The Pen Addict 616/transcript

Speaker 00: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 616. Today's show is brought to you by The St. Louis Pen Show and Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad.

Speaker 01: Hey, Myke Hurley. How are you? Welcome back.

Speaker 00: Thank you, my sir. Thank you. It was a great episode. I enjoyed listening. As I always say, I like listening to the show as a listener. Yeah. And I thought it was fascinating having Damien on. I, you know, I endorse the idea of more nib workers coming on the show and talking about what they do. Because it is, even hearing people explain it, I still kind of don't understand how on earth you do it. I really liked the question where you're like, and I feel like Damien, honestly, I think he kind of dodged the answer a little bit, which was like, how do you deal with somebody giving you their item and you could potentially destroy it? And I feel like he kind of, understandably, I think, like walked around that answer. But it's a good time.

Speaker 01: Yeah, it was good. Damien is a great friend and I love talking with him. And the reason, like I say, like, yes, more nib grinders, please. It's such a curiosity once you get into this space, right? Right. Like when you're thinking about like getting your first fountain pen or you've just discovered the Pen Outic podcast, like none of this stuff is like even remotely, like in your area of interest. But then as you progress, like you're starting to, you know, get more into the details and the nitty gritty of how you're writing and using fountain pens and finding the right paper and finding the right ink. And then you learn about this thing was like, wait, I can, I can modify like how the line looks on the page. And there's people who do that. And it's just, and that just starts off a whole new discovery process and an endless one, like all of this stuff that we work with. It's just endless in ideas and concepts and how certain one person handles one thing differently from another one. And then nib grinds are squarely, squarely in that zone of interest, you know, notary level high. You know, I can ask like insanely detailed questions about this and like just the things that I want to know about it. And yeah, it's really good hearing people talk about these types of niches in our hobby. It's really fun. So thank you, Damien, for doing that.

Spotify's automatic podcast chapter generation

Speaker 00: All right. We've got some follow-up. First comes in from Jed, who says, As Spotify now automatically generates chapters for podcasts. This was news to me, by the way. I didn't know you were doing this. Thanks to Jed for letting me know. I thought you might get a kick out of one in episode 615. At about 41 minutes in, the chapter is called What to Expect at a Pin Shown.

Speaker 01: Pin, P-I-N.

Speaker 00: Shown with an N.

Speaker 01: Pin shown. Pin shown. Not Ian shown.

Speaker 00: Or not pen show. So they're doing this by, because they do transcripts. Spotify does transcripts, like Apple Podcasts does. I think Apple Podcasts transcripts are of higher quality than the Spotify transcripts, I think, just from my own kind of like cursory glancing at these. And I will actually check now. I'm going to have a look at the Apple Podcasts ones to see if they do a better job of any of these words that I'm about to mention, because I went through today over the last couple of episodes and just picked out some chapters that I thought were pretty funny. So one was the DC NIP meeting. Okay.

Speaker 00: Yes. That was in the last episode. There was one. Brad's first meeting with a Brad. Okay.

Speaker 01: I actually understand that one. I understand the concept behind that one. Yes. That's factually correct.

Speaker 00: Yeah. My favorite. This is a little... See how long it takes you to get this one, right?

Speaker 01: Yeah. I'm still working on this one.

Speaker 00: RCPA.

Speaker 01: Ask TPA. Yes. I wouldn't have been able to do it if you didn't say it.

Speaker 00: And I just took a look. Apple Podcasts also transcribes that as RCPA.

Speaker 01: Yeah. I didn't. So we just have the RCPA text in the document. Until you said it, I didn't know it. Apparently, I'm also AI. Well, I guess it might sound like it.

Speaker 00: RCPA? RCPA? I don't know why, but that's, I guess, how it sounds for me.

Speaker 01: Yeah. This is great. So I wonder what's the philosophy, the AI philosophy on where the chapter markers go? I wonder what's that algorithm trying to decide. That's interesting, right? Yeah. Like, what's the decision to put that in there?

Speaker 00: Yeah. I don't know. But I think that is interesting.

Speaker 01: Tongue pauses, tone changes, you know.

Speaker 00: What I will say is the Apple Podcast transcription does not have any pin show in here. So they accurately get pen show from your accent. Nice. I guess that one's good. But yeah, RCPA. RCPA. Okay. It's going to be the new segment title. Maybe I'll come up with that acronym for it.

Speaker 01: Well, I think that leads right into the next question.

Introduction of a new segment: "Really Complicated Pen Answers"

Speaker 00: Really complicated pen answers. That's what the new segment is going to be called, which is also accurate. Yeah. I think we're about to get one. Yeah. So this actually is a really complicated pen answer. And the question is about the Lamy 2000. It comes in from an anonymous listener who, like Jed, also submitted their questions and feedback over at penaddictfeedback.com. This anonymous writer says, in episode 614, you called the Lamy 2000, quote, one of the best design pens ever, but immediately followed it up by saying, quote, it's not super functional or easy to use. That seems like an oxymoron to me. I have thought that if it doesn't reliably do what it's designed to do, it's not a great design or it's badly executed. Can you explain how both of these things can be true? Is it just par execution of a great design or am I missing something? So I will say I checked the transcript stack. I was like, no way did we say those things. Yes, we said those things. I 100% said those things. They weren't immediately next to each other. There was a little bit of information around it, but maybe you want to elaborate a little more on your stance at Lamy 2000 and maybe I'll throw some comments in because we both agree on this one.

