Write On! – It’s Time to Say Goodbye

There's no beating around the bush with this one; unfortunately the time has come to officially discontinue the EDK. It's never easy to say goodbye to a product that was so foundational to the brand, and though many people consider the EDK something of an afterthought it was the only fan-made design we've released. But the reality is that we do not have a lot of parts for the EDK at this time, and when we sat down to discuss the production schedule in order to squeeze the EDK in, machining more at this time doesn't make sense. Rather than simply let the EDK go out of stock and remain that way for the foreseeable future, we began looking at metrics on the EDK and came to the realization that the pen isn't meeting the minimums we need to continue to make it. As a final goodbye, I figured a retrospective talking about the evolution of the EDK was warranted. Let's talk about the history of the EDK as we give it one last hurrah.

Shortly after we shipped the Retrakt Kickstarter pens, a few savvy Karas Kustoms backers, took the grip from their Bolt and the upper body from their Retrakt, put them together on one pen with a homemade spacer to use the a Fisher space pen refill. They called it the Re-Bolt, and it was a fairly popular hack for several years. We began to get asked if we had plans to offer it as a production pen, but we'd been working on fountain pens in the interim and didn't have time to work on it for several years. Then in early 2015, we started looking at the architecture of the two pens with an eye to make the Re-Bolt into a reality. It didn't take long for us to throw out the idea of just making the Re-Bolt itself with a spacer, that was clunky and we wanted the ability to use a few other refills. Ultimately, we went with a new pen that used the same upper as the Retrakt but had a different grip than the Bolt, slightly shorter and internally machined for the Schmidt P8126 and the Parker style refills. In order to differentiate the two bodies easily and also to give the new pen a more utilitarian look, we machined rings on the grip.

The idea behind the aesthetics and use-case for this new pen was a pocket carry, click-style pen that was meant to be taken anywhere and put through the ringer. The look and feel was geared toward true everyday carry use. Jokingly, we called the pen the Every Day Karry, and when it came time to commit to a name that was shortened to EDK. The name made it easy to hashtag on Instagram which was still a huge portion of our marketing and sales back then. We further committed to the everyday carry idea by keeping the material and color options relatively simple. Matte Black anodize would be the primary color and raw tumbled aluminum would be the only other main aluminum version. Tumbled brass and copper versions would be available for those that wanted a heavier, slightly more premium version, but those would be the main options. Initially, we also allowed customers to mix and match the colors and materials, but that became too difficult to manage and most people ended up choosing with matching upper and lower bodied pens so we discontinued that option just over a year later.

In 2016/2017 we made the first and only major engineering change to the EDK, we added the o-ring to the lower body below the threads to keep the pen from unscrewing in the pocket. This idea was a long time coming spurred on by the continued complaints from users that the top and bottom the of our pens would come apart in their pockets. It's not a good idea to have a pocket pen that keeps coming apart when in someone's pocket. The addition of the o-ring on these pens was the first major instance of us doing design changes to directly improve user experience based on feedback. It made all the sense in the world to adapt the pens, and make them all more pocket friendly. It wasn't long before we were actively using o-rings in the design process in ways we had never thought of before. Some might thing there isn't a real connection between the EDK and Verex, but without this step to make the EDK more carry-able, the Vertex wouldn't exist.

As time has gone on, we've done minor changes to the EDK, including our first large scale custom run of 1,000 pens for Mack Trucks with a special grip section that later was used on our GroovEDK. We worked with Schmidt to improve the design of their click mechanism and thus make them more durable by making them out of stainless steel. We implemented other grip profiles including Fluted, Frag, Dragonskin, and Hive on the EDK along with removing the knurling for a few releases. The big addition was the release of a Titanium EDK, the first batch sold so quickly we turned around and made a second double batch immediately. Several of our initial Special Release Collaborations featured the EDK as the pen, one with Nock Co and another with a local custom handkerchief maker, Cranky Hanky. The EDK has been a huge part of Karas Pen Co for the last decade, but it's time to retire the EDK V2.

What does that look like and what does that mean for this style of pen? Unlike the K Series retirement which happened while we still had several thousand raw bodies in the warehouse, we have relatively few parts for this pen available. We are completely out of the Copper version at this time. And we do have some aluminum and brass parts available. Those pens will be finished in aluminum or tumbled, assembled, and offered at our Clearance pricing over the next few weeks. We expect to sell out of all remaining EDK stock before the holidays. After which time, we'll be actively developing and prototyping the EDKs replacement. Yes, you read that right, we are going to replace the EDK in the future. How long that takes really depends on how the R&D process takes. We already have some ideas that we're already playing with internally for this next everyday carry click-style pen. But it's still early days, and we have no idea yet how feasible they are. Before that pen can be unveiled, we hope you'll provide new homes for the EDKs we have left. The faster they go, the quicker we can move onto new things!

One last hurrah for the EDK as it turns 10. It was a good run, and it will be used in our design plans moving forward; however, the next Karas Pen Co pocket pen will only be that much better.