The Pen Addict 41/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	41
Title:	I Liken It To Unicorn Poop
Release Date:	February 6th, 2013
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 41
Audio File:	Audio Episode 41
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 41
Length:	3939 min <br />0.65 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: Hello and welcome to episode 41 of The Pen Addict podcast, a weekly show where we discuss pens, paper, and the analogue tools that we love so dearly. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined today by the evil Knievel of The Pen World, Mr. Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: I don't know if that means I'm a daredevil, like in the early part of his career, or I'm a complete train wreck, like he was towards the end of his career.

Myke Hurley: I'm going to say you're a trailblazer.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Okay, alright. I appreciate that as opposed to the wheelchair-bound crazy person that he became.

Myke Hurley: But you will probably become that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and you know what? There's no doubt in my mind, and if you talk to my wife, I'm well on the way.

Myke Hurley: So, yeah, I expect that to happen, so there you go.

Brad Dowdy: Well, good, good. That's something to look forward to there.

TWSBI Mini

Brad Dowdy: Oh dear. So, hey, I got a new pen in the mail.

Myke Hurley: Ooh, what'd you get?

Brad Dowdy: Something we've talked about, something I said I was going to get, but there's something, there's a little twist to this one, but it's a TWSBI Mini.

Myke Hurley: Okay.

Brad Dowdy: That I purchased, that I knew this is a pen that there was no doubt I was going to get from the time they announced it and released it. It's just, you know, depending on when the budget allowed me to get it. It took me a little bit of time to get, but I have one now. And, you know, some of our friends online have reviewed them and they've enjoyed them. And I have, you know, I have one other TWSBI that I like. So I knew I would like this pen. And, you know, in sort of a pre-review review before, since I haven't reviewed it on penaddict.com yet, I'm really enjoying this pen. Why? You know, I'll put in, we'll put in the show notes a link to it when I was doing a, just kind of an ink test. I did a Flickr post this weekend where, I had a long weekend, a couple weekends ago, I guess when I took this picture. And I didn't really get to, you know, get involved with my pens or inks or anything like that. So I took a picture that said, you know, first time I've touched a pen this weekend. So it was my TWSBI mini. And if you will notice the nib on this one, Myke, I don't know if you can see that.

Myke Hurley: I can, and I'm very intrigued.

Brad Dowdy: It is, and you'll hear me clicking around here. If you hear that in the background, that's me playing with this pen. It is a 1.5 millimeter italic nib.

Myke Hurley: Now this looks like a thick pen here.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, it is. It's wide, it's a wide, flat, it's almost squared off. I hate to say squared off because it's not rough. It's actually rounded on the edges, which, you know, when I do a proper review of this pen, I'll take some better pictures. I wasn't going for it.

Myke Hurley: You'll take some real close-ups.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I wasn't going for that with this picture. I just took with my iPhone. You know, I love this nib. You know, we talked in the last episode about never saying never. You know, first I never thought I'd get into fountain pens. Then I never thought I would get into wide nib pens. You know, I like my Japanese fine nibs, right? This pen is a treat to write with. I think the ink helps that I use, which in this picture is the Pyrotero Shizuku Kanpeki, which we will talk about later. So keep this image on your screen and available. We will talk about this image more as the main part of our episode. But back to the pen. You know, I got the translucent barrel. That's usually my first choice. Like the options in this one were actually pretty limited. It came in black, the fully black, fully translucent, and then one that's kind of half and half, where the cap was black. The section, which is, you know, like the grip area was black, and then the center barrel, where the facets are, was translucent. And I thought that one was actually pretty ugly. That wasn't my favorite one. It probably looks better in person than it does in pictures. But I went with the translucent.