Speaker 01: Yeah. This is an awesome question, by the way. I love this type of question because like a lot of this stuff, there's context and things. But this one starts with what does design mean to each individual person or how do you define design? And it's great design is very subjective. So when I say the Lamy 2000 is one of the best design pens ever, I'm talking about what my philosophy of good design is and how I apply my thoughts around design to the products I see out in the world and the ability to say, wow, that is just beautiful, amazing design. You know, for the Lamy 2000, the materials that are used with the fiberglass macrolon barrel combined in a seamless manner with a stainless steel front end section is just a beautiful piece of design in the way. The shape of the barrel is subtle and its curvature is beautiful. And that they had to design a nib specifically to fit this pen, the interior of this pen is really cool. And I dislike using it, right? Like all of those things can be true. So it doesn't mean it's not a great design if I don't use it or I don't think it's easy to use or I don't recommend it to people. Like this design concept happens in, you know, tons of areas, you know, like I love, like just one random example. Like I love the Land Rover Defender, right? Like it's this classic Jeep style or I love the classic ones, like the modern ones, you know, whatever. Like, but the Land Rover Defender is like just one of the coolest designs ever for like a Jeep or a car, however you want to describe it in an off-road vehicle. And like, I would never use one because it is absolutely horrible to maintain and to drive, right? Those two things can exist in the same world, right? Like, like that's the subjectivity of design. Like there's, there's probably not a lot of like objectively perfect designs. Like, I don't know if I could think of one, you know, like a post-it note is pretty, pretty, you know, a pretty decent, like objectively. Okay. Everyone understands how the post-it note works and it's just good and doing its job. And yeah, that's just it. But then you go to something like the Lama 2000, I can say like this belongs in a museum and also not recommend it just wholeheartedly to literally every fountain pen user ever, because I don't think it will work for a lot of people, right? So those two things can be very different in, in that, um, in when you're talking about design, right? So the, the part about not super functional or easy to use. So the beauty of how they executed the grip section makes it very slippery, slippery, hard word to say in your hands. Like when you're writing with the pen, it sometimes gets very slippery and it's not easy to grip. And sometimes your fingers slide down the nibs are also, uh, given the way that they're finished, they feel a little bit different on the page and not everyone likes that. Like they're almost a little bit sticky or tacky in the way that they write on the page. So like all of these things can exist together when you think about design. And when you think about functionality, those are two separate categories in my mind. And, and it's also, you know, given the subjectivity of it, like not everyone's going to agree, agree with those things. Some people don't like the design, right? Uh, or some people love using the, the fountain pen and all of those things are like valid answers and, um, you know, can be, can be true. And that's the, the great thing about design is that how subjective it can be. So that, that's, that's my thoughts on the 2000.

Speaker 00: Yeah. I mean, I just think it's a beautiful design and the whole, not my whole thing about it is if you get one that is perfectly made, it's fantastic, but it's just for whatever reason, this pen struggles in a way that I think of a Lamy pens don't. Um, but if you get one that works well, I have one that works well, it's as good as any of the great pens that I own, but it's just unreliable.

Speaker 01: Yeah. And, and that's kind of where like, it's like a car discussion, right?

Speaker 00: So like, it's like something like Land Rover Defender or something like say a sports car, right? Which you're like, you might love them. They are incredible when they're doing what it's supposed to do, but they're more prone to error. Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 01: So that my, my conclusion, if you didn't listen to the previous couple episodes was that I think I, my, I've become more hesitant over the years to recommend the Lamy 2000 as your first step up pen in price point and gold nib and more, I categorize it in an expert category. You want to know what you're doing before you purchase the Lamy 2000. Like, I think everyone should like try out a Lamy 2000, right? But I think it's more on the expert level of fountain pen users. Uh, it should be more on their list than on the beginner side of the list was what that's the, that's the, the conclusion from a long winded answer to talking about the design of the pen.

Speaker 00: All right.

Speaker 01: Speaking of design.

Speaker 00: And I wouldn't even say this is long winded. It's not long winded, but, uh, it's just regular winded.

