know, and as well for me, like where I am now in the pen hobby, I make, I genuinely make a lot of my decisions based on seeing stuff in person, which is obviously something that is not possible right now. Just because I tend to buy from a lot of small makers. And also, you know, I haven't been in this again for a while. I'm more willing to let stuff go and maybe try and pick it up down the line. But, you know, like there are things, right? So it's like, you know, I've been thinking, I have been like noodling a little bit on the British Racing Green Sailor. Yeah. Because that does look really nice. But like I stand by like what I said last time, if it was a King of Pound, I would have got it immediately. But I don't need another, I don't need any of them. But I don't feel like I'm particularly drawn to another just regular size pro gear right now.

Brad Dowdy: Right. As a pen hobbyist, you're knee deep in the pens and you love them all. But your decisions are a little bit more refined right now based on what you already have and what you have available to you. And knowing, having a better grasp of knowing things might come down the line.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, exactly. And I'm holding off from impulse purchasing. Yeah. Because I'm impulse purchasing in another hobby at the moment.

Brad Dowdy: Totally true. Well, I'm not going to make your impulse purchases any better because, okay, I bought the TWSBI Eco Golden Horse for this week for Fountain Pen Day, I guess. But I actually had a delivery of a pen I ordered, I don't know, a month or two ago. It happened to come in this week, Myke, which is the Carolina Pen Company bestseller. So we need to talk about this, Myke.

Myke Hurley: I don't know what you're talking about.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So we have to have a discussion. We have to have a story time. Good. Are you ready for story time?

Myke Hurley: No, I love it.

Brad Dowdy: So there was a review that Sarah made on the Pen Addict blog. I don't know if it was a month or two ago. It was the Rotor Fountain Tashenbeglider. You know, big fans of the Rotor Fountain Tashenbeglider. And they called this product Best Seller. Rotor Fountain Tashenbeglider Best Seller A5. And I got an enormous kick out of the product naming. Like, if you're going to name your product Best Seller, you better come with the goods. Right? And it just cracked me up. Like, I think this is awesome.

Myke Hurley: I've just gone to your Instagram because usually you publish these things on Instagram. What's going on here?

Myke Hurley: This is story time.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Myke's getting a little ahead. Myke's found out the story. Myke's getting a little ahead of us. So I put the link to my pen in there already. So I'm hoping you wouldn't go to Instagram. But so let me go back and then we'll get to where you're at right now. So we had a product called The Best Seller. And I was talking about it on stream, but just how ridiculous yet ridiculously awesome the name is. And the wonderful Mr. Jonathan Brooks was in the Twitch chat at the time. And we all yelled at him. It was like, well, Jonathan, you need to make a material for a pen and just call it The Best Seller. Because clearly, like, that's just what brands do now. Right? You just self-gloss yourself, your products, as The Best Seller. Right? You say, I'm going to make the next NotCo pen case. We're just going to call it The Best Seller. Like, it's the best thing we've ever done. We're very proud of it. It's The Best Seller. So we just laughed and thought it was a joke. And we were like, ha ha. Then Jonathan being Jonathan, like a week later, he says, what do you think about this material for The Best Seller? And he sends me a picture of a rod. And I'm like, where do I send my money? And he was just like, go pick out a model, you know, a model that you like from the shop and send me the PayPal and I'll make it. And then The Best Seller will exist. So once he sells it, it can be The Best Seller. So that showed up over the weekend. It showed up Friday. I opened it up over the weekend and my jaw dropped. So I love the pen. I have The Best Seller. It's in my Instagram feed. It's in Jonathan Brooks' Instagram feed. It's this bright orange primary manipulation. The official Jonathan is too nice to just go out and call this The Best Seller, right? This is The Warm Tone Primary Manipulation. So it's in the primary manipulation category. And it's going to be called The Warm Tone Model. But we're going to refer to it as The Best Seller because that's how this color came about. Right. Through a little story and a little experiment and a little bit of having fun in making stuff. And like that's what we enjoy the most about this, right? We have fun doing this kind of stuff. Well, Jonathan being Jonathan sends me a box and he says, all right, I'm shipping the pen. Do you want to see it? Like, do you want me to take a picture of it and send it to you? You just want to open it up when you get it. And my choice is always I'm just going to open it up when I get it. I never let him send me the pictures beforehand. He obviously sent me the rod, but I hadn't seen the final version. So he's like, all right, I'm going to throw something extra in the box. So be on the lookout. So I get the box and I open it up and I open up my pen and it's glorious. I'm in love with it. The color is amazing. Again, we'll have links in the show notes. You can go see it. Jonathan's post is even better. It goes through the whole process of it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, he's taking some great photos.

