Hello and welcome to episode 55 of the panetic podcast a weekly show where we discuss pens paper and the analog tools that we love so dearly and I am joined today by a man who has been purchased for 1.1 billion dollars the micro tipping maven that is mr Brad Dowder. To my vowels get removed when the yahoo purchased me is that the rule and we put an R on the end. I like that now this was my this was actually my reserve intro today because I tweeted earlier that I feel like I've created the best intro that I've ever come up with but the problem is it's it's related to breaking bad which is not a show that you watch. Right so I'm not really going to explain it to you because it won't ruin it so I am going to just say the intro and if the list is if you are breaking bad fans you can tell me if you think this is as good as I think it is so. My other intro today was the one that likes not high tech seasonberg now I think that that I thought of that earlier and fist you know when you like what's it called when you. And you pump your fist yes like fist pumped would have you like gave it you gave yourself a high five I did that the one that likes not high tech seasonberg I thought that was fantastic you're not going to get it. And I'm so embarrassed because if you wouldn't have laughed I would have been very upset. I know I know and see breaking bad totally one of those shows that I know I would love I've just never gotten around to watching and I don't watch. Too much regular episodic type TV but I kind of miss the boat on that so I need to go back and that's it's it's one of those things on the list like I've never watched breaking bad I've never watched the wire but I know I would love both of those shows. So should we just rearrange the order a little bit while we're on the topic of intros? Yeah. So show mascot can only run a shin just trying to say as fast as possible. Yep. Today created for us there's a link in the show notes which can now be found at five by five dot TV four slash pan addict four slash fifty five. We'll come to that again in a minute like going all over today with the with the follow up on her her blog today. She has a Tumblr blog she basically hand wrote all of the intros that I have given you over the time that we have been doing the show. So she took the time to do it and also since then Brad she has typed an email them to me that was at my request. So we need to find a place for them because I would now I haven't asked her this part is the next part so she can hear it on the show so now she probably can't decline is to then keep an updated and ongoing list of these. Okay so we need to be able to put this in a place where we can all access it. This feels perfect for a Wikipedia page but there isn't one for the show and I don't there is a five by five wiki. I don't know if we're in that yet and I also don't know how that is updated. I don't know who does that I don't know if it's community driven or anything but maybe I can find that out but it feels like it's something that we could use. I'm just not yeah I need to think of a way so if anybody has any suggestions for how we could keep this running list. Something that we could work access to maybe Tumblr would be good for it because yeah multi multi user I don't know but that's the plan that I would like I think it would be fun to keep an ongoing list. Yeah be a nice nice to have a living doc of it yeah it's cool stuff and it's and it's kind of become come your come your thing now and the shows thing then it's it's pretty cool so yeah we talked about it before you have all the pressure now. So I was really enjoying it when reading through them earlier and I think the one that I have when looking back found to be the weirdest. Was one of the earliest entries episode 24 in which I called you the chieftain the grandmaster the all high wizard himself incarnate the pan addict the chief pan addict. Which is very weird I think of all of them as the weirdest. Yeah that was a that was a little rambly but the the one right after that episode 25 the evil can evil of the pin world I like that one. I had a couple other favorites episode 38 I like the defender of pen justice. I like that when I when I get on my rant I feel like that's what I'm doing fully let it fully inked episode. Yeah and then I like the um the secret agent you know the James the James Bond one episode 46 that one was a great one double 0.4. And then of course the his bradness which spawned off all kinds of other drama after that. Yeah there was obviously episode 44 where you introduced me. That's true I forgot about that. Why was that? Um we had there was some there was a specific reason why we did it someone had asked us to do something I forget what it was offhand but there was a specific reason why we did it. I can't remember it now 44 if I listened to the episode. It was where episode 44 a pintervention in which we discover that Mike has a problem as if we didn't know it already he goes through some of his travails hunting down field notes for his collection and Brad discusses both his and Mike's new field notes pages on their respective websites. Yes that's what it was so we were going to talk about you having a problem so so I felt like we we'd flip it up and I would introduce you since you were going to have the addiction problem and that. The addiction problem in that episode. And every episode. It's become quite a problem hasn't it. For everyone including all the listeners. Oh the amount I mean yeah I really appreciate all the listeners and you know I can tell the you know just the behind the scenes stuff that just the you know the audience is growing and you know I hope y'all all think we're doing a good job and and everyone has a lot of fun with this podcast and the I can tell by the increasing amount of tweets and posts on app.net that