Hello and welcome to episode one hundred and three of the panetic podcast on five by five the panetic is a weekly show where we discuss pens paper and the analog tools that we love so dearly my name is Mike curly and I'm joined as I always am by mr bread daddy. How are you mike and good sir how are you. Good good and you don't play do you i don't think listeners understand how how professional my carly is like we've been we've been chatting on Skype just catching up you know doing some things we need to do and you know for about. Five or ten minutes and my goes all right mate you ready I said yeah I'm ready hello and welcome to the you just turn that stuff on you just ready to go you know. Yeah I'd be like okay let me gather myself let me collect my thoughts and man you're you're a pro I love it I just switch it on. You know game time yep yep it's on it's on. Well good I'm doing good I got some of the well not some of the all of the winners from last week's episode one oh two every giveaway all the episode one hundred prizes yep everyone was all the winners were really excited they got in touch super fast I didn't have to hunt you one down which I'm always happy about just shows me that they were they were listening properly and I think within two days everyone had gotten in touch gotten everyone's shipping information and I guess everyone shipped out yesterday. It was fun packing those boxes oh yeah we have people tweet us yeah we have people tweet us that night. If I remember like yeah so like so like seven eastern in is about when that when when live in I think within an hour I think maybe the first one had had said something and then I think we had three of them that night three out of the five that night in the next two like within the next day. People were ready they wanted to know if they want I know I know they were anxious which I would be to that was some some cool stuff so I had fun packing up all those boxes and it was. It was neat kids I guess that you'd say that we had put together so I'm excited to be able to do that again one of these days so and I think we will I think that's a good idea to do that on a regular basis it's a very cool. So fun fun things maybe do every year I think yep yep one thing I try to do more than at least once a year is update my top five pens list and it's been on the radar for a couple months now and I finally got it mostly done. So a bunch of people have been emailing me asking when my next update is going to be and I'm hoping to post it Wednesday if not Wednesday Friday so it'll definitely be this week. But I just wanted to mention that to see if anyone had any top fives that I don't currently have listed any additions like the last time I added fountain pen inks and this time someone wanted me a few people wanted me to make a specific blue black fountain pen inks and that's the ink color I use most so I'm adding in the top five blue black inks list and I'm adding in the top five multi pens list. For some reason I didn't have that on there and I've had several people asking for that so if anyone has any ideas or things they want to see on the top five list that I don't already do let me know but let me know soon because I'm working on it and I'm going to publish it this week for sure and what about. And sort of non-writing pen pens so like highlighters markers brush pen that's a good idea so like you know like not not gel ink not rollable not ballpoint not fountain pen that type of idea I don't think you could have a list for all of the things but maybe just like a these are some pens that I really like that are none of the above. Yep because I would like to say that yeah I like that because I do have a favorite highlighter and I do have a couple favorite brush type pen so that aren't that aren't listed anywhere on that page that's a good idea so let's say something like a non-standard pens or something like a non-writing I don't know like not I don't know what you call it because it's all been writing but yeah like I couldn't have a full top five highlighter list or full top five brush pen list yeah I don't think anybody would. Necessarily need that anyway no I know right brush pens I could see but I'm not an artist and you know I use them to write with so I like the ones that are that are very specific linked more towards writing but you could someone could some artist could definitely have a top five brush pens but not me anything else you can think of I think I've got it pretty well on lockdown there's some I'm going to assume you're not ready for pencils. No I thought about it this time but not yet I think right now I think I have like a top two right so even though I've reviewed a couple more than that there's two that I'm very confident in that I like better than anything else but I need to give I have a handful more I'm going to review before I do that so I will work on that maybe for the next update but I think that's that's definitely on the radar. So I don't want to give too much away tomorrow but I thought for whenever I posted but I think there's not huge changes but there's some good changes and when I it's been like six months since I've updated I usually like to update it about every three so there's actually quite a bit of change in this one so we'll see so if anyone else has any suggestions ideas for that get in touch and now we'll see what I can do whenever you do this this is one of those things where I both want to and do not want to read. Because I know that if you've got updates to the top five then there's potentially going to be something expensive happening in my future. Yeah how it's the let's yell at Brad list update yeah a lot of lists basically a lot of the stuff you write is you're worthy in a good way. Yep, yeah but I've been happy though doing this top five since I've had like the top just like the top overall pins like across all categories people will go out and buy like all five of them or something because or at least four out of the five because one of them is a fountain pin the Twizz B 580 but the other four probably would cost you about ten or twelve dollars total so people have been going out and buying all those and going you know that tell him you know thank you very much this is great I didn't realize you know there are things like this out there I see why they're not going to be there. These pins are good better than what I was using so that makes me feel good I'm at least able to help out a little bit like that for people that are trying to discover some new new writing instruments. We've got a loaded up episode here today and we doing it a little bit different than our normal format. So let's go ahead and talk about the pin blog of the week and then we're going to get into listener tweets which I put a call out last night I think it was yesterday afternoon. Because we just recorded last Thursday and between last Thursday and today I've worked like constantly I haven't had time to put together necessarily segments for an episode so when I like to hear from the listeners and what they want to hear