The Pen Addict 40/transcript
| The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript | |
|---|---|
| Episode: | 40 |
| Title: | It Was Very Troubling To Me |
| Release Date: | January 29th, 2013 |
| Hosts: | Brad Dowdy |
| Guests: | No guests this episode |
| Additional Information | |
| Official page: | Episode 40 |
| Audio File: | Audio Episode 40 |
| Podcast page: | The Pen Addict 40 |
| Length: | 3737 min <br />0.617 h <br /> minutes |
| Previous Transcript | Next Transcript |
Myke Hurley: Hello and welcome to episode 40 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 by the fully leaded, fully inked, Mr. Brad Dowdy.
Brad Dowdy: I'm not unleaded?
Myke Hurley: No, you are fully leaded.
Brad Dowdy: Okay, great, good. I think that's better.
Myke Hurley: Obviously, I mean, you know, pencil lead. Yes, absolutely. You call it lead, right? We call it lead.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, same, pencil lead. Though it's carbon. What's the other term? What other term would it be?
Myke Hurley: I don't know. I don't know if you have a different word.
Brad Dowdy: No, no, we're on the same page on that one.
Myke Hurley: Excellent, excellent. That's all I care about.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah.
Brad Dowdy: So how have you been?
Myke Hurley: Good, good. How have you been?
Brad Dowdy: Good. Well, actually, I haven't been good. I've been sick, but we don't want to talk about that. We don't need to. No, no. But yeah, it allowed me to, in my misery, to prepare for these two podcasts or this podcast we're recording today. And, you know, not that it was misery to prep for it, but I was at home sick. So I was able to type up a few notes to get us ready for today, which that's a rare occurrence recently. Usually I'm doing it while we're on the microphone, getting ready to press record for the episode. So yeah, I'm actually prepared today for a change.
Myke Hurley: Wow.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So apparently I need to be sick for me to do any prep for the podcast.
Myke Hurley: I can look into that.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Don't expect much prep is what I'm saying.
Myke Hurley: Well, unless I have my own, my way and just get these things dealt with.
Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep.
Field Notes
Myke Hurley: So where are we going today? What's on the docket?
Brad Dowdy: We have, I want to do some follow-up on the field notes talk that seems to be a running theme through the podcast. We're going to talk about that. And then we're going to get into our main topic, which provoked a lot of discussion and a lot of emails and a lot of comments. And that's on fountain pen cleaning. We said last week we were going to talk about that this week. And we are. So we've got a bunch of notes pulled together, a bunch of links, a bunch of comments. So we'll talk a lot about that. But first up, I wanted to follow up with field notes where Jim Koodle, who is the man behind field notes, not necessarily – he's behind the company that puts them out. Aaron Draplin does the design work and a lot of that for the field notes. But Jim in his office in Chicago and a gentleman named Brian – I didn't catch Brian's last name – put out a set of videos that are called An Obsessive's Guide to Field Notes Colors Editions.
Myke Hurley: It's like the perfect thing for us.
Brad Dowdy: It is. And they did it with a reason. And right when you – if you listen the first minute or two of the first episode, there's four videos. They broke them down into by year when they started doing the special editions, the colors editions releases. So there's a video for 2009, for 2010, for 2011, for 2012, each color covering the four editions they released. And in the beginning of the first episode or the first video for the 2009, Jim Koodle goes into why he felt he needed to make these videos. It's because apparently there's been a huge collector boom of these field notes and people are going crazy trying to be completists and trying to find all the different field notes that they can find. And I'm obviously guilty of that myself and a bunch of other people that I follow on Twitter.
Myke Hurley: Should we personally take the responsibility for the fact that that has occurred? That's my question to you. I don't think so. I don't think so. I think that we should.
Brad Dowdy: I know. We should. We should. But no, there was definitely people doing it before I jumped in on the bandwagon. Guys like Sandy McDonald and Jim mentioned some emails he was getting years ago for different things, trying to round up some of the promotional sets. They actually didn't go into the promotional type things that we've been doing. But they just went in strictly through the color subscription history.