I'm getting where people are you know calling us the enablers and things like that it's it's it's. It's pretty cool so despite the fact that we're spending people's money and you know they're mad at us but not really. But until until it's really ramping up it's it's pretty funny to see the the quantity of. Look what I got you know check out my new pin I blame the pin addict and stuff like that it's it's pretty funny it's pretty frequent now it's nice to have the new listeners and some of them will be because of five by five so we have moved over to five by five now as I mentioned in the previous episodes the show is now five by five dot tv four slash pan addict and if you are listening to any episode of the show you just go to. The slash the number of the episode for the show notes. Which is a lot easier than it was before so for example as I mentioned earlier this show is five by five dot tv four slash pan addict four slash fifty five and it's a much much easier system than what we had before. And you may have also noticed if you're downloading the episodes they will be much much faster now much faster and so thank you for help you know for for being for persevering with us for the transition I hope that you're all here if you're not. You don't know this and I'm sure we'll hear from you so there you go. If you yeah there you go. Quick note to any new listeners because that today is going to be the first day that we the episode gets published on five by five even though we're live I mean I don't want to say live because that means something else on five by five but. The sites the show is moved over to five by five but last week it was uploaded through 70 decibels first this is going to be the first one that's going to go through five by five immediately. So if there's any new listeners out there. We'll go through the contact information at the end but you know. I'm always available to answer any questions if you enjoy the episode just any have questions you know did you do something in this episode what episode number cannot listen to or any questions about pen paper anything y'all can. Please feel free to hit me up I love to get the new listeners involved and we're definitely happy to be here. Also as well it's worth mentioning this is kind of a show that is timeless in that there isn't really anything news related to this show. And it also as you listen from episode one to now there is actually a clear narrative across these fifty five episodes so I would personally suggest going back and listening from number one. Yeah I would agree with that I think you would gain a lot more than you would lose. By weight by by waiting out and being so far behind. Simply because there is a narrative in which even if you're just following my journey from a guy who liked pens who is now to someone who is now completely consumed by them. And also that there are pockets of discussion that take place over a certain period of time like when Brad truly discovered fountain pens when I truly discovered field notes notebooks and stuff and also as well I think. I have learned a lot through listening to you every week so I know that people that have an interest in this stuff will have learned a lot too by by going back and learning along with us. Yeah there's definitely a common thread like if you listen to the to the show as a as a as a group you know in the in its entirety and you can just. You know you can pick that up as the episodes go on and you know we talk about different things and just how it all connects together so I definitely agree with that. So we are definitely happy to be on on five by five now so I just want to make sure all the any and all new listeners know that you know I'm available mics available to help out in any way we can. Sure. And people can find our contact information like our Twitter information at five by five dot TV four slash panetic but we'll talk about that show as you mentioned. Yes sir. All right let's get into the pens so yeah this may be a follow up episode today we've got quite a bit to cover so the first one I guess is probably one for me right. Yeah and well I really want to talk about this too for a lot of reasons. First up is the new retro 51 pens that were introduced this week I guess it was this week I didn't even look at the date but this is when I started getting notifications from people saying did you see this did you see this just a couple days ago. All right so what retro 51 did I guess it was about a year ago they introduced a cool king and queen design you know like a playing card design of king and queen of spades on their pens and then now they followed it up. I made the ace and jack of spades which these are really great looking. Ooh excuse me. You still there. Are you. What was that. What was that. Well is this hack it on here. My Skype is just like dialing. Oh really. Yeah it sounded like you disconnected. No no I haven't gone anywhere. Okay sorry sorry it made the Skype sound it's an invasion of the hack it so sorry. Anyway the ace and jack are now available to it's not quite a royal flush set with the ace jack king and queen but I think they're pretty good looking I've had the did you ever get pick up the king or queen you've got one of them didn't you. I got the king. Okay I thought you'd have the queen. You would think that wouldn't you. Yeah you would you would. But I was undecided on that one. Jet pins shipped me the queen last year for a giveaway and I thought it was good looking. I just didn't think it was one that I would use but I mean of course retro 51 they do a fantastic job I mean it's a beautiful looking pen. So if you if you had the king and queen that ace and jack is now available but what I really want to talk about is the vintage surf wooden tornado. Oh boy I'm looking for one of these I've not I can't see them on sale