Hello there and welcome to episode 96 of the Panetic Podcast, a weekly show where we discuss pens, paper and the analog tools that we love so dearly. My name is Mike Hurley and I'm joined as always by a man that's so good at reviewing pens, he'll erase all the money from your wallet. Good job mate, how are you? Oh, got it, that was awesome. That was awesome, you had to like write that down to make sure you got it, didn't you? Yep, I wrote it down, I'm reading it, pens heal eraser, so I'm very proud of that one. So am I the palette friction of pen reviews? Yeah, yeah. Oh man, well what's going on? I'm excited about this episode, are you excited about this episode? Of course I am, not just because I get to talk to you, but we also have a guest with us this week. We sure do. We have Mr. Andy Welfly, hi Andy. Hey guys, how are you? How are you? I'm great, I'm very excited to be here. So Andy is a pencil guy, you're a pencil geek, and that's hence the pencil related intro for Brad. So we're going to be talking about some pencil stuff today. So we've been, Andy and I have been, when do we first approach this? It's been months since they're like, hey, if you ever need someone to talk pencils, I'm like, you know what, we do. And then, you know, things get, things get sideways and you know, months and months go by and we finally, I'm glad we finally got on the same, on the same page. And we got this show put together because I think it's going to be great. Oh yeah, I think, I think so you were my, the one who invited me to app.net and I think it was right after I joined that we started even just talking about a little bit. So it's a, that's a really good place to just kind of go back and forth. And I think I just kind of eventually just begged you and said, hey, I want to come talk about pencils. And then you did, then you did the great trick of bribery where you sent, at least me, you sent me a big bag of pencils. I was going to send one to Brad, but I figured he had a bunch of them and he didn't just need more sitting around. I do. I actually, you know, normally I keep a little field notes notebook and a pen to just to jot down things while we're doing the show, like show titles and other notes I need to talk about. But I, I swapped that out and I brought in a batch of pencils today that, that we will definitely, definitely be talking about because I have lots of questions. So for those who recognize Andy's name or may not recognize his name, you may recognize his blog. It's woodclenched.com and we'll talk more about that as we go in the episode. But just so y'all can put two and two together. That's where Andy writes all his pencil ramblings. But Mike, we got a little bit of news, a little bit of follow up to go through real quick and we'll get Andy to chime in here too. I say let's do it, huh? Sounds like a great idea. All right, so I don't know how many times you got this link sent to you this past week, Mike, but I got it several times. Gizmodo ran a very simple post on their tech blog called What is your favorite pen? And as I'm staring at it right now, it's got 798 comments to this post, which is pretty crazy. It was like a, I don't know, 7500 word post, maybe, and authors just saying, "Hey, what's your favorite pen?" And then, you know, pouring out some Amazon links through as they do. But if it's interesting, and the fact that it wasn't interesting at first, you pull up the article, the first thing you see is Boom Pilot G2, of course. But then you started getting into some interesting things, you know, and, you know, most of all the popular in-store pens that we talk about, that I talk about are like the really good off-the-shelf store pens, Pilot Precise B5, Uniball Jetstream, Uniball Vision Elite, all those are real popular. And you scroll down and there's this kind of this theme, "Hey, these are all the pens off the store shelf." And all of a sudden, you get down there and then, well, aside from the different pen island jokes that people always enjoy making, there's a few fountain pens jump in there. And you start seeing a moody jelly and, you know, some limey so far. So, it's a very good representation of the general public, the non-pidatic public, for the most part, for what they feel are the best pens. And actually, you know, it's really good stuff. I mean, it's just, it's all the good stuff off the store shelf, and there's really not a bunch of junk in there, to be honest with you. So, it's a pretty good article if you just want to browse through the comments, and Andy even jumped in there with what you have the vision. I think it was the original vision. The elite's the one that has the little extra, like little viewports on the end of it, and it's more white than it is silver, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, mine was the original vision specifically in Evergreen Inc. I like to write in Green Inc. And all through a high school and college, I use these. I would just go to Office Depot and just buy like 24 of them at a time and just use them up. So, I used to only write in Green Inc. Like when I was in high school, just because, I mean, at the time, you couldn't get like purple and orange and all this other cool stuff, and, you know, I didn't want to write in black or blue, and I think Green just seemed to be the thing for me too, so that's pretty cool. Yeah, and as far as I knew, until I saw this, you could not get the Evergreen Inc anymore, which is a little bit darker and richer. But I just found when I was looking through, I found an Amazon link that does have Evergreen Inc. So, I may have to erase some of my wallet and go get that. Yeah, I actually haven't, I don't even know that I've seen that Evergreen, Evergreen once, but I have used the regular Green. Yeah. So, what's your favorite pet, Mike? Did you reply to this thread? No, but I was thinking about it, and I've been thinking about it, and I haven't, I don't know if this is the response I've given previously, but I do know what it is now. Oh, yeah? Yeah, it's the Pelican M215. Yeah, that's awesome. I've got a gold nib in it, so it's the second other thing to add, and also, in the model that I have, you can't get anymore, but it's the same as the one that I currently sell, they just look different. Yeah. And I replaced mine with a gold nib, but that and Erosia Zuku for Yugaki, which is the orange ink that I enjoy so much, that pairing is just unstoppable. That is a handsome pen. So, it's a real beauty to use. Yeah, and someone actually dropped a pelican in this gizmodo thread way down towards the bottom, so. Good work. That is good. That is good. Anyway, yeah, if you got 10, 15 minutes of spin, you can go scroll through that thread. It's actually pretty decent. I mean, it's not, you know, sometimes you think of these tech blogs, tech blogs, you know, trolling and spamming, but it's actually pretty decent. There's some good conversation in there. So, that's pretty cool. So, there was a new pen by Retro51 that we got linked to yesterday. Is that yesterday, Mike? I lose track of what day it is, regardless. Retro51 came out with a new pen called the Retro51 Tornado Touch. So, now what's cool about this pen is that it's basically like the tornado mini. Did you ever get that tornado mini? We talked about this a long time ago. Yeah, I hated it. Yeah, and you did not like it at all. What was the problem with that? I'm sorry, I can't even remember at this point. It was a rollable ball point on the other way around. I still get it mixed up. Yeah, it's probably a ball point because that's what this one is. This is a ball point. Yeah, it's not a rollable. Yeah, it's not a roller ball, but I haven't seen the refill. So, maybe it can be swapped into a roller ball