Discussion of the Pelikan M200 Orange Delight pen

Speaker 01: Pelican M200 Orange Delight. Yeah. Let's talk about this. What a delight. What a delight. And this is an interesting pen. And this brings up again, this is a great discussion to have around this pen because you almost should lead with how expensive this pen is relatively speaking. So this is a pretty expensive plastic barrel, piston filling, steel nib fountain pen. You know, we're talking like $200 for this pen. Um, you can find them cheaper Pelican Pelican. For those who have not, uh, not listened to the show for a long time, they're one of the great conundrums in regional pricing. So different parts of the world have vastly different price points for Pelican. So that's a, that's a, the more, you know, type of situation, but in the market that I'm in, it's 200 ish. So, and I was happy to pay that for this one because this is a beautiful color. It's a limited edition. I mean, I'm not paying the premium because it's a limited edition, but this is a, this is not a, my point being, it's not a stock item Pelican M205, which I do have one of those as well, the 205, uh, this 200 is just, you know, something that they did, which they did a Pelican thing where they make cool colors and cool designs and cool collaborations. And I keep going back to this Lamy conversation because I have constantly said that I do not use Pelican pens because I don't get along with the nibs, but they are some of the best made pens in the world, right? So this is the opposite of the Lamy conversation. Pelican, I think you could go in blindly with just about any Pelican, as long as you have enough money in your bank account and you would be thrilled with it, uh, which is the exact opposite of the Lamy 2000. And I don't use gold nib Pelicans because I don't like the nibs. So it's such context dependence though, the more I think about it, but this orange delight I had to have because the 200 size is their small, generally smallest mainline size. There's a couple of smaller ones that have been around over the years, but this is a small pen. I have the M205, which I linked in this review to talk about how I use this pen as almost like an everyday carry type of pen. The size, the weight, and the feel, the compact nature, the easy piston filling mechanism, easy to use, easy to fill, easy to clean. And literally Pelican makes the most beautiful high quality pens that are just completely simple to use. And that's what impresses me most about the brand. Again, as someone who doesn't use many Pelicans, I can still be impressed by their design and their quality. Uh, it's extremely consistent, right? Like even the Pelicans, like I'll borrow people's Pelicans, you know, to use. And I just like, yeah, this is amazing. They do such a good job. They're great when you pick them up and write with them. And I like the size of this one. It's really small, but it's not, it's a full size pen, right? It's on the small side of the full spot, the full size pen category. If you're, anyone's familiar with the Pilot Herrera, it's not as lightweight as that, but it's like the same size. It's a full size pen. You can use it unposted, but you can also post the cap. Um, and it, and it writes really well. The cap posts deep enough, but I just wanted to talk about it because this is one of those pens that people should think about when they're looking to move up. Should they choose this over a Lamy 2000? That's almost an unfair comparison, like, because they're, they're not related to each other at all, right? I feel like they're just such disparate pens. Like, I don't know how it could even compare the two. I've been asked to compare this Pelican with the Kaweco piston support that I just acquired because they're around the same price. And I'm going to try to do that as well. And I'm having a hard time. Like, how do you compare to like really, really different pens? So that's something to think about, but this is simpler. For the Pelican M200. It's easier to use. Um, it's easier for everybody to use, but it may not check your design boxes, uh, like compared to the Lamy 2000, right? Someone may not like the translucent barrel of this pen and feel like it might make it look cheap for something you're spending $200 on. And like, all of that makes sense. Like, oh, that's like really good criticism and, and valid. But, uh, given the feel of this pen and the enjoyment I get from looking at it and using it. And I got the nib ground too. It has a fine nib and I got a Curse of Vitalik on there. And I love writing with this pen. It's, this is one of those pens that could just be inked up all the time and sit here and I would never get tired of it. I just really, really enjoy the 200 size Pelicans and they have tons of options. This is a realm where they play around with color a lot when they do their annual ink colors. They, a lot of times do a translucent barrel to match. And those are always fun. And like, I want to buy like all of those, but I know I won't use them very much. I'm very limited in my Pelican usage, so I have to make sure I get the right one and I'm glad I waited for this orange delight. And we've talked about it a bunch this year, but I finally got it at the Atlanta Pen Show, had some time with it and wanted to write up my review and talk about it a little bit because I'm, I'm really impressed with it. It's a stunner. Even though it's just a standard quote Pelican release and it's great. Big fan.

Speaker 00: Um, the nib that's in it, is it, it's a gold nib? Gold plated steel nib. Gold plated steel nib. There you go. I, so it, so the Pelican, the reason I asked is because maybe I missed it in there, but I could see it was gold and I noted that you said it was $200. And so I was like, wait, that doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 01: Yeah.

Speaker 00: That makes sense.

Speaker 01: Pelican is one of the weird naming convention companies, but when you understand the naming convention, it all clicks. So anything with a 200, anything with a two, uh, is a steel nib. And then the exact same size pin with a gold nib starts with a four. So that's the 400 series. And so the 400 is the same size as the 200 series, but has the gold nib. And they don't, uh, cross over the colors, right? There's not an M 400 orange delight, right? They don't do that. Um, they only do their stock. Once you get into the gold nibs, they'll do the different sides. Like the green stripe, like the classic green stripe Pelican. It comes in there. The S it starts at the four, which is a gold nib. And then they have a six, eight and a 1000, 600, 800, 1000. Uh, that's just size increases in nib and barrel. So, but, uh, it sounds complicated, but this one's actually easy. When you look at it, you go, Oh, I understand the size and the nib material when you see the number. So I do appreciate that from them.

Speaker 00: All right. This episode is brought to you in part by the St. Louis pen show. Don't you just love the feel of writing with fountain pen and documenting your thoughts and ideas, journaling, or maybe even just doodling. If that's you, and that is you because you listened to this podcast. The 2024 St. Louis pen show is the place for you. It's on Thursday, June 20th through to Sunday, June 23rd in the suburbs of St. Louis at the Sheraton Westport lakeside chalet on beautiful Westport Plaza. There's plenty of free parking and it's only 10 minutes from, what's the name of this airport, Brad? Crave. Oh boy. C-R-E-V-E. C-O-E-U-R. I don't even know how to say that, but Brad, we'll come back to you, but it's the airport. We'll call it for the moment. And there's so much to look forward to Thursday's trade a day and includes a party on the plaza with a live band. And Friday has an evening event of vintage pen panels and pen tasting. Yep. Followed by a free dessert party. I love the pen tasting. I love that as a phrase. It's so good.

