Scribe

Welcome, Dano.

This is exciting. 50 episodes.

We just changed our password. That's all we had to do, apparently.

I told Johnny that hackwing was not a good password because it was just asking for, you know, somebody to hack it.

Did you guys see the comment on. On the event page for this episode? And somebody's like, I didn't understand what was going on. It was confusing. It didn't sound like you guys. Is there a new format? I was like, just like, just go back and read the description.

Well, I am, as I shared in the live video that I posted in the group about a half an hour ago, when I was showing my setup I am drinking a Sapporo beer that I found in my fridge about an hour after I got home from my trip on Saturday. I just bit the crap out of my tongue and I. I kind of use that as an excuse to just drink milkshakes and eat ice cream for two days.

Yeah. Oh, darn. So if I told everybody if I have like a slight lisp or something tonight, I'm like talking weird. So I'm drinking the Sapporo just on the left side of my mouth because the right side is where it's all messed up.

Yeah, using a straw. And then I am writing with a Lakenza. I don't know how to pronounce it. Lake Onza. L, A, Y, C, O, N, S A. It's a puto. Fine. Boligrafo. Boligrafo, which is a ballpoint pen that I bought in Peru. And they're super weird. They're kind of cheap, they're kind of like a bright neon green and they're just not as good as like a bit crystal. I do feel like a failure. Well, I'll talk about that later in fresh points. But writing with that in my talk

Yeah. Or we can just spend the entire hour on that. I'm writing in my Indiana country county fair field notes that I have been that you started not too long ago. How about you, Johnny? I'm not going to do that. I'm going to come out.

We put a link to this in show notes. Yeah, I'll find it.

Oh, you can get packs of 10 of them on Amazon.

For $22 I would pay that.

Yeah, I'll. I'll put a link in show notes. Cool. And what are you writing?

Nice.

Did you see the debate that I sparked in Field Nuts talking about if that red is red or orange?

it was like the. The white and gold dress, slash black and blue dress, like, all over again. Everybody. Everybody saw something different.

Nice.

I hope you enjoy your cup of liquid.

But the other liquid may have a higher. Like a lower freezing point.

Internet score.

All right. Well, as many of you probably know, episode 49 was a bit of a break from what we usually do. We. I think we've sort of been talking about this for a while, haven't we? I know that Johnny and Tim and I were talking about it last. Like, last fall.

And so I remember when I went out and hung out with Caitlin and Caroline last November in New York. I brought it up and they were just like, that's amazing. So we were thinking about it, and then Alex Cullen, who Caroline talked about when she was a guest on the show a few episodes ago. She's super great. And the three of them decided to record an episode of Erasable. So the entire thing with the fresh nibs and the call in and calling Brad Dowdy was all their idea. So basically we were just like, you know what? You have the mic run with it. And they did.

Which he's. They're celebrating their.

I hate Brad Dowdy.

Yeah, they're celebrating their own milestone. Episode 200.

Come at me, bro.

It's pretty good for a while. They talk about the pens they use in 50 Shades of Grey.

There are a couple call inside, I think that. Did you listen?

Yeah, it was pretty good.

Chinese accent switching was quite nice.

He's the worst.

I'm just not. I'm just gonna go ahead and not bleep out. Ding out the jackass. I'm gonna say that we're talking about the animal.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Exactly. So yeah, everybody go listen, if you haven't already, to episode 49, erasable us.

He just went on way too long

We should just edit him out.

Yeah, he calls me up late at

Every single night. It's so weird.

Oh, is that. Is that when you wore your General E costume?

In case of Daddy.

Well, it's our episode title. In case of doughty, break glass,

That was a great episode. Also, I mentioned, I think in the last time we recorded in episode 28 or 48 that the Steinbeck world tour package has hit San Mateo, California. So I took it with me to London and then I completely forgot about it and didn't do anything with it there. So I'm just a jerk who kept the thing for two weeks. So I finally got to use the Steinbeck Trio, which is of course a original leopard favorite, Blackwing and a round Mongol and then a Blaisdell calculator. That blaised out calculator is really good.

Yeah, I. I think that, you know, somebody needs to co op the brand and like reformulate it and bring it back. Yeah, that was, that was super good. Have you guys ever written with it?

I just don't know anything about the brand of Beisdel. I just need to look this up.

Yeah, I think so.

So, yeah, it's such a. It's such a cool, like little like tour box. Has it hit either of you guys yet?

So that's cool. So you get to try out the three pencils. It comes with a little like Altoids tin full of pencil shavings and little like kum rip wedge. And it's like there's a little field notes that you can like write a little review and you get a page. And so I did that and sent it along. It was super cool. I really enjoyed that. So last last few fresh points I'll mention is I feel, I feel like a just like elitist jerk by talking about like traveling so much. But for whatever reason I have been traveling a lot. And I just got back from Peru for a week for some various like field research that we did. I managed finally to sneak away into a little stationary shop. And since we've been talking a lot about bit crystals, which we will talk about again later. Walter Galindo, who is in our group and lives in I think Guatemala. Is it Guatemala, guys? I think so.