Brad Dowdy: And then there's two other little boxes in the big box, right? One says Brad. One says Myke. I'm like, huh, what is this? So I open up the box and I know Jonathan has a new laser etching slash engraving machine that he's been doing nibs on. So like my Pen Addict logo is on the nib of the bestseller, right? He laser engraved that. He had sent me one of those nibs before. So I've got the little Pen Addict logo on some of his nibs and it's cool. And then he's kind of gotten into wax seals and he made the Pen Addict logo on a wax seal. So he did that. And then I opened up the other box and now you saw what's in there. So he made something for you too, Myke, which is a wax seal relay FM logo and a nib unit with the relay FM logo.

Myke Hurley: That's very cool. How cool is that? That is very cool. And the wax seal is using the same material, right? The bestseller material.

Brad Dowdy: So what he's done, he's made the handles of the wax seal to match the pen. It's pretty wild. It's legitimately cool. So Jonathan is always so generous to us and I just appreciate him doing that. Like it's really cool. Thank you, Jonathan. So yeah, I have your box here waiting to not be sent to you anytime soon.

Jonathan's Custom Pen

Myke Hurley: I'll look forward to getting it sometime in 2024.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Okay. I owe you other stuff. So it's probably going to leave pretty soon. I still got to get you a pen though.

Brad Dowdy: But we're just out of it. We're sold out. So anyway, I love when a fun story comes together. And that's kind of what happened here. Like I didn't know what to expect. I mean, I knew what to expect in that the color of my pen was going to be pretty awesome. But I hadn't seen the final version of the pen. And then I have the wax seals. I tested the wax seal on stream yesterday. Played with fire on stream yesterday. It was pretty cool. It was fun. And then we opened up your box. We got to reveal that on stream. I didn't know what was going to be in it. And then I saw the logo and the logo nib on there. I'm like, yeah, this is awesome. Myke's going to dig this. So I can't wait to get those to you. I will get those to you sooner than later. So you can officially thank Jonathan once you receive your goods.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I definitely will. It's amazing. It really is amazing.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so he's got a whole set of pictures he's going to put up on the Relay FM logo. And that I can send you to those offline. I have like videos and images. It's like way too much stuff to put in the show doc.

Myke Hurley: I'm super pumped to see what more tools will unlock for Jonathan. Yeah. So having something like this laser cutter. I mean, he's already created a new type of product, right? Which is the wax seal, right? So like I'm just really excited to see that he is branching out into other areas because he is an individual whose creativity kind of holds no bounds, which is what makes him so talented at the stuff that he already does. So, you know, I'm just I'm just really excited to see him pushing out into other areas. And so having new tools allows him to do new things. And I'm keen to see what he ends up working on past this. Because it's just, you know, I just have no doubt that he's going to keep coming up with weird and wonderful ideas. Yep. That's what he does.

Brad Dowdy: I had the exact same thought. I was like, oh, this is a cool way to spread around some of the things that he does. Like it's it's all connected together, but it's a little bit different and a little bit individual. And I don't know. It's very cool. So I'm very, very happy with with how these turned out. And thank you again, Jonathan. All right. So one quick link before we get into the ask, ask TPA. We we have a lot of questions to get to. I don't know if we'll get to them all today. We'll work on that. We've been we've been hoarding them a little bit. But I was on the stationary orbit podcast, which published this past weekend, Myke. So this was a cool guest experience that I had. And John had an awesome set of questions for me. It wasn't your standard questions like the first question out of the gate that John asked me is why hasn't Lamy hired me yet? So, you know how the interview is going to go when that's the lead in question. So we talked about a range of pen stuff, a range of non pen stuff. And I just had a really, really fun time. So I wanted to make sure to share that link for anyone who's not subscribed to stationary orbit podcast. Please go do so. Listen to my episode where where John peppers me about art and music and ice cream and sneakers and why I don't work for Lamy yet. So it was good stuff.

Myke Hurley: I like the logo a lot.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, he did a good job.

Myke Hurley: It's nice.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Very cool.