Speaker 01: We're actually going to talk about that as a concept here later in the show. Amazing.

Details about the St. Louis Pen Show

Speaker 00: On Saturday, you can enjoy the evening pen show after dark in the hotel bar. Sunday, you'll get uninterrupted browsing time for over 85 vendors from 42 states and Canada as well with a great mix of products. There'll be new modern vendors like Tachya, Sailor, and Pens Empire. And you'll see artisan pens and pencils from brands like Hardee's, Right Turns, and Country Made. Not to mention ink journals, paper stationery clothing, pen storage, and vintage pen dealers featuring show circuit favorites. Plus, there's a free ink testing, silent auction, and so much more. I've got to say, I've got to say, Brad, this seems like the Avengers endgame of pen shows. This is like everything good that I hear about any pen show. It feels like St. Louis is doing it. And I think that's awesome. This sounds like a great time.

Speaker 01: Yeah, they do a good job putting the show on. And I haven't been yet, but it's always at the top of my list. It's always a tough week for me schedule-wise. But I think for a lot of people in the middle of summer, especially if you can drive to this, you should make the effort to get to the St. Louis pen show.

Speaker 00: Did you find out the name of the airport for me yet?

Speaker 01: Well, I see St. Louis Lambert International Airport, so I don't know if it's Lambert or Lambert.

Speaker 00: Well, it's not that at all, so I'm going to Google it now.

Speaker 00: Oh, I've Googled it, and it still hasn't helped me. Crave, Crave, I think it's like a smaller airport. C-R-E-V-E-C-O-E-U-R is the name.

Speaker 01: I mean, Coor is heart, so there's something about the heart. Crave, Coor.

Speaker 00: Crave, Coor. Beautiful. It sounds nice, but just not from my mouth. But it's 10 minutes from that airport. But you can get the details at stlpenshow.com. You can buy your tickets now. It's $5 for day admission, $30 for a trader pass for all show access, or $10 for a weekend pass. Discover and sign up for classes. See a complete list of vendors. Get information on Westport Plaza and things to do in St. Louis. Plus, check out the link on the website to book hotel rooms at a special rate of $141. These blocks fill quickly, so don't miss out for a fun-filled, exciting, and educational weekend. Get your tickets to the 2024 St. Louis Pen Show at stlpenshow.com. And me and Brad were talking before the show because I had to really think about St. Louis because I instinctively want to say St. Louis. So I will now give you what I think this should be called, which is the Exposition di Stilo St. Louis.

Speaker 00: They can take that rum of it if they want.

Speaker 01: Via Creve Coor Airport.

Speaker 00: Creve Coor Airport.

Speaker 01: So Creve Coor, I feel there needs to be like an ungeniused episode. It's a French term for a broken heart. Creve Coor or a Creve Coor Airport. So I don't know if that's the correct translation, but I feel like there needs to be a deep dive into this. I am interested.

Speaker 00: I'll look into it. If you want to go to the Exposition di Stilo, St. Louis, go to stlpenshow.com. And St. Louis Pen Show, I hope that you don't mind us making a little fun. You sound amazing. We all love you. Thank you for sponsoring this episode.

Speaker 01: Yeah, so Anne and Dave, who put on the show, work as hard as anybody in the Pen Show business. And I'm super guilty. Like every time I see Anne at a Pen Show, I'm super guilty. She doesn't even ask me to come anymore because the week that the show is on is what I've explained to her, why I can't make it, is my wife's birthday. And we always take a vacation around there. And I'm not going to be able to swing telling my wife, on her vacation week for her birthday, that we're going to the St. Louis Pen Show. So one of these years, I'm going to get there. One of these years, I'm just going to have to make it happen. Like the stars will have to align. This is a beautiful looking hotel.

Speaker 00: This looks like an all winner of a Pen Show to me. Yeah.

Speaker 01: I really want to get there. I really want to get there. So yeah, check out the St. Louis Pen Show. And seriously, if you're within a few hours, make the plans to go. Make a day trip out of it. It's really worthwhile. And they do a great job at this show. Treat yourself. All right. We got a shout out of the week, Myke. Shout out of the week. I surprised you by linking the newest podcast on the Relay FM network, which has a lot of overlap here. And that's called Paper Places. So the wonderful Carrie, I'll let you pronounce her last name. Provenzano. Provenzano. Carrie Provenzano has started this podcast. Do you want to give the breakdown for this? I feel like you might be pretty good at this.

Speaker 00: Yeah. Carrie is her day job. She has a couple of day jobs. She is the chief advertising officer at Relay FM. She also helps me out with marketing strategy at Cortex Brand as well. But she is also a writer. And Carrie has been taking a master's program at Cambridge. And she has been wanting to expand her skills into new areas, and that includes writing. So she's been doing some creative writing stuff and really wants to make this a part of her life. And so as she is going along this journey of writing her book, and she's been wanting to think about what are the best ways to pick up some information, some tips, some advice, this ended up evolving into a podcast where on every episode of Paper Places, Carrie brings in a writer of some description, whether they are an author, a novelist, maybe they write on the web, but they write, like that's part of their life, to understand how they got to where they are, like the path that they took from deciding they wanted to be a writer to the work that they have now produced. The first episode is available now, and Dan Morin is a guest on the show. Dan is a host here at Relay FM on the show Clockwise, but he is also a writer at Six Colors, so he writes some tech stuff. But Dan has also written, I think, four novels now, like published four novels, and so there's obviously a lot of discussion about that. So it's a really interesting episode because Dan is very open with talking about this stuff, so he talks about his advances and all that kind of stuff. So if you're interested in kind of what it takes in getting your first book published, what it takes to get there and what it's like when it happens, you can go check out Paper Places. But one of my favorite things on the show is at the start of every episode, Carrie gives a little monologue about where she is in her journey, like how her book is coming along. So it's a really fun show. Carrie is very, is exceedingly talented for someone who has produced one episode of a podcast. So it's a good listen from the beginning, which isn't always the way that podcasts go. So go and check out Paper Places.