Brad Dowdy: It's real well made. You know, it's the same plastic as any other TWSBI model. It feels durable. You know, with the cap unposted, it's probably a little, it's long enough to write with comfortably. I wouldn't want to do it a long time. But a unique feature about this pen, and I've seen it on some other mini fountain pens, is that the cap actually is threaded on the end of the pen when you post it as well. So it doesn't just sit on the end of the pen. And you can screw it on the end of the pen for a tighter fit. Because what happens is, since it's a shorter barreled pen, if it didn't have that threading on that cap, that's right where you have that, where the cap touches, like, in the cusp of your hand, right? So there's movement there. And the cap will loosen up. I've found in pens that don't have a tight fit when you post the cap, that the cap actually gets loose and becomes an annoyance while you're writing. That's kind of hard to explain in words. But I've seen it where if you just, on a mini type pen, the cap will just end up working itself up and off the pen if it doesn't have this threading, which this pen does. And I'm really happy about that. So with the pen cap posted, it's the perfect writing length. It's by no means too short. It's longer than a Coeco Sport or an AL Sport. When those are posted, it's actually a little bit longer. I'll do some measurements when I do the proper review of it showing the length difference. But I bet it's a quarter to a half an inch longer than an AL Sport with both the caps posted. So it's a really, really good size pen. So I'm really happy with it. It's not exactly a cheap pen. I think I paid $55 for it. I think I got it from Goulet Pens. I know I got it from Goulet Pens. I can't remember if it was $50 or $55. I think it's $55. And that's pretty much the going rate. So it's not super, super cheap. But I felt that was a fair price for it. I wouldn't pay $75 for this pen. I think it would be a little much. But I'm happy with it. And what I'm mostly happy with is that I'm going to... I think I found my ink review pen. And that's going to be our main topic of discussion today.

Myke Hurley: So where did you find the italic nib?

Brad Dowdy: It's stock. It's one of the stock options. They have fine, medium, broad, 1.1 millimeter italic and 1.5 millimeter italic. So there's five nib options. I hope I'm right about that. I'm just recalling that off the top of my head.

Myke Hurley: And that was with Goulet? Uh-huh.

VAC 700

Myke Hurley: Interesting indeed. I'm on Twisby's site right now. And something caught my eye. VAC 700.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That was their last big release. Full-size pen, I believe.

Myke Hurley: Vacuum inking. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I don't have one, so I don't know.

Myke Hurley: So you like... You pull...

Brad Dowdy: It's like... Yeah, go ahead.

Myke Hurley: You like pull the end out. And it sucks the ink into the pen. And they have like specific bottles for it. Just seems interesting.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's gotten really good reviews.

Brad Dowdy: I haven't gotten there yet. It's similar... I kind of alluded to it in... My Pilot Heritage 91 and 912 review. That the converter that Pilot used... The CON70 converter... Is kind of, sort of, similar to this. Where you basically... You push down a button... And it just like sucks it up like a vacuum.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I got one of those for my Pereira. Yeah. And that was what caused the explosion.

Brad Dowdy: So I don't think this is the exact mechanism. But I think it's a similar mechanism. But not having one and not having experience with that... You know, I'm not positive. This is probably one of those pens that I'll get way down the line... If I ever... If ever at all. Just because I have... You know, my 5... TWSBI 540. It's not that much different except for the filling system.

Myke Hurley: I really wish you wouldn't mention that pen around me.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That's a cool pen.

Myke Hurley: I know it is. It's the one I want. But I can't find it.

Brad Dowdy: I'll see if I can find you one. I'll work on that.

Myke Hurley: If you can. If anybody can. I would be very appreciative. And very upset, actually. Because TWSBI were having a sale. And they had the 540 in the sale. But now it's sold out. And I just didn't have the cash right then to drop on it. Because it's actually quite expensive. It's like 80 bucks.

TWSBI 540

Brad Dowdy: No, no, no. Not this one. Hmm? Mm-mm. I don't think I paid that much for it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, you might not have. Let me see how much it is listed as in the store currently. Even though it is out of stock. You're probably right, aren't you? Yeah, 55.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: So a little bit more than the usual.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Which is actually the same amount as I paid for this mini.

Myke Hurley: Well, there you go.

Brad Dowdy: Which is interesting. Which is interesting.

Brad Dowdy: You know, so.