yet anywhere. I don't know if you've come across one yet. Yeah Art Brown. Yeah Art Brown has them. I had to buy them there before. So you understand the problem right. What. There's only 500 of them. I've got to buy one now then don't I. Yeah 500 number pieces. I mean if this if I've never seen a pen that's more Mike Hurley than this pen right here. This is surfing. Yeah. Yeah I'm going to buy one now then if I I was waiting for them to enter to arrive at my UK stocker. But there is obviously a chance that they might be gone by then. Yeah. I'll probably. I'll probably. Sorry. I was just saying you ought to email them just to see if they're getting in if not ordered from somewhere else if you wanted. Because they are they're priced at a premium. They're forty four dollars instead of you know like twenty five ish or whatever for the regular tornadoes. The thing is though that means that there'll be more expensive in the UK so that should be saving money by buying them. Yeah I'm also going to pick up the one at the store the ace of space one because I think that's pretty cool. That's that's the best looking one. Yeah I could do without the full sized you know Jack Queen or King but at the ace is pretty slick. I will say that. Yeah that I tell you the the King and Queen versions I mean I've only got the King but I assume they're the same because they look the same. In person they're actually much much nicer than the pictures and dresses. Yeah but that I mean this this surf one has me tempted and I'm probably not going to do it but it that that's a seriously cool pin. Our friend Mary Collis already got hers because she's she tweeted out a picture and she had it you know she had it sitting on her table you know at her house taking a picture of it. So I don't know if she got it from Art Brown you might want to check a dailies pin shop that's where I got that the tornado the retractable and what's it called. I forget already because I never use it the snapper. Yeah the snapper that's where I ordered that one that I was going to you know do the follow up on. So I think they're a retro 51 retailer as well dailies pin shop so but they have them at Art Brown because I saw them on the I went and looked at the site yesterday and they still had them. So but because I was curious how much they were and that that their store there were $44. But for 500 number pieces these the retailers probably aren't getting more than 10 or 20 each I would imagine. Yeah I'm probably just going to go go ahead and just buy it from Art Brown. Yeah I've already got it in my cart now. Oh as a matter of fact on the page in the show notes it's to retro 51's Facebook page and at the bottom of that comment section someone has a note there from Art Brown saying that that's where they got them from. Cool. I've put some links to all sorts in there. Cool. But that's a good job by retro 51 there that's a great looking pin I'm a fan of the limited edition stuff even though it costs more money. And that you know it hits the wallet where it hurts but I don't have too many limited edition stuff. Any pins and pencils and things like that maybe a few things here and there but I do like the idea of it just like we've always had the problem with field notes and that addiction so I got to catch them all. Yes sir, yes sir. You're writing that down as a show title aren't you? Yeah yeah. I like it. Or I can hear the knock. There he is the one who knocks. What's funny is now that we've gotten in I can't believe we're already doing 55 episodes it seems like we're on episode 10 it goes by so fast but you know I'm really not that unique all the time so I'm going to repeat one of these show titles one of these days I know. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Because I've used that on the blog before when I was talking about field notes. Sure. Yeah well field notes is the logical. Yeah. The logical one for that. Yep. Yep. So yeah get that ordered out. I want to hear about that for sure. If and when you get that one. I want to see some more pictures of it too. Other than the stock 51 pictures I kind of want to get a good feel for what that thing really looks like because it's pretty sweet. Yeah sure. Well I'll have them for you. So that's a nice nice brown wooden pencil and I have also gotten a brown fountain pen on order which you would think is out of my realm but I'm starting to open it up a little bit from the from the standard black fountain pen silver trim type of products. And you know I'm trying to enjoy the pens for their design not really trying to pigeonhole what I want in a pen kind of thing if that makes sense I don't know if I said that right. But you know I've really just kind of been stuck on the black and silver or the solid black in the case of vanishing points and things like that. But you know when I went to the Atlanta pin show I had a choice when I was purchasing my pelican to buy the all black or to you know branch out and do something different and I got the blue striped edition. I love that pin it's it's a beautiful pin. I love how it looks so back. God it's been months now. But I did one of my fountain pen education posts on the blog I reviewed the pilot custom heritage 91. And then the pilot custom heritage 912. The 912 is the larger brother if you will of this this line. It's a bigger barrel a larger nib. It comes in a more nib options like I got that's the one I have my PO nib in. Well the 91 comes in a few different colors and the one I got is the yemiguri chestnut brown. And the theory behind this pen color they made three colors for well they make four colors for the 91 they have the black and the silver. Then they made three other colors that mimic pilot erosion erosion zuku inks. So this chestnut brown is theoretically made to made after the erosion zuku ink of the same color the chestnut