Speaker 01: Yeah, it definitely feels like episode 188. Like she has been doing this for a while and the interview was great with Dan. I love Dan's work. I haven't read any of the novels, but I always follow his, he does an annual piece on like his income sources.

Speaker 00: Yeah.

Speaker 01: And breaks it down. I always try to link that post to people who are thinking about, you know, kind of working on their own, how many different income sources you have. Like I always talk about income sources, like when you're working for yourself. And he does a really good job breaking all that stuff down and they're talking about that. And they're talking about the whole process in this episode, you know, from writing to finding agents to pitching your books and everything. So it was a really great episode and I look forward to listening more. And I think a lot of people that listen to The Pen Addict, it's very writer adjacent. So I think y'all will enjoy this podcast as well.

Speaker 00: Yep.

Speaker 01: All right. So I mentioned, you mentioned, what did you say? The pen? Pen tasting. Pen tasting. The song,

Speaker 00: the exhibition to Stilo.

Speaker 01: Yeah. So we've done paper tasting before, right? Where you get a, you get a batch of 20 papers and you test them out and they're doing a pen tasting, which I think is a really smart way to experiment. One of the great things about pen shows is getting to try things that you may not have tried. You know, in before you've only read about them online or seen my review, but you don't know, like the Pelican M200, it's a perfect example. Hey, is that too small for my hand? Which that's most of the feedback you get about the 200. Yeah, it's great, but it's just too small. So I have to use the Pelican M600 or bigger. So, I took this a little bit further, kind of accidentally, on stream a couple of weeks ago to where I have a way for people who watch my stream on Twitch to force me to ink up a pen, right? So, I won't go into all those details. I'll put a link in the show notes so you can get all the specifics. But the end result is that the viewers on Twitch picked out, wanted to make me ink up any pen that I have with any ink that I have. And we didn't have a specific pen and ink combination where before, like, someone has had like a very specific pen and a very specific ink they wanted me to put together and we do that. This time it was like, well, I want you to do it. I want you to ink something up, but I don't know what. So, how can we solve this? Well, Myke, we broke out the dice. We broke out the dice and I just happened to have the proper setup to do this and, you know, we rolled a D100 dice and got landed on number 69 like, because, of course, that's exactly the first time I do this, of course, that's exactly the number and it's on video so there was no shenanigans with that. It just nicely happened that way. And I have a little pin tray box, well, little, it's not the right term, but it holds 100 pins so we just counted down the numbers.

Speaker 00: so it came from the Penatic 100? Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 01: yeah. It came from the Penatic 100 so, you know, each tray holds 20 so we just did 20, 40, 60, then up to 69 and I pulled out a pin and it was a Franklin Kristoff Italian Ice Model 20 which is a pin that I love. And the reason I'm rambling on about this is because the whole concept is how do we break from our ruts of using the same thing all the time and as someone who has endless opportunities at their fingertips to make changes in their daily writing, I'm still a creature of habit and I like what I like, you know, I like a certain output on the page and how I get there oftentimes results in me picking the same pin with the same nib, with the same ink and using it on the same paper. So, I'm just putting this out there as one way to kind of get a little bit of randomization in your stationary usage. So, this caused me to use a pin that I love but I haven't inked up in ages and then even if I can decide on a pin I will sit there and stare at I don't know the 150 bottles of ink that I have which is you know what I like just the tractor beams pulling me into the pilot of Roshizuku Shinkai you know what because it's freaking great and it's like my favorite ink of all time it's like well I've got this pen now and I'm just going to ink it up with an ink I know good and well how it looks and how it writes I was like yeah that's comfortable and that's easy to do but I really think the effort to be made to randomize these things just makes makes it so much more enjoyable to use our stuff and you know I'm like I said I'm as guilty as anybody in getting in these ruts and picking the same products so it was great to have this little bit of mixture and you know you could use any type of randomization like if you keep your pins in a spreadsheet you know you can pick a random number or if you use something like fountain pen companion you can do it randomly if you don't have any of these things and you own five pins I mean you could do a little blind draw you know just close your eyes and grab a pen and then find your inks and just grab an ink and put them together and use them and figure it out and maybe it's terrible but that's part of the fun right like we ended up with a J. Herban Shogun Shimmer ink in this pen and it's just one of my favorite inks and one of my favorite pens and not in a million years would I've chosen those to be put together which is a weird thing to say but I think people that listen to the show completely understand that right like we're used to like if I have this Italian eyes it's a fully transparent pen I'm probably going to pick something bright and colorful to use because it's going to make the pen look cool but you know what this ink is so amazing and it just works well with this pen and it's great and this is something I enjoyed a lot so I just wanted to give it a shout out and the whole process for doing this and I really need to do more of this because a lot of times I do what I'm supposed to do or what I'm comfortable with doing and there's no downside to doing this right the downside is well maybe I have to clean the pen a little bit earlier than I planned on because it didn't really work for me oh well like that is if that's the only downside I need to experiment more so I think this is a good kicking off point for people to think about their own experimentation with stationary especially with stationary they own already right that's the kicker here is use the stuff you have and figure ! out a way