Myke Hurley: I guess for them, I mean, you know, it's good to show what the colors have been in the past. So it gives you a good, you know, if you want to buy them, you know, if you want to get a color subscription in the future, it's good because you kind of get to see this is what colors gets you. And I guess the promotional ones that, you know, they don't sell anything to do with those. So it kind of, you know.
Brad Dowdy: Exactly. That's exactly right. It's a moot point. But it was a really interesting set of videos and I learned a lot. And, you know, I was I paid very close attention to some of the things that they were saying. And I actually learned a lot about when you hear it from the guys that are involved in it from day to day, you definitely learn some things. Like the first the first colors edition. Well, let me back up when that before they even started with the field notes and making the field notes brand website. And before they even had a product, you know, the story goes that Aaron Draplin created these memo books and sent them out to his friends for Christmas. And they said field notes on them. And, you know, and Jim happened to be on Draplin's mailing list. And he had actually had a copy of that one that Aaron sent. But it looks just like the craft paper, the brown craft paper ones, you know, like the basic field notes that you always get. And on the front of it has a little and it's got a little extra line like says number number X out of Y on it, which I thought was pretty neat to see. Like see the book that really kicked off the whole.
Myke Hurley: Now, that's the real. That is the real collector's edition.
Brad Dowdy: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Only only whoever was on Aaron's Christmas list that year. They really have something. Yeah. So that's the book that started it all. But then then they went into, you know, they talked about a little bit about the base edition, but they really wanted to discuss all the colors editions. And they talked about, you know, when they first decided to do it, they printed out. The first edition was called Butcher Orange for the Butcher Orange cover.
Brad Dowdy: They printed out 503 packs of those. And at the same time, they went ahead and printed out 500 of the Butcher Blue memo book three packs. And what's interesting about that is they only released the orange for the first subscription for the first version. This was before you could subscribe to the colors edition service, right? You know, you could subscribe at that point.
Brad Dowdy: Or, you know, you could just buy the individual packs, which they obviously didn't have very many of. So what happened was they released the orange. That became a big hit. And for the second release, they wanted to release the Butcher Blue. And they took so many subscriptions for that that they didn't have an – they only had enough printed of the Butcher Blue, which was the second edition, to fulfill all the subscription. And only had a few left over for individuals to buy. So from a rarity perspective, the Butcher Blue was actually a much more harder-to-get memo book than the first version, which is the Butcher Orange. Even though it was a lot – the availability was a lot lower because they were already committed to people who had seen the orange and then subscribed. Interesting. Since they printed them out on the front end but didn't release them until afterwards, it was – they were kind of tight and had a miscalculation there on how many they would really need. So I thought that was a really interesting thing.
Myke Hurley: You see, I haven't watched the videos yet. I'm looking forward very much to watching them. I'm probably going to do it this week.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, you should do it. It's about – I think all told, if you add them all up, it's maybe like 25 minutes, less than 30 minutes, I think, for all the videos. And they really give some insight, some things I learned that I didn't know. Like for one, for example, later on, once they started moving into retail and allowing some vendors to sell some of the subscription editions, there's actually different versions were printed for retail shops as opposed to the subscription edition subscribers. Or the ones that you get – that you order off the mailing list that comes out. And the way you can tell the difference is there's actually print run information on the inside back cover on the bottom right that will say like first run or things of that nature. Like the states, they gave a good example, the 50 states edition. They've kept that on as a main product line.
Myke Hurley: Yep. So I've got Expedition here. 2012 Field Notes brand Expedition first printing November 2012.
Field Notes Editions
Brad Dowdy: Yep. Oh, cool. So there will be examples. Like when they made the 50 states, the first print run, they basically guessed on quantities. Like they printed more for New York and the example they gave was less for Iowa. Well, Iowa sold out like immediately. So they had to reprint Iowa because they were keeping this on as an ongoing product. So like Iowa, you might see a second print run or a third print run or something like that. But there will be first print runs of it as well. So I thought that was an interesting tidbit to catch.
