Pencils.

[gurdygurds]

Any pencil fans out there? I went down the pencil rabbit hole years back and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I tried all sorts of pencils, focusing on wood, and found that the Japanese know how to make a damn fine writing instrument. Also found that General's, the oldest US pencil making company, makes a sweet pencil called the Cedar Pointe #333. It's a raw pencil that will change color as you use it due to the oils from your hand on the raw wood. I have the flu right now and started looking at pencils again while rotting in bed. These are the only two left I have from my first spelunking session. The Tombow is definitely a smoother writing pencil from what I can notice. I'm looking at a Pentel mechanical pencil now after seeing how much my daughter likes using a mech pencil for school. Thinking P207 or P209. Anyone out there have a pencil, wooden or mechanical that they like using?

 

[3_gun]

I use a couple of old drafting pencils using 2mm lead in a soft, med & hard levels. You need to have a "pencil pointer" to sharpen the lead but a normal point lasts a long time & I've yet to ever break a point while using one for normal writing / drawing tasks. Watch flea markets / garage sale to get the pencils & leads for pennies on the dollar

 

[gurdygurds]

Posted too quick, forgot to add that I have some Mitubishi 9850 pencils and a few Pentel erasers coming today. Will update with pics. Messing around with some cheap 0.7 mechanical pencils that my daughter has, I'm surprised at how stout the lead is. I can put some decent pressure on it without breaking. Think that's why I didn't like using mechanical pencils in the past, breakage, but maybe the lead I was using was just too thin.

 

[thermal guy]

I got a number 2!😁

 

[Chauncey Gardener]

Did the Tombow change your life?

 

[Monocrom]

I got a number 2!😁

You should flush that right away.

 

[gurdygurds]

Did the Tombow change your life?

It did! It could've changed yours too sir.

 

[gurdygurds]

Mmmmmmmm. Made in Japan.

 

[Fuchshp]

The Perfect Pencil (not the perfect photos, sorry).

The pen roll by Sailors Handmade is completely hand stitched and hand cut.

 

[gurdygurds]

View attachment 71243

View attachment 71244

View attachment 71245

The Perfect Pencil (not the perfect photos, sorry).

The pen roll by Sailors Handmade is completely hand stitched and hand cut.

WOW! That's pretty sweet. Never seen anything like that before!

 

[Monocrom]

Okay, serious reply. Other than a Pentel Premium mechanical pencil in copper (just the color, not actual copper), I really like to use just ordinary #2 pencils.

However when it comes to traveling, my absolute personal favorite is the Faber-Castell Perfect Pencil 9000. (Yes, you can use the cap with a regular pencil as well.) Found a review on YouTube:

 

[Monocrom]

WOW! That's pretty sweet. Never seen anything like that before!

Well, you're going to see it again. Only a less expensive version.
(Can't believe my computer lagged so badly when I was trying to post my last comment.)

 

[Fuchshp]

Yes they are expensive. But it's a real pleasure to use.

 

[Ericbc7]

I like a moderately priced mechanical in at least 0.7 mm but prefer a 0.9mm. I don't buy top quality since it will get lost eventually. The thicker lead resists breaking better than 0.5mm or (god forbid) 0.3mm. I keep a mars click erase handy for mistakes rather than rely on old, dried, gum erasers on the pencil ends. For big jobs I have an old drafting power eraser but that doesn't see much use anymore. It hard to beat a good wooden pencil though. I do like a long taper on my sharpeners.

 

[bykfixer]

I use mechanical pencils ever since drafting school.
One year they invented fire, later that year they invented the mechanical pencil. But the blasted computer took that away from the next generation.

Started out with a Staedtler big lead and a sanding block.

Mine was black. It may have been an Alvin though

The basic sanding stick

Then it was Koh-i-Noor

Back then black or white was 0.5mm, yellow was 0.9 and red was 0'3mm. It fastened to the Leroy lettering tracers. I used HB in them.