refill. But, um, this is an interesting pen. They've decided that the tornado style should be made into a mini pen, which I'm all for, then they've decided, well, since we're doing a mini pen, the thing to do now is mini pens need styluses. Do you know what? Until now, I had not realized this was a mini pen. Yeah. I paid, I'm not paid full attention to the image, where they try and prove it's a mini pen by holding it on an iPhone. But I just figured that the iPhone was there to show it was a stylus, less to show the... Okay, what if it's a mini pen, then it's, then I'm not, you're not going to be able to swap out. And that's, so it goes back to the same problem. So, it's, uh... Yeah, see, it's going to have that issue because it's a ball point. Yeah, but, I mean, I need to see the refill. Because there's plenty of mini pen so that you can swap out the refill on. Yeah, but it's like a, like a gel D1 size refill, but this may not be that... But, you know, for me, the Retro51 is about that refill. I know. I agree completely. But, um, I thought Retro51 for you is about the, uh, mustache and derby. Ike? No. So... The mustache is a little much, I think. So, basically, they've taken the stylus, the conductive stylus, and they've made it to look like a, what you say, a derby, or I would say, derby hat, but I also call it a bowler hat. Sure. So, it's the kind of, like, the lip with the sort of rounded section that goes up onto the top. So, they've done that. Charlie Chaplin, is that, did he make that hat famous? Yeah. Is that a Chaplin hat? Yeah, yeah. So, I can see why they've done that, right, because they've taken the existing sort of manufacturing process, and they've added... This... What would appear to be the simplest way to get that on there, to me, would be to make a piece that fits around the lip of the edge of the twisty metal part. Yep. And then you make a... You have to make a finer point, because it would be too difficult. I actually kind of like it. I think it's kind of cute having the bowler hat and the mustache. There's something about it. Like, I think I can see why they've done this. They've made a stylist. This is the way I would probably do this. They've made a stylist point, which looks like a bowler hat. If you've done that, put a mustache on the pen. Like, that just seems so logical to me. And the folks over at Retro51 did contact me and asked if I wanted to play around with it, and I said yes. And I've asked for the black one, because then it kind of looks like he's wearing a tuxedo. Yeah, well, that looks like the clip of the pen looks like his tie, right? Exactly. So it's like the shirt and the tie. So it makes him look like, in essence, he's wearing a little tuxedo. Yeah. So I mean, I want to try it out. I'm a big fan of the products of this company, so I figure it'll be worth at least giving it a while. But I feel like it's not going to have the refill that I like, which will be a shame. But I'm going to give it a go. Yeah, and they reach out to me too, and I asked for the black one as well to test out. So maybe this one will do dueling reviews on the podcast once we get them in. Sounds like a good idea to me. So thank you, Retro51, for reaching out, and thanks for everyone who sent us this. You know, my initial reaction was, oh, this is ridiculous, but the more I stare at it, I can't wipe the smile off my face. And I think that's the point of it. Yeah. I think it's a really fun, fun little pen. So I received an interesting email yesterday or the day before. There's this little company from Georgia that I don't know if you'd heard of, Brad. And they sent me, they finally, after many months of agonizing, wait, sent me a shipping notification for some products that I ordered. Who was that? This you're probably your company, Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Finally got my shipping notification for all of the cases. So I'm very excited to have more pay cases than I could ever need. Yeah, you will, it's a lot of cases. I've been seeing lots of pictures and I'm like, oh, man. I've got so many pen cases. Hey, you're going to need more than that. So you'll fill those up immediately and you're going to need more. Oh, yeah. Of course. I hope they should soon. I got my high tower months ago. Yeah. Depending on the levels, we got, um, uh, some went early, some went later in all the cases and the mass storage levels are at the end just because of how we manufacture them and just the quantities and colors and different styles. You know, I've probably got for every single person that I haven't shipped yet. I bet I have six of their seven cases, right? But I can't ship until I have that final one. So we're working through that right now. But everything else is shipped except for those two big levels. And I've already started shipping a bunch of those. So people should, uh, people should start seeing them rolling in. I think everyone's happy that we're finally to that level where a lot of people backed and have been waiting patiently for us and we appreciate that. And the feedback has been out of this world. So, um, Jeff and I are really pleased with how everything is going and, uh, hopefully we'll get these rest of it out sooner than later. I mean, I know we're cranking on it hard. So, and I got more to ship out today and tomorrow. So it'll just be a constant stream until we're done with that over the next couple of weeks. So good. I'll be anxious to see what you think when you get yours, Mike. I'll be doing a review for the show. Awesome. It will take 4,000 episodes. One, one, uh, one case per episode. Yep. Well, you got a, you got a good, uh, email in your inbox. I got good real mail in my mailbox between Friday and Saturday. I had the most ridiculous mail day ever. I was up actually Friday. I was in Atlanta working with Jeff, making cases. And I came home Friday to the two Twisbees that I had ordered, which I mentioned last show. Um, the Twisbee Classic in blue with the 1.1 stub nib and the Twisbee Macarta, um, with an EF nib, which I plan on switching out, um, to something else. I'm just swapping out the nib. So those came in and it was late Friday night and I was tired. I'd been working all day, open Atlanta. And I was, I was up at like five in the morning to drive up there and do all that stuff. And by the time I got home, I opened up the boxes and I was like, oh, these are cool. Everything looks good. And I just set them aside to, you know, mess with them on Saturday. Uh, I did notice on the Twisbee Classic and I got a photo. We'll put the show notes, uh, put the link in the show notes. Um, they have new packaging. Uh, I don't know if all the pins are coming with this new packaging, but it's way better than their last packaging. The last packaging looked cooler. This packaging, packaging is way more functional. Um, every time I'd open up a Twisbee, um, box for everything, everything falls out. Everything just flies out little holders and everything. It's ridiculous. Those little plastic things. I like them because they look nice in the boxes, but they're like, they never go back in the same way. Yeah. That's insane. It's beautiful, but it's not functional. This one's not near as beautiful. It's way more functional. It's got like the little foam cutouts where everything just slots in and it's in there firmly in a little snap box. Um, so that's cool. So I held off on trying those. I figured I'd have time on Saturday and then I got like the hugest surprise ever in my mail on Saturday and we're going to have to talk about this on the next episode because it's an extraordinarily long topic and we'll tease it. But, um, I got an Edison Menlo that I did not order. And there's pictures of that on Instagram and we're going to tease