Brad Dowdy: You know, and they mentioned that it happened – there was a few things like with the Balsam Fur edition was the same thing. Like the version that was sent to the retailers was actually slightly different than the version that if you ordered it during the time it was available as part of the subscription service.
Brad Dowdy: Like the retailers, it was called a little bit something different, had a little bit something different. So they definitely – there is some markings that you can tell the difference in colors. I mean, that's just showing the – Variations.
Myke Hurley: You can really get into this as a collector once you start knowing this sort of information.
Limited Editions
Brad Dowdy: Exactly. It was very troubling to me.
Myke Hurley: Because now there are like – not only is it, oh, I've got this color. There are now differing levels of rarity to the colors. You're now putting a rare stamp even within the rarest of them. Do you know what I mean? So it's like adding layers of it.
Brad Dowdy: So get this. So yes. And so one of the – I actually made – I took note – this is how bad I am. I took notes while they were discussing these going, oh, I didn't know that. I need to write this down. So for – one of my favorites that we haven't talked about a lot, it's called American Tradesman.
Brad Dowdy: It's just a really well-made edition. It came with some cool add-ons and one of the add-ons it came with was a red carpenter pencil. Okay. You know what I'm talking – you know what I mean?
Myke Hurley: Yeah, I always wanted the American Tradesman but never got –
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So they shipped with a red carpenter pencil. Well, towards the end of the run, they ran out of red carpenter pencils. So they made white ones. Oh. So some people have white carpenter pencils with their American Tradesman. Mine are all red because I ordered right out the gate. So from a collectability standpoint, you're in trouble.
Myke Hurley: In that instance, you were better off waiting.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, because now they don't make the red or the white carpenter pencils anymore. They just make black ones.
Myke Hurley: You can still buy them online. I see some resetters still have the stock.
Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. So, I mean, it's little tiny differences like that. And like the Traveling Salesman edition came with a button. And I think they printed six different buttons. And based on the region of the U.S. you were in, they sent you – your button said something different. Like mine would have said Southeast. I'd have to go look at it to confirm that because I didn't notice it in the beginning.
Myke Hurley: I didn't get a button with mine.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, because you're across the pond. You don't count.
Myke Hurley: Again, I bought those from a U.K. reseller.
Brad Dowdy: Ah, there you go. So, see, maybe it's not the same edition. But it likely is. It probably just didn't come with the extras.
Myke Hurley: Let's see what it says.
Brad Dowdy: So, like I bought the Drive Into the Gap edition.
Myke Hurley: All mine says is Traveling Salesman edition of $24,000.
Brad Dowdy: Okay. That sounds like the accurate first edition. You just didn't get the extras. Like I bought the Drive Into the Gap, which was the summer baseball edition that came with a book. I didn't order those at first. Then I ordered them, I think, from Jetpens. And they came without the book, which was fine by me. Because the book is still available. Yeah. But anyway, it was lots of little side comments like that. Those were the things that really piqued my interest. Like my ears perked up a little bit when they said things like that. I was like, oh, you've got to be kidding me.
Myke Hurley: Yeah.
Brad Dowdy: But they did say one other thing was that Black Raven's Wing one. That's like the Black Letterpress. That one was the fastest to sell out. And it's been the most requested to reprint. I mean, they're not going to reprint it.
Myke Hurley: Oh.
Brad Dowdy: I mean, they didn't say specifically that they weren't, but I imagine that they're not.
Myke Hurley: I want one of those ones. Yeah.
Brad Dowdy: Those are the – that's been one of the most – that's the one they hear about all the time. Like, I want this. I want this.
Myke Hurley: I think that was the first book that I saw, but it wasn't the first that I bought. So I bought the – as I said before, I bought the ones with the transfer, the dry transfer edition. Mm-hmm. But, yeah, I remember seeing the Raven's Wing.