Yeah. Yeah. He knows a lot about Latin American bics and um, was like, oh, you have to pick up this and this and you know, find this and this. They're all over the place. And I went to three different like stationary shops slash grocery stores and I could not find one. I could not find any big, big products whatsoever. Um, I did find that lakhanza which I was talking about, which is, which is weird but like cool, super cheap. I found some Faber Castell Trilux pencils. Excuse me, Pens. And those are really great. They have, they're the quality in my opinion of a bit crystal. And I found a couple of. I found some like triangular Mongols which are super great. I'll send you guys. And I found some Artesco brand pencils. Have you, have you ever heard of that brand?

Yeah, Artisco. It seems more like an art pencil because they came in different grades. The one that I got is 2B. It's very nice. Yeah, I'll send. So I'll send you guys a few of these. But yeah, it was a. It was a good trip. I look like a crazy person. Just like getting super excited about Mongols in like some other language.

Yeah, so yeah, I have these there. It was a fun trip.

Yeah. I ate guinea pig and alpaca.

Guinea pig is a popular dish in Peru.

Chicken. Chicken. I, I didn't have it like spit roasted or anything. I just had Like. Like, shredded on, like, a little, like, piece of bread or something. Like a. With some other stuff in it. So, yeah, I mean, like, a little, Like a little appetizer. And so I barely tasted the. Tasted the guinea pig, but that was definitely the only way I was going to eat it.

Yeah, well, apparently sometimes they serve it with, like, legs still attached and stuff. But places we ate knew that they were going to be, like, weird, queasy Americans there.

Cuyo. Kathy Rogers says that's what it's called. And no, we did not eat it with the feet on. So that. And then we had a weird sentence.

I didn't eat it with the feet on. And we. We also had alpaca, which was interesting. The trouble is they're super cute. I don't really care about guinea pigs that much, so I was fine with eating it. But alpacas are super cute. They're like the smaller. Like, smaller, cuter llamas.

Oh, I bet. Yeah. What did you say, Johnny?

Yeah, they had. They had a whole bunch. Yeah, they're delicious.

Yeah, that was. That was Peru. Yeah. So those are my fresh points. Johnny, how about you?

Oh, I bet.

gonna have to get, like, Caroline and Caitlyn to just, like, spoil her rotten.

Yeah.

I want to cancel the disc with your. Like, how old is she gonna be? 4?

Yeah,

I, I maintain that. And we, we had this conversation with somebody in the group about how wide bit crystals are the pencils of pens.

And I think it. Yeah, I think, I think that it's perfectly all right for a pencil lover to like a bit crystal, especially those

in the U.S. yeah.

After.

Yeah. And just like the, the amount of precision and like, just amazing manufacturing quality of like the ballpoints in there are like, they do it by the like millions, the little ballpoints, and they're just great every time. So it takes a lot like, arguably more skill and quality than like a handcrafted fountain point pen.

Hear that dowdy come at me, bro.

Jerk.

But some of the, the thicker point bit crystals can get a little like, oily and it's a little bit like smeary. But like, the medium and fine points are just amazing.

Do you know what the point of millimeter is?

Yeah.

Is it? I thought it was. I thought the normal was like a 0.7, but I don't know. I have one.

Yeah.

So we have a lot of snobs in the chat today who don't think that bitcrystals are very good. So I challenge you to get one because everybody has one probably under their couch or in their car. Like, I think it's a. I think it's just a universal law.

So I challenge you to go back and try out a Bit Crystal and compare it to, I don't know, like a. Like a Schmidt fountain pen or. Not a fountain pen. Like Rollerball refill or something.

yeah, the green one, I'm not super impressed with the green one. Blue and the black and the red. Pretty good.

Yeah.

So, yeah, we may dedicate a whole episode to bit crystals, so hopefully we won't lose too many listeners.

Even over. Even over that other one that has 200 episodes.

Well, exactly. That's what I'm saying.

The other.

Yeah, the permanent. It's the opposite of erasable. Indelible. The indelible podcast.

Stain. The human stain.

Mike's gonna be out in San Francisco in June for wwdc, so I really. I really need to be nicer.

Well, look at the last time the British fought the Americans. What happened then?

Yeah.

It's.

It's. It's too. It's too tight. It's too thin for me.

That's really interesting because it had the opposite effect for me. It actually made it. I was like, okay, I'm going to write every, like, third line or something like that, and then I would, like, start counting. So I don't know what that says.

I don't know what that says about the difference between you and me, Tim, but apparently I follow the rules too much.

But I love the quality of the paper.

I love the aesthetics. I love the gray, like, grid that they use that. I know that that was like Chris's second go at that, right?

I loved everything about it just.

Yeah.

The butt sitting on and the throwing aroundness.

Hashtag johnnygamerphd everybody.

It's either In Case of Doughty Break glass or the Butt sitting on and the throwing aroundness.

Speaking of episode titles, if anybody hears us say something that is episode title voting worthy, please throw that out in the chat. If you are following along in chat

Yes.

What did you guys think about the pencils? Lenore pencils?