that and we're going to save that story for next week because it's a great story. Um, behind that. Um, it was a very cool thing that someone did for me and you can read the, the link in the, if you go to the show notes and read the, the, um, Instagram notes, you will, you'll get an idea. But anyway, so that was cool. And I also got the DONE large utility notebooks that Chad DONE sent me a pack early to check out. They are awesome. So we'll do a, we'll do a full, full review of that next week too because I don't want to, uh, I don't want to take too much time for our, our pencil loving friend here because I want to get into this stuff too. So, um, and one other thing that I started to tease on Instagram, I had a big Instagram day because of all this stuff I got in the mail. Another thing I got in the mail is, um, I've, I've left the cat out of the bag mic that, um, episode 100 is going to have a giveaway of Epic proportions. I think that's actually a good title right there. Yeah. The giveaway of Epic proportions. So anyone that can count, realizes that we're a month away now from episode 100 of this show. Some people said it would never be done, but, but we've got to that point, um, and me and Brad have been talking about what can we do for the episode, do we want to do something special or whatever? And then I can't remember which one of the first it was, it was probably Brad because he's the brains of the operation suggested a giveaway. So we've been talking to a bunch of our friends and I won't say anything more right now. But if you are a listener of this show, you're going to basically, we'll want to kill for what we're, uh, for what we're going to be doing on episode 100. And I think we've worked out a way that we're going to do it too. Yep. Yep. So we'll, uh, you know, we might be teasing it a little bit beforehand, but we're definitely not going to let the cut out of the bag until episode 100. But needless to say, you should, um, definitely be, um, downloading and listening to that show. Not just downloading. Like we're not, we're not even kidding either. Like it's, it's so big to the point that you could give somebody who doesn't own anything, all of this stuff and they will be a pan addict just by design of how much stuff we're going to be giving away. I'm really, really excited, including, as well, from me, I'm going to be contributing a, uh, very rare item. Yep. So it's going to be exciting. I just don't qualify my, um, Brad, since I, uh, won that other giveaway. That's right. Andy. I totally forgot about that. Gosh. That was only like two weeks ago. I know. And you want the, uh, the Kaveko AL sport, uh, giveaway on my blog with the, uh, the rarer, um, even though it's the same odd as any other number as, as I am, as I am, uh, uh, prone to say into all the skeptics, um, the rare number one of, but a 600 and something. He was the first post. I mean, the first, uh, comment on the post, I hit the random button and I'll be danged if number one didn't come up out of 600 and something entries, number one. And I even had to, had to show the proof on that one. I remember that, I remember that now, because I remember you putting the image in the post to be like, see. Yeah. Cause I never do that because I really don't care. I mean, I mean, if anyone was really glad that I didn't just write first on that comment. Yeah. Yeah. The guy that actually won the groove, he said, Oh, now I'm going to be known for that horrible groove pun that I made in my comment. So beware of your comment. If you actually win, I'm going to post it. So yeah, congratulations. How, how is your pen doing? It's, it's great. I, uh, I have a few other fountain pens. I probably have three or four other ones and, uh, this one, my wife and I have both been using. And I love it cause it's a lot like a, a pen version of a bullet pencil, uh, cause it just kind of slides right up and fits in your pocket, but it's, it's a really nice little machine. Yep. That's great. Uh, that's one of my all time favorite, favorite pens. Yeah. So I have one, one last piece of follow up, um, this was pointed out to me, um, to notice a correction by a listener, Matt, by email. So remember I was talking about my Mont Blanc last week and I mentioned it was the Mozart. I then started looking around for it and realized it wasn't a Mozart. And I put the link in the show notes to last week's episode, the model that I have. I'm going to call it the Meister Strück, I guess they're like that, classic. Um, I've, I know I said that wrong, but it looked interesting enough for me to try and say it in that way. Um, I found that and put it in the notes, but I didn't correct myself on the show. Um, so, uh, thank you for Matt for, for helping clarify that in case people were interested and I've put it back in the show notes again this week. Um, and I, I'm like 90% sure it's the same pen as the one that I have, although this did have a composer on the box. Mm. So I don't know, uh, if it was Mozart or not, but I believe it was because it also came of a CD from that composer and I believe it was Mozart. So I don't really know what the link is. Interesting. Yeah. Well, Matt, um, Matt, an interesting guy, he lives in Japan and works at a pen shop. I think he works at a toya in Japan, which is just a, like an epically large, uh, pen store. And, uh, he, he reaches out from time to time with all kinds of cool stuff. We've talked, uh, sailor pins before, so, um, he's a, he's an interesting dude from just the perspective that he's coming from with pins and things like that. So that's pretty awesome. Thanks, Matt. Awesome stuff. So shall we talk about square space and then move on into pencil talk? Let's do it. This episode of the pandemic podcast has been brought to you by the fine folks over at square space. They are the only one platform that makes it easy to create your own website for a free trial and 10% off. You want to use the offer code tally hoe three, very much now it's going to get 10% off. Square space are constantly making sure that their platform is up to date with new features, new designs and more support. They have absolutely stunning, fantastic, beautiful, cool, just templates that you can get started with and loads of other options, tons of other options, millions of other options. 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If you are an engineer or a designer, square space are looking to hire 30 new people to their team by March 15th. They're inviting potential candidates which could be you and their spouses to be New Yorkers for a weekend completely on them if you go and are accepted for an interview. So if you want to go and hang out with the crew over at Squarespace and see what New York has to offer and why Squarespace could be the place for you, go check out be a part of it.squarespace.com. Thank you so much to Squarespace for their support five by five and the pen addict podcast with Brad Doudy, thank you, Squarespace, go ahead Andy, I want to hear this speaking of Squarespace I bought a Baron Fig notebook today. They went on sale to the public because I missed the Kickstarter and they have a square safe vlog and I was using the commerce check out and that is a smooth experience. I tweeted earlier, I was like, wow, this is one of the best e-commerce checkout experiences I've had. So I looked in it with Squarespace. He's actually very good, he's genuinely very good. As Brad knows, I'm ready to turn ours on just to see exactly how smooth it is but just looking at the setup piece and all of it on the back end that we haven't turned up live yet it's just works, it's very smooth, very simple, not a lot of fluff, you can go in, make your purchases and get it done. So that's awesome, I'm looking