Dry Transfer
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. They talked about the dry transfer edition, and Jim's comment on that, the favorite, you know, we talked about it. I've talked about it in the past, how I would know what I would put on there, you know, what I would spell out with my letters. Jim said the favorite that he saw was a book that the cover was entitled Dead to Me. I thought that was – That was the list of all the people that were dead to you. In your notebook, I thought that was pretty funny.
Myke Hurley: I know that we've spoken about this a couple of times, but we need to get one of those guys on the show.
Brad Dowdy: I know, and I plan on it. And I was always saying I wanted to get Aaron on the show, and you would have to have, like, a serious editing fest afterward to edit out all the curse words.
Myke Hurley: I would love to get them both on, you know, eventually. And I would happily do the editing required, I think, to do it.
Brad Dowdy: It would be pretty awesome. So I will work on that.
Myke Hurley: I think that would be a couple of really good episodes there, I think. Or one or two.
Brad Dowdy: Yep. But anyway, if anyone hasn't seen the link, we'll put it in the show notes. There's four videos. They range from, like, six to 12 minutes long. Like I said, it's maybe 25 minutes in total. They're really good. If you're obsessive like me, you should definitely check these out. And you can also – I caught – I think it was last week, Jim Koodle was on a podcast called The New Disruptors with Glenn Fleischman interviewing Jim about lots of – really about Koodle. Is it Koodle Enterprises? I forget the name of his – the actual overarching name of his company. But they do the DEC ad network, and they're in several different things.
Myke Hurley: Koodle Partners.
Brad Dowdy: Koodle Partners. Thank you. They do, you know, a handful of different items. Field Notes is just one of those things, and he talked about it on this podcast. And it was a pretty good listen. So check that out.
Brad Dowdy: Excellent. Yep.
Brad Dowdy: So that was good watching. They did a good job on the videos. And Jim and Brian mentioned at one time that – well, Jim mentioned. But, you know, he had someone write in and ask about the Levi special edition. And Brian's kind of offhand comment was, oh, no one will ever get all the editions. And I was like, oh, that's a challenge.
Myke Hurley: Yeah, that is. You shouldn't say something like that.
Brad Dowdy: But he's probably right. There's things out there that we don't even know about. So, yeah, I would agree with his statement.
Myke Hurley: It's like as we were talking, people get them printed, don't they?
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. And when they do them for conferences, I mean, that's never going to be publicized. You're never going to be able to round up all those type of things. But, you know, the ones that are made for different retailers like Levi's at the time or J.Crew or JCPenney, there's been various ones that the public will be able to get somewhat readily.
Myke Hurley: Shall I talk about Squarespace before we continue?
Brad Dowdy: That you can, sir.
Myke Hurley: So this episode is, of course, brought to you by those fine folks over at Squarespace.com who give you everything you need to make an amazing website. Squarespace provides you with all of the tools that you need to create your home online. They provide you with a fully hosted, completely managed environment, which will help you create and maintain a blog, portfolio, business website. Maybe you want to create a shrine to field notes notebooks. Well, you can do that all on Squarespace. It doesn't matter how experienced you are when it comes to putting sites together. You can build something amazing in minutes. You don't have to worry about any of the under-the-hood stuff because Squarespace takes care of all of it in a very beautiful little package. They have fantastic templates. They're very clean. They let your content do all of the talking. They feature responsive web design. You have the ability to change the designs very simply. You can make little customizations. Using their WYSIWYG editor, you can change fonts. They've recently added Typekit integration. So they have some fantastic Typekit fonts built right in. You should take a look at that, Brad. I just added that.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I saw that pop up this week. Not to totally hijack your read here, but I saw that this week. So you will definitely see some font changes as soon as I get some time to do that because there's a couple of Typekit fonts that I enjoy seeing on other websites. So look for those coming soon on pinaddict.com.
