My first show as a vendor! It’s on this Sunday (26th November) at the Malvern Town Hall in Melbourne Australia. If you are reading this before it’s over and you can be there, then what’s holding you up? Get there and speak to me at the Platypus Pens table. Otherwise, read on.
Forgive me if this post seems a little gushy, as I’m quite excited by the prospect of spending a day talking with pen enthusiasts.
Getting prepared: the pens
Model 20 was going to be released at the show but I’m sorry to say that I have had second thoughts on that due to being not quite happy with the design and the consistency of the fit of the feeds. I’m postponing the release pending more work. However, I do have some nice designs that are performing very well, so I’m going with the existing Models 1 and 10, and a couple of new patterns.
How many pens should I make for the show? I’m not really expecting to sell a lot of them, but I would like to have enough on hand to show people a range of colour and pattern options. I decided that 40 pens would be a good number and so I’ve been pretty busy in the shed for the last couple of months.
To be honest, I’m a bit tired of making the pens today, but I dare say I will get back into it once the show is done. At least I’ll have a good stock of pre-made pens to sell online afterwards. That will require me to re-design my website to have a gallery of available pens, so you can look forward to that even if I do so only with some trepidation.
A tray with 20 pens, all different. Full sized and Quokka, Models 1 and 10, patterns 1, 2, 3, 4, and a couple of new ones: fluted and harlequin. Not a bad looking set of pens, I’d say.
Getting prepared: the nibs
A stock of forty pens means that I need forty tuned nibs. Oh dear, that could be a bit of a task. Hold on there, old me, not so fast! The new Schmidt nibs that I am using are much more consistent than the Bock nibs that I’ve used in the past, and even a bit better than the Jowos. Many of them need just a little smoothing or even nothing to be excellent writers. Of the 35 Schmidt nibs that I’ve checked so far (a mix of FH341 and FH452), only six needed me to align the tines of re-shape the tips. I’m very happy with that.
The Schmidt FH341 is in a unit that has the same size and thread as the Jowo #5 nibs that I’ve been using for Model 1 pens and so they are interchangeable. I think that the Schmidt nibs are more attractive with their more ornate decorations and they are marginally larger. The #6 sized FH452 unit is different from both the Jowo #6 and the Bock 250 and so I have to make a Schmidt-specific section liner for the Model 10 pens.
The Schmidt nibs write very well indeed. I am not sure that anyone would be disappointed by the change from mostly Jowo with a few Bock nibs to mostly Schmidt with a a few of the others. I know that some commenters on the internet rate the nibs in order Jowo best, Bock next, and then Schmidt, but that is not my experience with the nibs. Come to my table and try them out!
Checked and tuned nibs being dried out after cleaning. Notice that the new Platypus Last Drop draining stands in use are rejects and do not have the decorative ‘L’ end plates.
The Last Drop
When you clean out pens getting ready for a change of ink colour, or for storage, do you notice that there is usually still some colour that comes out of the nib even when you have rinsed many times using the converter? Ink loves to stay in the fine spaces between the feed and the nib. It has to because otherwise the capillary action will not supply ink to the writing tip of the nib! You can get that last bit of ink out by removing the nib and feed to expose those narrow spaces, or you can put your pen into a Last Drop draining stand with its tip on some folded paper towel. The last drop of ink will gradually flow out of the nib into the towel. That process is particularly useful for pens like Parker 51 (the original, I mean) where it is always difficult to completely clean the collector.
The stands will be a standard Platypus Pens product from now. They come in many colour combinations (really!) and they can serve as a standard pen stand or display when not being used for the final step in cleaning you pens. Yes, you can put paper towel into the bottom of a cup and stand your pen on it, but surely a Last Drop draining stand is more better, or more something… Hey, it would make a great gift!
Here are some Last Drop stands along with the classy 3D-printed sign that will be on my table.
The hook
I will have a 3D printer running on my table printing pen components during the show. That will serve as a conversation-starter and will maybe attract some of the vintage pen lovers who otherwise pass by the tables of pen makers without giving them any attention.
I hope to see you at the show, but if you cannot make it there then you can avail yourself of the Pen Show discount of $20 off for any pen ordered over this next week.