us talk about and it jars my memory on some other topics that I've forgotten about and just to have answer some very specific questions that people have so we're going to we're going to do that today but real quick the pin blog of the week is crony costs. A steal yo graphic us how did I do I think that sounded pretty good to me. Yeah so this is a website if you're a reader of my blog which I'm assuming you are and a fan of my ink links that you will see Mr Bruno touts. crony costs a steal a steal a graphic us blog all throughout my blog this is one of my favorite pin blogs ever because he focuses a lot on the Japanese pin market. A lot of the new pins but a lot of the old pins where I've been able to learn about the history of some of the favorite pins that I like he's doing the whole series on the pilot vanishing point and its origins. He's always talking about sailor and platinum house some of their pin models came to be so it's not necessarily a review site but it's more of a historical look at a lot of these pins how their design came to be how they're. How they did in the market you know why they're not on the market anymore he's got some really rare and unique items on here and if for some reason you've missed out on this blog it it's a must add this is. One of my singular favorite blogs to read whenever Bruno makes a new post it's usually the first one I go to because it really it really speaks to me in the things that I like so it's a it's always a good learning experience and I've referenced it a lot he's had some good reference posts that I've referred other people to. To try to you know get answers about I don't know nib you know vanishing point nib units are some strange things like that but it's very good he's been very helpful over the years answering questions for me so y'all should definitely check it out. Good stuff to pick yeah very good very good all right want to dive into it yes now this is one of those things like these days used to be like when I see you say oh you know we've got. We want to do an episode on with your questions or whatever I used to retweet the person but I didn't do that anymore because it's the you get so many responses it's kind of not worth it. Yes I've got like what four pages four pages of fleets in here like I kind of looked at the tweet I was like I wonder how many and I saw like the number. I was like I'm not going to do this I can collect these because otherwise I'll just be doing it all day yep yep so what I wanted to do is I copy. Pretty much everything that I saw and if I miss you I apologize it was not on purpose I might have just overlooked it but there's some that I that are definitely worth answering and having a discussion about there's some of these that are really good that I want to elaborate that I might push off into like a bigger topic in the future episode if that makes sense. There are a couple of the grab me that is like you know I want to expand on that more than you know the minute or two that I'm talking about most of these but. Let's get into it the first one and I don't have a lot of experience with this I'm actually calling on the on the listeners for this that's it's from Mina she says hi can you recommend any pins for someone who has arthritis in their hands. And she. I since I don't have a lot of experience with this the only thing I can think of that's really made which what you're looking for in an ergonomic style pen is a wider barrel and a softer grip. Now not having arthritis I can't really speak to how that actually works in reality but the theory is that you'll have the wider grip for so it's more comfortable and a softer grip so it's more comfortable to help alleviate some of that pain so something like the pilot doctor grip is a good. It's a good pen to look at also any of the uniball alpha gel grip pens there are large barrel with an extra soft grip. And those are something that I would look at so if anyone has any more specifics around this topic shoot me an email or tweet and I will forward it on to Mina to to see to give some other ideas but those are my suggestions right out the gate. So quick point on cold pants right now says doctor grip has been discontinued. The whole line says the doctor range has now been discontinued. So it says cold pants although they have some in stock on the note to just continue but they have put together an ergonomic pens page could be useful I'll put that in the show notes. Yep and Japan's has an ergonomic pins page to put that in the to the show notes for this episode of five by five dot TV slash pen addicts slash one zero three. Good call good call sorry about that no no that's um. You can still find it was like when I googled I also found an Amazon link so you can still buy them but I don't think that I would probably guess that. Suppliers can't order the men anymore so yeah I'm up to check into that because that's kind of that's kind of surprising that that's kind of a historically popular line for them but I don't know maybe they'll pivot into the acrobat doctor grip or something and do something with them. With the better refill because it's standard ballpoint refill and actually those doctor grip refills the ones that I've reviewed have been excellent. So yeah that kind of surprises me so yeah color me shocked. All right Jay Robert Lennon do you follow Jay Robert Lennon Mike on Twitter you should. I'm not sure I do he's a good dude he's hilarious and he's got some smart stuff to say all the time he wants to know will not cause some day make pens. I'm not going to say no I think it's inevitable at some point like at some point you make a pen but it's a totally different thing like it's not Jeffrey zero expertise right yours so. It's come up in conversation put it that way it's not imminent by any stretch of the imagination but it's it's on the one of these days this would be nice list so. It's it's on the radar but nowhere near imminent and maybe maybe the rain maybe cold pens are just discontinued it from there. That's possible that's possible. Sorry I didn't mean to forget to get wrapped up in the doctor group sorry I was just thinking about it then it's not it's not doctor who cancelation you can. And settle down. All right Stuart Stuart from a horrible scribble says a question I would like you both to discuss what fountain pen would you recommend for somebody that is turning 31 next month. I have it on good record that he's he's talking about himself so we've actually talked about this on. Twitter he's looking at something like the pilot Falcon and what else did he say. The pilot Mickey Falcon Edison boom on maybe. I can't remember but anyway he was one one to change it up a little bit and get something cool for his upcoming birthday and I have a lot of questions like that what do you give for a birthday what do you give for a gift. And that's it's a really hard answer. For him I recommended and he actually it wasn't a bowman it was one of the Franklin Christoff pens. I kind of recommended maybe the Franklin Christoff because I think he might like one of the