Myke Hurley: Exactly. I'm going to be redesigning MikeHurley.net at some point over the next couple of months for a very specific reason. And I will most likely go with Proxima Nova because it's a beautiful one. And probably Museo Slab because that's one that we use in the network quite a lot. They have a great page builder called Layout Engine. It allows you to use a drag-and-drop interface to lay out your pages exactly how you would want. They have stats, iOS and Android apps, a great blog importer, 24-7 customer support. The list goes on. And I want you to go and try it out for free. We have a free trial. Just go to squarespace.com forward slash 70 decibels, and that's how you start your free trial. Squarespace then is a paid system, but it's well worth every penny. Squarespace starts at $10 a month for their standard plan and $20 a month for an unlimited plan. But if you sign up for a year up front, you'll automatically get 20% off that price. If you sign up for two years, you'll get 25% off. But if you use the code 70DEBILS1 at checkout, you'll get an additional 10% off your first order. Thank you very much to Squarespace, who give you everything you need to make an amazing website.
Myke Hurley: So what's next on the list, Mr. Dowdy?
Fountain Pen Cleaning
Brad Dowdy: We talked last week about fountain pen cleaning and how we, being you and I, have had some questions around that and had some issues around that just about, you know, what's the right thing to do. And you walked through, you talked about your process, which is generally what I do, which is basically, you know, flushing the nib and the section out, you know, under the sink.
Brad Dowdy: You know, sometimes I would leave the nib soaking in water overnight and then just letting them sit to kind of air dry. Just a real simple way to clean it. It doesn't take a lot of actual time to do the cleaning. But what I was doing is letting things sit and soak or air dry till there's not a drop of water. And that always, that frustrated me. Like, I didn't know if I was, one, I felt like I was doing it right, but I didn't know if I was doing it the best way I could be doing it. And what was getting on my nerves was the fact that I felt like I had to go through this routine when I wanted to change inks that was going to take me, you know, washing and cleaning the pens at night and then letting sit it out to dry the whole next day. So it might be the following night before I put new ink into whichever pen I was choosing to use. So we talked to a lot of people, got a lot of information online, got a bunch of people sending us tweets or posts on app.net saying, you know, look, you really don't have to go through all of that, you know, letting it soak or letting it air dry and all this rigmarole in getting and swapping out inks. And people were consistently saying, you know, we can look, just, we can do this. We can do it in like 10 minutes or 15 minutes and you'll be, you can swap out inks in 10 minutes. I was like, man, what am I doing wrong? So I started watching some of these videos.
Myke Hurley: Sidney's video, like I just, so Sidney Tinker on YouTube, he was on app.net as well. He sent it to us, but obviously all this stuff will be in the show notes. He was just, it was like, his video was like, he directed it to us and he was like, I don't really know what you guys are doing.
Brad Dowdy: I laughed a couple of times during that video. That was an excellent video.
Myke Hurley: But he, I think, and I said to him afterwards, I think the main thing that he did that I wasn't doing was in the video, he kind of, after he sort of washes it out, but he uses a bulb and rinses it under a tap, he adds like sort of pressure into the nib by blowing in to like where the ink goes. So into like the back of the nib, I guess it is. And that forces out any Eran ink in there and it just forces the water through. And it just, I mean, it looked like from the way he did it, it was perfect. And I will be trying this out the next time I need to change over an ink. Definitely.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And so what I've done, which is, is the same thing as I've using, used like a bulb, like a aspirator. Like it's like a, it's like a thing you get when you're a baby to suck the snot out of a baby's nose. It's like this little bulb and you can just, you know, I used it to flush, to push water through the nib section forcefully to get it out more cleanly and then used it to just blow air through it. So it's, it's like, like Sydney was showing us just blowing through the nib. And the main takeaway I took from Sydney's video is that I just need to stop being so fussy about it and stop being a wuss about it. You know, I sent him some, I sent him some comments afterwards that there were two things that I noticed that he did. One, I need to stop. I just, I need to be more aggressive in doing it. I just need to, you need to flush it out until the, till the water runs clear, dry it out as quickly as possible. And then just put your new ink in and stop futzing around with it and just do it. You know, that's, that's something that I have to get over. Cause, because I, in the past I always want like every shade of ink out. And then I want, want every drop of water dry out of the pen before I would use it again. And I think I just need to eliminate that completely. I don't think the, the water is not, is going to make that big of a difference. I think I can get it cleaner, faster with the bulb syringe. And I think it'll get drier, faster with this bulb syringe, pushing the air through it. And I think I'll be able to re-ink, you know, in a, in a quicker fashion. The second thing I took from his video and that I've never, ever done before is dump ink back into a bottle. Have you ever done that?