forward to it. Alright so we got the quick note on the pen blog of the week, I wanted to mention this, you would think I would come up with a pencil blog you know for our pencil topic today but I purposefully didn't, I did just do a Bliced Tift a couple weeks ago, it is a great blog. So that's a great pencil related blog but I wanted to mention the pessimistic, pessimistic pedant which no one may be familiar with unless you're really paying attention because this is a gentleman named Davie who's blog was called Just Davie B or Davie B's blog or something I don't know, it was very simple, he changed the name of it so I wanted to point that out because I've always enjoyed reading his posts because he doesn't necessarily do reviews but he has so many pens and inks and he has this whole database type system that he rotates through so every time a pen and an ink changes he posts it on the blog with the pen, a picture of the pen and a writing sample of the ink and it's all, like every post is like this and he's got it, I don't know, the last time he showed it his collection picture was around 80 or 90 fountain pens and he literally rotates through everything so it's cool to watch this blog and see all the great pens that he has and a lot of the ink samples that he uses because he, the way he sets up his database he tries not to like duplicate inks and pens and things like that, he's got some posts where he talks about how he does it so check that out because if you're a fan of Just Davie B's blog it has changed the URL and we will have it in the show notes. All right, Andy. Yes, sir, how long has woodclinched been around just the, just you've been, it's been a while I know so from writing about pencils, how long has that been around? Yeah, well I actually started with pencil things which used to be, actually they're still around, it's changed hands I think but it's a seller of pencils and erasers and you know things that go with pencils and I actually bought a sampler pack of pencils from there back in 2007 and I reviewed it and I put it on my personal blog and then I, I emailed the proprietor at the time and I was like hey this is, these are really cool here's my, here's the review I put on my blog and he was like hey this is awesome do you want to review products for our blog? I was like heck yeah so I started blogging for pencil things for a while and that went through some transitions, they kind of phased out the blog and he, and that proprietor left so I decided I just kind of wanted to go, go independent if you will, when I started woodclinched, which of course woodclinched is the, the name of the process by which you sandwich like the wood planks together to form a pencil over the, over the, the core and that was a Eberhard Faber and the Litter Faber-Castell, like a trademark they put on the side of the pencil barrel. I think, I think you mean Faber-Classel? Yes, Faber-Castell, I was just listening to that last night and I'm like I have to talk about this at some point so I can talk about that. I got email, I got emails that said hey you know what I say in the same way, Faber-Castell suck it. No, I'm just kidding, I don't think so. So yeah, I started woodclinched and from there I just kind of kept going, I've been through some dry periods changing jobs and doing stuff where I just couldn't get into it where, but lately I've been trying to keep pretty regular on it and I actually, that led me to meeting Charles barrelsheimer who runs, who owns pencils.com and I did, I worked there for a little bit kind of at the beginning when they started selling the Palomino black wings which we'll talk about later but that was a really fun experience and Charles is a really great guy but I'm not there anymore but I'm still doing woodclinched. Do you do anything else professionally of pencils in the moment or if you moved on to different fields? I work at a web development company so I do a lot of writing and content strategy and sketching things out a lot so I use pencils professionally but I don't do anything for pay involving pencils specifically. Okay. Yeah. So now comes the big philosophical question that I always get about fountain pens or a lot of pens, why wood case pencils? That's interesting. I was trying to think about that and I have kind of two answers to that. I have a philosophical answer and I have a practical answer and I actually wrote a guest post on the website called the pen company that was kind of asking that same question. So probably like a lot of people, people use fountain pens as sort of a tribute to the old days, to technologies gone by, to people who shave with a straight razor, drive a manual transmission car, something like that. I really like it because it's kind of a pure expression of writing. Pencils are interesting specifically wood case pencils because they really are not that much different than taking a charred stick and writing on the side of a cave wall like a caveman might do. Obviously it's been kind of refined and made more efficient and made better to hold but it's really, that's kind of the simplest way you can put a mark down somewhere. So that's kind of my philosophical answer. I really like that it's just a very basic form of writing, it's really pure. So the practical answer is because the way that I generally write longhand nowadays is I make lists, I make scribbles, I make a little notes to myself, I might erase something and put it back. And really pencils are just better for that. Obviously with a pen you can cross something out and they have those really, I don't know how you guys feel about those paper made erasable pens but I'm not a fan. They're pretty poor. Yeah and in fact I think paper made even came out with a, what was it called, it was like an ink pencil or something like that? Sharpie did it and it was one of the worst products. It was the last decade. Liquid pencil that's what it was called. Yeah the Sharpie liquid pencil. So practically I just kind of realized that after going into a job where I was using computer to do most of my writing, most of the writing that I did longhand was really well suited for a pencil. I've been using pencil since I was a kid, my mom was a kindergarten teacher so we had a lot of art supplies and pencils later on the house. And I had those, I don't know if you guys remember Yikes pencils or not. Those were made by the barrel company back in the 90s and they were brightly colored. They had little doodles. I don't know if they made them at the UK mic but they were really cool. I actually wrote a post about that. Yikes. Oh my God I love those things. Yeah it's interesting because I wrote about that a couple years ago and I guess a lot of people our age, kind of late 20s, early 30s started searching for them and then hit my blog. So now when you type in Yikes pencils that's like I come up right at the top. Yeah that's how I just found these articles by hearing auctions. They used to have erasers that looked kind of like the... Oh those derby hats? Yeah the little derby hats. Yeah yep I have a picture one in there like that. They had a fountain pen as well. They did? Yeah they made a fountain pen that I had dored as a kid and now I need to try and find it. Yeah if you can find a picture of that or something and send it to me I would be really interested in trying to find one of those. Yeah I'll do what I can do. Yeah this is it the Yikes fountain pen of all knowledge. That was the name of the product. The Yikes fountain pen of all knowledge? Yeah. That's awesome. That was what it was called. I know. Oh man it's on eBay. Oh man I need one of these. Oh wow look at that thing. I wonder if this is just a UK thing because I do not remember anything about this. Anyhow. Yeah. There