the Masayama type nibs maybe more so than the flex nib of the Falcon. But the Falcons are pretty awesome pen too so I'm not really going to help you out a lot here Stuart other than saying those are two good choices and you're not going to go wrong with either one. Depending on what you want to do with the pens so what was the Falcon. The pilot Falcon. It's a flex nib it's a gold flex nib pen which it's excellent it's definitely one of my favorites it's one of the best writing pins I have and it's got a flexible nib. My sort of feeling about those birthday especially landmark birthday presents is go for the expensive executive pen. That's how I feel about that because I think that's what people expect to want in that scenario. So he I found this tweet and he's actually looking for something to get out of the fine nib rut so he's looking for either a flex nib pen or something like a stub or italic nib and looking at those type of brands that carry those. So yeah the pilot Falcon and the any of the Franklin Christoff's because they're all swappable into those really good Mike Masayama nibs that I'm enjoying thoroughly. So it also asks and this this might this is one of the topics that came up repeatedly that I think I want to make into its own segment he says another topic would be what are both your daily carries and have you been able to reduce your daily carry down so I want to table that discussion. Because what I would like to do with you Mike if your game one day is have like a bag dump episode sure and not just talk about pens but just talk about you know the other things that we just carry. I think people would be interested in that there are a month yeah right so in in the reduction topic comes up a lot and we'll talk about that a little more down the line here. But I think that's that's an entire segment that I want to plan for and get you and I'm I think doing a bag dump episode would be pretty good and we can cover you know the challenges we have because I have challenges with that all the time. So yeah well we'll table that one Stuart and we'll circle back around I've already made a note on it that I wanted to do that so Joe Lebow. Roar and King cleaner Salix or scabiosa which to first ink up my new 580 with scabiosa for sure I love that purple it's one of my favorite inks it's definitely on my top five inks list I think I have it at like number two or three it's that good I love salix. But I have lots of blue black inks and say like salix is close to like being a top five in but not quite there for me. Scabiosa is like a top two or three overall ink for me and I highly recommend that to anybody and don't be worried people sometimes worry about the iron gall properties these Roar and King are cleaner inks are so well behaved and clean out so easy I've used them in so many different pens and never had one hint of an issue so. Joe also asked what's the best way to clean the inside top portion of a vanishing point near the trap door part that's a hard little place to get into I've just soaked mine in water for a little bit and then folded up a paper towel like into like a very fine little area and just kind of jammed it in there I've never taken it all the way apart or or gotten way down in there I don't have to get too much ink trapped in there but I don't know the absolute best way but that's how I do it. And just kind of going through the front end of the of the nose and just kind of get it cleaned out in there. What about hmm it probably wouldn't work actually I think you maybe if you used water and then one of those you know you get like I don't think what to call it like air in a can. Oh yeah well you know what might work is the the nasal aspirators that actually use the clean nibs yeah that actually work that'll force air through there. Basically you want to get at high speed I think would be a good way because where paper towels would be good and I agree with them. I worry about getting a piece jammed in there. Yep yep so yeah I think aspirators a good call because it can come from the from the nib end and it can come from the barrel in so you can you can get it both ways Mike you can get on both ends. Oh Fred. It's a pin podcast man. We got to talk about things. Mr. Chase McCoy he had a he had a boatload of questions and they were all good so I'll put them all in here. What are your thoughts on the Midori Travelers notebook. Now do you own a system like this at all Mike? No. I do not either but I love the idea of it. I always love seeing people's pictures of them and think it's a really good format. I like that you can have the you know you have the one cover and usually two to three separate notebook inserts. I mean I guess it can range from one to however many you can fit in there but most common is three. I've just never had a use for that type of system but I think the idea is awesome and I would recommend it to anyone. That one in a system like that they get a lot of great great reviews. I've never heard anyone say oh I just hate my Midori Travelers notebook. They're really good. It's just not a functional item for me the way I work but I think it's an awesome item in just the design and functionality of it. So is the idea being that you can put two notebooks in and you can have pockets? It doesn't really have a lot of pockets. It's just wrapped with a rubber band type of enclosure on the outside and it's just a flat piece of leather. So there's no pockets on the leather side. I think there's all kinds of hacks and there's all kinds of inserts you can buy for it so there's probably some pockets that are able to add in there. I think he's getting ready to travel and I think he's a Midori guy. I think he carries his passport in there so people like really can kind of pimp these out for their needs. Guess where I have my passport when I went away last weekend. What? In my rotavacian base lighter. Yeah I knew that was going to be the answer. I like it. That's good. Things become more and more useful for me all the time. That's great. That is very cool. There you go. Chase also asked the popular question what are good pens to give his graduation gifts. This is a really tough question because I get this one in my email inbox at least once a week for this type of gift just from someone who really doesn't have any experience with it. I tend to just go kind of like what you were saying with the classically styled pens but I recommend the Lamy 2000 roller ball and ball point a lot for someone who's not wanting a fountain pen. Yeah I think it's dangerous for us to always say fountain pens, fountain pens in these scenarios. It's probably most of the time a bad idea to go fountain pen. Yep I almost never say fountain pen unless someone specifically says they want a fountain pen otherwise I usually say roller ball and I usually say something like the Lamy because I know it's pretty much a timeless design and it's actually a pretty good value when you're starting to shop for these type of things where people are comparing them to like Mont Blanc roller balls that might be two or