Hello and welcome to episode 57 of the Panatific podcast on 5x5, a weekly show where we discuss pens, paper and the analog tools that we love so dearly. My name is Mike Hurley and I am joined by a man who is sharper than a carpenter's pencil on a Monday morning. Mr. Brad daddy. Oh man, that's perfect. Perfect. Good. How are you? Yeah, I'm very well. Thank you. Good. I also thought it was kind of kind of sexy how you said the Panatific podcast on 5x5. I thought I'd like to slip that in now. It's just another thing that, you know, a bunch of, it's a thing. It's a brand. Yeah, it's a thing. I like to say it. I'm proud of it too. I am too. I thought that was pretty cool. I was, I don't know. I don't know if you've done that before, but I was like, oh, that sounds really good. It does, isn't it? We have. Yeah, it does. It does. I've been, uh, been happy with the 5x5 so far. So I'm sure you are too. I'm going to mention again right at the front of the show. If you want to find the links to anything that we talk about in today's show, if we say that's in the show notes, or if you want to find links to other stuff that we discussed in today's episode, you can find them at 5x5.tv/panaddict/57. Very easy to come across. Simple. All right. So we got a, uh, we got a pretty good chunk of follow up today. Some things I wanted to talk about, some new things you got. And so I think let's get to it, huh? I think that's a great idea. All right. So I, I don't normally, you know, directly linked and discuss every review post I do on the blog. And you, you guys read the blog. You know what's out there. But sometimes I like to point out a few things and, and talk about a few that I did, just especially when they're interesting items, like the, uh, Tomoa is the, is the proper pronunciation, Michael Tomoa River paper review. I, I think people reach out to me. I think, yeah, I think it sounds better. I know. Just like, just like Sino, Sino, Signo, yeah, all that stuff. But the Tomoa River paper review I did on the blog on Monday. I wanted to follow up with that because we had talked about it when we had Anna on a few episodes ago. I think that was 54, um, talking about some fountain pen friendly paper. And I was really, I can't stop thinking about this paper because it's just really a really neat paper. And you know, I've got some pictures on the review. Um, one of the things I, I'm realizing now that I didn't do in the review is really try to show how thin this paper is. Like my pictures don't show like the transparent aspect of the paper. Um, I'll see if I can do a follow up and do some pictures. Just basically, like I mentioned in the review and we've talked about it before, it's like tracing paper. Um, I did the review, my written review of the paper, the big image at the top of the article. I laid that piece of paper on top of, um, one of my dome, my dome paper pads, like the full size legal pad. That's how I was able to get my line so straight. I mean, it's, it's really that transparent to where I can just see the lines underneath it. And you use just kind of, it's just kind of like a grid line to, to keep your line straight. So I want to do some more pictures of this to see if I can, I don't know, I guess, paint a better picture of how thin this, this paper really is. But, um, I'm not sure it would work well for you because it's a pretty wet paper. Um, it'd be something worth trying just to see, you know, if you maybe liked it. Um, it, no one's figured out the portability really yet of it. It's, it's super, super fragile. Um, like I linked to a guy, Jesse Aston, who, who's binding some of the paper into some journals. But, um, this is really kind of a letter writing paper right now until we can find some, uh, find some other uses for it. But, um, I, I'm going to keep a, I'm going to keep an eye out for a other Tomoe options. Um, like in the, the planners that I mentioned, the Hobonichi planners that I mentioned in the article. So, um, I think you will be seeing a lot more about this paper on my blog because I'm, um, I'm pretty fascinated by it. So I read your review today, actually. And I will never buy this paper. Right. I can imagine. I can't imagine under any circumstance that being this being usable for me, being a left handed person, um, liking to write in fountain pens. I just can't see how I could ever use it, Brad. Like it, it just, it kind of just looks like you're writing on glass. You know, it just looks like you didn't have any pictures. I was wondering if you were going to, I mean, and it might have just been worthless, but any ink drying. No, I did, but I did link to a Ziza's article and she had some dry time images. And it's pretty lengthy. I mean, I didn't bother just because it's pretty obvious. I mean, it's, it's really long. Yeah. And I mentioned there's definitely a lot of downsides on this paper. Yeah. Which I, you know, I made sure to, to, to list like the dry time is really lengthy. You can't use the backside of the paper because it's, it's, it's really transparent. Um, and it, it's really a non portable paper. It's most people that are using it right now are using it just for fountain pen testing and letter writing. So that's, that's been kind of the use, but it's, I need to send, uh, I keep telling saying I'm going to send you a care package. I'm going to include someone just so you can try it. I mean, I know you, I don't think you, I would never recommend it for you. You