Editing The Pen Addict 465/transcript (section)

== Manufacturing Process ==


'''Ben Walsh:''' And so with the, well, with Gravitas, I don't manufacture the pens myself. I do have a workshop, but I can't produce the pens to the quality or as quickly as I'd need to. So I have manufacturers that I use for that. But I do a lot of stuff in-house when it comes to the finishing of pens, the laser etchings. I can machine stuff if I needed to make a custom section. I can do all that. But it's not something that I do a lot of. A lot of my time is, literally a lot of my time is just spent etching pens, polishing pens, assembling pens, packaging pens. Because that takes a ridiculous amount of time.

'''Brad:''' It does. It does. I know exactly what you mean by that. It's like, it's a crazy amount of time. Because I can tell like what you said earlier, it's important what goes out into the customer's hand is perfect every time. And I know you and I would both admit to making stuff and we hate it if something gets out that we didn't mean to get out. But it happens sometimes. But like you said, customer service is at the forefront and how you handle those things. And I know that's a big thing for you as well.

'''Ben Walsh:''' Yeah. I had one bad review of my pens. So the pen was brilliant, but the nib had too much feedback. And now when I first started, what I would do is I would test right with every single nib. I would never tune the nib because I didn't know how to tune a nib. So I would test it. And if it was scratchy, then I just dumped the nib. I throw it in the dump pile. And a pen got out that had a scratchy nib and a review was done on it. And I was devastated because I just couldn't figure out how that happened. So I straight away, you know, Paul Burberry?

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Oh, yes. I very much love Paul. So Paul.

'''Ben Walsh:''' Machinist Paul. Yes. Paul's been great. He's actually been one of the guys that has helped me massively behind the scenes with figuring out machining. And needing to know what I need to know. I basically said to Paul, would you teach me how to tune some nibs? So I jumped onto Zoom and did a few lessons with Paul and learned how to adjust the nib and polish things and make sure everything was good to go. And still, the odd nib does get out. That's not perfect. But I'm more confident with that.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So what does the design process look like now? I hesitate to ask you what's coming up next because things come out so fast, you know. And, you know, I've seen you launch just so many things just recently. And like I said, you just had an Instagram post of something that's coming soon.

'''Brad:''' And you don't have to spill all the secrets. But are you working on something right now that has you pretty excited about what to come?

'''Ben Walsh:''' A few. A few things. So actually, I did clear this with Paul before telling you this. But Paul, you know the safety pen that Paul designed? Yes. So Paul has been having trouble getting that manufactured. But I can get it manufactured. But he designed it in Imperial. And I'm in Metric. And my manufacturer uses Metric. So me and Paul had a little chat. And Paul basically asked if I could make it for him. And we would put it onto the Gravitas brand. I said, hell yeah. So it's a collaboration more than anything else. So I'm going to basically make the safety pen. It's a demonstrator version of the safety pen. Now, that will probably be another six to eight months away, I'd say. But that's coming. And I'm really excited about that. Because that is the most complex pen that I've ever got my hands on.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. And we probably just broke your email inbox for you saying that on the show. So sorry about that. In advance.

'''Ben Walsh:''' Oh, emails. I don't know. Someone did a video on one of my pens last week. And I got 5,000 emails.

'''Brad:''' Wow.

'''Ben Walsh:''' It broke me. It literally broke me.

'''Brad:''' Well, we won't do that. I promise. So the Gravitas brand as a whole. You have a certain design aesthetic that surprised me when I saw it. When you sent me the Skittles pens. And I was unboxing them on stream. And I had these wonderful, bright, fun tubes. They came in. And I was like, oh, what are these markings on the side of this barrel? Of this packaging? I was like, I don't know anything about that. And then everyone started to explain them. They're like, no, that's the Ogham language. Do I have that pronunciation correct? Why is that on your packaging? Why is that important for you to have represented there? I think it's a pretty neat touch.

'''Ben Walsh:''' So the pronunciation is Om. It's not Om. Om. So good. See? Yeah. Wow.

'''Brad:''' That is brutal.

'''Ben Walsh:''' I'm Irish.

'''Ben Walsh:''' And I'm very proud of it. But without putting an Irish flag across my packaging, I decided to do something a bit more subtle and use the ancient Celtic language. I love it. I think it looks beautiful. So I was kind of messing around with ideas. And I just liked it. I just liked it over everything else. And I decided, right, I'm going to go with this. I originally just wanted to stick my arrow logo on my packaging. But no, I decided to go a bit further than that and throw in a few different details. With some of the larger packaging, there's even more on that. And I don't think anybody actually knows what it said. So I had to translate it. But I think I'll probably start doing more of that. Not too much of it. I don't want to annoy people with my strange language.

'''Brad:''' Well, it's not like we can run OM through Google Translate and figure out what it says, right?

'''Ben Walsh:''' It's quite difficult to translate it. Even for myself, it would take me a couple of minutes to translate something. So even though I'm Irish and I use OM, I don't actually know how to read it. If I'm honest.

'''Brad:''' So we talked about the future products and stuff. Do you see yourself, as we're rounding up, getting through these pandemic times, do you see a future where you might try to bring Gravitas to a pen show? Either, you know, I don't know what Ireland has to offer, but I know there's shows in the UK. There's shows in Western Europe. Do you ever, is that something you've ever considered or think about like, you know, a year from now?

'''Ben Walsh:''' Oh, yeah. So I really, really wanted to get to Washington this year or San Francisco. I've really tried to figure out if it could be possible to do. So I'm not allowed to travel without a vaccine. And I'm not entitled to get a vaccine until maybe late August at this rate. And that's just too late. But it's definitely something I really want to do. I've been told that it's really important to get to these shows. You know, to put a face to the brand is massively important. And I really want to get out there. I really want to show people who I am and what I do. But yeah, I can't do it yet. And I will more than likely go to a show in Europe sooner rather than later. And if I'm allowed, as soon as I'm allowed to travel, I'll be out of here.

'''Brad:''' Gotcha. I think we're all kind of working on that as well as like, you know, we're ready. We've missed being out there. I love, you know, getting to meet people like yourselves at pen shows. That's like one of the best things about it. So I think we've about covered it today. And I'm wondering, is there anything else we need to cover? What else do we need to talk about about Gravitas? We talked about some coming soon stuff that's exciting. Are the concrete pens ever going to make a comeback? Is that a mass market thing? Is there something besides like a fountain pen or even a writing instrument that you're playing around with? Because you strike me as the type that has like a sketchbook full of notes and is just always fidgeting with something.

'''Ben Walsh:''' Yeah. So I have a design for a couple of mechanical pencils and a few concrete fountain pens, pocket pens, magnet type pens, piston pens. It's I've got quite a lot in the sketchbook. And I probably have about 50, 60 different ideas running around. That's fantastic. And currently at the moment, that pen that you got, the other pen that you got with the micro texture. So I'm exploring the micro texture a bit more.