Tag: Vanness Pens

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A Guy With A Typewriter Walks Into A Bar

So this week I had the honor to be a guest on the Pen Addict Podcast. Normally the PA podcast is recorded live with Brad and Myke, but when someone is going to be out on vacation, there are occasionally pre-recorded episodes, and this week I was the lucky guest.

It was my first time being on the other side of the podcast so to speak, and I enjoyed that aspect. I have a much greater appreciation of what is involved ever since starting up the DWRDNET Stationery Feed, so I loved to see what the guest side of the podcast experience is like. The PenAddict is an audio only podcast, but we did record on Zoom, so in all reality, if felt like chatting with a friend more than a recording.

Brad asked about how I got into the hobby and more all the way up to how the podcast got started, and then we also talked about other stationery interests as a whole. I got to touch on my first ever trip to Vanness, as well as being fortunate to have some local stores like The Gentleman Stationer or Butler Stationery in town, which were not around when I first got into the hobby in 2013.

As the title of this post and the podcast reference, we did get into the latest adventure into typewriters. That is a part of the stationery world that has really clicked with me lately, and I liked to be able to talk through some of that. We talk about how I have started to take some of the typewriters out of a new local bookstore (The Raven Book Lounge), and use them for letters or journaling while sitting at the bar. We talked about my interview with Richard Polt of the Typewriter Revolution as well as gave the shout out of the week to Michelle Geffken of Paperblogging.com. Both of these podcast episodes were linked in the show notes, and since both Richard and Michelle are also fountain pen users, it really shows how we all approach the hobby from different paths, but there are many common things that are there if you take some time to inquire about them.

We touched on my journey into pen making as well, and I was able to give some proper shoutouts and credit to people like Nic of Pens By Pasquale, who really helped me get started down that aspect of the stationery hobby.

So let me know what you think of the episode in the comments, and if there is anything that we talked about that you would like to see a post about or more information, please leave that below as well.

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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.