The Erasable Podcast

The guys interview Jeff Grant, engineer and creator of the Bullet Pencil ST Kickstarter project. He discusses his previous Kickstarter campaigns, explains his inspiration and modern twists on his proffered bullet pencil design, and takes some questions from the peanut gallery. Before that, though, we announce our very first Erasable t-shirt campaign and the winner of the Write Notepads & Co Ledger giveaway!

The Erasable Posse is joined tonight by the Master of All Things Ink, the Legendary Mr. Brad Dowdy, the Pen Addict. The men discuss excellent new stationery items, how Pen People might enjoy the wonderful and magical world of pencils, and pose some listener questions to Grand Master Ink in the name of the Graphite Brethren. We also have a giveaway and, er, some audio hiccups.

Today, the hosts got a little extra cray from an additional round of cocktails, after Andy realized he forgot to hit the “Record” button about 40 minutes into the recording. (D’oh!) So, during take two, things just disintegrated. But it’s all good, because we had a very special guest, Ana Reinert from The Well-Appointed Desk with us, who wasn’t afraid to dig in and join us in cocktails. She talks about her blog, her work with Hallmark Cards, and a pencil niche we didn’t know much about — indelible pencils! Plus, we rant about Power Pencils, Word. notebooks and the RoboCop of bullet pencils.

On episode 9 of the The Erasable Podcast, Johnny, Andy, and Tim explore the world of bullet pencils. Johnny invents a new cocktail, “The Podcaster.” There’s a lot of “showing off” going on, and the guys wax on the injustice of the demise of the bullet pencil. But, fear not, they also discuss the recent resurgence in the interest and production of these uber-practical writing instruments. Also, the five winners of the Word. notebooks giveaways are announced, and the guys gush over a thoughtful listenership and the podcast’s new Facebook group.

In which we discuss the first round of Pencil Herodom, heaping praise upon some of the influential pencil-wielding individuals in our lives. We also discuss the excited new Field Notes Brand Arts & Science edition and some other general points of pencilnalia. Finally, the folks at Word. Notebooks have given us five packs of their new Indigo notebooks for a giveaway! Listen to the end to find out how to enter to win yours.

This week, Tim is away, so Andy and Johnny rap with Heath Cates, blogger at Pen Paper Ink Letter. They discuss #PencilWeek, a 7-day long pencil-centric series on his blog (Where Johnny and Andy guest-blogged!) These tireless Pencil People get into the mind of a fellow stationery blogger, perhaps in ways which the Interwebs have not experienced before. They discuss some of Heath’s favorite pencils, sharpeners, and how they will fit into his workflow.

What good are pencils which are not sharp? In this episode, Tim, Johnny and Andy tackle the perplexing issue of pencil sharpeners. Our lovely listeners have sharp questions, and we have pointed answers. We discuss some aspects of pencil sharpeners to watch out for, the pros and cons of the KUM Longpoint sharpener, and some of our favorite sharpeners. And Johnny and Tim each order a KUM brass wedge, LIVE! Finally, things just degenerate into a discussion about Alvin and the Chipmunks, because we put the episode out of its misery.

We discuss how pencils fit into the environmental movement and some issues to think about when weighing pencils’ environmental impact. As we will see, pencils are much “greener” than one might at first assume, and there are eco-pencils to boot these days. Andy, Johnny and Tim discuss these topics and some of their favorite environmentally friendly pencils. A quick note: We were a week late in recording and producing this episode, and embarrassingly, the day we finally were able to record, Skype was not cooperating. At a few points, the quality of audio seriously degrades. We think we have it edited so you don’t have to ensure much of that, but our apologies if we all sound like robots. We’ll work hard to make sure Skype treats us better in the future.

Although we love nothing more than sharpening up a good pencil and writing with it, there are some pencils we just want to keep in pristine shape. It’s the collector in us — an antique pencil, a souvenir pencil, a pencil advertising a business long since past. This episode is dedicated to those specimens that sit on display or, in Andy’s case, one of several cigar boxes in his basement. We’ll discuss sources of finding these sorts of pencils, discuss some of our favorites, and even let you in on a secret society of collectors, so you can network and trade with them.

Happy National Pencil Day! It was this day in, 1858, 156 years ago, that Hyman Lipman patented the first pencil with its own eraser. To celebrate, we’re breaking our usual bi-weekly format to bring you a special “live” episode. (We can’t, of course, really go live, but we can post it right away without editing.) Rather than a “main topic”, we’ll just cover a few pencil points, and then draw winners for our giveaway!