brown. So there's also a blue one and then there's also kind of a burgundy red one. What I like about this pen is it's a little bit more lightweight than the 912. But it's still got a 14 karat gold nib. And that's important. It's not important that's the wrong term. This is a really good value pen. For me I bought it used the guide used at one time I bought it off the fountain pen network off the classified section I paid $95 for it shipped. Which is about how much it would cost me if I went to one of the Japanese sites and ordered it from there then they would add on shipping. Now if I bought if a US retailer had this pen it would probably cost me about $150. But the real value in this pen is the nib. 14 karat gold nibs or really gold nibs in general on any pen or about 100 to say $90 to $125 premium. Does that make sense Mike? I bought this pen like the barrel is nothing fancy all the prices tied up in the gold in the nib. So the barrel while it's just you know basic plastic resin I pretty much just bought a nib. So like this whole price is tied up in the nib. So if you can get a gold nib pen for $100 or less you're doing pretty good. Does that make sense? It makes perfect sense. So that's that's one of the reasons why I wanted to. This was just I bought this on a whim and only because I'd used one before and I reviewed it on the blog and I enjoyed it. I thought it was a great pen and I liked the chestnut brown color and it just happened to come up. It was a good price. I mean it was just kind of one of those things I couldn't turn down because if I bought it from a US retailer number one. I can't think of a single one that carries a maybe nibs.com I didn't even look to see what they are on there. It would have to be $140, $150, $160. So I paid $95 for it. I haven't gotten it yet. It should come in probably in the next couple days or so. So we'll talk about it more in the future but I was real happy with the purchase. And you know it's not it's not an oo-ah type of pen but I wanted to talk about it so I could make the point about the nibs. And that's something I learned from Thomas going through his collection that you can buy a Pelican pen for $125 with a steel nib or you can buy the same pen for $225 with a gold nib. So when you're able to purchase a pen with a 14 carat gold nib for under $100 that's a pretty fair deal. So it's just kind of something I wanted to bring up. Well I mean just buying those two retros and the shipping required is $100. Yeah but again where I know that's $100 but if I was to buy them here and it would be about as expensive not more so. Right and that's you know that's again it's part of my whole fountain pen education. You know I didn't realize how much the gold nib weighed into the price of the pen before. Right so people blank a lot at a $250 pen with a gold nib. Well you got to realize that more than half of that is probably caught up in just the nib alone. So there's some give and take there when you're looking at prices and trying to figure out what you want to purchase and why things cost the amount of money that they do. So I'm happy to get a pen like this for a pretty fair price. So I look forward to getting in and I'll definitely be a review forthcoming when I get it. So I'm excited about it. Excellent stuff. Excellent stuff. And it's chestnut brown so that's I'm trying to branch out a little bit so. Yeah. I still still know gold trim but I am there's plenty of options otherwise out there for different colors, different barrel designs and things like that. You know I looked at my collection one day and it's like everything's the same. What would make me want to use all these different pens. So and in that variety in there I think is I'm enjoying that so far. Awesome. Should I take a quick moment to thank our sponsor before we carry on? Yeah let's do that. We got it still a good week. We got a lot to talk about. Yeah I think it's definitely going to be an all follow up episode today. Yep I think so. So I want to take a quick moment to thank squarespace.com who give you absolutely everything you need to make an amazing website. Squarespace provide you of all of the tools to build a fantastic site online. Doesn't matter how experienced you are when it comes to building websites you can put something online in minutes. They are a fully hosted completely managed environment that allows you to create and maintain a beautiful website blog portfolio or even a lot online store as well. You don't have to worry about hosting, scaling or integrating with other services. Squarespace take care of the whole thing. They give you beautiful themes. They're out of this world. Really clean feature responsive web design and let your content do all of the talking. 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There's no credit card required to try out Squarespace. Just go to squarespace.com/70desibels. That's 7-0-D-E-C-I-B-E-L-S. You can start your free trial there or see if you use that link and if you use the code that I'm going to give you in a moment it helps directly support this show. So if you enjoy the show go and try them out. Squarespace plans start at $10 a month for their standard plan and $20 a month for their unlimited plan. If you sign up for one year you automatically get 20% off. If you sign up for two you get 25% off. As I mentioned you get custom domain names with the annual plans too. If you decide to purchase a plan use the code 70desibels5 at 70desibels and the number 5 to get an additional 10% off your first order. So go check out Squarespace, everything you need to make an amazing website. Awesome, thank you Squarespace. I keep tweaking my site and they make it easy to do so. As a matter of fact I've been playing around with it so much I felt like I need to do a post this weekend where I told everyone where all the features