Myke Hurley: All right. Let's take our final break and then we can dive in some hashtag ask TPA questions. So this episode of the pen addict is brought to you by Express VPN. We all know how a VPN protects your privacy and security online, but it can also take your TV watching to the next level by unlocking movies and shows that are available in other countries. Express VPN hides your IP address so you can control where you want sites to think you're located and you can choose from almost 100 different countries. Just think about all of the Netflix libraries you could go through. If you love anime, you could use Express VPN to access Japanese Netflix. But it's not just Netflix. Express VPN works with any streaming service. Hulu, BBC iPlayer, YouTube, whatever you want, you can get to it. Express VPN is ridiculously fast, which makes it a fantastic choice of all of the VPNs out there because when you're watching shows, you don't want buffering or lag. You want to be able to stream in high quality in HD and you can do that with Express VPN. This is something I've done myself. You know, I've poked around on different streaming services when at home and it's super good. Like if you want to be able to get other shows and other content from around the world. But one of my favorite uses for this exact thing is if you're binge watching something at home and you're traveling, you can go back to your home country's content and watch it there. So like a good example of this is when we were watching Schitt's Creek, which is on Netflix in the UK. When we were overseas, when we were watching that show, we couldn't get it because it was on a different network or whatever. So I was able to fire up Express VPN, open up the Netflix, say that I was in the UK, open up the Netflix app and I could get that content and we could watch it again in lovely HD. It was super fast, super smooth. So yeah, you can watch stuff while you're at home. But when you travel again, you'll also be able to do it too. So it's just like another really great use of Express VPN. It's compatible with all of your devices, phones, media consoles, smart TVs and more. So you can watch what you want wherever you want. If you go to expressvpn.com slash penaddict, you can get three extra months of Express VPN for free. So support the show, watch what you want and protect yourself at expressvpn.com slash penaddict. Our thanks to Express VPN for their support of this show and all of Relay FM. So it is time for some Ask TPA questions. If you ever want to send in a question for the show, you can send out a tweet with the hashtag Ask TPA. You can use question mark Ask TPA in the Relay FM members discord or you can email them to hello at penaddict.com. Our first question comes from Zach today. And Zach says, I have a budget of around $300 and I'm looking for something. I really like the solid colored black barrel and cap of the Pro Gear black and gold. I'm a classic color sort of person along with its two-tone 21 karat gold nib. But I'm also enamored with the idea of the Custom 823 of its incapacity filling system and what many say is one of the best nibs out there. What I don't... That's a Pilot Custom 823, right? Yes. I didn't mention that. What I don't love are the translucent smoke and amber colors. I like a fine, fine, medium line with... Fine or fine, medium line. Not fine, fine, medium line. I was like, what on earth is that? A fine slash fine, medium line with... But I've also recently discovered that I enjoy stub nibs as well. What should I do? Go for the sailor? Go for the Pilot? I would love to hear what Brad and Myke would choose.

Brad Dowdy: Number one, Zach, I owe you an apology. This email slipped through the cracks. I've sat on this for quite some time. Oh, yeah. Zach very well could have moved out of the country by now. It's been so long since I have received this email, so I'd like to apologize. But I think I have an answer. I think regular listeners of the show are probably yelling the answer. And I think it's probably going to be the best choice based on Zach's conversation around... I like the classic style of the pro gear. I want the nib of the 823, but I don't like how it looks. Pilot makes a pen called the Pilot Custom Heritage 912, which is one of the best deals for an understated classic gold nib fountain pen where you can get a good enough ink capacity. It fits the larger pilot converter, the Pilot Con 70. So you get more ink capacity in the pro gear. Obviously far less than the 823. But you'll get that same awesome Pilot nib with way more nib choices than they used to offer in the 912, at least in the U.S. market. So they've expanded the types of nibs. They go all the way up to their stub nib. And, you know, they have Waverly nibs and Falcons and FAs and POs and all kinds of wild stuff now. If you like the classic style, want great quality and really good ink capacity, I think the Pilot 912 is the way to go.

Myke Hurley: So, I mean, out of the two, is it 912 on 92? Which one is it? The Custom Heritage?