We. We discussed that. Well, we discussed that. And do you think it has anything to do with like the dyed wood and how it's basically different now? Like, it's a different composition, very dry.

Yeah.

I. I love the. Just like the typography on the barrel of it, which is very hard to do. So awesome that he got like Musgrave or whoever did to like to stamp that on there like that. It looks beautiful.

Yeah.

I did try to face swap on Snapchat with the card. Did not work. It was too low res, so

Oh, yeah. Face swapping has become a big thing. Like what.

Yeah, yeah. So that.

The dyed wood. Like, I love the aesthetic of the dyed wood, but it really just doesn't like feel good to use. And I realized kind of the hypocrisy of saying this because I really love the testing 100, but those hexes are sharp.

Lenore. It's funny. Lenore Hoyt, our group member, whose name is Lenore and has been getting a lot of attention because of this edition, is basically riding along in the group as I'm saying this. So I think that our minds are just in exactly the same place.

Yeah, It's. It's so sharp. It's. It feels a lot like they use whatever the same like planing machine or whatever as the testing 100mm.

Give me a nice semi hex.

Oh, yeah.

If Chris. Chris likes to. He likes to do the stamping, which are. Is harder to do into the round.

I imagine that might get a little difficult.

Yeah.

Pretty.

I'll get you Gamber. No, I. I have really been digging my. My Pop 2B naturage pencil. I got that. I got a couple of those at at CW pencils. And I've been using the yellow and gray pop Nataraj pencil at like with my. My three Legged Juggler confidant because it matches. The colors are all the same and just a little bit different, but I've been using that there. And I also have been using it in my Sweet Tooth because they're all like such bright colors and it's a. To be natural. I'm totally probably not saying that.

Is that how you say it, Nataraj?

Okay, well, it works. It works really well in there. Like a little bit softer pencil. It really picks up a lot of, like a lot of graphite. And as long as it's not too soft. Your point still is pretty good. Because it's toothy. The paper is. But it's not that bad.

Ooh.

or our after dark channel for the podcast.

Yeah. So that works really well. And then just a regular palomino hb. I feel. I think feels really nice on the sweet tooth.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, just excellent.

Actually, I can go back. Johnny, how. How do you use your sweet tooth? Like have you been tearing it out or have you been using like a regular.

Okay. I've felt the compulsion to like tear it. Tear it out and use it for like little notes.

I just have. I just cover everything in sweet tooth notes.

It's pretty. Pretty thick when you get to staple day. It just really hurts.

All right, I'm sorry, Tim. You should really go.

I think so. What does it look like again?

Yeah, I don't think we did either.

Yeah.

I've. I've loved it, if it's. I've been. I used it in most of when I was traveling. Well, I guess I didn't have it when I was in London, but definitely had it in Peru and I've just been kind of using it at my desk at work. And it's. It's great. It's. I really do like the. Like the harder chord. I think that that's really something that was just needed because there's so many people for whom even the 602 is too soft. I'm not one of them. I think the 602 is great, but sometimes you just want a really good point retention. And I think that the 24 is good with that. I. I know that we've talked a little bit about this, but I'm not convinced that this is the same core as the Palomino hp. Because the Palomino HP fuse a little, like more buttery. If I. If there's a better way to say that, um, it just feels even a little bit softer than the 24. But a lot of that could be, you know, the weight of the pencil or the different, like, lacquer is not as quite as lacquered as the Palomino. Um, and I could just be imagining it too, but I haven't really tried them outside by side. So it. Yeah, it feels. It feels just a little bit, um, harder than the. The Palomino HB. The 24 does.

Get it Pointless. Get it?

Johnny, you're the. You're the tiebreaker. What do you think?

Yeah.

Yeah. So not last weekend, but the weekend before, I was having brunch in Palo Alto with Elaine from Jetpens, and we. We stopped at a store, really tiny, cute little store downtown Palo Alto that sells the black wings. So I couldn't help it. And I picked up another dozen. But I definitely don't need more than that.

Sorry, go on.

Well, just wait for a few months and sell it on ebay for like $150. Did you see that with the 211?

How much was. Did that go for? It was a dozen of the two 11s, and it was like almost 200.

Yeah.

It's happening. It's happening.

Yeah, it's. I'm sure that it's. You know, what pencils dot com. Well, what Blackwing was, you know, hoping for and trying to achieve just to get the amount of buzz behind them, like, behind field notes. But just. Just wait until every time somebody who works at.

Yeah, yeah. Conspiracy. They have. They still have, like, hundreds of thousands of boxes in the back. They're like, we're gonna make. We're gonna make bank.

Charles is lighting cigars with $100 bills. You know,

Yeah.

I want more, but I still think they need to put this into circulation. Like. Oh, yeah, circulation.

Do you hear that, Nick?

On the way we met. I met the. The new brand manager. We talked about that position a little bit ago. So Nicholas, who's now a member of the group, he is the palomino Blackwing, or I think he's the pencil. Pencil.com brand manager. What else do you have, Tim?

Jeff. I wonder.

