Hello and welcome to episode 93 of the Pedantic Podcast, your weekly show where we discuss pens, paper and the analog tours that we love so dearly. My name is Mike Curley and I am joined today by the Lieutenant of Lamy, Mr. Brad Dowdy. Awesome. How are you sir? Good. I kind of feel like I've besmirched my country though. Why? Well we say Lieutenant. Ah. Spell it exactly the same. Pronounced Lieutenant instead of Lieutenant. Now that I've never heard. There you go. So if you watch some old British war movies or, or maybe any British war movie or whatever you'll notice it but you might miss it. But yeah we say Lieutenant. Spell, spell the same. I don't, I, that one I do not understand but. Well I salute you for that. Thank you. You surviving, you surviving and surviving over there in London in the UK. Yeah. Yeah we're all good. Nothing wrong here. Yeah we're, I don't know. We're getting, we're digging out the trenches again getting ready for another storm here in the, in the US southeast. I don't know what's going on with the weather but. I say that there are a lot of floods in the UK but. Oh I know I saw some pictures. Yeah. Yeah it's not really happening in London. Your cast, your castle is, is getting flooded. That's just a moat. Alright so we got, we got a good episode today. My kind of episode where we just kind of go over everything. Everything is fair game. Since we had a, we had a quick turnaround from last week's episode and I didn't have time to fully formulate a, a new, new topic for today. We got to all kinds of Twitter questions which our, our Twitter followers are just off the charts. Awesome. So we got all kinds of good stuff to touch up, touch on for, for topics later in this episode but I got a couple updates I want to give if that's good by you. Yeah, go for it. Yeah so it's been a while since I've given a knock co-update on the podcast and I've just put out a backer update yesterday or was that this morning? I lose track. I think it was this morning. Okay. About where we're at as far as manufacturing and shipping goes and we're getting there. I mean we're, the, the stock room is loaded to the hilt with cases. So I'm going to ship out. I, I put a link in the show notes for anyone who hasn't seen the update yet because some people do miss them. You can go over there and see kind of where we're at on shipping. I've got several different levels. I'm going to try to get out this week. Weather depending looks like the weather's turning for the worst. So hopefully I can get them out by the end of the week but if not, it'll be shortly thereafter. And then, you know, the manufacturing side of it, it's going good. So we're just going to keep plugging away and hopefully we'll get all this done this month and shipped out either by the end of the month or I don't know, maybe right in the beginning of March but it's looking pretty good. We have lots of cases just sitting here ready for the, the rest of the orders to be, to be made. So, you know, like the, all the cases level and the mass storage level, you know, I might have three or four of each, each person's order ready to go. I just got to wait for the rest. So, so that's where we're at on that. What's mine? You know, it's funny. I was working, Jeff and I were working this weekend and I was up in Atlanta, helping out and he said, he gave me a couple extra ones that we were just kind of one-offing us. What is, what cases is Mike have for his order? I was like, I don't know, I haven't looked up specifically because you should send it, you should, we should get his together and go ahead and send him to him. I was like, I'm not going to do that. I'm not complaining favorites. Yeah. See, I wonder if people think I have not received a case, not, not one. I said, if I send Mike's case, who back to all the cases level who's, you know, those are the people that have, have paid the most and have, are going to have to wait the longest and we're like the hugest supporters and everyone's getting theirs last. And yeah, I can see why, I can see why Jeffrey said it and I'm, you know, I'm thankful that he's thinking of me, but I agree if you are, I would have told you not to do that. Yeah, I was like, man, I'll get killed if I'd make a special, special package and send his up early. It would be so unfair to everybody else. Yeah. Yeah. But like out of all the stock that I have, you know, I could probably put, I could probably piece together a handful of the all my cases orders, but you know, it's just, it's hard until you get like every single case done to actually go in and package all of those orders, because they're so random in what every color of every style that everyone picked, right? It's not, it's not consistent across everything. So it's hard to, it's hard to manage. And so that's, that's unfortunately going to be one of the last things to ship just because, you know, like I say, like in my, in my update, like I've got the orange, you know, I've got the mandarin mango sassafras is ready in the midnight foliage high towers. Well, I don't just have those ready for those shipments. I have all of those ready for the people who ordered those for the all the cases level. So, you know, I'll ship out 50 of them. And then I have another 200 of them sitting here waiting to be compiled into all the case, the all the cases order. So that's kind of how it works. So it's an interesting kind of, I'm going to use the word dichotomy, but I don't know if it's the correct word, but I like the sound of it in this sentence. That the people that gave you the most money are waiting the longest, like it's just an interest in sort of like predicament to find yourself in. Did you anticipate this? Did this thought cross your mind when you were when you're doing it? No, it did not cross our mind. And that's one of our. That's one of the learns like I see. Yeah, that's a huge learn. It's I don't want to say regret. It's not a regret. But it's definitely not how we plan things in the beginning. Definitely not it's not how we saw things playing out, put it that way. And so it's kind of put us in a weird spot for that to where I feel like super guilty about that. That's like been my biggest regret so far that we've had to push off our biggest supporters to the very end. So we've, Jeff and I've already talked about it. We're going to do I mean, we've been, we know we try to be as open as possible throughout this whole experience. And it's been a massive learning experience. And there's definitely been some mistakes along the way. And we're we're talking about we're definitely going to have a big post dissecting what we've learned that we can hopefully help out, you know, other people looking to do, you know, a Kickstarter project like this and just kind of lay out the nuts and bolts of the, you know, the things that we did wrong and the things that we did right and the things we do differently. So yeah, it's it's been a massive learning experience. Unfortunately, you know, everyone, our backers have been awesome and understanding about, you know, the delays and things like that. So I mean, fortunately, I mean, we're in this predicament because it was very