know, it's not a daily use type of paper, plus it's, it's very expensive. But if you can get your hands on some, it's an experience, I guess. Yes, it's an experience. That's a good way to put it. It's an experience type paper. Um, it's not something that, you know, I'd ever recommend to a college student, you know, to take to their class. I mean, that would be just horrible, but it's so different. It's worth having that experience. Um, if you think you might, um, enjoy it even a little bit. So anyway, I thought that was, it was, it was cool enough to, to bring it back up again now that I've got the, the review up and I linked to a bunch of other, uh, places where you can go read some more about it just because, um, you, you'll be hearing about it, uh, from me again down the line. So I just wanted to mention that because it's, uh, it's pretty cool. I really like it a lot. Um, I'm not going to use it regularly, but, um, it's, it's fun to play around with. Um, please that you did because it's an interesting follow up to that discussion with Anna. Yeah, I was actually, I mean, I want to see how many sheets I have. I like to get her something to and get her opinion on it because I think she would probably like it. Although she is left handed as well. I'm not sure how bad she drags her hand. Um, you know, we still, uh, we still got to work on that episode. The next time we have her on, we'll do, we got to do the lefty-righty thing. So I just, I just remembered about that. I agree. I want, I want to, I want to do that. That would be really, really fun to me actually. That would be a nice, interesting discussion that I think we've been wanting to have for a while. So, yeah, I think so. So, um, a little bit of follow up from me from last week. So, um, I, I ordered in the, the, well, I received in the, the cult pens order that I made with all of the refills. And I decided on my two favorites, um, for the render K. So these are Parker style refills. Um, I ended up going with the Schmidt 9000M easy flow pen refill as a ballpoint. And the Schneider Express 735 refill in broad, um, which is a, what type of is this also a, yes, also a ballpoint, I believe. Yes, it is. Yes. So where ballpoints are not necessarily my type of, uh, refill, I much prefer rollables to ballpoints. Um, they, they felt really smooth and they were really consistent and the, the lines that they gave were, were well, uh, even the distributed and they weren't skipping. So all in all, I was pretty happy with what I got from them. And I have yet been able to put them through their paces, like, in a big way, just because I keep forgetting to take my render Ks out of the beautiful, um, pen, pen holder that Mr, that the dude made for us. That's right. Um, but yeah, I'm planning to, to do that. And every day I kick myself and we'll talk about that again in a second for forgetting to take the render Ks out of the pen holder and take one to work because I don't want to leave it there. I want to bring them home. I know these are not ones that I want to keep out because I just, they're just like little pieces of art. That's right. Um, I am, I am anxious to see how those, those refills do for you. So I will, yes, so especially for that reason, Brad, I will make sure that I, uh, um, get that done. Cool. Get a bit, but it might be in a, within a couple of weeks time, I'll follow up on that. Um, one of the, and sort of mentioning that. So, um, I also received, and I mentioned this last week as well, my, uh, Twizby with the stub nib, the 1.1 stub nib, the Twizby Mini. See that from Colt pens too. I'm excited for you. And in the same vein up until today, I have forgotten to take it. Oh no. So my usage of it so far has been, uh, minimal. I've been playing around with it a lot at home, just writing in, um, my, uh, field notes, one of my field notes books, which the back of this field notes works is just loads of pen names and me writing hello over and over again, because that's what I do when I'm testing out a pen. Okay. I tend to write the word hello. I think a lot of people already do this. Then I write the pen name or the roof field name. I don't know. Okay. It's just, cause it's the first thing that always would jump into my head. Yeah. I write the, I write the pen name usually, and then I usually, I write my name a lot. I think that's a theory like, um, a lot of people, when you first hand them the pen, uh, I've read an article somewhere. I should have, I should have saved it when you, if you hand someone a pen, say here, test this pen, what do they get? What's the first thing that they're going to write? And a lot of time it's their name. Uh, it was like a very, very high percentage of, um, what it would be. So yeah, hello, I don't think hello, hello was on the radar. I write hello a lot. Okay. Oh, I do actually write my name too. I'm flicking through this now, and I sign as well, but hello there, hello there over and over and over again throughout this book. Yeah. I write the pen and ink, the pen and ink and nib size and like the, the pen specs and then I write, um, um, yeah, my name seems to be the, the main thing, then just kind of do some doodles. So let's, let's, let's hear your thoughts on the pen. I'm, I'm, I'm anxious. I'm, uh, waiting with baited breath. So let me talk about the design of the Twosby Mini, because aside from it just being, um, my first sub nib, it's also, I don't have a mini. I love it. I love it. It's