That old trickster Johnny, put a fresh point in Tim's thing that says my foil wrap pencil addiction resulting in my hoard of Easter bunny pencils. Nothing to be ashamed of.

You know, shake your fist to him and, like, prospector style, be like, oh, you land ocean.

Yeah.

Before we do that, we should take a sponsor break. This episode is brought to you by the good folks at Paperary, a curated collection of unique and hard to find stationary goods. There's a lot of interesting things for pencil lovers in this small online shop. They stock several unique storage items including an affordable roll up 36 pencil case sharpeners for example. Not only do they have the hard to find Sunago pencil combining sharpener, but also the small cum brass wedge and brass bullet. And to protect those points, grab one of those Kutsua Stad Metal pencil cap six packs. You'll see those floating around the group. You'll need something to write and Papernary has an eclectic selection of notebooks including Word Singles, Field Notes, Sweet Tooth Singles, Philosopher's Guild Passports and more. Be sure to check out their new Papernary color dot notebook, the first in a series of notebooks coming soon from Papernary and his parent company Notegeist. And of course, Gary, the proprietor is no strangers to pencils. He's an active participant in the group and often will stock supplies that are in high demand for us. Hint, hint, talk about it so he can hear about it. For example, Papernary is also one of the few places you can easily get boxes of general cedar point number ones, a softer, smoother version of their well known number two pencil that we all love. To help celebrate our 50th episode, Papernary is giving show listeners a 10% off coupon that's good through the end of April. Just go to papernary.com shop that's P A P E R N E R-Y.com shop and use the coupon code erasable50 all one word to save. More stuff is added every few weeks so check back often. But remember that some items in the shop are in limited supply, so don't wait. Remember that 10% off coupon code is erasable 50 able to be used with any purchase@papernary.com shop through the end of April. Many, many thanks to Papernary for supporting the Erasable podcast. Thank you Gary. That was awesome. Awesome. Yeah. Gary Varner everybody. He's in the group. He's amazing.

I don't think he ever sleeps because he has a full time job and he runs the shop. Yeah. So check out. Check out paper.

Oh yeah, yeah.

I love the, like, blend, like, the collage of, like, stationary products on the. On the covers.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, those are great. I didn't realize that was an option that you could get in Scout books.

Yeah.

If you guys are a collector of Scout books, there's so many out there.

Yeah, his are. His are pretty great.

It's from a storefront that we all sort of. Those of us in the group who've been there for a while kind of have seen come together and evolve. So. Yeah.

It's light in a good way. And they leave some room at the top and the bottom for, like, a title, right?

There's a conference that happens in Minneapolis in my profession, every summer, spring. And Facebook often does, like, a little piece of swag for it just because they're a sponsor and they put everything in bags. And this time around, there's going to be these. Nice. It's their big size, like their arts and sciences size.

Mega. That's it. There's going to be going to be one for that from Facebook, so it's going to be pretty cool.

Let's quickly talk about what we're trying to accomplish with this. I guess there's been a whole bunch of people who have come into the group and said, hey, I just sort of recently really noticed pencils, and I really kind of want to, like, get into them and go deep with David Rees and. And, like, what should I look for in pencils? And, like, what are some good pencils? And how do you tell the difference between, like, a bad pencil and a good pencil? And a lot of times I'm just like, well, do you have two hours?

Here we are. Hopefully not two hours.

Yeah.

I think it, you know, it works so well with like our Steinbeck stage and all the things that we.

So yeah. Where should we start? There's so many different areas of the pencil and things to look out for. Should we start with the wood?

So, yeah, that's the wood wood case surrounding the graphite core. That is the part that you hold onto. That is the entire part of the pencil. It's either round or triangular or hexagonal or some other different kind. I've used an octagonal pencil before. That was interesting.

Yeah, I can't remember.

Yeah, it was weird.

Oh, I bet. Yeah. It's fun though. So the really interesting part where David Rees just really gets into. And this is something I've only first heard for him, but will sometimes say it is the collar. And the collar is the part from the end of the point, the paint where it is not sharpened to the tip of the pencil. So essentially, well, to the like where the graphite starts, I should say so from the, from the tip, the collar top, which is the boundary between the cedar and the graphite to the collar bottom, which is the boundary between the bottom of the cone of sharpening and the top of the like the painted or like the unsharpened shaft that is the collar.

The turtleneck. I like that. The turtleneck Turtle. Is that turtle Y enough for you? So, yeah, that's. That's pretty good. It's on hex pencils. The collar bottom is defined by the kind of the scalloped edges. And this is David Rees terminology where the shaft's planner surface tapers into the exposed cedar point. Cylindrical pencils feature no subscalloping along the collar bottom, which is totally true and something that I've noticed, but I've never quite figured out how to, like, put into words. So some good technical writing right there.

Yes.

He said, I think some, like, millionaire just needs to spend a couple thousand dollars and just do that so they can, like, break them out of retirement. So.

That's awesome.

Luke's an.

Luke's an expert with that with like, a blade.