you go. Darn it we're talking about pens when I'm supposed to be talking about pencils. So I'm a, I've liked pencils a lot in the past but really only when I kind of graduated college and starting, started just writing long hand to make notes and little, little you know temporary things. I really, you know I really found, kind of really got back into pencils. And as I'm sure we'll talk about there's a huge, huge difference between like a nice pencil and you know those, those things you get from Office Depot for you know a dollar for a 24 pack or something. Right and I think that's probably what you know anyone who's not you know deep into it like yourself or you know or who's not into this pen world where they're seeing some of this crossover and some of these really you know super nice pencils and things that are available these days you know like y'all talking about growing up with the Yikes pencils I grew up, it was either you know you had your basic number two that you had to have for your test and the only other pencils that I used were when like the, when the football season started and I got the, the pack of all the team pencils that was like the coolest thing ever. Yeah, but that's just like the super super El Chippo pencils but nowadays I mean it's buying a nice pencil it's like it's almost like buying a fine wine there's so many characteristics that are involved in each pencil from the you know the wood and the lead hardness and the shape and the barrel design and the other features so talk, talk about like, talk about like what makes for a good quality pencil and we're not talking about like you said then you know the number two you know that you can just go grab off the office depot shelf like what is, what's, what's so special about this more specialty pencils? Sure, well it's funny you say you compared it to a fine wine because one of the like with wine you know one of the first things you do that is you sniff it and you kind of see what the scent is like a really nice pencil is probably made out of incense cedar California incense cedar it's called and it smells really good it smells like those if you have like those coat hangers that you put in your closet for your suit that just kind of makes everything smell like cedar if you if you sniff your pencil it should be like that you might look a little weird. Yeah, I'm sniffing I'm sniffing my pencils right now absolutely yeah you can't you can't quite get high off it like you was sniffing a sharpie but Mike I did I sent you a care package of some of those pencils I don't know if you had a chance to use any of them or not. Yeah I've used a few what did you what did you notice about maybe some of the differences between those and some of the ones you might buy from a big box store? So I tell you the ones that I've used because I've got them here I've got four so the Palomino blackwind 602 the Helix Oxford premium grade the California Republic golden bear and the the triangular one yeah the triangular one and the general's semi hex therefore that I used and I think the interesting thing that I found especially in the black wing and the golden bear was how soft they felt and smooth to use and that was maybe kind of a new experience where like one like the Oxford premium grade feels more like the pencil I used in school yeah and it was I found that was the kind of the most interesting thing of the four that I used because I kind of just picked a selection of ones that looked interesting to me and sharpened them which was a strange experience yeah I have a sharpener that I got in my art snacks subscription which I was very lucky that I had because like huh I don't know if I have a pencil sharpener but I do and it was it it transported me back to being in school because of the smell oh yeah a smell of sharpening a pencil and so I just I just don't I just can't imagine using pencils every day like it's just and it's kind of just like you know how I'm sure there are so many people that are like I can't even imagine thinking about any sort of pen the way you think about pens Mike you're insane but there's just I don't know there's just something about pencils where it's like these are perfectly nice but they feel to me like a tool for a specific job yeah and and they're really I mean one of the things I really like about them you know just even even a really good quality pencil like the black wing which which you were talking about you know they're they're so inexpensive so you have to think of it more like let's say like the fountain pen cartridge rather than the actual fountain pen it's just all kind of you know built right in there I guess like a like a disposable pen like a really nice disposable pen or something yeah exactly yeah they're they all the the refill yeah you can get like you know like pencil holders or something like that that has a really nice barrel that you can stick stick led into or like a really nice mechanical pencil but yeah the wood pencils definitely are kind of something you have to think about as a like disposable as a commodity because like you know a nice fountain pen I have a really nice estu brook from the 30s and you know if I take good care that can that can last me another 70 years or so a pencil if I keep on using it no matter how good a care I take care I take of it you know that things gonna wear out eventually so it's it's definitely kind of a kind of esoteric like it's definitely not going to be there all of my life which is which is one of the another I guess a philosophical reason why I like it but yeah and and there's just so many different colors and shapes you know there's around ones there's triangular ones which I really like there's there those hexagonal ones a lot of them have like a really nice like dark lacquer on it for some reason America kind of got like a like a weird reputation where most of our pencils are yellow most the time around the world that's not the case like you know if you look at all the the fabric castle pencils statler pencils and a lot of the ones from the UK there there lots of different bright colors so I think it's really visually appealing to yeah I think the the last thing I want to use in is a yellow pencil these days when in trying out because I don't I don't know that I don't know that there's a yellow pencil in in my house other than you know maybe in the kids backpack from school and I'm not even sure that they have any but yeah I think you made a good point about using the pencils and that's you know it's not going to last you a lifetime you know it's going it's made to be used you're going to go through it and it's you know more of a it's a you know quality disposable writing instrument and for you know that kind of hits one of the points that I have with why maybe I don't use pencils so much is the lack of portability like I didn't from wood case pencils I don't feel like good just throwing him in my backpack just because I'm weird that way well but I shouldn't probably think of it that way I should probably just do it because you know what I have you know I just bought it does and I got eleven more sitting over there and you know use the pencil and and go for it well you can buy I know Jet Pen cells one a little cap to put on the end of it I mean I mean I agree I usually you know keep some pencils in my home desk keep some pencils in my work desk and I don't transport them a lot because you know those points I mean if you have a good sharpener those points are sharp and then also you can also you know get the inside of your bag dirty or whatever but yeah you can get a cat for them if you want and then there's always something like bullet pencils which we hopefully can talk about a little bit later where