successful, right? So, you know, we're just we're just trying to learn from that and, you know, continue to do a good job making these cases and get these all out to everybody and, you know, and take what we've learned and move it forward into the into the other products and everything else that we're going to be doing in the future. So it's it's been a challenge, but it's been it's been really good from a from a learning perspective. So it's then there's definitely some things we would have done differently. When's the when's the general store opening? It should be in March. I don't have an exact date. Probably it's it's not going to open obviously until we get everyone shipped, right? I mean, that would just be suicide pretty much. So we're looking at March, probably in the middle to late March. And it's I mean, it's essentially ready to roll. We haven't been working on it too much. We've been working on other things, but you know, we've kind of got we've worked on the site on and off and ready to turn it on whenever we just don't know what the inventory is going to be like when we are when we do go live with it, but it'll be in March because we'll be we should be fully done with all the Kickstarter stuff. Everything shipped out. Obviously, the earlier the better, but I don't see any reason why it won't be in March to get that turned up. So everyone's been asking about that too, because we're going to have some, you know, not just the cases that were available in Kickstarter, but we've got some new products we're going to work on, some new colorways for the cases, case designs we've already made, and some completely, completely new products, one of which we we dropped a sneak peek of this week. Do you happen to catch that? Sure did. So what do you think? I'm very interested. Yes. So what we did. So back in. So our Kickstarter ended my October 30th, I think. So pretty much all of November, we're just sitting around waiting for all the Kickstarter machinations in the background to finish up, right? You got to wait weeks to get the money transferred and we got to wait weeks to, you know, order products and, I mean, order our materials and then get in. So we had, we had several weeks or almost a month of downtime after the Kickstarter ended before we really started hardcore manufacturing. So we came up with a few ideas that we worked on during that time. And this is kind of the culmination of a couple ideas we had. We wanted to carry some other things besides pen cases. So we came up with an index card design that we really liked. I'm a huge index card fan. Jeff uses them at work constantly. I know a lot of people are index cards fans and it's always been hard to find a good quality index card. I felt that worked with a lot of a lot of different pens. So we wanted to make, if you kind of go at it from the perspective of making a fountain pen friendly index card, it's going to work with pretty much all pens. And, you know, we worked with a printer and found the right paper and the right printing ink to make our dot dash index cards. And we're going to be excited to release those on the world in March. And since we didn't want to just stop there with the index cards, we worked with our friend Mike Dudek of the Clicky Post, so the dude and Jeff and I brainstormed some ideas to hold these index cards. And we have a link to the picture in the show notes. I posted it on the Notco and Instagram. It's called the idea doc. And what it is, it's basically a note card holder, an index card holder, it holds a like up to a pack of 50 in kind of a back slot on the on the on the wooden block. And then it has a slot in the front for like your current active card, if you will. I know a lot of people keep to do lists and and daily notes and checklists on index cards. And this gives them a slot to put that card kind of front and center. And then behind that card, there's like a little groove cut out for a pin to lay across. So it's a nice little desk accessory that works good for index cards. And we're really, really happy with how this turned out from Mr. Dudek. And who's making the index cards? A local printer to us here in Atlanta. Good stuff. So you've you've had a hand in the paper selection and things like that. Oh, yeah, I mean, we we've tried all kinds of the samples, different kinds of printing ink, you know, all kinds of stuff. So yeah, we had we handled the whole process with the with the printer, we picked out everything and and did the design ourselves and the and the you know, the cover design and and things like that. So you have the design and paper and everything. We've been fully fully engaged with with getting these made. And I'm really, really happy with how they turned out. They they work really, really well. It's good. Yeah, we are. We are, man. It's just wait till March. I mean, we're excited. We want to get this this Kickstarter fulfilled. You know, that's obviously our primary goal and get everyone, you know, everyone's cases in their hands and everyone excited about their cases because the feedback continues to be really positive on what we have sent out. And, you know, then after that, after Kickstarter's done, it's going to be not a very different not code, but there's just going to be more different stuff, if you will. I mean, it's it's going to be. I mean, this is when Jeff and I are taking this business, you know, has very seriously, I mean, this is something we want to do and something we want to do full time. So we're trying to make, make decisions to lead us down that path. So, you know, hopefully everyone likes what they see and we'll continue to check us out. In March, you let me give in too much away. Do you have any other products or are these kind of just the new products that you're launching along with the cases and the not coastal? We'll have some more products. I don't want to say what they are yet, but we'll definitely have some more products. Building an empire over there, you two. We're trying. We're trying. I mean, we want to we want to make this thing work. I mean, you know, it's it's a dream of both of ours and we appreciate all the support that everyone's given us so far. And, you know, we we've been getting a lot of good feedback and want to continue making good products for everyone. And that that's the plan. I have another question for you. Sure. So, obviously, the the Kickstarter dates have slipped right past where you wanted them to. Yes. I know you wanted to have everything out in January. And that's taken a little bit longer because you've had to build like actually a huge inventory, like thousands, you had to fulfill over 2000 orders. So meaning, you know, how many cases in total you're making, by the way, do you know? I don't have the exact number. It's around 6,000 or so. So you've had to make 6,000 products, which is ridiculous in a in a few months, right, basically. Right. Right. And it's just like one guy most of the time. Yeah, most of the time. Yeah. So I can see that's how you're in this shape. If you're all going to start selling things from a storefront, you kind of can't leave people waiting for this amount of time. So how are you tackling