Brad Dowdy: 912. Okay, sorry. So he's mentioned it. So the 92 is a lower cost. The 92 is actually a piston filler. Right. Which is a great pen, but you're going to get a smaller nib and a smaller size barrel. And they're translucent. So it doesn't sound like Zach is much of a translucent person. Like the 91 is a solid color with a smaller nib. But the 912, I know all these numbers kind of run together. There's a 91, a 92, and a 912. They're all similar. So the 912 is one of my most recommended pens because of the quality of that pen related to the price and related to the other pens that are around there. The 912 is the pen I want Pilot to go on the attack against the Pro Gear with and start doing some stuff with that pen. And make it into, you know, a little bit, give it a little bit more character. You know, they don't have to go full custom Pro Gear style. But man, it's kind of the perfect platform for that to happen. So I would love to see the 912 be that pen. That's like my pen to dream on for Pilot to do something interesting. And they've refused.

Myke Hurley: So I was actually going to say, I think this might surprise people. I would recommend one of the Pilots as well. I think the Pilot nibs are really interesting if you get a good one. And it's a very different experience. But if you like that classic black gold pen design, the Pilots look better than the Pro Gears do in that style. I think that the overall like rounded ends and stuff like that, and like the profile and like just the overall look of the Pilot, say the Custom Heritage 92 or the 823, I think they look better at that like classic style than the Pro Gear does.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I think that's fair.

Myke Hurley: This one comes from Mark. I have a friend who lives in the far northeast corner of Australia. He told me recently he swears by cheap vodka for cleaning his pens because it's so humid where he lives. And he worries about moisture not drying. And the alcohol and the vodka dries very quickly. At first, I was alarmed to hear this. But then it occurred to me if it's safer for people to drink, it's probably safer pens. Curious to know what you guys think about this. I mean, my initial thought on this is like, well, yeah, it's alcohol, right? So like alcohol would be good for cleaning. But something that we learned early on in the pandemic is that alcohol disinfectants can erode coloring on pens, right? So I don't know if that would be something to be worried about here as well. But I understand logically why someone would want to use cheap vodka to clean a pen.

Brad Dowdy: It doesn't seem wild to me. Like, see, I disagree with that last part. And I agree with the overall sentiment. But I don't think this is logical at all. Like, I can drink a lot of things that I wouldn't put my pens in.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, but alcohol is a cleaning agent. It's like I wouldn't use Coca-Cola, right? But like cheap alcohol is still alcohol. Look, there's not my first choice. I would never come to this conclusion on my own. But now that I hear someone doing it, it's kind of like, I mean, I kind of get it.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, I kind of get it if you're the last person on Earth. Yeah. No, like, no, please don't do this. Okay. Like, and I'm like, you can tell me, like, someone can come up scientifically and tell me I'm wrong. Like, I'm willing to accept that. Please don't do this. This is a hard no for me. Just, you know, clean it with water, air dry it, dry it with a paper towel, you know, store it in inside, like in a closet, in a dark closet, you know, to try to get out of the tropical atmosphere you're in that's, you know, adding humidity and different things to the pens. And I would skip the vodka because I think you're just going to end up breaking down the pen sooner than you would otherwise.

Myke Hurley: I'm not advocating for it. I know. I just merely, like, I just wanted to stay for the record. I'm just saying I can understand how someone will get to this. Maybe that's part of the problem.

Brad Dowdy: I can understand why this is a question.

Myke Hurley: Okay. I'm going to try and pronounce an unpronounceable Discord handle here. Gixgly says, I'm looking for a hardcover, non-spiral A5 notebook with perforated pages so I can easily rip them out. Would you be so kind as to help me find it?

Brad Dowdy: This is an amazing question because, to my knowledge, this is a product that does not exist in its entirety, right? So you can get an A5 notebook pages that will have 20 pages in the back of the book be perforated. The Lamy, Lamy's new notebook, I think they do a fantastic job with the perfs in the back. And other notebook companies will have perforated pages in the back. You'll often see that in your smaller pocket-sized notebooks, rarely in the A5. So Lamy, I know, has them. But a full, completely through, the 198 pages A5 notebook bound, like a traditional sidebound A5 notebook that is fully perforated? I have never seen one. If you have, I'd love to be made aware of it.

Brad Dowdy: I'm trying to decide what I'm holding, and that's my answer to the question. What I'm trying to decide, Myke, is if this is a good product idea or a bad product idea. And I think it's kind of going against why those A5 hardcover notebooks exist. They exist because people already have other disposable pages in their pads and notebooks and smaller notebooks. To where this notebook, the theory that most people will take with this notebook is this notebook is made to stay together for consistency purposes, for context purposes. And, you know, journaling, diaries, planners, schedules, and not, you know, necessarily ripping them out. So that's where I'm thinking with this. So I understand having, hey, give me a few pages so when I'm talking to my friend, I can rip them out a note and not destroy my notebook. But the entirety of the notebook? Yeah, I'd be interested to know if this product existed at all.