are how to get in contact with me how to use the search box and where the RSS feed is and all that stuff. So I felt they make it so easy to make changes. I've been making a bunch of them at one time so I've got that post out there now for everyone who needs to know how to use Panatic.com. You can go check out the post I made on Sunday and give you some tools to use. So what's next on the agenda here? We got a new pilot prayer in JetPins. I guess it came in a couple weeks ago and I'm a fan of the prayer. Mike, do you have a prayer? Yeah, I do but I don't reuse it really well. I bought the wrong lip size. Okay, what did you buy? Medium? Yes. Yeah, that's what I thought. I should maybe try and go back and try that again but I haven't. Yeah, I mean medium still, it's pretty fine and that's a whole topic we'll cover. We'll maybe save, we have a whole conversation around nibs that we'll do, we'll save for maybe next week, something like that. And we'll have a long discussion about nibs and just to reiterate some points that we've made in the past. But the prayer has come in fine medium and broad nibs for years now and they just introduced, well JetPins just started caring. I don't know when pilot actually introduced it. It could have been in Japan this whole time and it was just never carried in the States. But they introduced JetPins now carrying a nib called the calligraphy medium nib. And this piqued my interest big time. One because I don't have one of the prayer clear body pens, the demonstrator type, the see-through. And I've always thought that was a beautiful looking pen and I've never bought one. I've just held off and held off because I've already got two, I've already got a fine nib prayer and a medium nib prayer. I didn't necessarily need, it would have just been another fine nib in the clear body. But what's the calligraphy medium nib came out? I was like, "Oh, that is really cool, I gotta have that." Because as I've found the more I've gotten into fountain pens, I'm liking the, I can't use a broad nib, a standard broad nib. But I love stub and calligraphy and italic type nibs, you know, that kind of squared off nib. I think, and it is crazy. It works well with my print style handwriting, that's a good, you know, one of the challenges that we all have when we're trying to buy pens and why I get so many emails is what's the best pen for me. Sometimes it's trial and error. I would have never thought that a stub nib or a calligraphy nib would be a really good fit for my style of handwriting. I was always extra fine, fine, and now I love writing with this type of nib. So when this one came out, I definitely had to order one. So I've just got it, it should be here. Gosh, it might be here today, it should be here soon. And I'll talk about it more once I get to use it, but I'm excited about it because it looks like a pretty narrow nib. They call it a medium nib. It looks pretty compared to the other stub nibs I've used. Like I've got a Twisby 580 1.1 millimeter stub and I've got a Twisby Mini 1.5 millimeter stub. This looks smaller than the 1.1 millimeter, so I'm really, really anxious to get it in my hands and see what it's all about. Have you ever had the opportunity to use a different type of nib, like a flat nib, like a stub or a calligraphy, anything like that? I haven't, so it's making me feel like I should try it out. This thing is with that, though, I don't really do a lot of ink testing, so I probably wouldn't use the pen very much. So I can't imagine you would use a pen like this as a daily driver. You would be shocked. Really? Yeah, I got my old school vanishing point modified at the Atlanta Pen Show. It was a medium nib, and I got Mike Masuyama to turn that into a stub nib. I use it constantly. It's one of the top two or three pens I use on a weekly basis, and I use it just for regular writing. You would be shocked. Especially, I would want to use a super, super wide one, like the 1.5. Even the Twisby 1.1, it's too broad for just regular writing. But the smaller width ones, I think work well for everyday writing, and I'm thinking that's along the lines of what this one might be. When I get in my hands, I can't wait to see. These clear prayers are even nicer looking than the original ones, and they remind me a lot of Twisby's. Yeah, I think they're beautiful. For years and years and years, I've always wanted one of these. It was really difficult to pick which color I wanted, because they all look great. Which color would you have gone with? I would go for either orange or green. Yeah, gosh, I could narrow it down. I had orange in the cart for a couple weeks. Ever since it came out, I had orange in the cart. Then I switched to the light blue, and then I ended up going with the darker blue, so I couldn't make up my mind. They're all really good looking. I didn't want to go with the black, just because that one really looks like the Twisby's that I already own. The green I considered too. It was a tough call, but I went with the darker blue. They call it clear blue instead of the light blue. I used so many blue inks and blue black inks. I think it'll look good in there, so that was kind of a consideration. The vanity consideration, if you will. How good is it going to look? Do you match your inks to your pen barrel? I don't yet, because another thing for me is really, I don't really use a lot of inks. Yeah, that's true, that's true. I don't necessarily try to match them, but on the clear barrel pens, I do consider how it's going to look in the pen. I won't have something really off-putting in the pen. A lot of people do that match their inks to their pens. Even if it's just like the Chestnut Brown pen that I got, they would use brown inks for that pen. I won't go that far, but I do find it hard to use really different ink color from the pen barrel color. Sorry, I'm