that? Right. It it'll be a little bit different. Once we get to that point, we'll be able to plan out what we offer better and be able to space that out on our own timeframe. So, you know, we don't want to have a bunch of, you know, sold out or out of stock for any extended period of time. So we'll be able to, we'll be able to manufacture enough products for a store easier than we will to manufacture for this Kickstarter. I don't know if I can explain that in, you know, black and white. But yeah, I mean, it's hard to explain, but it's going to be a totally different kind of workflow for us, if you will, from the store perspective than it is from the Kickstarter perspective. So we talk about that a lot and how we're going to, you know, manage the store and the inventory and things like that. And we're both pretty convinced that it's going to be very different and, and should be easier than what we've done so far as far as getting all the Kickstarter fulfilled. We don't think we don't think that's going to be an issue. And then she have a total land rush again. Yeah, I know, right. I know. So you never know, I mean, people have been people have been clamoring for us to get that store open. And you know, that's just, we're just not going to do that until that would be a bad move to open that up before Kickstarter is fulfilled. I mean, there's really no point in doing that. So we have goals to meet for all our Kickstarter backers. And then once that's done, we'll go from there. Do we have any follow up before we go into the main topics today? Yeah, just one thing on the EDC show last week, which we got a lot of good feedback on that show. Everyone seemed to like that show pretty well. And I appreciate all the feedback we got on that. And one very good point that LA Ward made on Twitter, and I totally whiffed on this during the EDC show is women and purse carry pens. I mean, that's something I usually have actually mentioned several times when I've reviewed pens on my blog that, you know, it's going to be, you know, good for a purse or a pocketbook, something like that. And she just wanted to make the point that, you know, hey, ladies are here, too. You know, we need something that's going to fit good in a purse because our pants, our pants pockets are used. She says lady pants pockets are useless, which I thought was good. Yeah, I'm sure. So, I mean, you know, we a lot of, but a lot of the same pens still fit the bill, like a Fisher Space Pen is going to be awesome for a purse, you know, just that, or even if you're just carrying your pocketbook and just need something to slip in there, that's real small and sleek. So, something like the Fisher Space Pen. But really, a lot of the pens are going to work the same way for women who have to carry it in a purse or something to that effect. But I am sorry, I whiffed on that. And as soon as she said it, I was like, Oh, yeah, I meant to say something about that. And I forgot. So thank you for bringing that back up. But I think that's all the episode follow up. I got, did you have anything? My new ink came in, but I haven't really got much to say this yet. Okay. So this is the Hiroshi Zuku Chiku Rin. What color is that? Is that the green? Yeah. Okay. Cool. I'm not convinced on it yet. So I need to, I need to keep using it a little bit more, I think, and kind of just get used to it a bit. And then I might have more to say about it afterwards. Awesome. So yeah, I'll come back, maybe in the next couple of weeks, I'll come back with a little bit more on that, I think. Okay. That'll be good. I'll have some more inks to talk about by then, too. Cool. Should we take a break? Think I'll sponsor? Yes. Yes. Some new stuff. I've got some exciting stuff today about Squarespace. Cool. New stuff to talk about. So this episode is brought to you by the fine folks over at Squarespace. They are the all-in-one platform that make it fast and easy to create your own website. For a free trial and 10% off, go to squarespace.com and use the offer code TALIHO2. 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Squarespace also has an e-commerce platform called Squarespace.com, so if you want to set up a shop and sell things, you can do that to in just a few minutes. Squarespace is really easy to use, but if you need any help, they have over 70 dedicated employees on their customer care team based in New York City. They're available for live chat during the week and have super fast email support throughout the day and night. And listen up all your Squarespace fans as I'm sure you are out there. Now's the time, your time has come. You can now apply to be a part of the Squarespace team. Squarespace is looking to hire 30 engineers and designers by March 15th. This means they're inviting potential candidates, which could be you, and they're spouses to be New Yorkers for a weekend, completely on them. So if you want to hang out with our friends over at Squarespace, then go check out beapartofit.squarespace.com to learn more. They'll fly you out if you're a potential candidate. You can enjoy New York and go and meet with a Squarespace team. So go take a look at that at beapartofit.squarespace.com. As I said earlier, you can try Squarespace for free, no credit card required. And if you decide to purchase, it starts at just $8 a month and includes a domain name if you sign up for a year. Make sure that you get 10% off and support this show by using the offer code TallyHoe2. So thank you to Squarespace for supporting 5x5 and the pan addict. Do you see what our friend Mike Dudek did speaking of the dude making the awesome blocks for us? Do you see what he did? It was like a week or two ago. This is a further Squarespace pimp job. I'm not sure, maybe. So I put a link in the show notes just now. It reminded me he did a full iOS post through the Squarespace app. The pictures, the blog posts, the editing, everything through their blog app, which it's really nice. They've finally gotten that solid where it needs to be. Yeah, it's right on the money. So I thought that was cool of him to do. And you know, that's something I ought to try out because I'm on my phone constantly. Man, this is good. He took the photos of his iPhone. Yeah, it's 100% iPhone post. Man, there's some good photos. He's a good photographer to begin with. God, why is that so talented? It's kind of not fair. Everybody else? Yeah, I know. It's not fair. You got to stop being so good. He's going to go on the bad list, I think. I know. I know. Now you want to see some other good good photography and some lustworthy pins. Our pin blog of the week is right to me often. So this is a this is a blog I've only been following maybe a year, maybe. Yeah, not too much longer than that. And it's a girl named Zenyap. And she is Turkish. And it's a the blog is she actually does a great job of making it accessible to everyone. She writes her blog posts in Turkish. And then I guess she just translates on herself or we write some completely in English. So there's basically two phases to each blog post she does. She's got a killer a killer collection of pins. And not only has she been doing a bunch of awesome reviews for all of her