Myke Hurley: No.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I, I don't know why. It's just a mental thing.
Myke Hurley: Um, yeah, I would, I mean, I don't really use bottled inks that much, but if I was going to be changing the ink out, I would probably pour it away.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. See, I, I, what I, I wouldn't, I don't know why I would do that, but yeah, I wouldn't do either. I would just let the pen sit till I used all the ink.
Myke Hurley: Yeah. That's what I would also do. I mean, he did it because he wanted to show us. Yeah. I think, but yeah, I would, I wouldn't really know why I would like, would want to do it sooner. But if I did, for example, want to do it sooner, you know, like if I was like, oh, I want to, um, I want to change my ink. I would just pour it away. I wouldn't pour it back into the bottle. I don't think.
Brad Dowdy: Right.
Myke Hurley: This was super expensive.
Brad Dowdy: Right.
Brad Dowdy: So anyway, that was a, that was a good video. Um, learned a lot and taken from that, we got an email, um, from Sharon who sent us some links. And the one I really enjoyed that she sent was the one from Edison pen, which is tips on flushing nibs. And it's essentially what I'm doing now, which incorporates what Sydney was talking about is using these bulb syringes. And that's a really, really quick way to get the old ink out of the nib and then blow some air through to get them dry quicker. Um, I don't know. I think that's going to be my new, I think that's going to be my new thing. I, I used it a little bit last night, just messing around. Um, or maybe been two nights ago. Um, and I could really, I don't have my system down yet, but I could really get the ink out of the nib a lot quicker than I, I think I have been doing in the past. Just rinsing it under the sink and just what seems like holding it for several minutes and in and out of the water and drying it on different things. So, um, I, I definitely recommend that video. And then Brian Goulet from Goulet Pens has several cleaning videos he's posted. And he's also done a fountain pen 101 series that, that covers this. And he talks about cleaning out the converter, which, you know, I've taken, I've gotten to take in, um, like a syringe and pumping water in the converter just to clean it out quicker. Um, you know, he, he goes through the same bulbs. So he goes through several different ways of flushing a fountain pen. Um, just, you know, drawing in, you know, if you have a converter or a plunger type, um, fountain pen, just moving the water in and out, you know, using the, the twist mechanism on the back, you know, sucking in the water and pushing it out until you get a clean. And so you start seeing clear water going through, not ink, no ink in the water. Um, but you know, admittedly that takes a lot of time and a lot of flushes. And then, you know, he finally gets to a video where he gets on the bulb syringe and it's just a faster, more efficient way to clean the fountain pens. And I think I'm a hundred percent on board with that, with that style. So, yeah, so you're going to, you're going to have to go shopping, um, to get you a bulb syringe. You can just get it at the grocery store or anywhere, anywhere that has like bait. Like I got mine out of the baby section at a Walmart, you know, they just have them there. It's like a something all little babies, everyone with little babies uses. So anywhere that sells that type of stuff, you should be able to get an aspirator. Just, it's a little bulb with a syringe and, uh, what it, it kind of fits perfectly down in to get enough pressure. Now, if you don't, if you're not careful, you know, you can shoot things back the other direction. So do be careful which way you're aiming when you do it, if you don't have a, a tight as air fit. So, um, I think that's going to work out well.
Myke Hurley: Cool. I'll have a look for that.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Sharon also mentioned, uh, an ultrasonic cleaner, um, like you use for jewelry. If you have really tough, tough to clean pens, like when ink gets dried out, um, I'll probably never go that far. No. And actually when, when I posted this on Twitter, I posted it on Twitter after the last episode, you know, what it, what's everyone's tips and tricks. The very first answer I got was a link to like a, uh, ultrasonic cleaner. I said, okay, let me, let me, let me rephrase what I'm asking. You know, what's the best, fastest and most cost effective way to do it? Um, that, that, that wouldn't be, you know, unless you're, um, unless you're a vendor or someone that sells and works and repairs on fountain pens, I don't ever see getting a, getting a jewelry cleaner to, to really clean out the nibs.