getting weird on you, but it's a consideration. It's amazing how many people think that way. I bought this pen, so now I have to buy an ink to go in it, that's going to be the ink for that pen. I get these emails all the time and read all this stuff, so yeah, we have problems, dude. Oh, for sure. The worst problem is, I could sit here and talk about ink colors and pen colors for another 30 minutes, and that's what's scary. We didn't even have that, that's not even a discussion item, but I know people take that stuff seriously about how they match up their inks to their pens. It's all good, it's good stuff. But now I got a, did you have something you want to talk about, or do you want me to switch it up real quick? Because I got a real outlier here for me. Keep going, keep going. All right, so I did something crazy, and I've kind of alluded to this on Twitter at least, if not app.net, I might have a new problem coming up. I don't think it's going to be as bad as the fountain pen problem that I have is, have going right now. I don't think it's going to be quite that bad, but I'm starting to get fascinated a little bit and wanting to learn a little bit more about wood case pencils. So JetPins, you've probably seen on a bunch of our friends' blogs, they've been talking about the new Blackwing Pearl. JetPins is going to have those coming out this week, and they sent me a box to check out. And knowing that I had this new wood case pencil come, and I've reviewed the old Blackwing, not the original Blackwing, but when Palomino Brands came out with the Blackwing last year or two years ago, I reviewed that one. But I've never had, I thought I needed a better pencil sharpener to do these. I've just had the little handheld pencil sharpener, something you used in first grade, elementary school. And I never felt I had anything really nice. So I talked to my friends, Andy from Woodclanched and Johnny from Pencil Revolution. They're the wood case pencil gurus that I might go to guys when I have questions about wood case pencils, and we'll link to their sites in the show notes. And I asked them, you know, I said I want like a desktop sharpener, something that you would find like an elementary school, you know, like the one that was attached to the wall or to the desk, you know, that was bolted down just a little bit more serious than a little pencil sharpener. You hold your hand and throw on your backpack, something like that. So they both pointed me to this product. It's from a company called Classroom Friendly Supplies, which makes sense. And it's just a, you know, some of these pencil sharpeners can get seriously expensive. Like some of my friends like Tofer and I forget the guy's name that writes this site called, I'm on a butcher the name, Blicedtift.de. I link to him all the time in ink links. There's a, there's this fabric hassle pencil sharpener that's like $350. I mean, pencil sharpeners can get to be serious business. But both Johnny and Andy recommended this classroom friendly pencil sharpener. And it was I think $25 shipped and I was like, great, that's totally in the budget. You know, I was going to spend up to like maybe $50 to get like a real nice sharpener, but they said this one's great. It's about 20 bucks and you'll, you'll like it. I got this thing in the same day. I got these new black wing pearls in and I put it together and through the first pencil in there. And I was stunned with what came out of that pencil sharpener. And I've got an image of the tip that it put on this pencil. Yeah, I've never seen anything like this before in my life. Stabby. Stabby. I still haven't used it because I'm so scared of it. I mean, isn't your mama's curry tiger, is it? No, no, I mean, you know, I don't know if I'm going to become, you know, a wood pencil guru, just because I don't think I will use them that much, to be quite honest. But I like the idea of it. I like the utility of it. I like how there's a whole another world of products to discover out there. I don't know that I will be a hardcore user of pencils just because I don't like to write in pencil that much. But when I see something like this, something as good a quality pencil as these black wings are and then combine it with a new tool like this classroom friendly pencil sharpener. And I end up with something like this. It fascinates me and just kind of gets the ball rolling. I was like, okay, you know, we're going to we're going to have Andy on Andy on the on the podcast one day. I keep telling him I need to get him on and we'll talk pencils. I want to get a little bit more learned about pencils. So I'll have some good questions for him and things like that. But we will do that soon and we'll have a we'll have an all all pencil episode of the pan addict. But I could see this being a problem just because of the quantity and depth of products out there for pencils. It's just like anything else like with these pens. You would not believe, you know, when I started this blog, I wouldn't believe that I would be finding all these products. All these pens and different sizes and everything. And it's the same way with pencils and that's a I haven't even scratched the surface on that. And so yeah, that could be a serious serious problem for me. But we'll we'll see how it goes. I just got I got to get using a more get more comfortable with pencils and and go from there. But it looks like it could be fun. So we'll see. We'll see how that goes. Cool. All right, so we got we got some good I got some good mail last week and you did too. Right. You get a nice package in the mail from our friend Mike Dudek. Yes. Listen up the show. Mike. Hey, Mike. Mike's a listener and he reached out to Mike and myself. It's been a couple weeks ago and he what he does is just for fun, he makes he does different woodworking projects, you know, at home and