great. Like it's much smaller than I imagined it to be. Um, but not so small that I can't use it without the cap posted. So it fits in my hand. I think it's, it's a little bit larger than a Kawiko. Yes. So it's comfortable to hold, but the weight of the cap is also actually, I don't know what they've done, because it's typically not something that I would do, but I have used it with the cap screwed on to the end. So posted. Yeah, that's generally, I think I use mine most of the time with the cap posted, because it does, they did allow for posting by adding threads, um, to the, um, to the end of the pen. So it posts securely. And you know, with the, with the mini pen actually posting is, is important just to get the right feel and balance for the pen when you're writing. But although like you said, it is possible to use this mini because it's not too, too small, um, unposted. Exactly. And, but as you know, like it's even for smaller pens, it's weird for me to post. And I did it this time. So I've been happy with it. So I don't think I was adequately prepared for the stub nib. Like I feel like I knew what was going to happen, but when it happened, it surprised me. Hmm. Just the way that it writes is so different. It's very different. And I think that I like it. Um, I'm not like, I'm not blown away. I'm like, whoa, this is totally different. But I'm also not like, Oh my God, I wouldn't want to use this. Right. So I don't really know what I was expecting. Um, like if, you know, either way, I was just sort of excited to try it. I knew that it would be fun, which it is, but it's really interesting. And I keep, I keep finding myself drawing strange shapes, because you can get like different line thickness. So I'm like playing around with like, do I hold it like this? What sort of line does it draw? If I hold it like this, what sort of line does it draw? So I've been doing a lot of that because this is so interesting. So, I mean, I feel like we've, we've discussed stub nibs before, but so a stub nib is where it's more like a calligraphy pen. And instead of on a fountain pen, where it meets like a point at the end, it's flattened off. It's like sawn off at the end, right? That's probably a lame as way of describing it. Right. Right. Yeah. It's like a squared off nib. So what it does is it, it lays two different types of lines, depending on how you hold the pen. You know, if you, if you have an angle, it will draw a very thin line as you're just sort of using the top, but if you hold it at a different angle. So like the, the line that you draw is, is parallel with the, the, I don't know, panels, all right. Well, but with the flatness at the top of the nib, it would draw a much thicker line. And yeah, I feel like this is what I was kind of leading to before. I feel like I need to use it more, but I'm happy to use it more. I'm excited to use it more, because it's a great pen. And, and, and it's, it's a new interesting path for me. So, I plan to, to try and get some more use out of this. Yeah, I think what I'd like to see from you and what I'm having difficulty as a right-hander wrapping my head around. So like when I use a stub nib as a right-hander and with just a normal traditional grip, if I'm, you know, aiming the nib towards the paper, that nib is probably at a 45 degree angle. Does that make sense? Yeah. To the, to the page. So I feel like I'm in the proper writing position for a stub nib. Now, being a lefty, there's some give and take with the writing angle, you know, more of a, I, we've talked about it and you'll have to remind me, I don't think you're a huge like overwriter, right? I mean, you have somewhat of a traditional writing self. No, no, I'm just wondering how the nib is pointed at the paper when you're writing. I think you're mixing me up a banner, I think. Okay. Because I am, my hand goes over the top of the page, you know. Okay. So you like have a hook? So yeah. Okay. The way that I write with the stub nib, the, the nib is facing me. Right. And the, the flat part of the stub. So the wide part is parallel with the bottom of the page of the paper. Okay. Does that make sense? Yes. So basically hold the pen in such a way that the nib is pointing towards you and you are looking down at the face of the nib. Right. Okay. I got it. So that's how I'm using it. And people at home with their phantom pens can follow along. So that you can imagine then that I am writing with this, with the, the liner is thickest. Okay. Yep. Okay. So you're like, like the pen, the pen's pointing at like 12 o'clock, the barrel of the pen. Exactly. The butt end of the, butt end of the pen. Yep. So whether the butt end of my pen is pointing at like four o'clock. Okay. So just to give everyone a visual, because that's, that's the challenge I'm having. Because I have my 580 stub right now, and I'm having, that's why I don't know if the stub nib is great for lefties or not, because it's a different movement. And I don't know how well that translates into that, that different of a grip. But I mean, I think it's, it's definitely doable. I think you just got to manage what's, how to, how to use it and just, you know, use it more, have more practice with it kind of thing. So I just obviously to, to reverse it, I just held the pen with it aiming at like, I don't know, eight, eight o'clock. So uncomfortable. Yeah. For me. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I'm, I just doing that big tough. So that's an insight into the way I write to an hour hold. Pencil wasn't necessarily expecting to go down that line. Hey, that's, that's why the show is, that's why the show is good. We get into that minutia that you would think no one cares about, then we'll get five of you emails going, Oh my God, I do the same thing. I can't believe you talked about that. So you remember a couple of weeks ago, we had a new sponsor called Art Snacks. I do, they're not sponsoring again today. But I did mention that I signed up and I have received my first box of supplies from them. Oh, cool. I want to make it very, very clear that they have not asked for this, and I'm not doing it because they are a sponsor because they were a sponsor. It's because yesterday I received a few new drawing items. Every single one of them, nothing I would have personally bought, but all cool stuff. So I'm going to put a link in the show notes, which will take you to their products page. And you want to look for June 2013, because it has the links to all of the items discussed. I would expect that anybody that did sign up, and I hope that many of you did sign up, because it's pretty cool. And, you know, to support the show. I'm assuming because I'm in the UK, probably one of the last to get them, so this might not be a spoiler for people. But what, so that I'll give you a quick rundown of the items I received. So I have the Zig Memory System brushables marker. So it's like a marker pen with a brush on one end, and it's like it's got two two caps. So it's two different types of brush pen, like on each, but they've got slightly different pigmented inks. It's quite interesting. They've got good descriptions. So one tip is a true color pigment. And while the other tip is a pigment tint, so it's the same color, but slightly different tints, which is quite cool. And I've got that in blue. So that's very different. Well, so I've got a Pantone universe twin marker. So it's like a marker slash highlighter in a Pantone color. And I got orange, which is awesome. I got Pantone 15 1263. So it's two different. So one is sort of a brush, a highlighter marker. And the other is more of a traditional felt tip. So I kind of like that. That's pretty cool, especially in orange. So it's a really nice mark. I've got a couple of really nice sort of marker type pens there, which is always good to have actually, something I didn't know existed. It's a favor Castell perfection eraser. It's a pencil eraser. So it's a pencil. And instead of a nib, it has an eraser in the in the core. So like you sharpen it. So you sharpen it. Yep. In a traditional pencil sharpener, you sharpen it. And it allows you to get very precision erasing. Now that's pretty cool. I thought that was quite kind of interesting. Yeah, I hadn't seen that before either. And I received a forest choice carpenter pencil. It's my first carpenter pencil. Hence the carpenter pencil reference and a pencil sharpener that will allow me to sharpen the carpenter's pencil. Oh, that's cool. That's that's that's really good. So obviously it sharpens it kind of strangely because you can amount like it's hard to explain, but it's not really a point at the end. Right. Flat. But that's I guess you could kind of then use the pencil sharpener to kind of sharpen that out, like if you pull it up a little bit more, use some pencil sharpener, you know, like you would in school to make a really sharp right pencil point. But this is kind of cool because it's a universal sharpener. So it has like a circular hole and then a like a rectangular hole. So you can put in all types of pencils and sharpen them. Yeah, so they got so they made it so you can sharpen your eraser pencil and your carpenter pencil and give you the pencil sharpener to do it. That's that's well thought out. I thought that too. Because if I would have received a carpenter's pencil, I'd have been like, what do I do with this now? Let's get a knife out to sharpen this thing. Yeah, well, that's what a real man would do, but I mean, I'm not a real man. I don't go any drinks after all. Yeah, that's clear. So that's all the stuff from Arts Next. I was very happy with it actually. I got a cool Arts Next. It's sticker too. And they put in a bubblegum, bubble, bubblegum too. And I'm really looking forward to it actually because what it's doing for me, I guess, is opening up the types of things that I receive. It's not very expensive. And I've got some cool stuff here that I really like all of it and actually think I would use all of it, especially the highlighters. Because I do a lot of highlighting for work. And this is a couple of really cool ways to do it. And I don't think that the brushable's pen is necessarily a highlighter, but I would use it as such. Right. And I'm really happy and I'm not, I mean, no hurry to change my subscription. I'm looking forward to the next box. Very cool. I thought that that's some interesting products, because I mean, there's not a single thing there that I have. I mean, I have a carpenter pencil, but I mean, I don't have, you know, the other products you have including the sharpener has kind of got my interest peak. That was a good, that was a good product mix. Yeah, I think so. That's what's cool about it. One last thing, I had some terrible news. Yeah, I saw, I saw you add this in at the last minute. And this is, this is in all caps. And I was like, Oh, this isn't going to be good. Okay, this is it. That's a letter