three hundred dollars the Lamy roller ball I think's around a hundred dollars maybe a little less something like that and it's just a style. It looks cool. It feels cool and it's never going to go out of style. So that's one I actually tend to recommend a lot for people who don't have a lot of experience and are wanting something interesting to give as a gift. Then Chase, Chase has the third question then this is going to be, this is a good question. What are your top five most exciting pens? Not the best ones necessarily but the ones you feel everyone should have. So that kind of, that's a hard question because I don't think those two things drive my top five exciting things. And just about to say that are not the ones that I feel everyone should have. Yeah exactly. I agree with that a hundred percent. Yeah, like my top five most exciting pens would probably start with like my Edison Menlo which is a pump filler which is made specifically for me. That's exciting for me. My Franklin Kristoff pocket pen that's the eyedropper. That's a very exciting pen for me because it's cool looking. It's interesting. People always ask questions about it. It's got a killer nib but should everyone have that pen? Probably not. It's not quite that thing. If I could name a pen that everyone should have. Can you name a pen that everyone in the world gets a pen? What are we giving them? Retro51. I'm obviously partly kidding. I thought it was pretty serious. I thought it was a valid answer. That's a tough question. I think though that you probably would be better off giving people like a, I don't know, one of the Moskin pens or a Sharpie pen. Not the permanent marker. I think everybody could appreciate one of those. Maybe something like a pilot G2 or something like that. Like a solid pen that everyone's going to be able to appreciate. You know what's a good one is that I actually recommend a lot in email is the pen tell inter gel. I'm not a necessarily huge fan of the G2 and the inter gel always surprises people on how good of a pen it is. That's one that every, a pen that everyone could own. I don't think those pens are not exciting in the least. They're just high quality workhorse type pens. I'm going to make a note here and think about this question a little bit more. See if I can come up with like a top five most exciting pens that are reasonable for everyone to have. What do you think about that? That sounds like a great idea. I think probably like a Fisher space pen would make that list. Sure, something like that. Yeah, but I agree with you that exciting and everyone should have a not the same thing even nearly. Yep, so I will work on that list making a note right now. Except it's exciting not exist. It's not the top five most existing pens. Well, that too though. I guess the top five pens that exist. That's definitely a list that you're working on. See, this is where you're pro to. You can talk, write, cut, paste, and show note all at the same time. I can barely walk and put one foot in front of the other one. I don't know. How can you? You do a lot more of the talking than I do. Alright, artist, artist, not artist. Artist, Charbonneau, flex nibs, bland brands, descriptions. What's a soft flex versus a music nib? Sorry if I missed an episode to cover this. We have not covered done a whole episode on, I call these specialty nibs for the most part. I don't have a lot of experience with things like the music nibs or there's other zibs called the zoom nibs. Maybe we'll put together a segment just on specialty nibs. Flex nibs I'm a huge fan of. I don't have a lot of experience with them though. I love how they feel and I love my palette falcon on how it writes because I can write very fine with the tip of it. And then I can add that flex when I'm writing if I need to to broaden the line or add some character to the lines I'm writing. But I don't know that I have a huge amount to say about that because I'm not that experienced with it. I mean there's people who are seriously into the flex nibs and can talk about the range of flex in those nibs. So that's something I'll research more and we'll do another segment on what are the specialty nibs out there. What do they have to offer you and what you need to look for when buying them. Especially for things like the music nib and the zoom nibs and the peo nibs that I have. We will cover that some more. And Elizabeth says not necessarily a podcast topic but recently tried Pilot Acrobat and love it for work. Great recommendation. That's one of the most commented on pens that I get when I recommend it. They're like most people find out the same thing that this is a really great pen. It compares to the jet stream. Some people probably like it better. I could argue that it's better. Jet stream just has a few more options than the Acrobat does right now. But the Acrobat is an amazing pen and I'm finally glad that Pilot brought them over into the US. Do you have an Acrobat? Did I send you one a long time ago? Yeah, you did. It's probably not a heavy rotation pen for you. Not even nearly. I liked it a lot more than the jet stream because I don't like those. Yeah, if they would expand on that line a little bit like jet stream is done. I think it could actually overtake the jet stream. They're playing catch up at this point. They're a good decade behind in that technology and the hybrid ballpoint ink technology. So people are setting their ways with the jet stream. But if they try an Acrobat, they could make some inroads into jet streams market share. This was, I think, the best question out of all the questions we got. Jesse Sadler says excitement of expensive pens versus fun of being excited at $2 pens. Part of the draw of pens is that it can be an inexpensive hobby. I totally agree with that. That's how I started the blog. That's how I started Panatic with these inexpensive, you know, $2 and $3 pens that honestly at the time just blew my mind. Like I didn't know such a thing existed as a pilot high tech C with the super fine 0.3 millimeter needle tips and all these huge range of ink colors. I get more excited at finding a great $2 pen than I do a great $200 pen because my expectations are that that $200 pen better be freaking good. And so do I get excited about it? Yeah, I get excited about it, but in a different way that I may use it more and maybe have more satisfaction using it, but it's more fun to find a great $2 pen for me. That can, you know, enter into like my pen rotation like a uniball sino DX. I think it's $2.50. It's always been around the same price. It's hard to beat that pen. And that is, I don't know, that's still one of the core things. I try to do it Panatic even though I'm reviewing more fountain pens and more expensive pens. My favorite thing is still finding those great $2 and $3 pens. Oh, my, my pilot explorer, enabler, jalty from Gosh, where's he from Denmark? I'm going to butcher butcher that. He's going to be mad at me because he talks to me all the time. He's the one who sent me the dozen pilot pilot explorer. He says, talk about pocket pens, what