Speaker 00: and I just never used the same pens as the day before that's just a very simple way of doing it for me it's not as involved as mixing up my inks and my pens but just to make sure that I'm using more stuff and not the same stuff all the time

Speaker 01: yep it's great and I want to do more of this and I'll probably talk about more down the

Speaker 01: I don't want to be safe in my stationary because there's no reason to be

Speaker 00: exactly

Speaker 01: all right I want to talk about a new product that I have in hand that we referred to a couple weeks ago the Uniball Jetstream light touch mic so I have a friend that was over in Japan for about a month and they reached out and said hey you want me to pick some of these up because they were just like they're starting to expand around the world a little bit not officially but you know for like retailers that sell like Asian market products they're starting to pop up a little bit but they're not still not the easiest thing to get and they'll be more broadly available in 2025 allegedly so I got some in hand but first Myke we need to clarify ! one thing we

Rebranding of Uniball and its implications

Speaker 01: via an email I received that the change is now official it's now uniball all one word all lower case so I just wanted to throw that out there because I got an email saying hey going forward here's what we're doing so I wrote a little uniball word in my lowercase letters which I never do and they reposted it on their feed which I thought was funny I mean this

Speaker 00: would look good as a logo so this is what I thought had happened initially when I was looking at the show notes that that was their logo and that was how they were announcing it I think the idea of a pen company having their logo be a handwritten interpretation of a product from their catalog is like a really cute idea

Speaker 01: yeah I

Speaker 01: none of the big Japanese brands are ever going to do anything like that officially

Speaker 00: oh yeah that's what I think but yeah I actually I dig this change from Uniball because who remembers the hyphen

Speaker 01: well it's always confusing because they they have they have even called their products different names in different formats all the way down to just a straight uni capital U N I for some products and that's the one that really bothered me but if that's how they sold that pin that's how I had to call it so I try to do the like the official packaging word right I try to be as correct as possible but that means I'm a lot of times using like three different spellings for Uniball so you know whether you like the format or not it's at least going to be consistent now

Speaker 01: I'm dealing with here is a broad question of why do we need to jet stream ink formulations when I think the light touch which is the new one so I'm just going to refer to the new one as light touch versus the regular jet stream I think the new light touch ink is better it's close though so that just makes it very confusing for me when I have to think about these products

Speaker 00: to me this seems like a simple thing which is they want to change it but they don't want to just do it and so they're going to change it they'll have this second product see what people say about it and if people like it this just becomes the

Speaker 01: the jet stream yeah yeah so they've they did this premium ink so they're positioning this as the upgrade this is the premium ink jet stream whatever you want to call it the plus ink whatever it's supposed to be the step up ink and they did this with the uniball one versus their standard gel ink pens that you would find in the 207 307 signo RT lineup they did the one as a more pigmented you know richer color type of ink and in relation to their

Speaker 01: it sort of worked I think probably big picture like in what uniball cares about it worked but like for me like it didn't really move the needle and I prefer a lot of the standard inks more than the one and the jet stream light touch so I received a 0.5 millimeter black a 0.7 millimeter black and a multi pin so it's a 4 plus 1 multi pin a 0.5 millimeter multi pin the 0.5 and the 0.7 single cartridge inks they're smooth and dark they're a little bit darker than the traditional jet stream ink and I could I can tell a difference on the page in ink color I don't think I can tell a difference in feel right as far as smoothness like if I had a a blind test of a 0.7 jet stream and a 0.7 light touch I don't think I could tell a difference in feel but I think when I looked at the page after I think the new light touch is like one shade darker like it's not drastic right is it you know just like a game changer versus the standard jet stream it's not but I think it's overall very consistent and a very good writing pen and I will say for now and I'm going to keep doing testing it's better than the jet stream but this is like we're talking about an A plus versus an A right like these are both really exceptional pens this is why I care about this pen so much right because I love the standard jet stream and that's like a solid A grade pen like is this one an A plus maybe like is it just like the one notch higher could be um the multi pin is a lot closer so the standard jet stream multi pin so like I'll say take a four plus one which is four ink cartridges and one pencil cartridge these multi pins the tips aren't the tips are a little bit different right because they're narrower there's a narrower refill to them and they feel a little bit different so like a 0.5 line in the multi pin is finer than the 0.5 line in the standard refill right because they're just the 0.5 millimeter for those who are not familiar with how pins are designed that's the actual measurement of the metal tip opening right not the line width measurement so you can have two different 0.5 pins right at different line widths the line width of the multi pin 0.5 are thinner than the standard 0.5 and that's the case with the regular jet stream and they're almost identical in feel and look except for the blue the blue multi pin refill is spectacular like I want that really badly in the full size single cartridge pin it is a much brighter ballpoint blue than you had than I've ever used right it's really it's it's different like that's the one I can tell is very different the green on the other hand is horrible