fountain pens, she started into in the past month or two, starting to do some kind of fountain pen tips. You know, like she's done doing a series on pen cleaning here recently. She's like on her third third post for pen cleaning. But yeah, you want you want to be jealous of someone's photography and some pens. Go take a look at what she's doing. So, you know, that's a that's a blog you guys should definitely definitely be checking out. So we'll have that in the show notes. If you're not familiar with this blog, add it to your add it to your RSS reader, add it to your bookmarks. Do something because she she actually posts quite often. I mean, several several posts a week, very in depth, very beautiful. All kinds of pens that I just left a lust over and some great reviews. So definitely check out right to me often. I like the backgrounds she she picks. Yeah, it's it's all different. That's one thing, you know, I want to work on I sometimes I get stuck in ruts because I'm so, you know, photo averse, I guess that, you know, sometimes I get stuck and I need to change it up more. It would probably, you know, suit the blog better to have it mixed up quite often like she does. She does a great job. All right. So like we mentioned before, we didn't have a specific topic. So we reached out to our Twitter friends who within like five minutes gave me just like, I don't know, every question under the sun that was like every question was awesome. Like there was no like throwaway questions like everyone I had to write down and I don't know if I'll get to all of them on this episode or not. But um, you know, one of one of them we already handled talking about the, uh, the notco idea doc we're doing for the index cards, you know, right after I opened up the floor for for questions, Tophra said, talk about that damned idea cube that you won't let me give you money for yet. Mostly talk about how I can give you money for one. I know he's an index card fan. So hopefully we answered his question already. But a few of the topics were kind of pertinent to some things I've been working on recently and just Davey B. Who does who has another pin blog will probably feature as a pin blog a week. One of these days, he asks custom grind fountain pin nibs, are they worth it? So this is a discussion, I think, um, more than just a one off topic and, you know, it may be something we have to revisit down the line. So the basic answer I think is yes, they're worth it. And the reason why is the reason why it's the same answer that people, people like to ask why fountain pens just in the generic sense as opposed to, you know, a gel ink pen or a ballpoint, why fountain pens? And the answer to that, I think, is customization. I think the amount of customization you can do with fountain pens is endless. You know, I don't want to say that gel ink pens or ballpoint pens have been solved because they haven't. There's still new things coming out. But there's seems to be a limit. There's only X amount of stuff you can do with a gel ink pen, you know, get it in a few tipped sizes, get it in a few different colors. Um, then maybe, you know, in a couple years, they'll come on with a different barrel. You can put the same refill in fountain pens aren't like that because of the number one, just the range of inks you can put in. Um, number two, the modifications you can do to the pens you already have. So this is where the custom grinding comes in. To me, it's worth it because I have very specific things I like when I'm writing. I like two things. I like either a very, very fine line or I like a very blocky squared offline, like from a stub nib. So I have certain pens that I like, you know, whether I like, you know, if I like their barrel type, or they're comfortable to hold, you know, they're great looking and it's a pen I want to use. But I may not necessarily like the nib that much. Well, I can get someone to fix that for me. Or not fix, fix isn't the right word, but I can get someone to improve that experience for me, you know, take a pen I already like and make it even better for me personally. And that's what it boils down to. The custom grind thing is a total, totally, you know, personal thing. It's not something I recommend people just doing, you know, randomly, you know, just, you know, if there's a reason that you want a pen and a specific nib to write a certain way, then yeah, that's something you should look into. I don't think everyone needs to do it. I mean, there's certainly a lot of, there's certainly not a lot of need for that. But if you're obsessive like me and I want certain things to write certain ways or feel certain ways, then it's something you should look into and you can take a pen that you have that, you know, may not be, you may love how the pen looks and how the pen feels, but you don't love with how, not in love without rights, you know, for probably around $30. That's just a ballpark, what seems to be kind of a general fee for a lot of these guys that do nib work. You can completely change how that pen writes and change what you think about that pen. So are they worth it to me? They are, but it's a, it's a very personal thing. So, you know, that's something I think we'll, we'll continue to explore Mike on the podcast and on the blog because, you know, a lot of people haven't had the opportunity to do that. Well, I haven't. I haven't done it yet. Right. Right. Because I have yet to find, for me, I haven't found a justification in all honesty. Like I don't feel like I have, I've purchased a pen that was expensive enough that I loved so much and didn't love the nib on enough that I wanted to, to change it right now. Yeah. And I mean, that's, that's totally valid. I mean, and that's how it should be. I mean, and a lot of people will say, well, I bought a pen for this reason and, you know, there's no need to change it. And that's, I mean, geez, that's completely valid. But, you know, if you want to, you know, kind of try some different things and, and, you know, see what, see what other options are out there for, for nibs, for me, it's been absolutely worth it. And, you know, I've, I mean, it's, it's really a small majority of my, a small number of my pens that I've, that I've had worked on. It's just a handful of pens. So it's not like every pen that I get gets sent out for work. Actually, most of them don't. And, you know, a lot of times I will buy a pen specifically that I know is not the perfect name for me. And with the intent to have it transformed into something else that I know is perfect. Like, I just got a pilot, pilot custom heritage 92. This is one I bought back in December. I bought a bold nib with the intent to make it into like a fine, cursive, italic nib. So I purchased it with the intent of having it modified before I even inked it up for the first time. So I bought it with a bold nib. So when I sent it to Mike Masiyama, I knew, I mean, I never even inked it up when I got the pen. I bought it, it arrived, didn't ink it up, packaged it up and sent it to Masiyama, said, Hey, here's what I want. And I just got it back yesterday. And it's really nice. So I'll have more on that later. So that's one