Yeah. He's amazing. So, yeah, some. Some things to look out for kind of when you're. When you're looking at your pencil. We'll get into some things, like some warning signs in a bit, using some of the taxonomy that Rhys has. But the wood, the wood of your pencil, it. We generally, I think the three of us feel that cedar generally sharpens the best. Would you guys say that this is a fact? Yeah, sharpens the best. Smells really good. It's really smooth. There's also white pine and basswood, which are some woods that people. People use for pencils. It's kind of hard to tell the difference. I think generally cedar is a little bit darker and a little bit redder than the other two, and it smells delicious. Basswood is generally kind of like pale color, the color of a super white person's skin.

Yeah. Mine is very transparent and I don't actually know how to distinguish white pine. I don't think I've noticed.

Oh, yeah. That's a good way to put it. It's a little bit. Is it a little bit more splintery?

Yeah. There's also pencils made from a composite. So Charles Berlsheimer, who runs pencil.com and Blackwing, I can't Speak today. Palomino Blackwing. He calls them plastic pencils. There are some that really are a plastic, like Wolfex pencils, which are highly, highly contested and debated and toxic.

Johnny is a Wolpex advocate. He's been. He's been lighting OPEX on fire and inhaling

Is it Gunter or Zemattijs who has, like, both. An insane one. Both of them have, like.

So that's made of, like a plastic wood composite. So like sawdust and plastic kind of like melted together in a proprietary blend. It's generally a little heavier and it's a little bit harder to sharpen. You generally have to use a special sharpener for it. Like with a stop on it.

The finish is. Yeah. Just sort of like a rubbery plastic casing around it. And I think also the graphite suffers a little bit because they have to treat the graphite with a special way to get it to, like, bind. Yeah.

Interesting.

Yeah. So there's that and then there's other pencils. Often cheap. Cheap pencils will include. Will just be made out of, like, sawdust, like compressed sawdust material. I've always found that you can really tell that when you. When you sharpen it, if the shavings come off a little too smoothly and there's no wood grain in it. Generally it's like made from some sort of a sawdust composite. Like. Yikes. Pencils are a lot like that. And a lot of the extra fun. Yeah. Quote unquote, extra fun.

Yeah, definitely. So you'll definitely run across that a little bit. So generally we think cedar is the best, but there's a lot of good pencils that are not.

Yeah, it's like. Oh, it's made out of that, like, Thai wood, isn't it?

Yeah. And I think to me that's what kind of like helps it feel a little bit scratchier because I think the.

Yeah, it's like porous. Yeah, it's super lightweight and porous. It's a little bit like, flecked if ever you've, like, looked at it up close. Yeah, I have one here in front of me. It's. It's paler than I like. It's not my favorite in the world. That's not bad. I've seen worse.

I hear sort of a.

Is. It is a Tennessee in like some sort of an alternate, like reality where it's the fourth.

Yeah, it's. It's not super loud, so I bet I can probably like get some of the background noise out.

What else should we talk about? Should we talk about, like the stuff around the barrels, like paint or foil? Yeah, we so often, especially today we talk about foil wrap. And if you have not heard that term, it is the worst. Often if you go to Target and you go to the Dollar Bin and you buy like Star wars pencils or Sprite pencils or something, Anything with like

It used to be that you could. It would be silk screened on there. So it would take like for four different colors. It would take four different passes. And it was kind of hard to do and just like laborious. So somebody finally decided that they're going to take some clear plastic that have been printed with the design and basically shrink wrap it onto the pencil and then clamp the ferrule down on it so it just kind of stays. But if it's done poorly, which most of the time it is when you and. Or if you have kind of a crappy sharpener, you'll get the plastic off or more of the plastic off, and then you're left with like a little ridge. And if you're like me, you just pick at it and pick at it and pick at it and then pull it off. And then you're left with a white blank pencil. And it makes you sad. So if I buy something that's foil wrapped, it's usually only just to like, to have for, like, giggles. Like Star wars pencils, for example.

Or Easter Bunny pencils. So if you are.

I like bunnies. So for people for whom pencil is just sort of a budget option for writing utensils. Yeah. It's. It's cheap and you'll see it all over the place. And you probably don't mind because you don't care about your pencils. Yeah. But that's that you can get paint on your barrel. You get a nice, like, thick lacquer Palomino HB pencils have. And actually all of the palomino line really, that have. That have paint are really nice and thick and lacquery and just look like, like, look like a. Like an old car. Like an old chevy from the 50s.

And often, like, I can't speak for them, but I've seen videos before usually of like Statler Norris pencils. And something between like five to seven different layers of lacquer go on, like, paint go onto it. And then like a couple layers of clear lacquer over the top of it.

Except for the testing 100 in which somebody just sort of like puts their

They just load their mouth with silver paint and just go testing.

It has a very thin layer of paint over the wood. And sometimes you can still make out the wood grain underneath it.

Yeah.

Yeah. So. Yeah. So really like, good pencils, often, if you really love the, like, love a nice thick layer of lacquer over it are just nice and thick and smooth. Conversely, natural pencils, there's actually two different ways that people go about, like natural wood pencils. Some of them have no coating on them whatsoever. They're just sanded really well or maybe a little bit oiled or something. What's a good example of that? Like the cedar points.