from parcel force. With a chart of £23 and £35. Customs, again, I can only assume that that is, of course, for the retro pens that I'm waiting for, including the surf. So that is another $35. Goodness gracious, alive. I'm so annoyed. I'm really annoyed by it. That's horrible. I already had to pay, I already had to pay $20 in customs charges for the t-shirts, my 70 decibels t-shirts. And then I received the next day that it's just the cost, the actual, the additional cost that I've had to pay for this pen, like I've effectively doubled the cost of the retro 51 surf edition. I mean, that's before shipping. So all in all, this has cost me like nearly $150. Oh my gosh. That's, that's horrible. I mean, I feel really bad for you because that's, that's, that's brutal. I mean, that's really, that's a real negative to, to making you want to, to make purchases like that. And that's a huge downside. I never would have bought it from I mean, Art Brown's great and I've used them before, but I wouldn't have bought it from them, but retro 51 had such a limited stock that they actually said they didn't send any to their UK distributors. So I wouldn't have got it. And, you know, I probably still would have done it anyway, but it's just so expensive. It's such a frustration. It really is. And it's why I'm starting to use more UK based people for more expensive orders, because it's, I'm paying more, but at least I know what I'm paying upfront, rather than, you know, thinking I'm getting a good deal, but it actually turns out that I'm not, it's just a real shit. It's just a shame. And it's kind of frustrating because it's going to mean, I mean, I'm about to go on holiday. I'm, so I don't want to spend that money right now. Yeah. Because that's, I don't know, a dinner or whatever. So it's probably going to be a few weeks before, before I get it, before I get the retro 51, so they'll hold it in customs for 20 days. So, you know, I might arrange it just after I get back. Wow. It's just really annoyed me. I know that's, that's really extreme at this point. Because basically to any new listeners of the show, I ordered a pen called The Pilot Vanishing Point. And they, and it was like a hundred dollar pen or whatever. I think that was how much I paid for it. By the time I'd factored in shipping and then a customs charge, I doubled the value, the price I paid for the pen. Yeah, that's brutal. Dear, dear. I don't know. Episode 14 Vanishing Customs. So I'll put a link to that in the show notes in case people want to go back and hear more about my, my rage at the customs office. Yeah, that was, that was a frustrating experience because I mean that, I remember that because we, we talked about it for a couple of episodes before you were even able to spring it. Yep. Oh, that's brutal. I can't imagine. Oh, no, that was actually episode full team was when I actually received it from customs. Yeah. So that's what I'm saying. I think I'm pretty sure we had talked about it like the week before, if not the two weeks before saying, you know, talking about the challenges with that. Yep. So I'll actually put episode 13 into the show notes so people can hear about my fury because you, you've actually written because it is still stuck in customs and capital letters in the show description showing how angry I must have been. Yeah. Anyway, shall, shall we talk about our sponsor and then move in to believe it or not a topic? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. We have a topic for weeks. I know I've been, I've been holding this one out and and Mike who sent in the topic is probably when are they going to get my answer? We're just going to go. Yeah, we'll talk about it because this is a good topic. Lots of people have been asking about this. So yeah, why don't you go ahead? 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It doesn't matter how much traffic's coming through. It's always going to be up, always going to be fast because Squarespace look after all of that for you. They have great real-time analytics. If you want to sell things, they have Squarespace Commerce, which allows you to sell physical or digital goods in your existing Squarespace site. They have blog importers, 24/7 customer support. What I really want to tell you about today is if you want to see a couple of sites that built on Squarespace look totally different, you've got black browse blog, panatic.com and mine, mikeherly.net. There are two sites that are built on Squarespace. On Squarespace 6, they are 100% different. They're using totally different themes. They have, in my opinion, really nice clean designs. They look great on phones, they look great on computers, great on tablets. They have great fonts, great colors, and this is all built in. Everything that you see, me and Brad have built from point A to point Z using Squarespace's in-built tools. I haven't customized anything. You have not customized anything, have you, Brad? No, not long. Because you can go in under the hood and if you know this sort of stuff, make some tweaks and stuff to what you see. But me and Brad have both created all of our tools with Squarespace's great fantastic. We've created our sites with their fantastic tools. So go take a look at those and I'm sure that you're going to agree that you need to go and sign up for Squarespace. You don't have to sign up and pay them straight away because you can get a free trial. Just go to Squarespace.com/70desibels. That's 