Ohto Tasche SP-10T Mechanical Pencil Review

Ohto Tasche SP-10T Mechanical Pencil Review

All good things must come to end. Just like my holiday finished, this is the last of my holiday mini-pencil reviews. The End - but I have saved the best for last.

The Ohto Tasche SP-10T is a great pencil. First off, it looks great. With the cap on for storage, it looks compact and “useful”. Small, but not too small. Mine is a glossy dark blue colour and the strategically positioned chrome trims combine with the blue and the overall shape to produce a really great look. Opened up, with the cap posted and ready for writing it looks equally good. Stylish but purely functional.

Closed up, the Tasche is small enough to fit in most compendiums or pocketbooks. The cap system means it is totally pocket safe, and the tip is protected from any accidental damage. The pocket clip is spring loaded and is a good solid piece, not much chance of accidentally coming off whatever you clipped it to.

The Tasche has a 3mm fixed lead sleeve. Combined with 0.5mm lead size, it’s actually useable as a technical draughting pencil. Equally though it’s suitable for general writing. The grip area has no special grip enhancements. Like the rest of the pencil it is metal, but the grip section is finished with a lustrous but non-glossy finish to slightly enhance the grip characteristics. However, it’s still essentially a plain metal body so the grip will never get an “excellent” rating.

The end-cap on the body is a chrome plated screw in cap. You unscrew it to expose a small eraser, and pull the eraser to access the lead refill magazine. This is all a little bit time consuming. The eraser is definitely emergency use only. I can see the end cap rolling around the floor of the train to Brussels or the flight to LA if you were using the eraser regularly on your travels. The end-cap also has a black rubber o-ring set into it. When you post the cap onto the body to get ready to write, the o-ring guides the cap onto body and holds it there. I really the like the pneumatic, compressed air feeling as you slide the cap on or off the body. It’s like my own little piston toy – a silly, secret, little something for the engineers amongst us. Once posted, the cap is free to spin around on the body, which sometimes I like, and other times I don’t. You can actually use the pencil with the cap unposted, but in that case it is definitely a short pencil.

The lead advance mechanism is an ordinary push top ratchet mechanism. 10 clicks advances 7mm of lead. Putting the cap back on the tip to close up for the day generally activates the lead advance mechanism unless you are careful. This always annoys me. Now, I must tell the truth and say that I had a problem with the mechanism of my Tasche. The lead stopped advancing. I have a shockingly poor success rate at disassembling my pencils, they never seem to work as well after I have opened them up for “investigation”. So these days I resist temptation and only pull them apart when absolutely necessary. In this case the “lead retainer” had come loose in the tip and I managed to push it back home into position and everything was once again as it should be, so that made me feel happy.

• Best Points – Looks good, like the cap system.
• Not So Good Points – I would feel “picky” to list anything of consequence here.
• Price Range – Mid.

Dimensions – With cap on front in storage position = 107mm long. With cap posted on top for writing = 139mm long. With the cap left off (unposted) = 104mm. Diameter = 8mm at grip. Balance point about 75mm up from the tip with cap posted on top for writing.

My final comment - I thoroughly recommend Ohto Tasche to you all, it is a worthy competitor to Pentel Sharp Kerry.

Good bye to Australia. Same time, same place, next year. (Maybe)