Yeah. Those are like a true raw pencil, whereas a lot.

Yeah. Like, forest choice. And, like, the black wings have, like, a really thin, clear layer, like a matte over the cedar so you don't get, like, splinters or your hand, like, oils don't stain the wood, which I kind of like, actually.

They're not as fragrant as, like, a lot of the other ones that are completely raw, but they have a natural finish. So if we say something is raw, we'll usually say something very pretty. Yeah. Something just. Is just wood and then your finger. Whereas a natural finish is something that has that clear lacquer over it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Should we. Before we move on to the graphite, which I think is the meat of this. Of the discussion, should we talk about shapes of pencils?

Or tofu.

The tofu. Yeah.

The guinea pig of the conversation.

As we were eating it, one of somebody we were with started making that little, like, chirping sound that can't even reproduce it. I guess. I guess most of the pencils you see are going to be either round or hex. Do you guys have a preference between the two of them?

Yeah.

Yeah. I find the round ones to be a little bit more comfortable, but generally, like, aesthetically, I don't like it as much. And also, I don't think, like, it rolls off the table a little bit more easily.

Yeah. Oh, I'm into that idea. Yeah.

Feral, huh? Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, the Tri Rex.

Yeah. Yeah. It takes a while. I had to stare at it to really, like, understand what was happening.

I think my favorite, like, configuration, though, are graphite. Graphite pencils. No, triangular pencils. They're your favorite? I think so. I generally think it, like, as far as comfort goes, um, they're. To me, they're more comfortable to hold. But at the same time, as you sort of, like, rotate your pencil throughout your write in experience, kind of naturally, it. You. You know, you only have, like, three positions you can rotate it in. So your graphite, your point wears a little bit roughly.

Right.

That's true. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So I sort of. I think my favorite of the triangular pencils would be probably my triangular golden bears that I still have a stash of that I will hoard until the day I die or until Musgrave gets the capability to produce triangular pencils and we can bring them back. But that's. That's one of my favorite triangular pencils. Some of them I really wish I could like. Like the Triconderoga, as we talked about before.

I probably have, like 30 of them, so I have enough. But I also give them out to people, too, kind of one by one. So, yeah, I think. I think of ones currently being produced, like the. The Norris School pencil has a really good triangular pencil. Actually just kind of pulling them out of my pencil cup right now. Yeah. I think that's maybe my favorite of the current ones that you can get. But the. The Ticonderoga tri. Right. Is also pretty good.

Which is. Which is not to be confused. This is so confusing with the Triconderoga, which. Which looks cooler but is crappy.

Yeah.

So weird. They fractured their brand. Um, a lot of people can get in nice pencil stores. The Faber Castell grip 2001s.

I. I'm not a big fan, but we. We discussed this before. Um, Johnny likes them a lot.

Oh, wow.

I'm. I have a bunch of colored ones to send you, Jenny.

Like bright pastels.

Like neon. At that Ryman store in London, I found like.

Some bright colored pink and purple. I think. You got yours already, Tim.

And it's.

It has the little diamonds inside rather than.

Yeah.

Yeah, those are pretty good.

Yeah, those are pretty good. About those.

All right. Anything else before we move on to the graphite?

Yeah. So the big thing. And I just put in the notes here, I put paper feel, which you know, when people talk about like wine, they talk about the mouthfeel.

This is sort of like our version of that. So sometimes it can get a little scratchy, sometimes it's buttery. I think those are kind of the two ends of the spectrum. And then there's lots of things in between. And then sometimes you can like feel the paper a lot or you can feel like. You know, some people say they can feel like the graphite like rubbing off the pencil, which I'm not quite sure about. Yeah. So the paper feel is generally on a scale of like buttery to scratchy. And that can be a combination of the core, the graphite or the paper or both. Yeah.

Yeah.

And that can be something that people will blame on a pencil sharpener. And often it could be a pencil sharpener, but probably more often it's because the lead is not centered.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's. I'm actually sort of impressed. I feel like you should send that back and tell them, like, oh, hey, like, look what I did to this. This is amazing.

Yeah.

But did you name it? I can't remember.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's something you get you a little bit in your paper feel of a pencil with not much wax. It's probably tends to feel a little bit more on the scratchy side. But it shouldn't feel even too scratchy then, because that's just, you know, a sign of, like a bad graphite mixture. So. So even if it's not waxy, it should feel a little. It should still feel a little bit buttery.

Because they don't leave a mark because they're so light. I. I do like my Wopex. I like using. I. I really like using it. Just be like. Just to feel it because it's heavier and it's kind of that rubbery feeling.

It just feels so nice.

Well, the other interesting thing about pencils and this. This plays right into the. The grading of pencils. You know, we have. In America, we call it, you know, number one, number two, number one and a half. I've used a number two and 38 pencil before, which is interesting.

Yeah, that's right.

I just love that. That grading right there.

Yeah. Just go to the conte scale.

Yeah. Is it the Kante scale? Is that what's PHP, etc.

Oh, what's the. Well, anyhow, the European system, which mostly.

