Author: Derek

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Talking Through The Origins of the DWRDNET Stationery Feed

When I decided to make quick videos of swatching the 2024 inkvent calendars, I thought it would be a quick little project that I would put on Youtube, and that would be it. I had no idea that I would really enjoy the filming and video process, so as I continued to make videos, it was starting to become natural. While I love doing videos about new pens or papers, I felt like there had to be something else to do with the Youtube channel. I did a few live streams on Youtube, and I really like the interaction of people asking questions, so I started to wonder how I could continue to get that the interaction with other people, so that is when the idea came to light.

The stationery hobby is odd in that many aspects of it can have no social interaction, but when pen people get together, they always seems to want to share or show off their new pens or papers, so that interaction is normally limited to pen clubs or pen shows. I am lucky to have a couple of stores, and a very active pen club in the Nashville area, but I wanted to be able to talk to other people and bring attention to pet makers, stationery stores, or people tied in with the hobby who a larger audience might not have heard of or be familiar with.

As I was starting to get ready to go to the Arkansas Pen Show, I had already started the research to see how I could make interviews work. I knew that I would have an opportunity at the show to talk to people about interviews once I was ready to get them going. I was able to do a livestream tour of Vanness with Lisa Vanness, and that was in a way a rough test of what would evolve into the DWRDNET Stationery Feed that is now coming up on Episode 8.

I have been lucky to have existing connections with quite a few people to help me get started, but I have also had to take a leap to reach out to people who I have never met or spoken to, but I like their products or store and want to talk to them about it and help to give them a different audience to help spread the word about their business. This is not something that I ever considered I would be doing, but now it is starting to feel natural and I am enjoying the process of finding new people to talk to for future episodes.

I think it is important to support all of these small businesses as much as possible, since competing with someone like Amazon is a massive challenge. A small business is going to see the effect of every purchase in a way that someone like Amazon never would. Many of these businesses are running their store as a second job, so this is something that they are passionate about and by supporting them, everyone benefits.

So if you haven’t yet had a chance to watch any of the episodes, I would suggest checking them out. I have had people tell me that it has been great to put on in the background to listen to while working on other tasks. There are some episodes that are more visually driven, like the interview with Lisa of Olive Octopus Ink where watching is going to allow you to see all of the swatching techniques, but the audio only versions are also available if that is how you choose to consume media.

You can check out the video feed at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwFAC_8KRdr4AnR1IhPION7BN-fQvIF7E or if you can find the audio versions on Youtube, Spotify and Apple Podcast with hopefully more podcast providers to come in the future.

If you have suggestions of people that you would like me to try to interview, please leave those suggestions in the comments, as I have an initial list, but part of the fun of this is finding out about people I haven’t heard of and learning about them and their offerings as I am able to help share them with others.

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Exploring Vol. 2 Of The Yamamoto Fountain Friendly Paper Sampler

Recently I continued on my paper exploration journey with the Yamamoto Vol 2 Fountain Pen Friendly paper sampler. I ordered this from Vanness, and this is a continuation of the paper sampler series, as I previously went through the Vol 1 collection.

These are all papers deemed fountain pen friendly by Yamamoto Paper, and while I would describe that as accurate overall, there are some things to note about some of the various papers. In the video you will see that some of these papers show colors very differently, specifically the No 5 offering from the sampler called Smooth Art Paper. This was the thickest paper of the two packs, and it has a coating on the base paper to create the smooth writing surface, but the ink that I tested with was not able to do its expected color change as it dries.

This is not the first paper that I have come across to do this same type of color display, so while that is not a bad thing, it just reenforces that if you are needing colors to show a certain way, you definitely want to swatch the inks you plan to use on the exact papers to be sure that you are ready for the results. Iroful is the other paper that I saw this on with the Teranishi Guitar Gentle Green ink.

I had a YouTube comment ask me which one of these that I would buy a pack of, and I think for me, the Sheep’s Cloud Bond paper would fit the bill. It offers a very similar writing experience to Bank Paper, which is now limited to vendor stock on hand, so this has a good chance of becoming the replacement for people who really love that paper.

I would strongly encourage you to pick up these various paper sample packs, as they are the best way to try before you buy, as most of these papers will come at a higher cost due to the need to have them imported from Japan.

You can find the Yamamoto A5 sampler packs at Vanness Pens online at https://www.vanness1938.com. You can use the code DWRDNET to save 10% on many items at Vanness. Some exclusions apply and are listed on a per item basis on their website. A big thank you to Vanness to offer this for readers and viewers of the dwrd.net website and the DWRDNET YouTube channel.

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Diving Into The Yamamoto Fountain Pen Friendly Paper Sampler Vol. 1

I recently have been getting more into paper exploration, so when I saw that Vanness had these back in stock, I decided that I needed to pick up both Vol 1 and Vol 2 and test them out for my use, as well as to make videos about them.

While the video both shows and shares the overall findings, I wanted to add some more information here to go along with what is shown in the video. This was one of the first paper videos where I tried to be the most apples to apples comparison that I could in terms of using the same pens, inks, and process for all of the papers. I took the viewers advice from past paper videos, and I used the nibs sizes of EF, F, M, B, and I also used inks from various manufacturers. I finished off the test pages with a swatch of the Teranishi Guitar Gentle Green, which I have seen on previous testing to sometimes now get a chance to dry to its expected green color on certain papers. I did not have that happen in this Vol 1 pack, but I wanted to try to anticipate potential things that people would see in their own writing.

I feel like looking at all of the samples side by side at the end of the video, that I did a pretty good job of doing a good comparison that really made the papers be the only thing different. I am going to continue this same testing method for Vol 2, and I will do my best to keep this exact setup going forward for any other sample packs in the future. (Some of the pens were borrowed from my wife, so ink colors in the larger nib sizes might change, well at least until I buy a set of decided testing pens)

You can find the Yamamoto A5 sampler packs at Vanness Pens online at https://www.vanness1938.com. You can use the code DWRDNET to save 10% on many items at Vanness. Some exclusions apply and are listed on a per item basis on their website. A big thank you to Vanness to offer this for readers and viewers of the dwrd.net website and the DWRDNET YouTube channel.