Myke Hurley: It seems complicated. It's like a very, this is what you were saying to start, right? You can maybe take off a few of these. But like you might end up with like, oh, spiral bound, you know?

Brad Dowdy: Right. Yeah. So then you have spiral bounds and you have top bound pads and you have all these other solutions. It's almost like this is, these notebooks are made to solve different problems than the problem that Gixley's trying to solve. Not that that's not a valid problem. Like, but I'm just thinking that it doesn't exist outside of a few pages in the back of a notebook for whatever reason. I know it could be just a straight up cost reason, right? Like you have to perf, you know, 200 pages instead of 20. That's a little bit added cost. Probably not that much. But I don't know. I'm trying to decide if this product should exist. And I, I'd have trouble with it. Like seeing it be like a huge success. Say, oh, this is the product that I needed in my life. So I'd be interested to see what the use case is for Gixley if they wanted to reach out and, and we can talk this through up because I'm kind of interested in the idea of it, but I don't think it exists.

Myke Hurley: Okay. Chris May asks, today I carefully cleaned out two of my pens in the kitchen sink. Hours later, my wife found a surprisingly large amount of ink hiding on our counter. Is there a way you are able to protect surfaces throughout the fountain pen cleaning, filling a cycle? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So I think everyone's gone through this, right? There's stray ink drops just go flying. Sometimes you don't even see how or where or why. So that's why I bought like a 12 by 18 cutting mat. I think that's, or it might, it could be 18 by 24. It's a decent size cutting mat, which you can just get off of, you know, wherever you shop for any kind of supplies. Um, and that's my base for my workstation at the sink. And then I put like a microfiber cloth on top of that. So things don't roll away. So I kind of have those two layers. And if I'm working on that, I'm mostly going to capture anything that's going to go rogue on me while I'm cleaning. You know, you still end up with a random dot here, random dot there, but that's what I use as a platform or a base when I'm cleaning every time. Like it sits, this cutting mat sits with my cleaning stuff because they're all essentially my cleaning kit. They all work in conjunction, work with each other to, to get this done. So, um, yeah, that's what I use. Um, I like a towel is fine, but I would still have something under the towel first. And that's what I ended up on was the cutting mat.

Myke Hurley: I don't really have any in particular, I just like use a lot of like paper towel and stuff. Yeah. But, but yeah, it's good to have some, to at least understand that you're going to get it somewhere. So like really pay attention to where you're putting things down. Cause part of the problem that I find is like, this, as soon as you add water to the equation, because you, then you're like infinitely growing the amount of ink because the droplets of water then become droplets of ink. Like that becomes the issue for me. Like you're just, you could be getting it everywhere.

Myke Hurley: Uh, dot ketchup asks, as a Canadian, I was looking into Ferris wheel press as a way to help out a local business. Do you have any opinions on their ink and pens? I remember this company.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I have never used campaign, right? Yep. Yep. They've had a couple now they've done a pin and then they've kind of leaned into the ink market. I've never used any of their products. I haven't really been compelled by the ink colors, right? The ink colors seem pretty standard or things that I already had, despite like the super nice packaging. But I think the gift stuff for sure. But I think the concept,

Myke Hurley: Harrods, Brad, how about that? No surprising.

Brad Dowdy: But I think the concept of this question is good. Like looking into Ferris wheel press. Yeah. They seem, you know, completely fine. You know, they're from your home country. They're in your home market. You can shop at, you know, Canadian stores like Ley Wines or Wonder Pens or, you know, there's several other ones throughout Canada that I'm sure stuck. Ferris wheel press. Ferris wheel press. You know, I think Anna.

Myke Hurley: Oh, God, it's all so beautiful. Like I'm just like scrolling through their website now. Yeah. It really is like packaging wise, I think probably the best.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, it's great looking. So good. Yeah. But like when I see like ink swatches and samples, I'm like, yeah, it's fine. Like I just, it hasn't been, the inside of the bottle hasn't been as compelling to me as the outside of the bottle. Put it that way. But they keep doing new things. They keep trying new things. And that's the life of a new company too, right? They had to start somewhere. And now they're continuing and they're adding new inks. I saw some new inks come out recently. So, yeah. I mean, I would certainly, they're certainly worth checking out, especially if you want to support a local company.