will it replace the pilot explorer? What the pilot explorer had going for it was size. It was a little bit smaller than a standard length pen. It's a little bit wider than a standard diameter pen. Had a good grip, had a great clip. I don't know that it's necessarily a pure pocket pen. And I'm actually having some struggles with pocket pens right now, trying to find that right thing. I've got a review of really more of a key chain pen coming out later this week. It was on Kickstarter, it's called The Move. But I've got the Lamy Pico, which is a good pocket pen. That might be a good choice, but you're stuck with the ballpoint refill. So I'm having some challenges and I've got some ideas. So hold that thought, jalty. And I've got some ideas on that that are hopefully coming out on the blog soon. I hate to talk around that question, but I don't think there's a clear replacement for the pilot explorer right now in the way that pen is designed. Such a tease. I know, I know. That's why I like these questions. They give me some good ideas for some topics too. So they're helping us make the show that they want to listen to, Mike. And the blog they want to read? Yeah, absolutely. All right, this is a good question. You ready? Yeah. How are things working out with the Hobanichi Tecco? Horribly. Oh, but it's me. It's not you, Hobanichi Tecco. I'm not a planner person. I knew this was going to be the case when I ordered it. This is why I haven't ordered it at planner in years. The Hobanichi Tecco itself is an elite product. I actually hardly use it these days. And when I do use it, it's just because I want to write on the Tomo River paper. So all the days that I've missed this year, you know, I'll have, you know, like fountain pen ink tests on them. So I'm using it for not its intended use. I'm not a planner guy. I tried to stick to it. Can't do it. Yeah. I don't like to be restricted so heavily. Yeah. I don't think I made it through February daily. It was close, you know, maybe through the end of February. And since then, it's just been blank and I actually stopped carrying it with me. And then sometimes I'll break it out just to scribble in it because that paper is awesome. If Hobanichi came out with like a gridded bound Tomo River paper notebook, I would buy 10 of them. But the planner, it's planner portion itself is just not a functional thing for me. So I won't be ordering one again, despite the fact it's one of the best products I've ever seen. As far as planners go, I just cannot personally use a planner. That is not my style, not my system. But it's not a knock on the techo itself. So there you have it. It's a, it's been a fail for me using it. But that doesn't mean it's not an awesome product. Kenuni Renishan, I think she's, she's distraught now that she doesn't have a list to keep. So she wants to know, do we need to add anything else to the pins that shall not be named list? She needs a new list to keep Mike. Hmm, that's a good question because, I mean, aside from my mention earlier and you're meant, like we don't talk about the retro and the vanishing point like we used to. Um, I think probably, I don't know, maybe the Palakan M2R5 because I talk about it so much. Do you have one like that you talk about more now than? I don't think so. I think it's, it's pretty well spread around. I don't think we have an overwhelming, uh, an overwhelming pin that we, that's always talked about, except maybe the Vision Air, just out of spite. We don't talk about that anymore. So yeah, I don't, I don't think we have one right now. I don't think we're okay. We'll, we'll do our best to find another one now. Yeah, I mean, that's what we're always trying to do, right? Mm hmm. Yep. I would love it. Whoa. Yeah. Jim Cant, he says, oh, talk about your grinds. See, if I just ended it right there, would you have to change our rating on the podcast? I don't even, probably actually. Or you can just tell me what you had redone to your Lamy, Lamy 2000. So yeah, my Lamy 2000 to, yeah, 2013 Atlanta pin show, I got Mike Masuyama to grind it from an extra fine stock, extra fine nib into like an extra, extra fine point two millimeter. Would you, would consider like a Japanese extra fine nib? Just a little needle. Yep. Really, really super, super fine. The problem with that is that's a very, on a gold nib, which the Lamy 2000 has. It's a very delicate nib. So it was fine for a couple of months. And then I think it just kind of got out of whack with me using it. And it started to pick up paper and dig into the paper a little bit more. So wasn't as smooth as it used to be. So I brought it back to the pin show this year. And I basically had Mike Masuyama kind of back that off a little bit. You know, there wasn't much I could change about it, but he almost kind of rounded it off and dulled it down, if you will, to now where it's more like a Japanese fine nib. And it writes super smooth now. It's not grabbing the paper anymore. So yeah, that was all I had to do with that. It was almost too extreme. What I had done to it the first time to where it became so fragile, I think it just stopped working the way I wanted it to work. So luckily we were able to just back that off a little bit. And now it's working perfectly. I used it all night last night and I love it. So yeah, it's back to a good shape now. Probably like a Japanese fine. Instead of a Japanese extra fine or even, I might have had it even finer than that. I mean, it was really, really, really needily. So you got to be careful with those gold nibs and getting these extra extra fine nibs. It can be done, but they take a lot of care and a lot of patience. And, you know, someone like myself, I don't think I have right with a lot of pressure. But when someone like Mike Masayama watches me right and he like goes, "Ooh, you press hard." And I think I'm just barely writing. So yeah, you kind of get an idea that you can actually do some damage to these nibs just writing with them when they're that fine. On this very same note, Lindsey Resnick, what should you do if you got a nib modification but now absolutely hate it? I tried it out at the show and it was okay, but not anymore. You got to talk to the person that you had the nib work done with originally. And they will make an adjustment for you. Usually at no charge or if it's been a while, maybe at a discounted charge. But if you're not happy with it, everyone I've ever worked with on nibs will take it back and retweet it to get it to how you want it. As a matter of fact, I didn't expect anything from Mike Masayama this time on my Lamy. But he only charged me $10 to change it again. I said, "Well, why just $10?" He said, "Because it's a rework of what I've already done." I said, "Okay." So that was it. So it just cost me $10 to get it. You know, it had been a whole year. So he probably, if it had been a month, he'd probably done it for free, you know? So Lindsey definitely, I don't know who you used, but I would get back in touch with them and send the pen off to them, say, "Hey, this is the work I had done. This nib grind