Now I use a BiC or Pentel 0.5mm.

The BiC has a company logo. The Pentel is still made in Japan. It's about 20 years old, maybe older. These use HB hardness too. Soft enough to write well but hard enough to not be fragile.

My wife uses various wooden colored pencils from arts and crafts stores.

I still have a Koh-i-Noor set in a breifcase with a eraser tracer, some Leroy stuff, a sack with eraser dust to remove smudges, some bendable tracers and some scales and various shaped templates. It was my kit before autocad destroyed my hopes of being a world class architect like Mike Brady (dad on the Brady bunch)
Oh, and Ditzen dots. Those things were great!

👆 They were like these but made by Ditzen

To this day I still twist my pencil when writing or drawing to keep the point like I like it. I catch myself doing the same with pens and markers.

Years ago they taught us to blunt the point for taking tests where you fill in the circles. A stroke down the center and one around that filled in the circle lickety-split, which was great for taking tests with a lot of answers and little time. Instead of 3-4 seconds filling in the circle you only used about a half second.

 

[NRiyo3]

I have this Koh I Noor pencil in my work pouch for marking up work pieces.

 

[fuyume]

A couple of years ago, I bought myself three Uni Field leadholders, one in each color, and loaded them with red, black, and HB graphite leads, because I had given up trying to find my 1990s vintage Koh-I-Noor Select-o-Matic II leadholders. Lo, and behold! On a trip to fix things at my mother's house earlier this year, I found not only the old leadholders, but my Rapid-o-Matic mechanical pencils, as well. I used to be the purchasing manager for an artists' materials firm in the 1990s, and acquired them all back then.

I don't much use wood-cased pencils, anymore, but I do have some sets of Faber-Castell color pencils (that I will probably never use, I should give them to my daughter, who probably will, she's at art school, now). I like Faber-Castell, Tombow, Derwent, and many others. I've probably sold every brand there is or was out there.

 

[gurdygurds]

I like a moderately priced mechanical in at least 0.7 mm but prefer a 0.9mm. I don't buy top quality since it will get lost eventually. The thicker lead resists breaking better than 0.5mm or (god forbid) 0.3mm. I keep a mars click erase handy for mistakes rather than rely on old, dried, gum erasers on the pencil ends. For big jobs I have an old drafting power eraser but that doesn't see much use anymore. It hard to beat a good wooden pencil though. I do like a long taper on my sharpeners.

I just a pack of Pentel that comes with .5, .7, and .9. Black, blue, and yellow. Surprised as how much pressure I can put even on the 0.5. Think my dad used to have some of the black ones in his office. They're strangely familiar. Popped on some grips from a Papermate I found in the drawer, but I don't think they really need it. Bykfixer, love the photo of your P205. Looks like it has seen some use!
I'm rotting around the house with the flu, so playing with pencils is about all the excitement I can take.

 

[louie]

I went to 0.5mm mechanicals decades ago. You never need to look for a sharpener and generally, you can replaced the erasers, which tended to harden up after a few years. I bought a box of a dozen tubes of Pentel 0.5 leads in "B" hardness decades ago, and I'm less than halfway through the box. I do kinda miss the cedar smell, though. I keep a couple of traditional crank handle sharpeners in storage.

I never did professional pencil drafting, but I still have my student gear: T-square, compasses, dividers, triangles, erase guard, pencils, scales, etc.

 

[gurdygurds]

I went to 0.5mm mechanicals decades ago. You never need to look for a sharpener and generally, you can replaced the erasers, which tended to harden up after a few years. I bought a box of a dozen tubes of Pentel 0.5 leads in "B" hardness decades ago, and I'm less than halfway through the box. I do kinda miss the cedar smell, though. I keep a couple of traditional crank handle sharpeners in storage.

I never did professional pencil drafting, but I still have my student gear: T-square, compasses, dividers, triangles, erase guard, pencils, scales, etc.

Love to see a pic of your Pentels 👍🏼