Myke Hurley: This is, as a collection, I think like the best looking collection. Because I remember they had a Kickstarter campaign is what I remember them from. They had, I think two. But I don't remember what the product was for. But I remember there was one particularly. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So the first, the one we talked about was for a pen that I thought was interesting.

Brad Dowdy: And then they had some ink with it. And then they've done, I think, ink Kickstarter six. And I'm not looking it up. I'm just reciting from memory. So, yeah. But I think they've really leaned into the ink side of the business. I don't see much about the pens anymore.

Myke Hurley: F Nordstrom asks, I like the Statler Tri Plus Fineliner pens. They're the best for coloring, in my opinion. But they are, of course, not made for filling larger areas. Is there a thicker counterpart with the same colors in the fact that you shouldn't be able to see the difference between the pens?

Brad Dowdy: God, I love this question. Again, I don't know that there's an answer to this. Because once you start getting into, like, the larger tipped fineliners, they kind of cap out around one millimeter. And then you're getting into, well, I guess there's some bigger than the one millimeter. I'm sorry. I misspoke. But then you start getting into outside of your brand. And the issue F Nordstrom has is, say, I'm using this blue fineliner, right? And it's great at detail work. But now I have a big area I need to fill in. It needs to look the same. And I'm either going to have a hand cramp or destroy this pen by the time I'm done. So what can I do to match? I don't know if Copic is the solution. I don't know. Like, I couldn't speak to how they would match up into those interior areas. But Copic at least has that range of all the way very tiny fine to all the way wide to cover big areas, including brush tips. And I would at least trust that those colors would be matches for each other.

Myke Hurley: That's the thing. I think if you really want to be able to have the same colors, like exact same colors and different thicknesses, you need to look at a brand where that's their business.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Like, Statler does not do that. No. Secura does not do that.

Myke Hurley: The whole thing is, like, we have this color system. They're all numbered. And then you pick the pen size that you want. And, like, a lot of Copic, they have two tips, right? They have a tip on each end. And one is finer and one is wider. And so I would say, like, the Statler Triplus Fineliner pens, they're my recommendation because they're really good and fair priced. Copics are the best for coloring. They're just really expensive comparatively.

Brad Dowdy: So I think, now that I've thought about this, I think Tombow might be an option. Okay. So they do some, they don't have a wide range of narrow pens, but they expand into marker and brush tips that might be an option at less than Copic prices. But, like, Copic's popular for a reason, like Myke's saying. Like, you're buying into a system with Copic. Yep. And it's Copic's job to make sure that you're going to have that consistency. But you're paying for it. But you're paying for it. Where Tombow, they might make a fineliner and they might make a brush pen and they're both red, but are they the same ink? So that, if anyone, I would look at Tombow and at least do some testing. Because I think you could get the big and small options that you need and it might be good. It might be a match. So now that I've had some time to think about it, I think that might be a choice to maybe look at that.

Myke Hurley: Alright, let's do a final question for today. It comes from Bed Calligraphy. My friends are looking for a pen to use for their guest book at their wedding. Their stipulation is the ease of use, looks good, and won't smear. Do you have any suggestions?

Brad Dowdy: Do you know the answer to this question?

Myke Hurley: No.

Brad Dowdy: The answer is we don't have enough information, unfortunately. So this is one I should have reached out to Bed Calligraphy directly. And if you catch this and there's still time for me to answer this question, we need to know what paper they're going to use because that's going to determine what pen you can use. Because ease of use looks good and won't smear. That's, we might can get there, but none of that's going to matter unless we know what paper they're going to use.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, good point. That's a tough, that's, we can't just give a point blank definitive answer for this without getting more information. And that's my fault for not seeing this question when it was live to say, hey, can you, what's the follow-up is? Hey, what kind of, do you know what kind of paper they're using? Because that's going to matter.

Myke Hurley: So if you still need the answer to that question, please send the information in.

Brad Dowdy: Sorry, Bed Calligraphy.

Myke Hurley: If you want to find links for this episode, go to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 435. You can find Brad over at penaddict.com. He's dowdyism on Twitter and penaddict on Instagram. I am imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Brad streams live on Twitch Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10 a.m. Eastern time. So does Myke. Twitch.tv slash penaddict. I sometimes stream at that time. I stream randomly. Go to mike.live, follow for notifications, and I will at some point make a schedule. Thanks so much to our sponsors this week, the fine folk over at PenchLA and ExpressVPN. And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.