Speaker 00: green

Speaker 01: green ballpoint ink is generally bad the standard jet stream 0.5 green is okay the green that I've used and I don't know if it's the cartridges that I have they're not good like they're skippy like there's like almost like a technical problem with those so that hasn't been enjoyable so the multi pins between the two the jet stream and the jet stream light touch not a lot of difference right I'm not even sure I could tell you a blind test of what they look like on the page outside of the blue I think the blue is drastically different the standard single cartridge pins I don't think there's any difference in feel but I do think the light touch ink cartridge is darker and kind of nicer to write with like I would choose like if I had if I had the opportunity to choose I would choose the light touch standard but if I was only a jet stream user I also wouldn't feel like I'm missing out like they're that close so all of these are pretty close so the long and short of it is I'm able to tell a difference between them I think the single cartridge pin is better and the multi pins are practically identical minus the blue ink which is glorious so the blue ink is really special I really like that I want that in single cartridges last thing the barrel of the single cartridge pin I think might need to be changed in the future we're gonna see how this round does so what's happening is they're a very generic basic looking barrel the upper of the barrel is it's all plastic barrel the upper is like the smooth plastic and then the grip section has that rubberized plastic right I think a lot of people will know what I'm talking about it's not a rubber grip like a Pilot G2 it's like soft touch

Speaker 00: kind of feel

Speaker 01: so I noticed so I've been carrying this pin around as I prepare for reviews in a field notes and I carry it clipped to the inside of the front cover right so the clips on the outside of the notebook and then the barrels on the inside and carrying it in a pants pocket I've carried it in a back pocket and a front pocket the rubberized barrel and the threading is not tight enough every time I've taken this out of my pocket the barrel had started to unscrew so it's not a it's not a really firm seal it's like a very very light light touch seal the threading is also light touch is what I'm finding so every time I would take the notebook out of my pocket there would be like a little gap in the barrel because it doesn't set well enough when it's closed to not be manipulated by the rubberized grip touching the notebook in a pocket so that's just something to watch like you see that one time and you're like oh well maybe the grip wasn't all the way dialed in and like literally the next time after I put it back and then put the notebook back in my pocket it happened again so I was like oh this is a thing so that's just something to keep an eye on so we'll see if the barrel changes it's a very simple barrel I could give or take the barrel it's completely fine I'd probably use the refill and something else but that means this is what standard barrels are these days I have no problem with that overall but that's the first pin I've seen do that in quite some time and I think it's because of the rubberized grip section and not a tight enough thread when it's completely locked down so there you

Speaker 01: this

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Speaker 00: is like

Speaker 01: a Christmas tree ornament yep it's a Christmas tree ornament and every time I see it I was like yeah I just need to add that to the cart when I'm buying something yep I just need to add that to the cart well now it's on sale so I probably need to add this to the cart because I've been threatening to buy this for years so it's not something you see all the time and it's just really hilarious that it's like the first thing on the list here and I was like yeah I should probably get that because I've been threatening to related to

Speaker 00: have I ever introduced you to my friend ink because it's all over penchelle they got so many inks available we're going to talk

Speaker 01: about a special one here that they don't normally have

Speaker 01: this is a really solid pen it's a ballpoint pen made by Lamy it has a triangular grip section it doesn't have the molded grip section so it's just more it's a little bit more comfortable for some people who don't like the molded grip sections and the price makes it just one of those pens you should have or gift to someone it's really inexpensive and it's a really good quality pen and then we mentioned the inks before like I mentioned the Robert Oster which they still have before but I want to get to a new one on the list which is the Caran d'ash chromatics inks so these are super super nice well performed great color inks so I've used hypnotic blue I've used electric orange infinite gray I think I've used these are really really like top tier performers and you really don't hear about them a lot because Caran d'ash just like made this chromatics lineup of several years ago and it's like hey these are our inks they're really good check out the colors they're really nice and they just work right like it's and the bottles are really cool so they have this angled base so those aren't like bad photoshop on the pictures they really are tipped at an angle like that to allow you to get the pen and nib down low enough to fill them from the bottle so yeah this just goes on and on there's some color verse stuff in here there's some diamine in here there's a really cool pen in here the narwhal voyage vacation this material is really really nice I keep saying I need to pick up another narwhal pen I keep thinking about an ebonite one but then they keep putting out these really fun colors like in this Miami color here which is something to look at so yeah great stuff

Speaker 00: if you want to find out more about these and get your hands on some special discounts and just the 10% code that you need to save ! anything at any time go to pen pen chalet for their continued support of this show and Relay FM

Speaker 01: love

Recommendations for fountain pens and shimmer inks

Speaker 00: it first question comes from Matt who says what fountain pen would you recommend as a low cost option for trying out shimmer inks I tried these in a pilot custom 74 and it seemed to struggle with ink flow which got me worried about ruining the pen so I like a dedicated pen that I could use for these

Speaker 00: so any recommendations on nib size to use of those inks

Speaker 01: so you kind of hit it there at the end Matt let's talk specifically about the custom 74 and why that might be a challenge pilot pens are some of the easiest to clean pens so I wouldn't have hesitated to choose that as well I don't know what it is about the cleaning ability of those pens but it's always