Came later. Yeah. Is so right in the middle, you have hb, which is a number two. And then if you go toward the soft side, it's B2B, 3B, 4B, 5B all the way to 10B or to infinity. And then on the harder side, it goes 2H, 3H, 4H, 5H, et cetera. There's also, weirdly, an F between HB and 2H. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's an F, which I don't really know the difference between that. That's like splitting hairs that I can't quite notice.

Oh, okay. Okay. So the blacker you get. So the more B, the more softer and darker it is.

Yeah. So the more toward None More black you go. The softer it is. So the darker it is, but also the faster the point wears down. And so the more H you get, the more your point is retained, but also the lighter it is. So artists use a lot of different sizes in various light grades because you can smear the darker ones a little bit more. But for us writing users, we generally have, like, a grade that we prefer to write in that kind of sticks with our, you know, how hard we press down and how dark we like it to be and how much we mind sharpening it. If you are somebody who doesn't, like, have kind of that particular grade for yourself, you should look for it and just know, because if you have that number in your head, it'll be much easier to find pencils that you know are going to feel better for you. I think most of us who like pencils a lot generally find ourselves within, like, the 2B area, but that can definitely vary. Like, a lot of people definitely like HB more, which is HP is good, because you can find more pencils in the US and hb, it's.

Yeah, Palomino doesn't grade their pencils, but if they did, we think it probably would be around there.

So the more, the higher the B number on the pencil, generally, the more it's like the equivalent of, like, the more wet the pencil, the fountain pen. So, like, the more ink it lays down, you know, could smear and takes longer to dry.

So I, I, somebody asked us in the group or in the, the chat, what we think that the, the Blackwing 24 core is like, like, on that

Yeah.

Yeah. Wendy in the group says that she thinks that it's more of an F.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, the 602 is probably 2B ish. The Pearl, which is right in the middle between the MMX and the 602, is probably 3 or 4b ish. And then the MMX would be like 5 or 6b ish. Yeah.

So the reason of, like, for these gradings is because, like, the more, what is it? The more clay that's in it, in, in the mixture. The more like dark and soft it is.

The more graphite. Okay, I'm sorry. Yeah. And the more clay, the, the harder and lighter it is. Which makes sense because graphite is the pigment.

You could use it as a candle. Just light it on fire.

So. Yeah. And so like if, if your mixture is really good, like if you spend a lot of time on it and the graphite's just good, you can get the, like more darkness and more durability. Durability out of it. It's not quite as much of a trade off. There's always going to be a trade off, but I find like testing pencils to be a really good example of something that is both dark and has point retention. Like the, the Musgrave Testing 100. I know you guys aren't a fan, but also like the Generals. The Generals.

Yeah, yeah.

Should we. Should we travel down the pencil to the other end?

To the rear of the pencil. I think that was nice.

Jody brought it to the next level.

Whoever smelt it built it dowdy.

So there's all different sort of things that can be on the end of the pencil. I think that most, most people in the US are familiar with an eraser to pencil. So an eraser that's generally detached by

Yeah, I, I think the crimped looks cool, but I think the glue works better. Generally.

But there's.

There's definitely, like, times where the crimping is just in like two spots, like across from each other. And then there are times when there's a crimp, like each 90 degrees of the barrel. So I think that that depends a lot on it because sometimes when there's just two, like, crimps on there, it just like kind of rocks and pops off.

Depending on how.

Yeah.

Yeah. The field notes pencil is an interesting example of like a ferrule that is not crimped. There's no, like, little holes that have been pushed into the wood.

Yeah, that's true.

A lot of people in Europe, for example, and art pencils in the US A lot of them are dipped, which basically just means that it's like been finished. It's usually. I really am not good at telling whether or not it's like a plastic cap or it's dipped, like in paint. Do you guys.

It's easy for you to tell the difference?

Yeah.

But I think my favorite example of a dipped would be the Norris school pencils. Yes. I love the.

It goes the paint, the kind of the yellow and black paint, and then there's a little area that's white and then there's another little area that is for HB Red and then. Is it orange? It's orange for 2B.

They used to be black for 2, baby.

And then they're like 3B is like green or red or green or blue. And then 4B is green or blue.

Yeah, it's so cool. Just easy to tell at a glance. Um, and then often with.

So I. I generally find I prefer writing with the eraser ones, I think because to me it provides a really good, like counterbalance at the end of my pencil. It's like writing with a pen cap on or something like on the end. But that's purely just kind of a personal preference. And I know that I often. You do like. It's like pencil, pencil. And it's very light and springy kind

Yeah.

So. Yeah. And of course there's. There's always like a naked unfinished end that is just like you can see the other side of the graphite. That's.

Yeah.

It definitely looks like it's very minimalist.

Those Muji pencils that you can get at Muji's outside the United States are unfinished at the end.

Yeah.

Yeah. That feels nice. And sometimes you can sharpen out the other end and I just have two different points. So if you, you know, want to like maintain sharp point on each end.

Yeah. That's pretty great.

Where did that come. Was that a TJ thing, or is that you, Tim?