7-0-D-E-C-I-B-E-L-S. You can start a free trial and find out more. Squarespace plans start at $10 a month. And if you use the code 70desibels6 at 7-0-D-E-C-I-B-E-L-S6, you will get 10% off your first order over at Squarespace.com, who give you everything you need to make an amazing website. Thank you to Squarespace for the support of the Panedict and of 5x5. Great. So what have we got, Bradley? We have got a topic about nib and tip sizes on pens. So let me read this email from Mike. He's basically got a couple of questions and then I have some points to elaborate on. So let me let me read this out real quick. He says, "Can you give your thoughts on nib, tip, thickness?" The current trend seems to be ultra thin lines. I can think of three reasons, practical concerns such as bleeding, fine detail, creation, etc. Secondly, aesthetic preference, independent of those practical concerns and three bragging rights like, "Look at what this pen can do." What's your take? What thicknesses are better suited to which papers, tasks, or is it all style and flair? Thanks. So in those few sentences, this is about three episodes worth of topic. That's why we've been pushing this off so long because I think it'll take a long time and actually we could even do a part one now and then a part two, another episode or the next episode or something like that. So he wants some general thoughts around the current trend seem to be ultra thin lines. I think it's popular, the ultra thin lines have become popular because there was a real lack of options in the US market for lines like that. So you see everyone talking about that because all of a sudden there's these options that are available around the world that are now becoming available in the US. And so it's a new product to a lot of people where in the past they've only been stuck with a 1.0 millimeter ballpoint and it was a miracle if they could find a 0.7 ballpoint or a gel pen. If you wanted something really fine, you could get a 0.5 millimeter ballpoint. Well, now you're starting to be able to get 0.38s on pretty regularly and things like that. So it's kind of some newness to that trend and a lot of people like that writing style. But I mean, of course, the market for the larger tip sizes will never go away because of people like me. Yeah, no, I mean, yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's, you know, I say it all the time. That's why there's more than one pen, right? I mean, because we all have different needs and enjoyment that we're looking for and the tools we're right with. And so I mean, I guess it is a trend, but it only became that way because now people's eyes have been opened a little bit to where, you know, they realize that there's other things on the market that might suit their needs better. So, you know, there's just been kind of a renaissance around those micro tip sizes. And they do have some of the practical concerns like you were talking about. Mike, the, Mike, the emailer, the fine detail creation, you know, a lot of artists and designers and engineers have used these fine pens, you know, for years and years and years. And that's why when a product like the pen type A came about because these people were designers, they enjoyed the pilot high-tech sea line, which you could get all the way down to a 0.25 millimeter gel ink pen. They're using these in their design work, but they weren't happy with the the pen barrel that it came in because it felt kind of cheap and uncomfortable. So that's why a project like the pen type A on Kickstarter became so successful because it was a designer creating a pen or around another pen that designers used. So that kind of thing. Aesthetics is why I like it, which was one of the other points in the email. I'm, I like writing small and, you know, for years, all I could, I would try to find the finest 0.5 millimeter gel ink pen that I could write with. And when I found one that I felt was smaller than the other, I would kind of hoard them. And that's the ones I would use. Now I have all these options out there. And that's why I like it. I think my handwriting is more aesthetically pleasing on the page. The smaller I write, at least that works for me. You know, it's not something, it's not a situation where I'm having to give my work to someone else written. It would probably, I'd probably get told to write larger or do something different. But for me, it's about the aesthetics. Bragging writes, I mean, that's maybe a little bit, but I don't think that's really pushing anything because most of us pen people are introverts anyway, where it's not like we're running through the streets waving our pens in the air saying, look at what this pen can do. So I don't think it's much bragging rights. You know, we really don't have anyone to brag about our pens for unless it's online or something like that. You know, there's maybe a little bit of that, but I don't think it's really that, that third topic. I really think, you know, either the practicality of it or the aesthetics of it or why people choose the different nib and tip thicknesses that they use. As far as what's better suited to which papers and tasks, that's totally personal preference. Those are really impossible questions to answer because everyone's going to have different needs and different things. You know, one thing that's going to work for Mike Hurley is not going to work for Brad Dowdy and vice versa. So I