Speaker 01: the issue with shimmer ink in the 74 is that it's a small nib size so it's pilot's number 10 size nib which is on the smaller size you know it's probably I guess maybe what we're used to is like a yobo number 5 ish nib 5 5.5 range so it's not necessarily that the nib is small and that's the challenge it's that the feed is requisitely small to match the nib and that's the challenge with the shimmer inks is you really have a more difficult time moving properly through the feed and out the nib so while the pilot custom 74 is easy to clean and a good idea I just don't think you're giving yourself the best opportunity for the shimmer to flow through which you have found out so you want to look at ! I used a lot of shimmer inks in Twisby's even the Eco which is a smaller nib but that one actually flows pretty well but you can go to the 580 that's a pretty good ink flow with a larger size nib and it's fully disassemblable to be able to clean out any shimmer if anything gets stuck in there which is prone to happen sometimes you can get a shimmer ink

Speaker 01: the twisby minis even though those nibs are smaller I haven't had really a problem with the way those feeds are designed to get those out so I'd probably be looking at probably a twisby 580 but you could I don't know maybe tempt yourself into an eco because the price point is cheaper the 580 is what it's

Speaker 00: for I

Speaker 01: just don't love that pen I like that pen I just like that pen it's just preference the eco and the 580 I

Speaker 00: like the eco more than the go but I think the twisby go is the perfect ink testing pen

Speaker 01: yeah I don't disagree with you I'm not going to disagree with that I just I don't enjoy it as much even though I like it

Speaker 00: I agree !

Speaker 01: right? So but if I think Myke's probably right incredible but I'm also I guess I'm putting my enjoyment in there in the equation and I don't enjoy the go but yeah if you want the pure experience so I'm trying to think of anything else that might be a good option with a wider nib and a good ink flow we start the good thing about twisbies which we've always talked about is like they hit this particular price point that's hard to compete with for certain answers they also

Speaker 00: do like a you can get like a stock stub nib with them which again is like fantastic for ink testing if you just want to play around with shimmer and sheen and stuff like that

Speaker 01: yeah like the lamy safaris and all stars flow like crazy but I don't love those feeds for shimmer right like I just haven't had a good experience with those for shimmer ink so and then like yeah I don't know I could probably come up with something else but I just that's what I use is the suite of twisbies for those types of inks like you'll notice if I ever review a shimmer ink it's almost always in a twisbee probably a 580 so good stuff but I did my the platinum chokuro I did that in a twisbee go so that was fun

Speaker 00: I actually have a related question here and it comes from Eric who says could you explain the difference between sheen and shimmer in ink sometimes it seems like the terms are used

Speaker 01: when people talk about ink characteristics because those are two of the more prominent ink characteristics along with shading so sheen shimmer and shade but when you're not talking about like dry time and some other features so sheen is the secondary color that remains on the top of an ink line once the ink dries so a lot of times a sheening ink take for example a blue ink when you're writing with the pen and you have a blue ink and you're looking at the blue line while it's wet and when it dries you might see like a red tint around the edge of the line so it is reflective like in light and then some inks have no sheen which is very common some have a little sheen which is around the edges of the line and then some

Speaker 01: coverage of the line or like 90% coverage so if you put down that blue line and you let it dry a super sheen that line will turn almost like a reflective red on there so that sheen shimmer is particulates right a sheen is not particulates it's a result of the formulation drying afterwards shimmer is a particulate in the ink that adds an effect usually referred to as shimmering it looks like glitter even though it's not necessarily glitter that's in your ink it's different types of particulates so if you had a red shimmer ink it might have gold particulates in it so when you write the red line down on the page and it looks wet and when it's wet it looks red and then as it dries these particulates start to shine in the light a bit so you'll have a red ink and it'll have these gold particulates in it that's a shimmer so the easiest way is to think about shimmer has particulates in it that's the easiest way to remember the difference and sheen is just like an extra shade of ink when the ink drives that's kind of an alternate color didn't you say shading too

Speaker 00: though as a third term

Speaker 01: yeah shading is different shading is if you take say a green ink and you write your line on the page and the way fountain pens work is you're actually using the nib to push the ink around on the page so depending on your hand pressure and how you write your lettering the fountain pen can leave more ink or less ink in your line right technically right depending on how you write and so a shading ink in some areas where you have less ink or less pressure there'll be a lighter color of green so say I'm writing with a green ink and most of my lines are this nice normal green and in the drier spots they might look like a lighter green so it's almost like a two tone coloration in the ink not all inks do that some inks are very saturated and have a singular flat color some inks do have that separation that allows them to shade very nicely and you see a lot of that if you use a stub nib that helps because you're spreading the ink more on the page to get dark and light line coloration depending on how much ink is laid on the page shading shading is my favorite shading and shimmering you just have to want that be ready for that when you want it all good features just depends on how you like to use inks

Speaker 00: if you would like to send in a question for us to answer in a future episode of the show if you have any follow up or feedback you can always go to penaddict feedback dot com and you can send that in if you want to find Brad's work in the meantime including the reviews that he has written and will be writing like the Jetstream light touch review coming in the next couple of weeks you can always go to penaddict dot com you can find Brad online he is at penaddict p-e-n-a-d-d-i-c-t on social media and you can find him over at twitch.tv slash penaddict where he's changed multiple times a week Brad's products are also at spoke design dot com you can find me I'm at imike you can find my products at cortex brand dot com and this show is a part of relay fm it's where you'll find paper places as well as in our show notes which are relay dot fm slash penaddict slash 616 thank you to the st. Louis pen show and pen chalet for their support of this week's episode we'll be back next time until then say goodbye Brad goodbye Brad