he has been making these pin holders for like a desktop pin holder like with round openings to stand your pens vertically on your desk, if you will, and he sent the image to me and and I said how much I enjoyed him and he said, well, let me make one for you and Mike. I was like, whoa, that's really, really nice. So why don't you, why don't you talk about it real quick and tell me what you got. Cool. So what Mike sent us was a beautiful, I believe it's Walnut. I've got his letter here. So I'm going to check. Yeah. I believe it's Walnut. It's a Walnut pen holder. So it's basically like a, like a block. It's got like a window in the middle that you can see through. And there's 15 sort of holes in there that fit most pens and he said to me very specifically that it fits the retro 51, which I can verify and I'm very happy that it does. So that's, that's awesome. So he sent us those. And we also got these other things and I've included a picture that you posted to Instagram of a wooden iPhone like amplifier. Yeah, I guess that's the best way to best thing to call it. It's like an amplifier made out of a block of wood. It's wicked cool. I have used it several times already. I've been using it when I work at home at night to play music or listen to podcasts from my, for my phone because I don't have, I usually listen to podcasts on my laptop at work. So when I have my phone at home, I don't really have a speaker I hook them up into and listen to. So I've been using this. And that was actually a picture of me using it that night just to listen to podcasts. I was surprised when I got, at first, I didn't know what it was. Did you, when you, when you took it out of the box, because I'd seen your picture. Oh, okay. That's right. Yeah. You're, it's a little bit slower to the mail. Yeah. I only got it today. Yeah. We didn't exactly get them at the same time, but it's really well done. It's, it's just cool. It's like an amplifier. Sit the phone in the top and it just, it amplifies the sound out through. It's got like a small notch in the dock section, if you will. And that goes into the bigger speaker section. And it, it amplifies the sound wonderfully. I thought it was fantastic. His products are really, really well made, like really well made. Yeah. He, he does a good job. And he's actually, I don't know if he relayed this to you or if you picked up on it from me, he actually lives near Keras Customs and his friend with our friend, Dan, who, um, you know, who makes the render K and, and the bolt and things like that and who we've had on the show. So he actually goes into Dan's shop from time to time and they, uh, and they talk turkey. So, uh, oh, oh, oh, I know, oh boy, do I know and I'm going to get to that in a second. But just before Mike has a site, he has a website, um, that I, I put in the show. He didn't ask me to do this, um, but we were talking because, you know, he's, he's such a cool. Isn't he? He set up a square space. Six site. Nice. Um, and I think people should go to it because his photography of his equipment is beautiful and it's clickypost.com. This is web site. I love that name. That's a fantastic name. Um, and I'm going to, yeah, I'm going to put one of the posts in the, in the show notes because it's about a render K that I have been sent. Ooh, look at you. So let me tell, so basically Mike said, oh, I'm popping in to see the guys at render K because he knew, he'd heard the show that we did with Dan at Carras Customs. Um, and he said, I know that you don't have one. Would you like me to pick one up for you while I'm there and you can sort of, you know, and we can sort of sort that out and I was going to send in the money over and I was like, oh yeah, great. I would love that. Because then it obviously would save money on shipping and stuff because Mike was going to send it all over together. So he said that, um, he got that stuff and then, you know, he told me, oh, I got you one, I'm sending it over and we'll sort that out later. So I, I, I, I arrived. My package arrived this morning and there's a great handwritten note from Mike. And this is what he said, um, he basically has sent me three, um, render case. So I have an orange render K, which was the one that I asked him to get me. And I have read, I have a white Delrin plastic render K and this is from Mike's letter. So these are like unicorns as they only made a small batch when they are experimenting with materials. So I have one. I have a plastic render K and I also have a rod stock render K. Um, with these, they only machined the inner parts and cap threading. This is what a render K looks like before it becomes a render K. So it's not like tapered in any way. So it's like the, the width of the cap or like in, in its hole. It's just like a, uh, just one, one piece. Yeah. Like a block, but rounded. Mm hmm. So that's what I have. I have two very rare render case now. So my, when you said he posted about it, I went over to the, um, to his site, which is fabulous looking and it's now subscribed and now you will see some in, in inklings, going forward. I scrolled down to I saw, all right, what render K post is he have? And then I went to that Delrin post and my jaw dropped. I was like, no way does Mike have this pen. Yeah, I do. That is cool. Literally my jaw dropped. I've never, I've never even seen that. He didn't even like show me this picture of it. Dan's never sent me a picture of that. I didn't even know it existed. So yeah, that's the, uh, the, the benefit of living nearby this guy as you get to drop by the shop and see all the cool things they're working on, but that pin is fascinating looking. Yeah. It's, um, it's like a, it's like a molded plastic version of the render K. Yeah. It's like acrylic, I think. Okay. So I guess this is, as I said, this is what they were playing around with. I mean, I haven't read