mean, that's, that's, those are questions that I have really getting emails saying, all right, here is how I use pens and paper. This is what my needs are and what would be a good pen to fit those needs. Those are the kind of general things you need to be able to answer a question like that. So that's, that's way too broad of a, of a question to give a, to give a really good answer to. And, you know, he follows up as it all, all style and flair. I mean, I think that's, you know, kind of the same thing. It's just kind of more relevant to the individual situation. So that's, that's a really good email. And I have a, I have a bunch more to talk about on this, but did you have any comments on, on what I've said so far? No, it's kind of, you know, you're kind of following along with what I was saying. That's what I was thinking, you know, in that it's, for all of us, I think it's, it's, it's, you know, you're saying that you feel that you write better, you know, your handwriting looks nicer. It's like a neatness thing. For me, it's more just, I choose my nib size, but whatever I think is the most comfortable feeling best performing pen. Typically, for me, that has been larger nib sizes, just because the smoothness is, is a, it's a big thing for me. So I, I'm happy to use a thin, like, you know, a thinner nib if the smoothness remains. And that's sort of what I found with the Twisbees. Right. Because, you know, things like the high-tech C, I don't enjoy because it feels too scratchy for me. Absolutely. Where others say the exact opposite. Right. Right. So let's get in, let's get into a few of these, these, these points I wanted to expand on. And then we might, depending on how this is going and how rambly I get, we might save some of them for the next episode. Is that okay about you? Yes. I think I could really get, I think I could really get off-kilter here because I have a lot to say. Just to, just to help people understand why this question keeps coming up because there are so many differences. And so we'll just kind of start with the, with the basics real quick that most people are familiar with. And that's ball point pins, roller ball pins, and gel pins. So let's talk about some of the differences in tip sizes and those guys. And why, you know, a point five millimeter ball point is going to be different than a point five millimeter roller ball and a point five millimeter gel. So the first thing you have to realize that the measurement of tip size is different than the measurement of line width on the paper. So that's one thing that's a lot of people new to pins kind of get confused about, that it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to have you buy a point five millimeter pin. That's not necessarily the line that's going to be down on the page. If you buy a point five millimeter ball point because of the way ball point ink is formulated, you're going to get an extraordinarily fine line on the page. The line width of a point five millimeter ball point will be probably point three to point four millimeters. A point five millimeter gel is going to be probably the most accurate to the actual measurement of the tip size. It'll be close to a point five millimeter because of the properties of the ink. The gel is more it's the ink's not going to spread. It's more true, true size, true writing ink. And then a point five millimeter roller ball will be much wider than the size listed on the tip because of the liquid ink properties of that pin generally spreads more on the page. It soaks into the page. It makes your lines look wider. So a point five millimeter across these three types of pins is going to give you three wildly varying line widths. And that's a lot of people. That's why you don't see ball point pins on the store shelf at point seven millimeters very, very rarely because that line is finer than what most people would consider what they're looking for in a ball point pin. Ball point pins that's why you see 1.0 millimeter on the shelf a lot for ball point pins because it really writes about the line width of a 0.7 millimeter gel pin. So that's what a lot of people get confused about as far as those types of differences. Did that make sense? I was explaining it. I'm not sure if I was clear. It is confusing but that did make sense. It's extraordinarily confusing. I get emails about this a lot and why things are marked one way and look a different way. You really have to take in the ink properties, make a difference on what the line width looks like. One of the pins recently that fascinated me that came out about a month ago was the 0.38 millimeter uniball jet stream which is a ball point. Since 0.38 has been around in gel pins for years now and we've all used them or tried them or a lot of us have and use that as a regular everyday rider. When you see a 0.38 ball point it is so different than anything you've ever seen in a 0.38 gel. It's hard to even explain. It writes about a 0.2 millimeter line. I don't have anything to measure the actual line width. I'm just doing it off of just looking at it and just experience what these other lines look like. That's a pin I would rarely recommend to people but for me it was kind of an awesome pin because it really stretched the boundaries of what the line width on the page do. I didn't think it was anything we'd ever see. I didn't think there was a need for a 0.38 millimeter ball point but it's turned out to be one of the coolest and