thing that's one option that I knew ahead of time that I wanted, right? So I planned on that. Now the second thing, you know, I got Alami Studio, which I reviewed on Monday. So I got that from JetPins. And I got an EF nib. It's a 14 karat gold nib. I didn't like how the nib wrote. It was way too wide for an EF nib. I mean, it wrote like a bold nib, and I didn't like it. So I knew, well, that's a, that's a different scenario. This pen I wanted fixed, basically. I wasn't going to use it in its current state. So I sent it off to Sean Newton, who I wrote about in the blog, and asked him to turn it into like something somewhere around a Japanese fine nib. So that completely changed that pen for me, right? Because it was a pen I was barely going to use before. And now it's turned into a pen that's awesome. So those are the type of things you you have to consider. Maybe part of it for me is that I don't have somebody that I know to do this. Like, you know, you have Masiyama, who knows a good guy for this stuff. But I haven't, just, I mean, I haven't looked, but I've, you know, I don't know the names of anyone. Yep. And that's because I would want to send it in the UK, obviously. Yeah, for sure. And that's a big thing. You know, people doing it for the first time, they definitely want to have, you know, someone vouch for whoever's doing the work, right, someone with a good reputation, some experience doing it, someone that, you know, other people have, have use, and you can see what the work's like. And I think that's a lot of it. And, you know, I didn't, the first time I had any nib work done was at the pen show last year, the Atlanta pen show. So getting to do that in person for the first time that I had anything done was very helpful for any future, you know, any future work I've had done to where I've mailed off to certain people. And I would definitely recommend that if, you know, if you have the opportunity, not everyone has the opportunity, but there's lots of, lots of people who do nib work and you can get lots of good recommendations online, like on fountain pen network and things like that, just to see, you know, who's doing good work for the style of style of nib that you want. So, so that's, I don't know, I feel like that's just barely scratching the surface of the topic. And we'll put a link in the show notes. Ivan from Inktronics just put a post up yesterday, as a matter of fact, called the DIY nibmeister part one. So a lot of, I haven't done this yet, and I don't see me doing it, but you never know. I've learned to never say never. Yes. Especially on this show. But a lot of people do their own nib work, smoothing and adjustments. And this Ivan started a post to do a series on how he does some of this nib work himself. So I can't imagine anything more terrifying. I can't either. I don't want to put that on myself. I don't trust myself that much to be able to do that. But check that out because that's, and I just saved another post, I don't know, right before we started the podcast. Another blogger was doing some DIY nib work out there today. I'll put it, I've got it saved off for inklings this weekend. I don't have the link right for me. But yeah, this is a popular thing because a lot of fountain pen stores sell, you know, little kits for you to at least do some smoothing and some cleaning, maybe not some hardcore reshaping of nibs, but just some basic work. So anyway. The next question is from Brian Schinker. And this one comes up a lot. Gold versus steel nibs, major difference. And are there circumstances to choose one over the other? I still to this day, even though I've been using fountain pens, I'm in the grand scheme. I'm not very experienced with fountain pens, but I definitely feel like I'm still not able to completely articulate why you should choose gold or steel. From my experience, I've found there's not that much difference. Depending on the pen, like with gold nibs, you'll get a little bit more flexibility and like the full size nibs. That's kind of about it. I mean, if you have a good quality steel nib, it's going to write just as well as a good quality gold nib. You know, when people ask me this question, I always send them the same link. And it's from Brian Gray at Edison pen. And he has a post called in praise of steel nibs, and it's worth reading. So we'll put that in the show notes. And what Brian's saying is, you know, this is a guy who is in the fountain pen business. And you know, he puts down the points of why you should choose steel or why you should choose gold. And you know, he doesn't necessarily see lots of reasons to choose gold nibs. You know, he goes into a broader explanation in this article. And everyone should definitely read this. But just in my experience, I don't, I don't necessarily pick up a pen. I don't choose a pen based on whether it's a gold or steel nib. I choose a pen based on whether it writes well, whether that nib writes well, like, I would just as soon use, you know, a Twisbee EF steel nib as my pelican gold nib, because I like how they both write. I mean, there's no, I don't see that there's a huge benefit to having that gold nib necessarily. Do you have any comments on this, Mike? Do you have any? Do you actually have many gold nibs? I know you're one, Mont Blanc, right? Oh, I have my Mont Blanc, but that needs to be repaired. Yeah, right. And you know what, that could be a good, a good idea for me to when I tell you what I do, when I find someone, or if someone is able to recommend somebody good in the UK for nib shaping, and basically, well, basically restoration shaping. That's what I kind of need. I'll send that off. Because I, you know, I mentioned this many times on the show back in the early days. I have a Mont Blanc, which has brought for me as a present. It was before I really knew a lot about fountain pens, so I never really cleaned it. Well, I never cleaned it. And one day I dropped it, and it kind of bent the nib. But it was an excellent nib. I loved it. Absolutely loved that pen. So I would like to have that restored, because also it was a gift. It was a gift for my 21st birthday. Right. So I would like to have it repaired, or just restored. And I would prefer to have it worked on then to just buy a new Mont Blanc nib, because ideally I would like to keep the same nib that I bought, you know. Right. I could maybe have it, because it was a broad, so maybe I could have it, like, you know, made into a medium now or something. Yeah. Where was I going with that? Oh, and I also have my Pelican, which is a gold nib. Oh, that's right. You bought the, you bought an extra nib for that. Right. And that is excellent. I don't know if it's the Pelican or the, the nib, right? But right, like, sorry, I don't know if it's the Pelican nib or, because it's gold. Right. But it's, it's just excellent. Yeah. It's just all around good, good product to begin with. Yeah. So I'm probably not a, not a little far. I know it's, there's not, there's not a huge, there's not as huge as different, huge differences, you might think between gold and steel nibs, in my opinion, you know, little, little bit added flex in the gold, because it's a