Yeah, I'll go with that.

Yeah. What else should we talk about with pencils?

Should we maybe talk about a couple of our favorite pencils and kind of

Sure.

CW pencil.

Yeah, I was just looking at it and mine hasn't changed a lot since. Since I've updated this last. Updated it. I think my favorite is still the Golden Bear, mostly because it's so inexpensive. It's $2.25 for. For 12 of them. I, I think it is gorgeous. It's very heavily lacquered. It's a kind of a heck, like a soft hex. The Feral is. Has like a really great little stripe on it. I think it is. If you get the blue one, which is my favorite, it has a little red stripe on the ferrule, like a little painted red stripe that's super unique. And then a bright orange eraser. And the eraser is not great performing. But I generally have a different like a handheld eraser with me and that orange is striking. I think especially with the, with the blue it writes a little bit harder. I would say it's a pretty true HB writing experience. And it's a touch scratchier than maybe like the Blackwing 24. But I. For the price and how it looks, I just think it's just such a great pencil. It's definitely for me like replaces the Ticonderoga as sort of like the, like the greatest semi cheap. Which. Semi cheap being a word that Johnny coined a while ago meaning like not like super cheap pencils but not super, super expensive. Also the Palomino Blackwing 602 or the Palomino Blackwing 211, both of which have the same core. The 602 has a heavily lacquered finish and the 211 has just like a light, natural, natural finish. I yeah, love riding with both of them. They both feel really good. The Blackwing, if you're not used to a Blackwing, that. That top is like a little bit of an over counterbalance because it's such a big heavy ferrule. And there's a really big like chiclet sized piece of an eraser in there. So it's a little bit overcompensates, but I think you can adapt pretty quickly to it. I like both of those for different reasons. As far as like the aesthetics go. I like the Mitsubishi Hyuni 2B which you can get at CW pencils or JetPens. I like it. It has very much the same aesthetic as that one. The penmanship that Johnny's talking about, although it's not quite as as much. I don't really know how to say it past that. Um, but still yeah, it still is gorgeous. And it writes amazingly. It's really buttery on that, like, paper feel scale. It's super buttery. Especially only being 2B, which is relatively hard compared to, like, the 4B of the penmanship that Johnny likes. I like the Musgrave test scoring 100 for reasons I really can't explain.

I can't defend it anymore. It has a super hard hex. It has a very thin lap, so there's hardly any protection between your fingers and the corners.

Really tacky aliens. It looks super weird. It has this silver color and the typography on the side is real, real strange, which is, I think, part of why I like it, because it's kind of the underdog. It's like, oh, guys, sorry. Look at me.

It's like, if you think about it, you can tell that it's like filling in a square and like a standardized test, but, like, it takes a while to get there. Like, they tried to, like, do that wing dings or something.

But it does, in my opinion, have a really good sort of, like, balance between hardness and darkness. It keeps the point really well, but while still writing very thick. But it just hurts your hands to write too much because it's very sharp. And then as something I've mentioned a couple episodes ago, the. The Statler Norris school pencil, which is just super. It's funny because it's really ubiquitous in Europe. Like, everybody has seen the school pencil. Everybody knows what it looks like. It's like, that's their Ticonderon robot.

But it's really hard to be found over here. Like, people just don't have it. And every time I write with somebody's like, ooh, that's pretty. So it's just. It's your basic number two pencil, but, like the European version. So those are my. My five. I would maybe, you know, I. I rotate others in and out, but I guess the other, like, main one that I might switch something out with is that other. That Tombow KM KKS pencil, that blue and white one that you can get from CW pencils. You know that one?

It feels very similar to that penmanship 4B by Mitsubishi, but it's like. It's a different aesthetic. It looks different. Yeah. To me, it writes basically the same. I like that One a lot. Tim, how about you? What are your five and why?

Yeah. I love that.

The blue one is the same sort of blue as the Golden Bear, which is one of my favorite blues especially.

And it's gorgeous. Like that green metallic ferrule.

Yeah.

Yeah. What is it priced at nowadays?

Man, I gotta have my pencil.

Yeah.

Where can everybody find these lists of which we speak?

You should just put like, call it the top five or something. Because the URL is us Top five.

Because if you are on Facebook, because you can tap in not to just our collective minds, but also the hive mind of a thousand people and strong.

And really there are no wrong answers. Like, unless. Unless you like wilpex.

Yeah.

Unless you like foil pencils is really what I should say. Foil wrap pencils. That is the wrong answer. But everything else, like, ever, whatever, like.

I am always on the Internet. You can get me on Twitter at Awelfley. A W E L F as in frank L E. Or at Woodclan. Yes, I work. I work in a little house at the edge of the Internet. Little office, actually. No, I used to. Now I work at like a giant factory right in the middle of the Internet.

Right on the industrial side of town and you can read my very infrequent blog posts@woodclinch.com. so, Johnny, how about you?

So 50, 50 more, guys. We can do it.

We're just going to turn it over to Caroline and Caitlin and Alex for the rest.

Yeah. Yeah.

time this has happened before. All I said.