is not really working for me, and can you adjust it into this?" And I can almost guarantee you, let's say, "Yeah, no problem. Send me the pen, and I'll get adjusted to make it to where you like it." So it's hard to judge something immediately at a pen show. You do the best you can, but it's not like you're going to sit there and write a novel to test it out, right? So you kind of got to kind of got to spend some time with it, and if you have to get it adjusted again, maybe that's something you have to do. I would say, I mean, you probably would say the same if you're not already. Be a gentleman or gentleman lady, gentleman lady, offer to pay the ship in. Oh, yeah, no doubt. I'd just be like, "Hey, do this for me for free." Yeah, no, yeah. Pay the shipping, ship it back out, pay the ship it back, but hopefully they'll do the work for no charge. It's kind of the experience that I've had, and I think that's pretty common, actually. So don't think you had some kind of outlier experience. Lindsay, I think it's a common thing. It's just, you know, it's hard to tell immediately after you had it done. Is this the right work for me, and it's okay to ask them to readjust it further. That's the business that they're in. All right, Garrett, Mr. Gaz Kubat on Twitter. It's a two-parter, or it's at least in two tweets. Consider your favorite pens in regards to the dollar value. Do the more expensive ones seem drastically better than cheaper alternatives? I think a lot of people worry about the big price tag, and whether it represents a much greater experience. This is like a whole episode worth of answer. But I would say, in general, does the big price tag represent that much greater of experience? And the answer is no. There are reasons, specific reasons, by people who spend a lot of money on a fountain pen. But some of my favorite pens are because they provide such a great value as far as the cost versus the experience, if you will. That's why I praise pens like the TWISB 580. You can't get that pen. Any other company that makes that pen is going to charge over $100 easily, or at least around that ballpark. That's why it's such a great pen because it's a great price, and it provides an immense value for the price. Spending $200 or $300 on a pen, I don't think gives you a greater experience necessarily. Actually, I'd say probably not at all. I get just as much enjoyment using my TWISB 580 as I do my Pelican M405, which costs like $280. I mean, the pen was five or six times more expensive, and I consider those pens almost piers, if you will, in the enjoyment that I get out of using them. I would pick up the TWISB 580 as much as I would the Pelican 405, despite the one costing five or six times more. They're almost piers in the enjoyment I get out of them. This is a topic we can explore more, but I think the overall value of the pen gives me a better experience than the overall cost of the pen, if I'm making sense. Do you have anything to say on that mic? 100% agree of you, 100%. It's hard to justify spending the high dollar. There's give and take with everything. Someone like myself, I end up talking myself into things just to try, and fortunately I'm able to do that and play around with spending, like I said, $280 on a Pelican M405. I probably use the 580 more, but I spent a huge amount more on the Pelican. I'm glad I have the Pelican. I enjoy it. I don't want to get rid of it, but it didn't provide that much greater experience than the $50 or $60 TWISB 580 did. So that's the facts, Jack. Greg Jackson, budgeting for pen addicts, what to do with the pens you've bought but no longer use. This is something I'm struggling with a little bit right now. So in the past, where I'd say most of my pen usage was gel ballpoint, roller ball, plastic tip pen, when I'd have loads and loads of extra pens, I'd give all the extras away. So I've given away tons and tons of pens, so that's one thing I do. I take them to the office, give them to people there, give them to friends, give them to the wife, let her take them to work, those kind of things. But when you get into fountain pens, you can't really give those away because a lot of people don't have experience with them and don't have anything to do with them. If you can sell some pens, I'm totally for that. I haven't done that. I'm not at that point yet, but I have some friends that are saying, okay, I'm limiting to myself to X amount of fountain pens. So say the numbers 10 and I find something new I like, well, one of those pens has to go. And I can't buy the new pen until I've sold off the other one to make a spot for it. So that's not a dollar budgeting, but it's an inventory budgeting, if you will. And I'm wondering if that's more what you're getting at. Greg is the buying of more pens than you can necessarily use in a lifetime, which is kind of what I have right now. But there will be a point in my purchasing that I will have to assess, do I need another pen? What you really have to consider, what need is this pen filling when you're trying to budget for your pen inventory. And if it's not necessarily filling a need, then maybe think twice about it or you limit yourself to a quantity of pens and you never go over that quantity. And one of them has to go if you want to bring a new one in. So Brandon asks, how did you choose your vintage flex pen prior research or just talk to vendors? Any advice on vintage flex now? I in no way can give advice on a vintage flex pen. You know, I did a lot of reading and research online. Two brands kept coming up as the kind of go-to brands, Waterman and maybe Todd. So I knew kind of those are the brands I was looking for. Those were the styles I liked. Those were the ones that always got good reviews. And there was enough quantity out there to where they'd be reasonably priced. So that's all I did from a shopping standpoint. That's how I chose it. But I still have to learn how to use it. I barely scratched the surface with it right now. And I finally got it inked up last weekend and started writing with it some. But I need to go at it more and try to get some more experience with it on actually how to use it. But I just did a lot of reading and research online, but by no means do I have all that knowledge to be able to talk about vintage flex pens at all. Trent Hamm. All right, Mike, this one's for you. What's your favorite small, sturdy notebook, for example, what would you take if you were backpacking for several days? There's this little company based in Chicago, Field Notes. Oh, part of them. Look at those. Yeah, good stuff. Seriously, that's the one you'd want. Yeah, that's backpacking several days. Part of the, I guess, love for these type of notebooks, the memo books like Field Notes and Don't Paper is that they're not the most dirtiest. They're going to get beat up. And if you're taking that notebook on a backpacking trip for several days, I don't want to come back with a pristine notebook, right? I mean, I want it to have dirt and fingerprints on it. And, you know, it's part of the memory of the trip. You know, it's, I