you can just kind of you know cap it and put it in your pocket so what you know specifically talking now about some of your favorite pencils like what are the characteristics like of the wood of the lead you know what is is making a good pencil for Andy hmm I like the ones so we should probably touch briefly touch on the hardness scale with pencils okay kind of lead into that so I you know that the pencil scale a lot of people are familiar with like number two pencils you know there's also you know number three pencils there's number two and a half there's number one pencils but that is the the US system of scaling that the nicer pencils use the European grade and you know pencils are made from a combination of graphite and wax and you know the the difference in pencils in pencil hardness is you know there may be more wax and a softer pencil than maybe more graphite and a harder pencil and they they measure them in H and B grades so H for hardness B for blackness so going down the spectrum you go H2H3H4H5H and these pencils are harder there's more graphite but they're also lighter I'm don't worry I'm actually all leading up to something the the softer you go you go B2B3B4B all the way up to like you know 8B or 9B that's super soft and smooth but it's also super black that's what the B stands for black so most most writers and I don't do a lot of sketching and drawing with my pencils I do a lot of writing most writers like something around the HB range that's like perfectly balanced right in the middle and most of the pencils that you find will be that a number two pencil is an HB pencil is the same thing and I generally tend to prefer something between an HB and let's say like a 2B something that's just really balanced and something that's a little bit softer and blacker just because I don't press down super hard so I really like the as as Mike various duly pointed out the Palomino black wing and the golden bear are a little bit darker in that line I really like those those are actually when I was coming up with my top five favorite pencils those are my two favorites so Micah I chose the same page yeah so I I like those a lot the black wing is very smooth and very dark and of course like the secret recipe a really good pencil will will be plenty dark while still being you know hard so you don't have to keep sharpening it you're not breaking the point so I think they do a really good job of kind of hitting that so that's that's kind of pencil I really like I like triangular pencils a lot there's not a lot of really good ones in the market anymore Rodea which you know has the exit clear note or the the no pads they they have a branded pencil that's that's triangular and really nice and I think Brad probably that grip 2001 you were talking about last week that's probably that's triangular right yeah and actually I thought it was a little bit smaller in diameter like this compared to like the six oh black wing 602 and actually like the little bit wider diameter of the of the black wing I felt like I would think I would like a triangular pencil but a little bit larger barrel diameter yeah then the 2001 so so actually on my list is something that's a really good compromise for that it's made by Ticonderoga which is you know your classic classic pencil that you could find in a store check out the Triconderoga it's a it's triangular and it's larger in fact it's quite a bit larger than a black wing but it's a and it has like a really soft kind of rubbery grip on it okay it's part parts of it aren't great quality like the feral which is the I'd actually have no idea if I say that right it's the middle part that attaches the eraser to the pencil that comes off a lot I actually had a conversation with the Ticonderoga Twitter account about that but yeah that that comes off a lot but the pencil is really nice and it is kind of a pain to sharpen though because it's hard to find a sharpener you can fit it into that's true but yeah those are kind of the qualities of my favorite pencils so is there is there a such a thing as a smoothness grade or is that incorporated into the lead hardness darkness grades because you notice that some pins or pencils are smoother and a lot have more a more gritty feedback is that just the manufacturer and you know the types of materials that they're using it's just kind of a manufacturer specific or is there any is there anything to do that yeah there that's really and even those pencil grades I was talking about are not that none of that is regulated everything's just kind of like you know people just kind of take a guess and just check the formula but but mostly that ties into ties into that hardness scale if it's if it's smoother generally it's probably softer whereas if it's grittier kind of toothier is the word that I often use that one that one is generally going to be a little bit harder but it really depends on the manufacturer I think yeah yeah and trying trying some of these pencils like when the black wing came out you know I just you know I mean I had to try it just because I'd heard so much about it and yeah I'd never realized that a pencil could be so smooth yeah I was like whoa this is kind of eye-opening a little bit from someone who really almost zero experience with pencils you know just using you know whatever whatever you can find and pick up and trying something a little bit nicer like that was it's like wow these are different in a good way yeah and some of that it could also be like if something's a little bit grittier sometimes that even has to do with how well it's sandwiched within the wood the the lead like if it's like super well put in there I won't kind of vibrate and shake around a lot while you're drawing dragging it across the paper so you know that can often you know play a little bit role in that too okay that makes sense so that you kind of you alluded to it just a second ago some of your favorites let's talk let's talk about your favorites like you know give me your like you said maybe you have a top five tell me tell me what they are and and why and then and why you know one is better than the or one you prefer more than another one sure well I I think my top favorite is and I am just listing the pencils that are available now there's a lot of sure pencils that aren't that aren't made that that I like but the palamino the whole another show oh yeah oh yeah vintage pencils could take up so the the palamino golden bear the one that I sent you Mike is the triangular one and unfortunately that's not made anymore but the golden bear has been wrapped under the palamino line by pencils.com it's kind of confusing the way that branding works but I like that because it is good great quality for the price you pay you pay like 250 for a dozen and they're really good quality it's like a little bit better than a like a dixon ticonderoga which often is kind of the standard by which I list things so I think that's my favorite and there's a really beautiful blue color on them too I like the palamino black wings 602 a lot the newly released or the new the new black wings that came out and that is the one that is the hardest of the black wings there's also a black wing classic and a black wing pearl both of which are a lot softer but this one is kind of the best writing pencil and it looks like the original ever hard favorite black wings which I really like and that's a little bit salty that's that's 20 bucks a dozen I like the general semi hex that's made by the general pencil company which is just one of a couple pencils still manufactured in the u.s. that's a really good classic yellow pencil it writes really well the semi hex means that it you know it's hexagonal but the the ends are the corners are rounded