softer material, maybe marginally smoother, but I mean, you can get some awfully smooth steel nibs. I don't know that, you know, yeah, I don't know that it makes a massive, massive difference. I mean, there's, there's obviously going to be situations where, you know, one will clearly win out over the other. But I think in, as a whole, I think you'll be just as happy with steel as, as a gold nib. So yeah, but definitely check out this article from Brian Gray. I, I have, I need to keep that, that thing hot linked is many, many people ask me that as many times of us sent that article out. So it's a good article. Thomas Hall, my enabler extraordinaire, sent a very good question. He said, if starting over, which pins would you buy and why? So like, if you have what you have now and just kind of wipe the slate clean and started from the beginning, which pins would you buy probably sooner than the other ones, you know, which pins have I have kind of been a phenomenon, I guess, if you will, that you found out later in the game. And for me, it's probably, I really like my Edison pins, where in the beginning, I was hesitant to purchase them. I wasn't sure if they were for me, and I wasn't sure if the value was there because they're not exactly cheap. I'm really happy with the Edison Beaumont, the Edison Purlett that I have. So those I would definitely, definitely get in on earlier than I did the first time around. And both of those are steel nib pins, by the way, which write wonderfully. So yeah, those, I mean, gosh, I'm really happy with all the pins I have. So I can't necessarily, you know, say, you know, what I would hold off on, what I wouldn't, because I've been, you know, I think I've been diligent in my purchasing mic. And that's, that's one of the big things. I try not to just jump into it and just start going crazy. I try to be diligent. I try to learn something. I've been fortunate enough to be able to try things before I buy, and which is a huge deal. So, you know, so yeah, if I had to start over, I'd probably buy an Edison pen earlier than I did. I was pretty hesitant at first. Is there anything for you on that category? I think that there's a few things that I wouldn't have bought, you know, sure. Probably the main one for me being the vanishing point, which originally I thought was a great idea, but in hindsight, it actually wasn't for me. I would probably go with like the Pelican and a Twisbee of some description. I'm not sure what model I would go for. But I would be out probably go for a Twisbee too. Yeah, that's, I think that's a good point about the Pelican. They're kind of in the same boat as the Edison where there's, there's a little bit of premium on it because of what it is. So maybe that puts people off at the beginning where they think they can get, you know, buy two pens for the price of one, but that one is really awesome. And that, that's something, you know, I'd look at. Now when you're vanishing, on your vanishing point question, we have another question from Sebastian Morissette, he says, I would love to love my pilot vanishing point, but I cannot see, but it cannot seem to grow on me. So it's uncomfortable. Yeah. And I would, I wonder if Sebastian finds the same thing. Like, when I was showing my lady friend, my pen collection, she really liked the vanishing point, but it reminded me of how I felt about it when I first got it. I loved it because in those short sort of bursts, it's excellent. But it's over a long period of time. I find it uncomfortable. You don't have this problem to you. I am still all in on the vanishing points. One of my favorites. Yeah. No problem for me. So it might, it might just be me, you know? No, no, no. I mean, I think it's not, it's not a pen for everybody. That's why I, from the beginning, I always said how much I love that pen, but I was always very cautious on recommending it blindly, right? That's a pen that, you know, people needed to try and see if, you know, even they could write with it with the clip placement and things like that. It's not a pen for everybody, for sure. Could you use it all day, every day? Oh, yeah. No doubt. Crazy man. Understands you sometimes. No, I love that pen. It suits me perfectly. The retractable mechanism, the grip doesn't bother me at all. I don't even notice it's there. The, the nib is awesome. Yeah, no. That's, that's an all-timer for me. It's, it's always, I always have mine inked up. Yep. Love that pen. So, but, you know, again, not every pen is forever. It's going to fit everyone's needs. So Thomas, I asked another question on kind of on these, on this same general topic. If your house caught on fire, what pens are you grabbing? What can, what pen can you live without? The house is on fire. You can pick two. Go. Retro. Hang on a second. Hang on a second. Is this assuming that I can't just buy them again? Yeah, like you have. Yeah. This is assuming that these pens cannot be repurchased, right? Well, that they mean something to you. You know, what, what's the most meaningful pens that you're going to grab? I didn't think of it that way. Leave the house. It's like, you know, like you don't want to be without these pens, even though maybe you can, you can, I don't think either of us have a pen that's not purchasable. So it's pretty much kind of like your favorite pens or. Yeah. So again, but you have to, but you have to limit it, right? I mean, two pens. I mean, that's being boring. I'll definitely go to the Pelican again. Yeah. And then maybe then it would have to be the Rotoring lava fountain pen. Oh, that's good one. Because I just can't just buy that again. Yeah, I didn't consider that one. That's a good one. Mine is, mine's the Pilot Mirx, which actually Thomas gave me. So that pens got a lot of meaning to me. Plus it's not, I mean, I could buy one on eBay, but it's not exactly easy to get like the Rotoring. And then probably the Pilot Custom Heritage 912 with the PO nib, just because I like it so much. That's one of my favorite writing pens. So now one, we got a question here from Pinsomnia, which I don't have an answer for, but it's very pertinent to some of the pictures I've seen on Twitter here recently. How to properly carry pens and inks in frigid weather. I mean, my answer is don't. Yeah, my general rule of thumb with these sort of questions is, if you're asking this question, don't do it. Yeah. So how do I carry a fountain pen on a plane? Don't like, you know, how do I carry a fountain pen in a desert? Just don't do it. Find something else. If you have to, if you really have to, remove all ink. So basically, you're taking this from one place to another where you can re-ink it. So I wouldn't take any, any pen that was filled with an ink bottle. Unless there's going to be an ink bottle waiting for me at my destination. Right. Because that's that all the images we've been seeing here on Twitter have been pretty much ink bottle explosions from the freezing weather. Yeah. You know, boxes landing on people's doorstep, and it's just looked like, you know, someone took a shotgun to the box. They've all exploded. And yeah, I don't have a great answer, but my answer is don't. Like you said, if