Myke Hurley: Oh, on TWSBI's site, they have like 540 nib sets, which are quite interesting.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, okay. Where you just replace. You can get the full complement. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. It says stub 1.1 on 1.5. That's the italic. Okay.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I guess that's what you call it. There's a. I don't know if the stub, which I've been calling it italic, because that's what I thought it was. But I think maybe the stub might be, like, you know how I said it might be more rounded on the edge. I wonder if the italic is actually a harder edge nib. You know, like a very sharp break on the edge of the metal. So, this is one of those things where we were talking about last episode, where we say, you know, we don't know everything. So, we'd love to hear your feedback on what's the difference between a stub and an italic nib, and is there a difference, or are those terms interchangeable? I mean, that's a good question.

Myke Hurley: I don't know, but I would have assumed that a stub is flat at the bottom and an italic is chiseled towards one side. Yeah, that's possible. I don't know that, but that's just how that seems to me. So, yeah, interesting. Twisby is high on my list now. Good. They are high on my list. From all sides, people are telling me that I need to get one, so.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, you should. And honestly, you know, they have that VAC 700. They have the Micarta, which is, you know, kind of that wood. I think we talked about it before, just in passing. It might have not even been on the show. It might have been in our after hours.

Myke Hurley: This was on our special pre-show a couple of weeks ago. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: You know, it's kind of got a wood grain finish. The next Twisby I buy, honestly, I would probably buy another 540, and I like the blue barrel, but I don't see the, for me, I don't see the, what, $25 price difference between the 540 and the VAC 700, but I'm willing to be convinced otherwise.

Myke Hurley: You see, I want a Twisby. I don't want the Mini. I want a full size. And the VAC interests me, but it's not what I want.

Brad Dowdy: Gotcha. I think the VAC, back when I was looking at them, I think the VAC also seemed to be a little bit longer. And the 540 is already a pretty large pin.

Myke Hurley: Right.

Brad Dowdy: I don't know if I could even take even, you know, a quarter inch more on that pin.

Myke Hurley: Because the 540s are done now, aren't they? The 580, it seems, is coming soon.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. But I like the colored barrels of the 540, so I like the amber and the blue. So, I don't know. It's a good pin. I'm real happy with that purchase. And I'm real happy with this Twisby Mini purchase. There'll be a full review coming up at some point when I get the time. That's always the issue these days. I've got stacks and stacks of things to review and no time to do so.

Myke Hurley: And that's just the way.

Ink Reviews

Brad Dowdy: But that's what I want to talk about today, ink reviewing. So, why don't we get moving towards that?

Myke Hurley: There's one other thing that you've got in your notes here, though. I don't know if you want to talk about it. The Rodea.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, let's save that. Because that kind of goes hand in hand with the ink reviews. And I probably should have put it in that section, too. But I figured it came up in this picture that you were looking at. And we will definitely cover this Rodea pad that I'm using in this image because I want to talk about that. But let's go ahead and do our sponsor and then we'll get into it.

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Brad Dowdy: All right. Thank you, Squarespace.

Myke Hurley: Thank you, indeed. All right.

Fountain Pen Inks

Brad Dowdy: So what I want to talk about today is fountain pen inks in general and also the testing and reviewing of inks, which is something I'm working on. And to kind of kick this off, I got an email just the other day from a gentleman named Peter, and I actually told him I was going to talk about this in an upcoming podcast episode. So I hope you're listening, Peter. So his email reads, the subject line is bottled ink. He says, guys, I listen to your podcast and enjoy your thoughts. I don't know if you've talked about this before, but I'm one of those people who enjoy several different fountain pens, but I've always viewed ink as a commodity. I have six or seven fountain pens that I rotate through. Typically, I'll fill one, use it till it runs dry, then clean it and fill up the next one. I have two Parkers, a Waterman, a Montblok Meister Stuck, which I love, and a custom pen made for me in Hawaii, which I think has a pilot nib. Point is, I normally use the same ink for all the pens. I don't need a lot of different colors, only black. And my primary criterion is simply a good line that doesn't skip or thin out. Are inks a commodity? Are they fungible? Should I use Quink, which is a Parker ink? I put a link in the notes. We'll share. For my Parker, should I use Quink for my Parker, but something else for the pilot? Help. So this was a really good...

Myke Hurley: I want to make a very quick plea to Peter. I want to see a picture of his pens. Okay. Because he just sounds like he's got a really nice selection there. That does. Peter, please email us back with some photos of the stuff that you've got. I especially want to see the Mont Blanc and the custom pen that you had made.