most fun pins I use on a regular basis. It sounds so insane to me. That sounds really that sounds like I would never ever want to use that. I can't imagine ever wanting to use something that would produce such an incredibly needle point line. Yeah and it's really got to fit your writing style too. If you're a script or cursive rider or something like that, it's probably not going to do very well. It's not going to keep up with the pace of your writing but if you use a print style it might work for you. There's a difference between pins that I love and pins that I would recommend people to use. That's a pin I love. I would probably never recommend it to anyone unless they came to me with an email that was so specific and that really fit that specific need. What I recommend to people is the .7 jet stream because that gives a really wonderful, wonderful line that's not as bold as what's normally available. Another confusing point is drawing pins which I use a lot and this covers anything from a Sharpie pin, all your felt tip, plastic tip pins, Sharpie pins, secure paper microns, Copic multi liners, any fine liner type or art drawing pin, what they've done is it seems like where you're looking at companies that make ball points, roller balls and gel ink sizes, they all use the physical measurement of the tip, .38 millimeter. What the drawing pins size, some will use the millimeter measurement, some will just give it a number like in secure will say 03, the pin size will be 03, then you look on the barrel and it says .35 millimeter tip. So I have a pygna micron here which is an 05 and it has a .5 millimeter line width and I have a otographic liner which doesn't tell me. It's on the cap on the orange. Oh it says 05. Yeah so it doesn't translate but I don't have the chart in front of me but there's actually a chart that you have to use for the otos so you know I think if that's a point that's close to a .7 or .8 millimeter line, it's very it's wide right. Like that's I wish that they could just standardize like I think they would it would serve the pen industry better to try and standardize one what you're measuring and two just displaying that clearly like if you're measuring lime width or if we're going to measure the size of the nib and then just making sure that's consistent across everyone. I think it would just be useful. Yeah I mean I think they have to measure the size of the nib because the line width would vary depending on the paper so that wouldn't be a standardized measurement. Right if I take a roller ball .5 roller ball and use it on copier paper, my line is going to be wider than if I used it on rodeo paper. So that's a whole nother that's a whole nother topic you know paper is a consideration. When you're talking about line width so what they have standardized is we're going to measure the size of the tip at least in the metal tip pens like ball points roller balls and gels those are all metal tip pens, plastic tip pens, they've taken it to a confusing or more confusing level I think. Anna when I was talking about it I think on Twitter or something Anna called it pen vanity sizing like um you know in clothing you know how they'll adjust different companies will have different sizes you know like a size you know 36 you know men's pants or men's clothes is probably more consistent than women's clothes but you know one size that one company is could be greatly different than another size in another company it's just like vanity sizing. That's a really good comparison to make I think. Yeah that's what I wrote that down because I thought that was spot on because a company like a company like Stabilo is the worst on you can't trust any measurement they give you on any pen that I've been able to find um no it's bad I mean they make these they make these claims like um you know the super fine micro tip you know every every marketing word to give you this ultra fine tip in a pen and then it writes a line like a 0.7 millimeter roller ball it's it's kind of a joke I've always had a if you go look at Stabilo reviews on my blog you can see it's a consistent problem with every pen I've ever reviewed from them um especially with with roller balls and gels and ball points so um so I think I think that's probably a good stopping point for today because I want to get into we need to cover fountain pens and that's that's a whole another huge topic that we need to elaborate on and we could go another 20 30 minutes just on that um so I think we're probably unless you have any other comments on this I think let's say you know fountain pen nibs because I've actually talked about that more than I have the the ball ballpoint roller ball jelling tip sizes um and we can we can circle back around maybe in the next episode or down the line we'll talk about the fountain pen nib sizes and because I have a few comments I need to make on that that I I continue getting emails on so just some more clarifications around that that sound good sounds perfect to me all right so you can catch up with us on social networks um I am iMike i-m-y-k-e on app.net and twitter brad is dowdy d-o-w-d-y on app.net and dowdy ism d-o-w-d-y-s-m on twitter brad also has a fantastic blog that you should be reading if for some insane reason you're not and that is over at penaddict.com thank you very much for listening to episode 57 of the pen addict podcast until next time. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