Myke Hurley: I don't even know if I would want to, to do that. Like, I don't, I don't think I would want to put my pens in a device like that.
Brad Dowdy: Right.
Myke Hurley: I just don't, I mean, I know there's nothing, you know, obviously people use to clean them worldly goods, but I don't know. It's just something about, I don't like the thought of doing something like that.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I think at that point I'm getting a new nib for my pen or a new pen, or if I love it that much and have to have it exactly the same, I'm sending it to someone to take care of if it's that important. But I'll, ultrasonic cleaning is probably not in the cards for me.
Myke Hurley: Well, we say that now. I know. Six months time. We'll both be heralded in our ultrasonic cleaners.
Brad Dowdy: You know what? I will never say never.
Myke Hurley: There's a strong chance that's going to happen. So we might as well just face up to that fact. But I'll tell you what's going to happen, Brad. We're both going to end up with like a, I'll end up with a platygnum and you'll have like a lamy or something. And they'll be really cheap, but we'll have ground these nibs down to a fine point. And there'll be nothing like it. And it's to be too expensive to send away. So one of us will say to the other one, it's time for an ultrasonic cleaner. And then I go, yeah, I know. And then we'll wonder how we ever got on without them. We'll be frying our high tech season there.
Pilot Hi-Tech C
Brad Dowdy: You know, I was talking today to our friend Kanuni Rineshen on Twitter, who seems to be a recurring theme every episode now as well.
Myke Hurley: She's like the unofficial guest of every episode.
Brad Dowdy: She's our unofficial podcast mascot. But she said, she was basically saying, you know, oh my gosh, I just discovered the Pilot Hi-Tech C. Why have I not ever used a 0.4 millimeter pen tip? I mean, this was just like two days ago or a day ago.
Myke Hurley: Yeah.
Brad Dowdy: I'm like, you know what, that's where I was five years ago. And, you know, maybe four years ago, I was loving those pens so much, I was saying, I'm never going to become a fountain pen guy. You know, I'll use them, but it'll never be my primary writing instrument. Well, guess what?
Myke Hurley: You see, the Hi-Tech C one is never going to be that high on a list for me. It's just not, like, because people like them really fine, which I don't. And I have some 0.7s, and I think I have a one millimeter in those. And, I mean, they're fine, but it's, I have so many issues with the barrel design. And I don't think, personally for me, that I enjoy it enough to start going crazy and buying pen type A and stuff like that. Yeah.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Do you really have a 0.7 and a 1.0? Because I don't think they come in that.
Myke Hurley: I don't think I do, do I? I have something else.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. You probably have a V5.
Myke Hurley: I think I have a 0.5 or something. Yeah, probably have a 0.5. I'm standing up now. I'm going to go look in the pen. To find out who it is, I am.
Brad Dowdy: Yep. But, I mean, I agree with you, and I've said it before, that I would never recommend the Pilot Hi-Tech C to someone who doesn't know what they were getting into beforehand.
Myke Hurley: Yeah, I have a 0.5. I misspoke. Yeah.
Brad Dowdy: Which, actually, once you start using the Hi-Tech Cs, the 0.5 just seems gigantic compared to the other ones. Like, I like the 0.3s. But, yeah, I mean, that's not a pen I'm ever going to tell anyone that, hey, I'm just getting into pens. What pen should I try? It's not going to be that one.
Myke Hurley: Yeah. You want the pen that could accidentally cut a notebook in half.
Brad Dowdy: Right.
Myke Hurley: That was last week's pen, though.
Cleaning Conclusion
Brad Dowdy: But, yes, back to our point, we will never say never. No. Because that has definitely come back to bite me in a big way, taking a big chunk out of my wallet with these fountain pens.