a little bit so it's a little bit more comfortable. I actually kind of like the helix oxford which mike was using that's a british pencil actually I don't know if it's manufactured in the uk but I know the company is based out of the uk it's a it has helix helix is what we use in schools helix yeah yeah it seems like it's a very like basic pencily pencil they make like for drawing wall school supplies like helix are just everywhere for school supplies well at least they were when I was growing up I had like a helix protractor and like and it's not just you buy them for schools like they are in schools like they're supplied directly to schools as well that's cool so it's a standard it's a very sort of standard kit yeah okay that makes sense I really like the pink wood on it I actually I don't know what kind of wood that is but it's a it has kind of a pinkish hue and it is a little bit toothier and and grittier but I you know sometimes sometimes I like that sometimes I think that you know depending on the paper I'm using that feels good so that that pink wood again is normal for me to see as a pencil I look at that and that's a pencil that's cool yeah I learned about them when I worked at pencil things these sent me they sent me a couple of them and I didn't realize they had a whole line of the school supplies that's cool and then the last one on my list is that triconderoga which I talked about that's a just a nice big grip pencil and it it looks very distinctive too so let's talk let's talk about the black wing specifically for a second so I think yeah the the black wing as a product on its own right now I think is it kind of stands on its own there's a it's a black wing pencil and it's high quality and it's you know great performance and it looks great but there's this whole I wrote in the show notes yeah I wrote this whole mythology around it and it reminds me of like the moleskin marketing like yeah it's almost like it's it's almost like too good to be true type this mythos that has been created and lifted this brand just by this whole true or not true and and probably both black wings and moleskins cases stories behind it and what what's your take just from the has not the current pencil in like its current form I think it I think it stands on its own but that's just like the history of the name and is like is that a big deal for it seems like it causes a lot of consternation in the in the pencil community yeah it's it's interesting because it does get kind of political about that so so the black wing the palamino black wing I should say is kind of a a relaunch a revamp by pencils dot com of by california cedar who runs pete pencils dot com of the ever hard favor black wing which was a pencil that was started to make it made in the thirties and when it was being manufactured all the way through to the nineties and it's really distinctive it has a kind of a rectangular feral and a rectangular racer on it that's being held in by a clip so you can actually pull the eraser out a little bit and kind of clip it back so you you have a really great eraser so that original pencil got kind of famous just because it it was it was mentioned in like memoirs by steven sondheim he was a big big color big user of this pencil it's attributed to a to be used by a lot of authors and celebrities and some of them are documented and some of them are a little bit more sketchily so but they they went out of business kind of suddenly in 1998 the machine that broke that made the feral broke is the the reason that they gave for not manufacturing these anymore so all of a sudden the price people would sell them on ebay people would hoard them and sell them on ebay for like like literally forty dollars a pencil it was wow really really salty I actually when I started pencil blogging and collecting I bought a few of them just because I had to know and I wrote a review on my blog it's called the realist review of the black wing and I mean I mentioned that it was it was indeed a really good pencil but it was not worth forty dollars it was just sure you know nothing no wooden pencil is worth forty dollars unless you know unless it's of significance you know to you or you know if it's worth it to you then sure but I know back in in 2010 or 11 I can't actually remember which is which is pretty bad California Cedar basically oh Eberhard Faber which was later bought by Faber Castell or March with them they let the trademark lapse the blackening the blackening trademark and pencils.com picked it up and kind of started started using that and manufactured their own black wing it's the Palomino black wing which Palomino is the brand of a of a another pencil that they make that's really good so anyhow it's they picked it back up it went out to it was the classic they they released it everybody loved it it's a big deal boing boing like really mainstream like kind of internet culture blogs picked it up and I know Mark Fraun felt that there's a big fan so people yeah people love it it's and it was very very soft the they released the black wing 602 which looks almost identical to the original the first black wing that pencils.com released changed up they changed up the look a little bit the 602 is released it was more for writers than for sketches they found or drawers and then after that they kind of completed that out the black wing pearl which is a white pencil and is somewhere kind of in the middle yeah yeah I've used the 602 in the pearl I definitely like the 602 just from a writing experience yeah and and I mean take it as you will it's a it's a really good pencil independent of the kind of the marketing behind it right that's what I was trying to separate it's it's there is actual substance behind absolutely and I know I mean it's made in pretty small batches in Japan I think that's why why it cost a little like quite a bit more than other pencils but if you are somebody who is serious about using wooden pencils and you really want some cool ones and you want something that are really just definitely conversation starters a palamino black wings are really good one to buy I gave a few of mine to a friend who runs a winery and he ended up buying a bunch more and they they got stolen off the desk like crazy people just just love those and take them home so yeah from a writing experience how do you sharpen these things what's the best way I'm having a challenge with that right now and how do I want to have the best writing experience yeah tell tell me you don't have to go crazy on it but what do you what do people look for in a sharpness because I've tried some that have come recommended like the I think it's actually the the palamino like the two gosh I don't know what the name of it is I didn't bring it but it's got the two it's got the long point oh yeah point when in the sharpener yeah and I can't even use that I I'm doing something wrong or something but I have a hard time with sharpeners yeah it's hard it's a that is a long point sharpener so you get a really long really sharp point with that and it is a little bit difficult to do you have to put you know you have to sharp basically you sharpen the wood with one of them and then you sharpen the point with the other with the other hole I actually when I worked at pencils.com I created a video about how to use it properly and I'll send you the link for that for your show notes but it's that's that's a good one I actually most every day I use what's called the classroom friendly pencil sharpener it's a $20 sharpener it's a it's it's not I don't think it was a Kickstarter but it's just an independent guy who made them it gives you a really really nice razor sharp tip I think that's the one I that's the one I ended up buying