you have to ask, don't. It just to me seems, I don't know, like, it just seems. It's not worth the risk. Yeah, that's the best one I'm looking for. It feels like you could just carry something that's maybe not your favourite pen, but it's something along the lines of a vicious base pen, which are built for this sort of thing. Right. Don't fight it. Yeah. It'll be warm soon enough, and then you can get back to your awesome pens. Yeah, like, is this one trip or whatever worth destroying one of your favourite pens? Yep. The answer is yes, then go for it. Or your shirt, or your pants, or your luggage. Exactly. Now for ink, Mike, this is from Ken Landwearer. Do you look for anything specific when it comes to ink or refills? Do you have a favourite brand? I'm exploring this category more this year. Previously, when I first started, you know, really getting into fountain pen inks maybe a year, year and a half ago, I just looked for a good colour that I liked and that it wasn't going to destroy my pen. That was my original thoughts. Well, now that I've learned, well, with decent, you know, respectable fountain pen hygiene, there's very few inks that I got to destroy my pen. Like, I was real tentative at first. Like, is this ink okay to put in my pen? Is this ink okay to put in my pen? Now that I've gotten over that and understand that, you know, it's really not as much the ink as much as it is me taking care of the pens and ink, you know, cleaning them and doing the proper fountain pen hygiene, I've really opened up to the inks I like. One thing I do like to be more specific for Kim's question is I do like a lubricated ink. I don't like necessarily dry inks that come out very dry, especially when I'm using my extra fine nibs. You know, I need some of that lubrication on the nib to help it glide across the page a little bit more. So I don't like necessarily like dry inks in that aspect. Secondly, I do like a shaded ink. I like to see that color differentiation in the line. So as far as favorite brands go, I mean, there's several. I obviously like the Paolo de Rocha Zuku. I like Roar and Cleanner. I've become a big fan of a lot of their inks and Diamine are some of the most well-behaved inks I've used as far as just cleaning and all around good performance, good dry time, good they clean up good out of the pens and they look good on the page. So that's kind of my that's kind of my tips for that. Do you have anything for that Mike? Dry time is massively important for me. So I'm not really that willing to just kind of jump in and buy bottles of ink, you know, that if I'm not comfortable with the dry time. And also for me, I like vibrant colors. I like fun colors. I don't really like blue and black, like just standard blue and black or blue black. Like I like a really like, you know, from the inks that I've spoken about on the show in the past, I like to have quite bright colors. Yeah. And actually, I think I'm coming around to that more. There was a time where I would load out five or six pens and they'd all be some variation of blue black. That's not a lie. I would have every every pen filled with a different blue black ink to now where I've if I have five or six pink pens inked up, they're usually pretty pretty good variants. I might have two blue blacks, but maybe even just one these days, which is a big change for me. So that's why my ink exploration has gotten has gotten the nets been casted wider on a lot of ink. So that's cool. So Anil is with wants to know if my kids are panatics yet and they are. They if they see me doing anything with pens, they're like, Oh, can we do pens? That's what they say. Can we do pens today? Oh, can can we do pens today? And the answer is usually always yes. And now they see me using fountain pens. So now they want it say, they say, can we do pens today? I was like, yeah, can we we can do pens? Can we use your fountain pens? I'm like, Hmm. Yeah, I think I've got I've got some y'all can use and they're like, yay. So yeah, they're they're totally totally panatics. 100% completely panatics. Uncle Larry wants to know if there are any changes to the top five lists coming up. And the answer is yes. I realized the other day, number one, I don't have a multi pen list on there, which I plan on changing. And number two, it just needs it's been at worst. I like to do it, you know, every three or four months updated. I don't want to update it every month. That's a little bit much, but it's been October since I've done an update. So I need to go through, you know, probably in the next few weeks and check out and see if there's anything I need to change. There might be a little bit of change on the fountain pen list. And I'm going to add the multi pen list. And if anyone out there sees anything that I don't have on the top five list page, let me know. And I will see what I can do. So I will add any lists that I think are relevant and definitely want to hear them. And he also wants to know, are you still using any of the kick starter pens on a regular basis? How about you, Mike? What what kick starter pens are you using on a regular basis? I used the Joe to still do you remember that? I was going to ask you specifically about that, actually. Yes. So I definitely remember that. That was one I was most curious about for you. I keep it in my desk. Like on my desk, it's in one of my, one of my, one of my, one of my sort of, I haven't my groove actually from do that. I use that quite a lot. I mean, it kind of doesn't count. But I've been happily using the care of customs ink. Yeah. They're the ones I guess I use the most. I don't have as many kick starter pens, but I do use the Joe to frequently. Yeah. So me, it's still the render K, the orange one you'll actually see in the in the photograph that I used for the the Nock idea dark. Man, that sounds cool. The Nock idea dark. I love the design of all the carest customs pens, but I still, I mean, I found some refills that are kind of cool, but they're nowhere near what I like to get out of a pen, which is why I'm excited for the ink anyway, because it's my style of pen. Right. Also, because I'll be able to put retro 51. Because the reason that I love the Joe to so much is because it's a really nice, comfortable body that a retro 51 refill fits in. So the what I'm looking forward to the ink is I've got one of the ballpoint ones. And I'll be able to put a retro 51 refill in it. Oh, cool. That's a good idea. That was why I did it. Oh, nice. That was great idea. Yeah. So I think the two that I really carry is obviously the render K that I said, and then I've been carrying the the tactile turn mover, which I've been really happy with. And I've backed and it just funded yesterday. So just those those will be getting made. So I'll have another one coming from that. But those are the those are the two. The render K has stuck with me for the longest by far. Still my favorite, because I'm I use the high taxi refill and I just I just love the look. That's just it's just a really great pen. It's perfect for me. So I really, really enjoy it. Mike Duda wants to know what is your favorite hot sauce while riding with pens? I'm not 100% sure I