Myke Hurley: Yeah, come back to bite you in the wallet pocket. Yes.
Brad Dowdy: Definitely. Anything else? Any others? No. No. I think that's all I got on cleaning. You know, we're going to put these links in. And, you know, last week we got a lot of good feedback for suggestions on how people clean their pens, how they suggest to clean the pens, tips and tricks. We love hearing all those things. So, definitely keep sending us that information. Who knows?
Myke Hurley: Because I kind of look at this as like a growing knowledge base that we are amassing for ourselves but also for the listeners as well. Like people have their own little tips and tricks and maybe some things work better in some manufacturers than others. Who knows? You know, and it's good to, I guess, have that sort of information.
Brad Dowdy: Right. And that's right. And I want to be clear that, you know, like you just alluded to that fact that, you know, neither you or I are an expert in this area and we don't pretend to be. And we love learning new things and we're not too proud to admit that we were wrong in certain areas. And, you know, we're never going – we want this to be a two-way communication with us and our listeners. And we definitely appreciate that and we will always looking for more information and how to do things better and answers to questions. And we have a really good community and I think it works well that way.
Myke Hurley: We have a great community.
Brad Dowdy: It's a blast. It's a lot of fun.
Myke Hurley: Yeah. The community for this show is incredible. Yep. And it's one of my favorite things about this show is the fact that we have such great listeners.
Brad Dowdy: One more thing. I wanted to make a comment on Sidney Tinker's YouTube video. One thing I thought was funny is he put in the comments because I think he's a reasonably new listener to the podcast.
Myke Hurley: Right.
Brad Dowdy: In the comments section on that YouTube video, he – someone asked – someone said, wow, there's a Pen Addict podcast or whatever. He said, yeah, I was actually looking for a pencil podcast and I came across this one. So I thought that was kind of hilarious. So it just goes to show you –
Myke Hurley: Now we know what we need to do next.
Brad Dowdy: Never say never.
Pencil Discussion
Myke Hurley: We should – here's another thing actually. I mean, me and you, we feel pretty resolute that we've got the only pencil we're ever going to need, right? But the Kuru Toga.
Brad Dowdy: Generally, I would say I use two pencils. What's the other one that you use? The Rottering 600.
Myke Hurley: Yes. We spoke about that before. Yeah. Haven't we? So let's – okay. But let's say, you know, we kind of – we can agree on one like the Kuru Toga. Yes. Yes.
Myke Hurley: I'm sure there's others and I'd love to hear about them. And we spoke about – is it Black Wing?
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, Black Wing.
Myke Hurley: We spoke about those as well.
Brad Dowdy: Well, that's a traditional woodcase pencil. Not a mechanical pencil.
Myke Hurley: I'm just sure in general there are more great pencils out there.
Brad Dowdy: Oh, there are. There's some pencil – I mean, not that I'm – I'm not near the oldest pen and pencil blogger in the realm. But there's at least two pencil blogs that I know for a fact outdate me that are still current and all they talk about is pencils. So absolutely. And actually, I think all they talk about is woodcase pencils, not even mechanical or drafting style pencils.
Brad Dowdy: Wow. So yes, that's a deep, deep, deep topic that I am not that informed on. So yeah, actually getting – I'm at the risk of blowing the name. I think it's John from Pencil Revolution.
Brad Dowdy: I've had him – I've exchanged emails with him several times. Great guy. So he would be someone to get on the podcast and enlighten us one day.
Myke Hurley: I agree with that, actually. It's quite a good idea. Quite a good idea. Okay, so Brad, people can find you online at penaddict.com. They can email you at thepenaddict at gmail.com. Or they can go to our contact form at 70decibels.com forward slash contact. I am on Twitter and app.net. I'm imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Brad is at dowdy, D-O-W-D-Y on app.net and D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M, dowdyism on Twitter. Thank you very much for listening to episode 40 of the Pen Addict Podcast. Until next time, bye-bye. Goodbye.