don't necessarily want like a hardbound pocket notebook that's not going to get destroyed. I mean, there's a balance, right? I mean, if you're doing something hardcore and, you know, where it actually, it's going to literally get destroyed, you know, in a river or something like that. Well, then that's a different consideration. But just for like, you know, small travel, I don't see anything better than a Field Notes memo book or a Don't Paper Utility Journal. It's just, it's part of the deal is get those things banged up. They look better used than unused. How about that? Perfect. Jim wants to know how about talking about how to keep your pens at home, trying to find a box that will keep them nicely, but not break the bank. I've actually talked about that recently and I use cigar box storage and I order them from a guy named Bama Pen and we've linked them in the past. I pay $40 for a refurbished, felt lined cigar box pen storage that I think holds 12 pens. It might be 10. I don't have it in front of me. It's 10 or 12 pens and I think that's a completely fair price for the work that he does. I don't have storage other than that. If it's not for my fountain pens, all my other pens, like all my Kickstarter pens were tracks, Retro51. Anything I'm using regularly goes into the blocks and the grooves by Mike Dudek. So those are the things that are all sitting on my desk for pen storage. Everything else goes into, I don't know, like bins in the closet, but the stuff that I'm keeping out and handy that I use a lot is either going into the scar box pen storage or into one of Mr. Dudek's fine pen holding accessories. Christopher Graves. I'm going to need some help with this one, Mike, because this is a good question. I'm really into innovation and stationary. As the Kurotoga, the Tombow Olno, and the live scar I've pen. Live, live, ascribe a pen. What are some of your favorite stationary innovations? Maybe a bunch of the stuff that Evernote's doing. So they have like the Evernote notebooks and with mal skin, they have the Evernote Post notes. That could be a place to start. Some interesting ways to bring the two things together. Yeah, I think my answer is actually a little bit simpler and maybe more obvious, but I think it's micro tip gel pens. Just because you didn't, you, you know, five or, well, not five years, ten years ago, you couldn't necessarily get any pen under 0.5 millimeter. Gel, ballpoint, roller ball, whatever. And now the technology has come in to where manufacturers can make these really fine points. I mean, that's kind of hyper specific to me because that's what I enjoyed, but that would be one of my favorite innovations. That now I can get a pen that suits my writing needs better. And it's just in the fact that they were able to make something that much finer with the same quality that they made the much larger pens in. So that's kind of my, my favorite innovation. Oh, I'm meant to look this up for Christopher says I don't carry my specs in a floppy leather pouch. So why am I precious pens? Are there any hard cases for carrying one or two pens on the go? Yes, there are. And I'm meant to look it up. I think it's Pelican that makes a box. It's like a hard, it's a leather box, but it's, I mean, it's super structured and it won't break down and it holds two pens, I think. I'll have to look that up. I'll have to, I'll have to ping Christopher. I meant to look that up before I got on the show today. And I think Kaveko makes a, either a one or two whole one or two carry hard leather cover too. But I think Pelican is the one that makes a box style. So I'll have to look into that for Christopher. So Pierce, who's my, my new friend from the Atlanta Pen Show, he bought the Franklin Christoff Model 40 pocket. And he's using it as an eyedropper and he wants to know is it normal to see ink in the section on top of the feed housing or talk about eyedroppers in general. It's yes, absolutely normal to see ink in the section on the top of the feed. Mine do it 100% of the time and it's nothing to worry about at all. It doesn't leak out of there. It doesn't get out of there at all. It's just the normal flow of the pen and in something like the model 40 pocket that's clear, like a demonstrator style. You're going to see all the nuts and bolts. So that's probably in all of our pens right now. We just can't see it in all of them. So yeah, that's completely normal. Using that as an eyedropper has been kind of eye opening to me and I haven't really experienced any other eyedroppers yet, but I now, where I used to not consider eyedropper conversion pens at all. Now I will consider them because it's actually easier than anticipated to keep them intact, keep them sturdy and safe and clean and they work great. And it's really easy to fill and generally easy to clean. So just got to add a little silicone grease and you're good to go. So Terry asked a question that we've had a hundred times, but Terry might be new to the show, so I wanted to see if you had any different answer to this mic. But Terry wants to know, as a newbie, what would you guys recommend as a starter fountain pen? And it's pretty much the pilot metropolitan still or the Lamy Safari, if you like that style. I don't have anything better than those right now. That's still the go to fountain pens for me. As a very beginner fountain pen user, you want to get into something new, try something different. Those are your two choices and I don't think there's a third. Your thoughts on that? You agree? I agree 100%. Yeah, that's actually come to be an easier answer in the past six months to a year since the metropolitan came out. And I know it's not a pen. I don't necessarily love that pen. The section is a little bit not great for me, but it's too good of a pen to not recommend. It's just that good. Tony Roman, before I get to Tony, yeah, we're almost done here. Okay, cool. I was going to say, do I need to cut this off at some point? We got a lot of questions. Tony, Tony, I want to say thanks to Tony for all of his Twitter questions and just all of his following. He's one of my favorite people to chat with on Twitter. He's always got good stuff to talk about. I really like talking with Tony. He says, my transition to the dark side is nearly complete. I use fountain pens 95% of the time. How about you guys in day-to-day use? What you got, Mike? Oh, it's constant. I use fountain pens. I'm a fountain pen. So you're at least 95? It's not 100. Maybe not 100, but so close to it might as well be. Yeah, I'd say, for me, it's a little different because I'm actually having to test and review pens. So I actually use other pens a lot just because I'm trying to learn about them. But if I'm choosing a pen and I say, okay, I'm going to take some pens with me and I'm going to go right, it's going to be a fountain pen these days. I'd say I'm probably, but I'm probably 80/20 because I still use a lot of my Kickstarter barrels. I carry the render K with me all the time because it's got my high-tech sea refill in it and I carry the tactile turn mover with me all the