understand the question. Yeah, I don't want to answer this incorrectly. So we're going to need some clarification, dude. I have no idea if that's a literal question or a joke question. Either way, I like it. This is one I like and this is one I'm going to circle back on because I didn't have time, but Chris Pantoja beat cat on Twitter. What about the craziest Japanese pen commercials? They are out there. Some of these I've seen are awesome. I'm going to have to put together a list of these. I will go through that I just didn't have time to put that together. It's going to take some research research, but there are some amazing commercials. And it's been a long time since I've linked to any of them or talked about any of them on the on the podcast. But we've had some links in the past and I'll try to put something together. So Eric Govro says it's February in co-rimo and correspondence in general. So he's asking, are we letter writers, Mike? Are you a letter writer? I'm about to start writing letters. Now, are you doing it because of the letter writing month, or are you just trying to just trying to do something a little bit different? Yeah, I want to just try that out a little bit, play around a little bit more with this little stuff. Yeah, I'm totally on board with the in co-rimo. I just haven't had the time to commit to that. So maybe next year I might get into that. It's where you write a letter a day in February and there's a whole group of people. You can get all kinds of addresses and send out these letters and you'll get letters back and things like that. It's a cool idea. It's good ways to use your pens and stationery for letter writing. So I haven't. I've been on the receiving end of some letters. Some people wanted to send me some letters and Mike some letters. But maybe next year I might actually participate. So this is a good question and we have a lot more questions. I'll work on some of these for another podcast, but this one I wanted to get to because I think it's important. Since you've gotten into fountain pens, have any of your previous favorite micro gel pens been completely dropped from rotation? So the short answer is no. My favorite micro gel pens are the Pilot high-tech C and the Uniball Sino DX. I always have those with me at all times and I use them frequently so they don't get dropped at all. That said, I obviously use them less. I mean, I only write with one hand. I don't know about you, Mike. Do you write two handed? Sometimes four. Four handed? Okay. So I can only use one pen at a time. So yeah, they've gone down the list of usage, but dropped completely not at all because I like them too much. They provide something different that a fountain pen can't provide. And I get huge enjoyment from writing with these pens. That's what, you know, got me into this pen blogging thing to begin with was these micro gel ink pens and they will never not be in my rotation. Do they get used less? Yeah, they do because I've only got so many hours at a day, but they are always with me. Those are the two primary ones. Far and away my favorite. How about you, Mike? Have you seen like your, you were never a micro gel guy to begin with, but just in general, have you noticed, you know, pens you've used in the past getting pushed to the wayside if using fountain pens? If you're playing bingo, I've given you multiple opportunities this week, but I mean, I don't use the Retro 51 anymore. Like, I have, I use just use that every single day. Like I don't really use those anymore. Right. I tend to just use fountain pens unless I'm grabbing something in a pinch. You know, so I grab something else. Like the, the groove or whatever and use that. So that might be like a, the autographic liner, or the securopic micron or something like that. I've been thinking recently that maybe I should try some gel pens again. Okay. But I don't know what to, to go for really, some micros. I don't think I still don't think I'm going to be a micro gel person. Sure. That's understandable. But I mean, if I, if I went in my backpack right now, I have a Retro 51, I have an oto graphic liner, I have a uniball sign. I do a DX. I have a high-tech C. I have a securopic micron. Did I say that already? Yeah. No, no, I did. Yeah. So those are, I mean, those are stalwarts. I mean, those are not going anywhere. For me, yeah, they get used less, but I couldn't live without them. I use them for different things. And I get complete enjoyment out of riding with, you know, a $2 micron as much as I get with a $200 sailor. So it just, it just depends. So there's a bunch of questions that I didn't get to today. I'm going to save all these off. And maybe we'll cover them next week or I'll mix them in or I'll get back to everyone on Twitter because there's some good questions. There's actually some questions I want to expand on. And, you know, I'm definitely going to do a, I got some questions about pin shows. And we're going to do a full pin show episode as I get closer to going to the Atlanta pin show this year. So maybe in a few weeks, we'll do a pin show episode, you know, with my wish list. And there were some questions we got. I got about vintage pins and things like that. So we'll cover all that when I do a pin show episode here in a few weeks. So that will be, that will be good. But everyone else whose questions aren't here, thank you all so much for sending these. And I will definitely answer all of these other questions. Just, we could keep going for another hour, probably with all the questions I got, which is what's so amazing about our listeners. But I wanted to wrap it up on one final question, Mike. You ready? Mm hmm. What pin would you use to sign a birth certificate? Vision now. Absolutely. I mean, that's, that's what I've made for. This is from, this is from our friend, informal scribble, Mr. Stuart Hasely. I mean, there's no doubt we would use the Vision Air Stuart. I can't believe you would even ask that question. I mean, that's what it's made for. This is a whole purpose. Yeah. How was that even a question? So, all right, Mike, I think that's a wrap. We've mentioned show notes a few times in this week's episode. If you want to find them, go to 5x5.tv/pennadex/93. In all honesty, I'll buy something for the occasion. That's a good move. And I'll, I'll answer that. I'll answer this, honestly, because I've actually had two kids. My wife has had two kids and I've had sign birth certificates. I've had to sign birth certificates. Didn't even cross my mind. I was a little preoccupied. I still would have even, even in that instance, I still would have expected you to pick something like weeks in advance, you know? I know. I know. Didn't even cross my mind either time. You used like a biro, I'm like, yeah, I mean, whatever, whatever the nurse handed me or whatever. So, yeah, hopefully she had good taste. If you want to catch us online, there's a couple of ways to do that. You can read Brad's stuff over at panetic.com and he's @dowdyism on Twitter. That's d-o-w-d-y-i-s-m. And I am I, Mike. I-m-y-k-e. That's it for this week's episode of The Panetic. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. [BLANK_AUDIO]