yeah I think I remember an Instagram that you posted of just that point that you got on the end of it yeah the thing I don't like about it is that it leaves tooth marks from the grip on your pencil and so it kind of looks like you've been chewing it but at work I actually take a half of a post it note and I wrap it around the pencil where it goes into the sharpener so the grip actually grips down on the paper rather than the pencil itself and that protects it a lot more okay yeah it does leave like little teeth marks on there on some of the pencils you can't really see it but on some moment does bother me yeah and people be like oh are you chewing on your pencils I'm like no I would never do that do you have like a do you have like a on the go hand sharpener that you prefer yeah I like the just like a plain old coom I and I don't know if it's coom or if it's come it's KUM I said coom yeah they're kind of the standard in pencils and I just have a little one that's that's in something called in oh what is it called in an ellipsis and ellips it's basically just like a little kind of oval football shaped sharpener that I just throw in my bag and that gives me like a medium tip it's pretty nice okay yeah yeah so I don't do a whole lot of sharpening while I'm writing because I don't press super hard but I do you know after I you know use it I'll polish it up and sharpen a lot more yeah now what about erasers do you use the the for lack of a better term the built in eraser or do you carry separate erasers with you I generally use the built in one if I'm using one there's you can you know a lot of people like untipped pencils or I guess it's called a tip pencil but not tipped with an eraser a lot of people like those and they like to carry their own sharpeners but I generally you know just use the one that's built in I actually have one that jet and sent me to review that I need to even open and try out but it's a basically like a plastic eraser it's made of like a latex and it supposed to erase much more smoothly I think on my blog I did a review the great eraser race where I just reviewed a bunch of erasers next to each other and I like those latex plastic e1s better than rubber ones generally yeah I think even though I am trying to use pencils more I still find myself scratching out like I do the pin or something I end up not not using any eraser at all I'll just scratch it out which is like well that's dumb it's kind of built to yeah to actually be erased so one more thing I want to I want to talk about we're going to say something oh no I was just going to say they have those erasers that you it's like needable they're like little pieces oh yeah and I sometimes like to use those but just because I like to fidget with things it's like silly I know yeah I remember growing up my grandfather was an artist growing up and eat those things were everywhere I love those things so one more thing I want to I want to talk about and it's because it's a design that I love so much and I just can't get into using it but it's the bullet pencils and you and I have talked about this and you know like I have the the Midori bullet pencil like the copper I guess the brass bullet pencil and it's one of the coolest most beautiful designs ever in my opinion pen pencil regardless but I mean this is a real historic design too I mean this is what you know people were using back in the god early 1900s I don't know if it goes back further than that just you know 1890s I think it started off they actually like literally made pencils out of bullet casings during some some wars since the South African Wars that the UK was involved in England and eventually Princess Mary would hand out these pens as gifts for soldiers which was super interesting there's a blog that has some pictures of this that are they're really neat they were kind of repurposed in the like 40s 30s 40s 50s 60s as advertising pencils if you owned a business a lot with agriculture and with with kind of farm stuff if you had a business you'd you know print your logo on your phone number the side of it and you give it to farmers and they'll use it out in the fields where they use their you know their field notebooks the original field notebooks yep so so those kind of disappeared like there's so many super cool ones out there on eBay I like to get some of the ones that have like like souvenir plate souvenirs from places San Francisco you know Orlando Florida stuff like that and and you cannot find them anymore they just they just don't make them anymore the with one or two exceptions that Midori one you're talking about is being made and and I actually am holding one right now I carried my pocket all the time and I love it it's it's great I'm really glad that they that I got one of these and then do you use the stock the stock pencil refills for them so so far I just got it probably a month ago and I have not gone through that stock yet I'm told a friend of mine fellow pencil blogger says that not too many other pencils will fit into that kind of casing there so I haven't I haven't tried it yet but I know I mean it's a really good wood pencil just the way it is from Midori so I may even just go to JetPens and get get a refill pack cool yeah it's a it's a good pencil yeah they're they're hard to find and it's definitely a collectors item if you go on eBay and find a bullet pencil or if you flea market or antique or something like that you can you can probably chances are they'll have a couple of these at least awesome yeah well Andy this has been a spectacular episode it's been a good learning experience for me and I know Mike Mike as well with the pencils you sent him and yeah yeah I am I'm attached to pencils and I have to find a way I'm attached to like you know I mean it's a just like fountain pens it's a classic writing experience yeah and there's so many options out there and you know trying to go through you know finding out you know what's good for me and I'm really starting to force myself which isn't much of a force I'm enjoying it to to use more wood case pencils and and you know reading your blog and all the other pencil blogs out there there's a good number of them and it's been it's like when I started with pens trying to discover you know about Japanese gel ink pens I mean there's this whole world out there that's just really really deep past the the very stuff at the top stuff at the surface so I appreciate you coming on and it's it was awesome to have you and I think we'll have to have you back again to to answer more of my silly questions about pencils I would love that I love talking about pencils as my my friends and co-workers will attest yes yes I think and I'll get that I'm happy to to or Daniel is the official pencil correspondent of the Panetic podcast now yes yes do I get do I get a pin or something some sort of badges some description yeah we'll make badges all right well you got anything else Mike that's it for me Andy where can people find you where can they keep in touch with you they can go to woodclench.com that's W O D C L I N C H E D dot com or I'm on Twitter somebody else actually has the woodclench handle which I'm I can't get ahold of them to try to get it back from them I I'm at a wellfully that's A W U E L F L E on Twitter also Brad you can find his stuff over at Panetic dot com and he's also at Dowdyism on Twitter I am I Mike I am Y K E so thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of the Panetic if you want to find the show notes for this episode of which there are many you can go to five by five dot TV slash Panetic slash ninety six and me and Brad will be back next week thanks again to Andy for joining us until next time say goodbye Brad goodbye Brad [BLANK_AUDIO]