time because it's got the .38 blue-black pilot juice refill. So I use those a lot. All right, a couple more. From Martin, I have a Lummy Vista and a Twisbee Classic both with an M nib. What do you recommend going forward? More pens or first other nib sizes? This is a really good question and I have a hard time answering this. You need to research what you're trying to accomplish, what you want to accomplish with your next pen purchase. There may not be a next pen purchase. Maybe these pens meet your needs. You have to ask, why do I want another pen? This is coming from a guy who's got an insane amount of pens and buys pens left and right without asking himself those questions. But I don't want people to look at it as, okay, I've bought this and I've bought this, what's the next pen I buy, even though that's kind of the path I've taken. I've enjoyed that path and I've learned a lot and I've found pens that out through that experimentation that I never thought I would have liked. But when you ask the question like this, I have a hard time saying, this is what you should try next. I mean, should I say, you should try a gold nib pen because you've only tried these steel nibs. I mean, that's a decent place to look at next. You know, something like Alami 2000, a pilot vanishing point that lower interior of gold pens. Actually, I would recommend the pilot custom heritage 91 over all those if you can find it just because it's a better value than both of those pens. But philosophically, it's hard to answer this question because everyone's different. You know, maybe these pens are good for you. And, you know, so you need to look at like something with the Twisbee Classic's a piston filler. That's a great option. You know, you can buy, like you said, you can buy an extra fine nib for that Twisbee Classic. You can buy a stub nib for that Twisbee Classic. That's why I always talk about Twisbee so much because they do a really good job at giving you the best bang for your buck with the most options. No one else can really compete with them in that price bracket at all. It's not close. But recommending that next pen, that's hard. The only thing I can say is maybe a gold nib pen, but I wouldn't force it. I mean, figure out, okay, what do I like about the pens that I currently have? What don't I like about these pens? And then see if there's an answer that kind of fits that. So I hope that's a decent answer, Martin. It's a really good question and it's kind of a hard one to answer. And I'd be happy to talk about it more with you if you have any more questions about it. My advice would be not more pens yet because what you will inevitably do is buy more pens without necessarily understanding what your best and favorite nib size is right now. So I would maybe suggest if you haven't already, get a pen that does have a bunch of different nibs that you can get for it and just buy a few and try them out. So like a Twisbee, if you haven't already got one, you know? Yeah, he's got the Twisbee Classic, which is easily swappable nibs. Right, then you should try and invest in a few different nib sizes and try those out. Find your favorite nib and then start buying new bodies that you like. That would be my advice. Yeah, so you're right in the middle of that spectrum right now with a medium nib. I'd probably be an extra fine and then maybe a 1.1 stub nib. And then you'll kind of see between those three. These are the types of things. This is the nibs. These are the nib sizes that I prefer and what pens and nibs are going to give me that best option going forward. So that's good advice. Thomas wants to learn about ink properties and how to test them. There are so many different types of ink reviews out there. Thomas, I'm with your brother. There are ink reviews that are epic in length and thoroughness. And what I would tell you is I would go to the fountain pen network, go to their ink reviews board and look at some of the default templates that people use. They cover every single thing about the ink that you can imagine. I'm never going to get to that point. There I go saying never again, Mike, never say never. I'm likely not going to get to that point on the pen addict because I just don't have the time or those type of tests that people are doing do not interest me in my daily use of a fountain pen ink. I need to know a lot fewer things about an ink than some people, right? I just need to know, is it going to work good on this paper and is it going to feel good when I write with it? I'm not personally concerned with waterproofness and bulletproofness and different kinds of tests and pH levels of the ink. It's not a concern to me, but the biggest resource is the fountain pen network. And I would go look at those templates and see what on those templates appeal to you and then test out those things. You don't have to test all those properties. Test out what's important to you. That's why when I do my ink reviews, I keep them real simple. How does it look? How does it perform? What's the dry time like? I mean, is it obscene? And that might be an issue. And that's about it for me. The performance, the looks, the feel. But you can get way, way more in depth and that's where I would start. Chris is asking me about my typhoon, my viscomte typhoon, opera blue, that I just bought. How am I finding it? And he compares it to another viscomte called the homo sapien steel age oversized, which is, ooh, that's a beautiful pen. How are you finding the opera? It's really good. It's still hard to put into words. That's one of those justifications. Does it justify the money that you spend on it? Yeah, right now it does. But, you know, I'm going to get a full review on this. Right now, I'm very happy with it. I can't compare it to the other pin you mentioned, the homo sapien steel. That pin is a beautiful pin. Looked at it online. It's a stunner. I don't know if I'd be able to pick between the two. I don't have that much experience with it. But I'm very happy with my typhoon purchase so far. All right, Mike. Last question. You ready? Thank you. Okay. It's from our friend Slugnutty. What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow? I don't have a nut. Yeah. So the answer to that question is African or European. And we'll leave it at that. Thank you, Mr. Slugnutty. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of the pen addict podcast. Thank you all for sending in your questions and for all of you for listening. If you'd like to send in questions for future episodes, there's a few ways you can do that. You can go to 5x5.tv/penaddict and hit the contact button at the top. That'll send us an email. If you want to find the show notes for this week's episode, go to 5x5.tv/penaddict/103. Brad is @doudism, d-o-w-d-y-i-s-m on Twitter. And he writes over at penaddict.com. My name is Mike Hurley, and I'm Mike. I-m-y-k-e on Twitter. Thank you again for listening, and we'll be back next week on Thursday of next week for another episode of the pen addict podcast. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. [BLANK_AUDIO]