Brad Dowdy: Absolutely. And I want to see the Parkers. So yeah.

Myke Hurley: People should include more images in their emails that they send us, I think.

Myke Hurley: I want to see what people are using.

Brad Dowdy: I want to see the Parkers. And I'm going to sidetrack us here. But when I go to the pen show, at the top of my list is a pen, which is super, super famous. And there's tons of out there, but I don't own. It's called a Parker 51. So maybe after I purchase one, we'll go do a whole episode on that. Because that's one of those, you know... This isn't the... We could lose an hour talking about that.

Myke Hurley: This isn't the one that we were talking about a couple of weeks ago.

Brad Dowdy: No. Oh, no. No. This is an old, no longer made pen that was made from like the 40s to the 60s or 70s. Something like that.

Myke Hurley: I'm going to put in the show notes one of the ugliest web pages I've ever seen in my life.

Myke Hurley: Parker51.com.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Some of them are pretty rough. There's one guy whose website I've... Maybe this website. I don't know. Who's tried to... Who's got information like on every Parker release ever. So I've spent some time browsing on that. But that's a digression. That's a digression. So back to Peter. I thought this email was really good and had a couple of separate topics to discuss just in his email. And one is, are inks a commodity? Do you use... Is it necessary to have different inks for different pens? He asked, are they fungible? Are they interchangeable with each other? Is one ink as good as the next?

Brad Dowdy: I mean, it depends on the person, honestly. If ink's a commodity or not. I personally could not live with a single ink color in my pens. And that goes back to me.

Brad Dowdy: Until I was a kid, I didn't just... I searched out everything but black ink for my pens back from, you know, when I could only find ballpoints or rollerballs. Anything but black. Now, I've come to love black and black is one of my favorite ink colors now. But at the time, for me to get enjoyment out of my writing or drawing or whatever I was doing at the time, I wanted to use anything but black because I felt that everyone used black and I wanted something different for me. And I think that's translating into fountain pen inks for me. I'm looking at all the fountain pen inks colors is intimidating. And I'm going through that right now. So, there's no reason you have to step out from your black ink. But you should know that even in your black ink, there's different inks that could be better or could be worse than what you're currently using. But by no means should you feel a need that you have to use different inks and all your different pens. A lot of people test out a bunch of inks, find an ink they love, and then stick with that one ink in all their pens. Some people pick one from the get-go and stick with that. Some people, like myself, use a unicorn's poop worth of ink colors. Unicorn's poop rainbows. Did you know that, Myke?

Myke Hurley: I didn't until now.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Well, you fail at the internet. So, yeah. I mean, I've got a rainbow of colors. At my disposal. You know, I liken it to unicorn poop. Sorry. I'll get off that now. Yeah. No point. But it's – and that's what I enjoy. You know, the color – now that I'm getting into fountain pens, I want to see what other options are out there besides black ink or blue ink. Although, I do have a fondness for blue ink. That seems to be kind of an area where I'm going to get a little bit deeper on blue inks than other, you know, outlier inks like greens or reds and things like that. I've found a – there's a huge, huge variation in blue inks. But anyway, I don't know if I've answered your Peter.

Myke Hurley: I don't know if I've answered your Peter question.

Brad Dowdy: I don't know if I've answered your question completely, Peter. But to summarize, you don't have to feel like you have to change if you like black ink. But there's a lot out there, even just in black inks, that I think are worth checking out.

Myke Hurley: Like for me as well, like you're saying, are all inks the same? They're not. I mean – because there are other properties. Like I use some inks that dry really quickly and some that don't. And a lot of people might not notice that, but that is really important to a left-handed person.

Brad Dowdy: That's a huge deal.

Myke Hurley: That's the difference between being able to use your pen comfortably or not. Because if – as a left-hander, if I'm using an ink which is very slow drying, it means I can't write comfortably because I can't have my hand trail across the page. Because otherwise, my writing is totally smudged. So it makes a big difference to me that an ink is quick to dry.