Mike's post because I just saw that he had a post on it after, you know, I recognized it, um, but it, it's, yeah, it seems like it was what they were, I guess deciding what they wanted to make the pens out of. Yeah. I think it's probably like a prototype. Yeah. And I have one. Damn. That is cool. I'm, I'm officially jealous. That is really neat. Yeah. I'm very, very pleased actually. So thank you, Mike, and, and yeah, does it look as good as it does in the pictures? I think it's really good looking. Yeah. It's, it's really, it's really sort of striking. Yeah. Because it's got the metal clip still. Well, cool. We'll definitely link that in the show notes. Y'all should go check this out because I've never seen this before and, uh, and I've taken a picture on, on Instagram, which I posted during the show so you wouldn't see it. Um, I'm going to put that in the show notes too of my, my new render K collection in all of a squir. You sneaky Brit. I know. That's what I am. So what, that was awesome. That is too cool. So what do you, what do you think about the orange one? Oh, I love it so much. Yeah. That's a fascinating, fascinating pen. It's like really neat. That's 70 decibels orange. Yeah. It's one of those pens when I pick up. I, I look at it as much as I use it just because it's that nice, I think. So this is where I need your help now. Okay. So yeah, thanks. Thank you so much, Mike. Um, yeah. Thank you, Mike. We really appreciate it. And thank you. Um, guys, thank you, Cara's customs guys. Yes. Thanks. Dan. Cara's definitely a good, good friend of the show. Yeah. And the super guy big, big fans of Cara's customs, they didn't go back. Um, so I now have render case. So I need refills for them. Okay. And I want your help. So I have, um, I text see refill, um, but I want something that will be more, um, more fitting to my, uh, my sort of, the sort of pen that I enjoy, basically. Sure. So my understanding is it takes the Parker style G two refills. Is that correct? Is that right? Yeah. I'll have to look at, you know, I honestly, I don't know offhand which exact one it takes. I know the bolt takes some, uh, Parker style refills. I'm not sure what the regular render K takes. I mean, I see pop out that refill in the, uh, in the Delrin. If you have it handy in, is it, is it a shorter refill than a G two refill or does it look like a G two refill? Uh, well, I'm using a high tech C and I actually haven't got any refills in it. Okay. Okay. I'm just looking at, I'm looking at, um, Mike's picture and he's got, um, you know, like a conical tip, uh, pen in there, um, the standard Parker refill is going to be like the, the moleskin gel refill. I don't know if that's compatible with the render K. We'll have to do some research on this. I've got a bunch of stuff I can play around with and see because I don't think there's a standard Parker. That's like a G two style. The G two styles are going to be more like a uniball sino, um, RT, those are probably going to fit. Yeah. Cause they do. This is what was confusing me right because they do a G two one, but on the site, this sort of looked at the kickstart site says that they take the Parker ones and the high tech C. So I actually have a moleskin, uh, I think that's going to be too short. Oh, there's a converter that they put in. Oh, it's got the, it's got the little, uh, the little block, then that might work. No, it doesn't fit too tight. So I need to work out what, what's what they actually do take. Okay. And I'll work on that too. And any listeners out there, let us know. Um, I know a bunch of y'all have the render case and I'm, I'm a big high tech C fan. So that's pretty much all I've been using in mind. So I haven't really played around with what other refills fit it well. Um, but I've got a bunch I can test for you, Mike and any listeners who have, um, the render K and don't use high tech C refills, let us know which ones you use. Shoot us a tweet or, or something. Get in touch. Yeah. I'd like to know, basically, people know what I like, right? That I like something like the retro 51, I guess that sort of refill. Yeah. I think we, you would be able to find, um, something that Schmidt makes, honestly, that will be, that will fit that because they have a huge, they have a wide, such a wide range of sizes. And that's the quality that you're looking for in the refill. Yeah. See, there are Schmidt Parker style, but I need to make sure it's the correct. Yep. Style because if the mosque in one is a G two style, then that doesn't work because it doesn't fit. And I now have the end stuck in the time to try and find a way to remove, but, you know, last mic too, because I see he's, he's got something different in that delrin, which it should be the same physical dimensions as the render K, but he has a conical tip refill in there. So we just need to figure out what it is and then we can match the size and go from there. But I think you should be able to get a good, you know, like a Schmidt easy flow, something like that, that'll, that'll be compatible with, with it and that you will enjoy very much. Excellent. Excellent. Right. We need to wrap up the show because I now need to record by on it from Alexander. Yes, I didn't even see what time it was. So yes, we will do that and we were, we were going to have a quick show. It's 52 minutes. Yeah. We said, let's keep this window about 30 and we said, yeah, that should be no problem and look at us now. So that's, that's what we do best. We even had a topic. So you can find us online, go to pan addict.com for Brad's site. He is dowdy, D-O-W-D-Y on app.net, dowdy-ism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M on Twitter. I am, I'm Mike, I-M-Y-K-E. Thank you very much for listening to this week's episode of the Pan addict. I am Mike and here's Brad and until next time, bye bye. Bye. [BLANK_AUDIO]