Brad Dowdy: Right. And I think actually that the ink that he uses, the Quink, is actually one of the – and I haven't tested it myself, but it's an ink that's been made for ages and ages and ages. And I think the idea behind it is that it is a quick-drying ink. But yes, there's a whole wide range of ink properties, and you're liable to buy one.

Ink Reviews

Brad Dowdy: Luckily, there's lots of reviews out there these days, and you can search some of them out and see what is the dry time like. Again, this is getting on to the other topic that I want to discuss. But you can read – you need to realize – you need to figure out what's important to you in your ink. Like for Myke, dry time is hugely important to him because there's going to be some smearing if his hand drags when he writes, which he just can't get around it. And unfortunately, he's a lefty, and they're at a huge disadvantage when it comes to wet inks like a fountain pen ink, especially a water-based ink.

Brad Dowdy: There's going to be different properties that are important to you. You have to decide what those are and go from there. And if you want to switch it out, you might find something better. You might find something that flows better, that has a darker color than the black you're using. The black you're using might be watered out in relation to a different black ink that dries the same amount in the same amount of time, but is a deeper, richer, more saturated color. So it's not an easy – I can't say – I can't tell you which ink to go try, but I can say that there could be better things out there than what you're using. But you've got to determine what's important to you in ink performance.

Brad Dowdy: And those are the kind of things I'm trying to figure out when I'm doing these ink reviews, Myke. So we've talked about how I've bought a bunch of samples from Goulet pens and subscribed to the ink drop, and I have my rainbow of colors that I want to test out. And part of that was – okay, that first step was that fountain pen cleaning discussion that we have is, I'm worried about how fast can I move from one ink to the other just from a testing perspective, and do I want to, and how fast do I want to move? For one, do I want to give it some time? Do I want to spend one day, three days a week with an ink color? Or do I want to do a review in an hour, spend a good solid hour with the ink, clean my pen in 15 minutes, have another ink in there, and do another review? I'm trying to figure that all out, and I'm having a difficult time. So what I've been doing, there's a lot of great ink reviews online, and I've been trying to see what aspects from those reviews that I enjoy and see what things are important to me and then kind of apply all of that into my style of review. You know, I do a lot of handwritten reviews, and it's generally just simple text-based reviews. I think there's a little more that can be done with ink reviews, right? Because you want to show the range of colors that a single ink can have, whether it's, you know, in a fine nib, a wide nib. And I think that's exactly why I got this Twisby with a wider nib, so I can show the ink better on the page. The first amount of testing I've done, and I haven't even released these reviews yet, I did with a Lamy Vista medium nib. And it was fine, but I didn't think it photographed well enough to show the qualities of the ink for an ink review purpose, if that makes sense. Like, I thought I was stretching it by not using my fine or extra fine nib. I was like, oh, I'm going to go to a medium that's going to show the colors really well. And I was pretty unhappy with that. So that's what the impetus was for getting this Twisby 1.5 stub nib. And I'm real happy with that so far. I think it's going to photograph well. You can see the color variation in the line, which is the shading I talk about in our notes. If you're just looking at the ink, you see a flat ink color. But by the time you spread that ink out on the page, there's a variation in the color shading in there. So that's a big deal to a lot of people. Is there shading or is there not any shading in the ink color? And if you go back to that picture that I linked, which is the Pilot Orozuzuku Kanpeki, which is one of the most popular blue inks around. I mean, everyone seems to love this Kanpeki color. Or what I've tried to do is I put the ink on my – I did my pocket knife in the ink and just spread it across the page. I've seen a couple other people do that, and I thought, wow, that's a really good idea. You can just see just the range of ink from like a heavy blob that gets on the paper to where it thins out to where the blade really scrapes most of the ink off the page. And there's this huge variation in color, and you can see that.

Brad Dowdy: And then I've also done just some basic writing samples, some basic overlay of colors, one pass of the color, two pass of the colors, three pass of the colors. And I'm not sure what else – I haven't figured out what else I'm going to include or how I'm going to really present these ink reviews. I'm still delimited. What I've taken here is I have a little notebook that I haven't been using. It's called the Rhodia Unlimited. And I don't think we've ever talked about this one before. But it's a pocket Rhodia with a band, and it's fully perforated throughout the whole notebook. So I thought I could keep all these ink samples. You can kind of see the show through of one I've done on the page before in that image. I'm going to keep a running book of all my inks, which I think is a good idea. So I can reference back when I've used up these samples, which are – the samples are usually about two milliliters. So that's – you can get maybe one and a half, two fills, more than enough to sample an ink to see if you want to buy a bottle. But I wanted to have a record of it because that amount of ink is not going to last me forever, right? So I wanted to make sure I got a record of it in this format. But this isn't the format I want to present in my review. So I'm still trying to work out the details on how exactly I'm going to do it. But I think it's going to be easier now that I have this stub nib to just do more of my basic written review with a couple of extra samples, maybe a second picture like I've shown here of the Oro Shizuku as a second image with the ink spreading and things like that. So it's a work in progress for me. It's been a challenge in getting this started. I already have about 10 inks or so to sample, and I haven't gotten started on any reviews yet. Well, I've had some attempts. So anyway, that's kind of the place that I'm at on these ink reviews. And I need to get cracking on them because I'm going to get – aside from the inks that I want to try on my own, I'll be getting this subscription service from the Ink Drop, which gives me five new inks per month. So I need to get going on this. But I'm enjoying playing around with them. I just haven't been happy with how I want to present them yet. So it's enough of me rambling about my ink reviews. Do you have any suggestions? What do you need to know? I mean dry time is really important to you, right? Do you have other things you look for in an ink?

Myke Hurley: I mean dry time is important. And then color. They're kind of the only two at the moment because I'm very new to it, even newer than you. So dry time I wouldn't even think about if it wasn't a necessity. The other is just the way it looks on the page. And also as well, I mean I don't know if you're able to show this, the difference between the ink wet and the ink dry because obviously the color does change. Right. And that's something that I've been noticing with some stuff that I've been trying.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's absolutely the case. And I've noticed it in just the two J. Urban ink reviews I've done. And one's really old and one's recent. Both of those are very highly shaded ink. And they're very watery. They're very liquid. They're very wet on the page. So when I'm right with them, they look one way. And when it dries, it looks completely different. And that's what you're talking about.

Myke Hurley: I mean what would be awesome as well, I mean I don't know how you could do this. It would take a lot of logistics. But how the ink color changes over time would just be a cool thing to know. Like does the ink fade after six months?

Brad Dowdy: Right.

Myke Hurley: You know?

Brad Dowdy: Yep. No, that's a great idea. That's a great idea.

Myke Hurley: That's important, isn't it, I guess? Mm-hmm. How they present themselves after a period of time. Right. I mean like you start getting into them things like how they react to sunlight and all that sort of stuff, which is important but really deep into the review. You know, if you leave it in the sunlight for an extended period of time, does it fade? All that sort of stuff, which could be really important to someone.

Brad Dowdy: Right, right. And that's a level of detail I probably honestly would never be able to get into.

Myke Hurley: You shouldn't. Okay. We'll never see you again.

Brad Dowdy: No, but here's the thing. I mean if that's important to someone, they know that up front, right? I'm not going to come – me personally, I'm not going to come after the fact. I was like, you know, I bought this ink, but boy, I wonder how is it going to resist fading. It's going to be, okay, I'm shopping for inks. I need something that's really, really fade resistant. What are my options? You know, and I would approach it from that aspect. I don't think I would be able to test something like that out. I would go – I would cut straight to the chase and go, okay, these inks say that, you know, they're fade proof, waterproof, bulletproof, whatever proof. And try – and go from there and trust the judgment of the manufacturer or anyone else that's reviewed the pen. But yeah, I mean there's – that's the thing is there's – when I review a Pilot Hi-Tech C 0.4 millimeter, there's not a lot of options. When I review a fountain pen or fountain pen ink, there's practically infinite options, right? So it's where do I want to draw that line? And not that it has to be a hard, fast line, but what's my starting point that I want to present? And am I presenting it accurately and informatively enough? And, you know, I think I've about got it, but honestly, the ink reviews have been a little more challenging than I thought they were going to be.

Myke Hurley: Here's a question for you. I don't know if you know the answer to this. Same ink from a bottle in a cartridge. Would they have any differing properties?

Brad Dowdy: That's a good question. I don't want to say no because I don't know. But – okay. Now, are you saying – you're saying if I bought Lamy blue ink cartridges and I bought a Lamy blue bottle ink? Same color. Same color. Same manufacturer.

Myke Hurley: Same manufacturer. Do they differ in any way? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I don't know. That's a great question.

Myke Hurley: Like, do they do anything different to the cartridges to keep the ink more cartridge friendly? Does that thing – I mean, I don't know.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. If I'm a betting man, I would bet there is some slight variation, but I certainly don't know.

Myke Hurley: That's why I ask.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That's a great question.

Myke Hurley: Because then, you know, once you start getting into that, like, is it best for me to use a bottle or is it best for me to use a cartridge? Personally, I prefer cartridge because I don't like the amount of mess that you can get into and I do get into filling pens. Right. Same here. And – I just get myself into a state with it. Like – and it doesn't matter how careful I try to be. Ink just goes everywhere.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And what I try to do, what I have been doing recently is saving all my old cartridges and cleaning them out. And I have been syringe filling some of these test inks.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And that works well. It's a lot less mess involved and I can use a smaller portion of the ink to do my testing with.

Myke Hurley: Plus, there's a couple of other things, like a couple of other things with that. So I have found any converter to be less reliable from just a sort of flow and stuff like that. Okay. Just personal experience. But also as well, cartridges are so much more convenient in the essence that if my pen runs out of ink and I am out of the office or I am somewhere, I am in a meeting, I can have another cartridge stored away in the case or something. I can't carry around the bottle of ink.

Brad Dowdy: Right.

Myke Hurley: And I can't – and if I do carry it around, I can't fill that up in the meeting. But I can easily unscrew my pen and chuck in another cartridge.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. And I think that's why I chose the Vanishing Point as my workhorse pen because it does take a cartridge and I keep those extra cartridges in my pen case or in my backpack or in my desk or wherever.

Myke Hurley: Those cartridges are good as well, like those in the Miki cartridges because they're like double the fill of a standard cartridge.

Brad Dowdy: And I actually had issues with the Vanishing Point converter in the beginning. I wasn't getting a good enough fill. So I was like, forget it. I don't need to run out of ink at work. And so I used that cartridge.

Myke Hurley: Because the J. Herbin inks that our show mascot sent us – sent to me, sorry.

Myke Hurley: They – they're international. International isn't it? I'm sorry, Clark. Short international. Yeah. They're short international and they're going a bit quicker. Although, yeah, I haven't – I'm about to finish the first one, the blue, the light blue. So for the next episode, I should be using – or should have at least used one more color. Okay.

Myke Hurley: There you go. Cool.

Ink Discussion

Brad Dowdy: I think that's – this is one of those topics I could just keep rambling on. But this is probably a good stopping point. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: We're really getting into it now, aren't we, the ink? This is the new thing.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, yeah. And we'll definitely be revisiting this down the line. So – Because this is just the start. We're ahead. Oh, yeah. This is just the start. I'm just getting into it now.

Myke Hurley: Excellent.

Brad Dowdy: Another rabbit hole.

Contact Information

Myke Hurley: Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. Okay. So you can get in touch with us in a myriad of ways. Brad can be emailed directly at thepenaddict at gmail.com. You can email us at – by going to 70decibels.com forward slash contact. Pick the penaddict from the drop-down list that you will find there. Fill out the form. I am on social networks, Twitter and app.net. I am imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Please come and join in the discussion. Brad is at dowdy, D-O-W-D-Y on app.net. Dowdyism, D-O-D-W – Oh, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. Or something like that. You work it out. Yeah, pretty close. Something like that. Not only do I get it wrong once, I get it wrong twice. Everyone knows where to find me. We're good. Find him on Twitter. Just look for him. Look in the corners of the internet and you will find Brad.

Brad Dowdy: That's true. Unfortunately, you probably will.

Myke Hurley: And you write at penaddict.com. Thank you very much for listening to this week's episode of the Pen Addict Podcast. I am Myke and he is Brad. And until next time, cheerio. Goodbye.